The Question: Is the new Sharia Council of Aleppo that administers the sharia courts run by Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaida affiliated militia?

Why do we ask?

Aleppo’s Hayaa Sharia (Legal Commission) is, as far as I know, the biggest experiment in local governance and rebel rule in northern Syria, although still just one of many mostly local attempts. It is essentially a court system which serves as a rudimentary governance apparatus and mediation tool, set up in collaboration between many groups.

It was started by, I think, three or four armed factions: Jabhat al-Nusra (AQ), Ahrar al-Sham (SIF), Liwa al-Tawhid (which became part of SILF later, also SMC) and maybe Suqour al-Sham (SMC & SILF charter member).  All are Islamist to some degree, but Suqour and especially Tawhid seem to be more pragmatic/opportunistic and populist big-tent movements, more focused on the war than on ideology. They include some strict Islamist figures and factions, and deploy a bit of that rhetoric when it suits the audience, but are also basically fine with Western support and say they want elections, etc (unlike Qaida & Ahrar al-Sham).

Later, many other factions have given their backing to the Haya as well, and the composition probably changed. For example, Suqour is now very marginal in Aleppo, as far as I can tell. Ahrar al-Sham has absorbed a big local faction called Harakat al-Fajr al-Islamiya; and Nusra split with ISIS, and so on. People still say the Hayaa is dominated by al-Qaeda types, and maybe that’s the case. But it might also just be shorthand for saying it is strictly Islamist – which, by itself, is not so surprising for a sharia tribunal. In addition, Tawhid also seems to have been backing the embryonic Civil Court system which is a semi-rival of Hayaa Sharia, but I’m not clear on how or if that works. All of this seems to be evolving constantly.

— Addendum (Thursday Sept. 19, 2013) —

Question: Don’t SILF and al-Qaida have a common platform if both coalitions cooperate on the Hayaa al Shariaa in the hope that it will becoming a cornerstone of a future Islamic state? And doesn’t Nusra fight alongside the SILF on most fronts? if they’re fighting together and establishing the rudiments of a future state together, what exactly separates the al-Qaida aligned groups from the American-back SILF militias that are represented on the Supreme Military Council?

Aron Lund Answers

No, Nusra is definitely not in SILF in any way. SILF is not much of a working alliance anyway, it’s just a collection of big Sunni Islam-minded SMC groups who maintain a website and take some common positions, and probably enjoy some common funding through it. It’s Islamist in a general way, but not at all rigid salafi-jihadi in the way that Nusra is. Nusra could give you a sharia-based position on everything from length of beards to the proper way of executing a murtadd, SILF has a platform made up of like five bullet points designed to please any and all.

I talked to a spokesman for one of the biggest groups in SILF, the Farouq Battalions, and he couldn’t even tell me for sure who the president of SILF was – that’s how little it matters. They all want Gulf and Western funding, unlike Nusra, and one of it’s biggest groups is Farouq, which has had several battles with Nusra/ISIS. But it varies from group to group.

Maybe Nusra and some of the more fundamentalist SILF factions will grow closer and unify down the road, there’s no way of knowing. But now they’re clearly separate forces, some of them cooperate well with the AQs and some don’t. There are other forces (minor jihadis like Katibat al-Muhajerin, salafis like Ahrar al-Sham & the SIF groups) which are much closer to Nusra & ISIS.

Thomas Pierret Joins in

Concerning the groups that back the Hay’a Shar’iyya in Aleppo, in addition to those mentioned by Aron, I’d add Liwa’ Ahrar Suriyya, an FSA-affiliate that can hardly be described as Islamist.

Concerning the post-Assad judicial system, the question is not so much “sharia or not sharia”, but 1. which kind of sharia? 2. which kind of judicial authority?. By “which kind of sharia?”, I mean: the idea that sharia is the source of law is found in the constitutions of many Arab states, even before 2011, but what does it mean in practical terms? The Unified Judiciary (Aleppo’s “mainstream” post-Asad judicial authority) implements the Unified Arab Code (a code agreed upon by the Arab ministers of Justice in 1996), which is an example of positive law based on sharia. Although I haven’t had the opportunity to closely analyze the decisions made by the Hay’a Shar’iyya, my impression is that they’re closer to tradition Islamic jurisdiction, that is, religious scholars making decisions on the basis of scriptural sources and classical treaties instead of a modern positive code.

The second issue (which kind of judicial authority?) is a matter of independence: the Unified Judiciary has tried to establish itself as an independent judicial authority, but it is relatively weak, since there is no state authority (be it domestic or external) to support it, which makes it impossible to maintain a loyal police force; the Hay’a Shar’iyya is the mere judiciary arm of the armed groups that established it, therefore it is stronger, but it totally lacks independence

Since Western countries refuse to support state-building efforts in Syria’s liberated areas, and since Gulf monarchies are highly incompetent as far as shaping the post-Asad order is concerned, the most likely scenario for the foreseeable future is the reinforcement of the “hay’a shar’iyya” model at the expense of the “Unified Judiciary” one. The purpose of such institutions is fundamentally to re-establish law and order, which only the strongest rebel groups are in a position to do at the moment.

The Growing Battle between FSA militias and ISIS and Nusra

An important article on inter-rebel competition and how al-Qaida linked militias and the Syrian Islamic Front are gaining the upper hand is

Al Raqqa: The reality of the military brigades, the administration of the liberated city and the revolutions to come

by Mohammed Al Attar, Translated by: Robin Moger & Rana Issa – 16 September 2013

A hard-to-reach tomb in Ma’loula, Syria. Photo: Matthew Barber / Syria Comment

Jabhat al-Nusra and Other Islamists Briefly Capture Historic Christian Town of Ma’loula

By Matthew Barber for Syria Comment

Ma’loula (or Maaloula) is one of those unique places you may be lucky to visit—or perhaps were lucky to have visited, were you fortunate enough to have been in Syria before the conflict began. An ancient town in a hollow encircled by mountain cliffs descending from their heights to offer shelter to the homes built directly against their sides… exploring its many secrets is to be transported back in time. Ancient monasteries, old churches, rock faces with cave dwellings and tombs—the place is brimming with rich historical treasures.

Ma’loula, Syria. Photo: Matthew Barber / Syria Comment

Ma’loula is also unique for being among the minority of Syrian towns where Christians comprise a majority, though this status has by now eroded to the point where Christians are only a slight majority. Still, the town represents the survival of the Christian community stretching back to the early days of Christianity.

A Church in Maaloula. Photo: Kellie Stirling / Syria Comment

But the cultural wealth preserved in the town precedes Christianity; Ma’loula is one of the last places on earth where the pre-Christian language that once dominated the Near East, Aramaic, is still spoken. In use from almost 1000 years BCE, Aramaic was the most important language of Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia by the time Christianity entered the scene. Aramaic remained the lingua franca of the Near East until its ascendent position was supplanted by Arabic when Islam spread east, west, and north from the Arabian Peninsula. Aramaic had been an important language for conducting trade from Egypt to the borders of India, until the arrival of a sacred text—the Qur’an—whose effect was strong enough to issue the challenge that its own language take the place of most important tongue.

The dialect used in Ma’loula is labeled “Western Aramaic,” and is now only spoken in this small city and in two neighboring villages. A few years ago, President Assad began to officially support the efforts of Ma’loulans to conduct language preservation through Aramaic education programs in local schools. Though the generous Ba’athists never extended this right to the Kurds, it was a positive step toward strengthening the health of the local culture of Ma’loula. But yesterday, both the actions of Syrian rebels, as well as the response of the regime, will have the opposite effect on this fragile community.

Today, the position of such highly endangered languages is made more precarious by instances of violent conflict. It is important to note that most speakers of Aramaic dialects—Eastern and Western—are minorities: Christians, Jews, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Mandeans. We’ve been able to observe clearly the destructive toll that conflict in the Middle East takes on minority and Christian communities, a phenomenon that unfolded before the world’s eyes in Iraq, and which has also been recently intensifying recently in Egypt. As the Syrian conflict has developed, we’ve also seen that minority Christian communities are often some of the most vulnerable segments of the population, and their numbers have already vanished from many of their cities, after fighting has become intense, or after rebels gained control of their areas. Being caught between warring factions, as well as a sense of exclusion experienced as non-Muslims when something that Islamists call “Islamic law” is implemented, prompts many Christians to emigrate from their homelands in the Middle East.

Ma’loula, Syria. Photo: Matthew Barber / Syria Comment

Image: New York Times

The Syrian conflict has certainly affected every Syrian to some degree, but it affects some areas more than others. Many towns have still managed to escape direct involvement, but given enough time, the conflict manages to find its way to everyone’s doorstep.

Until yesterday, the community in Ma’loula had avoided the direct presence of the conflict, but that all changed in the early morning (Wed., Sept. 4, reportedly around 5:30 am) when a Jordanian suicide-bomber named Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi (yes, same name as the famous al-Qaida figure) detonated a car bomb at the checkpoint guarding the entrance to Ma’loula, killing the soldiers there and allowing al-Qaida-linked rebels to roll into town in 20 pickup trucks with machine-guns mounted in the back.

Here’s a photo of the bombing of the Ma’loula checkpoint from Jabhat al-Nusra:

Nusra also posted photos of the bodies of the soldiers they killed at the checkpoint:

The following video shows rebels in the center of Ma’loula, firing weapons. It’s not clear if they are firing at specific targets, or merely announcing their arrival by firing into the air. Regardless, it was quite effective in terrorizing the local inhabitants.

And another video shows the rebels declaring their capture of the town after entering:

The video and photographic evidence available after the attack indicates that the operation was a coordinated effort between (at least) the following groups: Ahrar al-Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra, the Baba ‘Amr Brigades (a rebel group possibly affiliated with the SIF – Syrian Islamic Front), FSA Commandos Unit, and Soqour al-Sham. A video from Ahrar al-Sham can be found here. A video of shooting, apparently as part of the initial attack, is here.

My own Ma’loulan sources tell me that displaced people from Duma (between Ma’loula and Damascus) had taken up residence in Ma’loula, and cooperated with the rebels to facilitate their entrance. Ma’loulans now resent them for acting as a 5th column inside the very community that gave them shelter when they fled their own town as refugees. The danger with such cases is that it will generate suspicion and ill-will toward refugees generally.

Other photos of rebels posted online after taking Ma’loula can be found here, here, and here. One poster of photos from the operation to take the checkpoint refers to the soldiers as “apostates.” One poster seems to be from Somalia (unknown if he participated in the attack).

A Facebook page shows an alleged photo of one of the soldiers killed in the attack. Reportedly, at least 8 soldiers were killed on the first day.

Ma’loula only has one mosque. When the rebels entered the city center, they went to that mosque to declare victory and perform a typical chorus of takbiir (the shouting of Allahu Akbar).

According to Ma’loulans I spoke with, the attack involved two fronts. After the checkpoint was disabled, the Safir Hotel, located on the rocky cliffs overlooking the city, was appropriated by the rebels, who used it as a staging point for shelling. Some have said that they shelled the city from there; it seems that shells were fired from outside the city, as well.

The Safir Hotel can be seen atop the cliffs in the following two images. The strategic value of the site for anyone wanting to attack the town is obvious:

Ma’loula, Syria. Photo: Matthew Barber / Syria Comment

Ma’loula, Syria. Photo: Matthew Barber / Syria Comment

After the Islamist-led rebel alliance took the town, the Syrian regime responded by sending in aircraft to attack the rebel positions. This is the ever-disastrous pattern to the Syria conflict: rebels take a town doing its best to mind its own business, and the regime comes to the defense of the town and destroys it in the process. I spoke yesterday with a Syrian Christian who traveled near Ma’loula during the time of the attack. Like many Christians in the country, he has no love for the oppression of the regime, but remains somewhat “pro-regime” in relation to the conflict, since the threat of Islamists showing up and taking over his town outweighs his dislike of the regime. I asked him, “Regardless of the fact that these rebels invaded uninvited, would it not be better for the regime to just leave them alone, rather than conducting an airstrike on one of the most historical places in the country?” He responded sadly: “They don’t care. They will destroy anyplace the rebels are to be found.” He reminded me of other historical treasures that have been damaged through the regime’s response to rebel incursions, such as occurred in Palmyra, and recently at the Qal’at al-Hosn (Crac des Chevaliers), a magnificent Crusader castle and important tourist attraction that the regime bombed after rebels set up base inside. For someone who has defended the regime’s side during the conflict, his attitude of exasperation toward the scale of their responses was telling. Still, residents of Ma’loula have expressed gratitude for the military reinforcements sent in to expel the unwanted rebels. Many in Syria still prefer the devil they know to the one they don’t—though they’re getting to know the latter all the same.

Footage of a helicopter filmed by rebels discussing whether to try shooting it down can be found, here.

After the regime’s counterattack, the rebels withdrew back inside the Safir Hotel. Initial reports said that after a 3-hour battle the military was able to drive the rebels out of the town. Today this has proven to be otherwise; rebels remained in the hotel all night and all the next day, and fighting resumed around 6:00 pm today, when rebels conducted another attack. The rebels lost the town yesterday in the sense that those in the city center were driven out, and only those in the hotel were able to remain. But the presence of rebels was not eliminated, as hostilities resumed today. Today’s fighting was allegedly more intense, as rebels moved through the alleys between homes, shooting. Apparently, young residents of the town tried to defend their areas even though they lacked weapons, and some were injured when standing up to the rebels.

The big question is: Why Ma’loula? What need is there for rebels to capture this town? Talk of “liberation” certainly has no currency when the local residents aren’t asking for any and would prefer to be left alone. Was there any strategic importance to the town? Or was it merely an easy target for “victory,” not well-guarded and unable to resist being taken over? Some have suggested that taking the town was needed in order to link to opposition resistance efforts in the nearby Qalamoon region. Jabhat al-Nusra’s official account, however, referred to the attack as part of the “Eye-for-an-Eye” revenge campaign, initially declared after the chemical weapons attacks in the Ghouta.

Al-Jazeera’s reporting was one-sided, as usual. It explained the attack exclusively in strategic terms, noting the town’s connections to other nearby communities with a rebel presence. They failed even to mention Jabhat al-Nusra’s presence in this campaign, instead referring only to the FSA’s involvement and ignoring the central role of Islamists in the operation.

When the rebels first came into the town, they reportedly told people “Don’t be afraid; stay inside your homes.” A video posted online by the Katibat Souwar Bab ‘Amr shows a rebel speaking to his men, affirming that (paraphrase, not verbatim):

We don’t shoot at any church or at civilians; we’re only here to push back against the oppression and will only target those who target us. They (the people of the town) are our people and part of our country. The regime has persecuted everyone, from all sects. Here we are in front of the church and everything is safe and the houses are safe.

Despite the affirmation of goodwill toward civilians and the pledge to not harm churches, I was told that the first mortar fired by rebels hit a church. Since then, others have conveyed to me that churches and monasteries have been damaged in yesterday and today’s fighting. Even if the damage is unintentional, local residents will likely not feel very understanding toward their uninvited “liberators.” I was told that at least some of the rebels cursed some Christians and threatened to kill them for being infidels. The rebel speaking in the video quoted above may reflect one group’s approach to taking the town, but several groups with different ideologies were participating, and Nusra’s presence confuses things. When Nusra’s revenge campaign began, many threats were voiced against towns and civilians. Though it seems that civilians survived largely unscathed in the events in Ma’loula, it is disconcerting to see the attack associated with a revenge campaign. One of Nusra’s photos for the attack on Ma’loula was published on Facebook with a verse from the Qur’an stating: “Allah give us patience and victory over the infidels”—perhaps not the best slogan to use when launching an al-Qaida-led attack in which a Jordanian Islamist blows himself up at the gate of the oldest Christian village in the country.

It is hard to know how unified they were on their post-invasion behavioral code, but we have more than one report (including from my own contacts) alleging that multiple churches/monasteries were damaged and/or ransacked. Reports online of churches burned in Ma’loula are false and can be attributed to propaganda sources with a pro-regime orientation, exaggerating the degree and kind of damage that occurred. However, my own source alleges that the Mar Taqla monastery was hit with two shells, and there are varying reports of other attacks. Three articles on Lebanese and Syrian websites offer conflicting reports on exactly which churches were damaged: 1, 2, 3. In one of them, the Melkite patriarch is quoted claiming that rebels broke into multiple Christian homes and churches, burning crucifixes and icons. The other two articles give conflicting accounts of the report received by the head nun of the Mar Taqla Monastery. One account has her claiming that 15 nuns and the orphans they care for had to sleep inside of a cave in the mountain, while the other has her claiming that the monastery was not attacked.

While we’re waiting for more details on the actual damage, my contacts claim to be certain that Ma’loula’s Aramaic Language Education Center (an institute that works for the preservation of the language) was broken into by rebels and looted.

There are no details on what was stolen, but that this particular institution would be targeted seems to underscore the earlier point about the vulnerability of religio-linguistic minorities. This vulnerability is what has prompted Pope Francis to issue a statement today to the leaders of the G20 countries, opposing military intervention in Syria.

… amid the U.S. threat of military intervention, Vatican and church officials have warned that a world war could erupt, with Christians in the region bearing the brunt of the fallout…

Though many details on this story need further clarification, one thing is certain: the situation led to the fleeing of many Ma’loula residents to Damascus. An area that previously received refugees is now sending out its own, and the dwindling numbers of Aramaic-speakers are no longer comfortable within their remote mountain fastness.

—————————————-

Ma’loula, Syria. Photo: Matthew Barber / Syria Comment

For an interesting read about Ma’loula during the conflict, see this article by Robert Fisk.

Syria Red Lines and False Choices
by Sarah Shields

US President Barak Obama will ask Congress to support a military response to the horrific killing of civilians in Syria last week, an apparent chemical weapons attack that most likely originated with the Assad regime in Damascus.  Obama drew a red line months ago, warning Bashar al-Assad that any use of weapons of mass destruction would evoke an American response.

Having recently spent more than five months in the country talking with Sunnis, Alawites, and Christians who were part of an opposition to their autocratic regime, as well as with human rights proponents with creative ideas for changing the face of their government and society, I want to suggest that there are other, more effective, solutions than the military option that Obama proposes.  Obama’s red lines will do nothing to resolve the unspeakable suffering of millions of Syrians, more than a hundred thousand of whom have died over the course of this bloody conflict. The map of Syria is already strewn with red lines that threaten to destroy the state and have already shattered the lives of most of the people within it.

It is not at all clear yet who set off the chemical attack outside Damascus last week, but it is well known that all parties to this conflict have engaged in the indiscriminate killing of combatants and non-combatants alike. These are the war crimes that matter, all of them outlawed at the close of World War II when it became clear that civilians had suffered unspeakable crimes. Obama’s proposed intervention would do nothing to end these crimes; rather it would encourage further warfare, further rivers of blood.  The US President has acknowledged that the blood to be spilled has no further goal: he does not aspire to change the balance in this ongoing warfare, intends no resolution of the bloodshed, and expects no larger resolution from the projected strike. An American strike will only escalate an already horrific conflict, not only creating more hardship, death and destruction, but moving all the countries of the Middle East closer to widespread regional conflagration.

This imminent flood of new red lines reflects the false dichotomies intrinsic to US foreign policy in the Middle East.  The US toolbox has been so limited that it has suggested only three alternatives since the CIA involvement in Iran exactly sixty years ago: regime change by internal subversion, military engagement, or complete inaction.  For more than half a century, US interventions have fanned the flames of civil conflict (from Iran in 1953 to Iraq 2003), shored up unpopular regimes (from 1958 Lebanon to Mubarak’s Egypt to 2013 Bahrain), and destroyed civilian lives through death or displacement (Iraq and Afghanistan). The false dichotomies produced by our existing tool box to date have resulted in nothing but tragedy, exacerbating tensions and making resolutions infinitely more difficult.

There are more than two options in Syria today.  Inactivity has been unsuccessful in staunching the flow of blood; airstrikes will only increase it.  Instead of the false choice we have been offered between doing nothing and engaging in deadly force, the United States could take the lead in beginning to restore Syria to Syrian control, engaging in the kind of negotiations that could lead back to what former president Woodrow Wilson insisted on: the consent of the governed.

Instead of creating more rivers of blood, the Obama administration has a remarkable opportunity right now, at a pivotal moment. In the face of a horrific ongoing war in one of the most important countries of the Middle East, they could choose to imagine a long-term resolution. All, including President Obama, have recognized that the only solution to the situation will be a political settlement. The Nobel Peace Prize-winner could begin negotiations toward actually making peace.

Negotiations could begin this week, with an effort to bring to the negotiating table Syrians of all faiths and classes.  Today’s “sides” have become entrenched in large part with the assistance of foreign fighters and foreign military aid, whose interests are in no way identical to the goals of the Syrian population.  Military “solutions” would only reinforce the participation of these regional players whose participation does not aid Syrians in any way.  Local groups are far too under-resourced to be able to compete in an increasingly militarized conflict.  More militarization can only further undermine their voices.  By demanding an international conference that would include ONLY Syrian participants, and include representatives of ALL Syrian interest groups, the US could begin the demilitarization and embark on the creation of a new consensus among diverse Syrians ready for an end to their overwhelming suffering.  Needless to say, the current regime, despite its humanitarian abuses, must be included in those negotiations.

At the same time, this project would have to be accompanied by talks with neighboring countries who have cynically tied their interests to the blood of Syrians. There might be no better time for the Obama administration to begin talks with the new Iranian government, which has made quite clear its desire to engage in diplomacy from its first days. While pundits have disagreed on the response of the new Iranian regime to an American military strike, it is clear that the situation in Syria offers the US an opportunity to find a way to work with an important regional power whose interests seem increasingly compatible with our own. Iran and its allies (including Hizbullah) could be induced to end weapons deliveries to the Syrian regime, while the US must rein in our “allies” in the region (especially the Saudis) to end its export of foreign fighters and cease its deliveries of arms to the “rebels.”

A military solution cannot enhance American credibility. Our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan did nothing to create “credibility,” while our drone strikes have further eroded any respect in the region. Cruise missiles will get Syrians no closer to the peace they so desperately need.  At the same time, US military strikes put the US in a state of war that will compromise American interests abroad and render all of our installations legitimate targets for the Syrian regime.  Most importantly for Syria’s children, military escalation serves to marginalize the groups within Syria who have long been working for peaceful change.  It works to the advantage only of armed fighters, whose goal is a victory for their own side at whatever cost.

If President Obama wants to develop credibility in the region, he must act like the statesman he purports to be.  He has said that he does not intend for this intervention to shift the balance of power or change the outcome of the conflict. But the outcome must be changed. Right now, the outcome has been rampant death, destruction and displacement, and the promise of  more of the same indefinitely.  History shows in tragic clarity that US military strikes have never resolved Middle East conflicts.  The “credibility” of the United States in the region–and the survival of Syria’s children– lies in altering this trajectory, a solution that can be achieved only through political and diplomatic means.

* Sarah Shields is Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor in the History Department at the University of North Carolina. Her new book, Fezzes in the River: Identity Politics and European Diplomacy in the Middle East on the Eve of World War II (Oxford University Press, 2011) is a social and diplomatic history of the contest between France and Turkey over the Sanjak of Alexandretta (1936–1940).  She is currently researching the long-term impact of the League of Nations on the Middle East.
sarahshields.org

Political Intrigue Surrounding Bombing in Tripoli, Lebanon

The aftermath of the Aug. 23 bombings in Tripoli, Lebanon continues to develop, with tensions escalating to a new high. One week ago, two bombings occurred in separate Tripoli neighborhoods. Initially, people assumed that the bombings were in retaliation for the earlier explosion that had targeted the southern Dahieh suburb of Beirut, a Shi’i enclave, on Aug. 15. (After that attack, videos circulated online of Sunnis celebrating in Tripoli, passing out candies on the street.) This remains a general assumption. Later, the theory began to emerge that the targets of the Tripoli bombings were two men: Ashraf Rifi (a pro-Syrian opposition Lebanese general and former head of Lebanese Internal Security Forces) and Salim al-Rifa’i (a leading Salafi who had called for jihad against the Syrian army at the beginning of the battle in Qusayr). Each bomb targeted a mosque during Friday prayers, one of which was located near Ashraf Rifi’s house. The mosques targeted were frequented by Tripolitans with a March 14th / pro-Syrian opposition alignment.

Lebanon is currently holding and charging 3 Lebanese men over the incident. A 4th has been charged (A Syrian who works for the Syrian government), but he is in Syria and Syria won’t hand him over. NNA – Judge Sakr presses charges against Tripoli explosion suspects:

Government commissioner to the Military Tribunal, Judge Sakr Sakr, charged on Friday Sheikh Hashem Minkara and detainees Sheikh Mustafa Ahmad Gharib and Mustafa Houry, of forming an armed group to attack civil and military institutions.
Suspects were also charged of creating a terrorist cell and bombing the two mosques in Tripoli.
Sakr also pressed charges against Syrian captain Mohammad Ali for installing car bombs and killing people.
He charged prisoner, Sheikh Hashem Minkara, of hiding information regarding Tripoli’s explosions

The story of how these particular men were picked up by the Lebanese authorities is interesting. Sheikh Gharib and Sheikh Minqara are Sunni Islamist religious leaders in Tripoli with a pro-Syrian regime political alignment. They belong to the Tawhid political movement (or Islamic Unification Movement), one of the original Islamist movements in Lebanon, started by Sa’id Shaaban and very powerful in Tripoli during the civil war. Minqara is infamous in Tripoli for allegedly burying communists and leftists alive during the civil war. After a long period of fighting, the Tawhid movement reached an agreement with the Syrian regime and eventually moved in a pro-regime direction, in the 1980s. They have since splintered after many became disillusioned with becoming so intimate with the Syrian regime. Sheikh Gharib and Sheikh Minqara represent the small surviving group that remains pro-regime and opposes the March 14th Coalition in Tripoli.

http://www.lebanonfiles.com/gallery/album/276

According to an article from al-Akhbar (portions of which we will translate directly or paraphrase in the following), which relies on leaks from Lebanese media sources, Sheikh Gharib was approached 6 months ago by a Syrian intelligence officer named Mohammed Ali who asked him to start following the movements of 4 men: Ashraf Rifi, Salim al-Rifa’i, Khalid Addahir, and Mustafa Alloush (the last two are MPs of the Future movement [Hariri block], both very supportive of the Syrian opposition and always advocating their cause). After being approached by Ali, Gharib went to Sheikh Minqara and told him what the Syrian officer had requested of him. Minqara told him not to comply and to cut off all contact with that officer. Minqara refused to help because he didn’t want to become involved.

After this conversation, Gharib spoke to another man, Mustafa Houry, relaying what had transpired with Mohammed Ali. Houry relayed this information to Lebanese security, which has formed the basis for suspicion toward Gharib following the bombings, which seem to have targeted at least some of the individuals that Syrian intelligence wanted to track, even though there may not be clear evidence as to who exactly conducted the bombing. Even though Gharib and Minqara may have avoided participation with the Syrians (if they were indeed those behind the bombings), the position of the Lebanese authorities is that they had prior knowledge about the plot with which they did not come forward.

After the bombings in Tripoli, a youtube video circulated showing a bearded man on a cellphone. Media speculation identified this man as Sheikh Gharib, and an official narrative was promoted alleging his presence at the site of the bombing. This occurred in conjunction with his arrest. The official narrative was forced to change after another video was circulated by al-Jadid TV in which another man identifies himself as the man on the cellphone in the original video. He and his friend both speak on this video, claiming that they were praying in the mosque when the bomb went off. The original post-bombing footage and the interview with these two witnesses is combined in this video:

The bombed mosque from the street:

http://www.lebanonfiles.com/gallery/album/276

And inside:

http://www.lebanonfiles.com/gallery/album/276

Video footage from inside the mosque at the moment of the bombing can be seen here.

Though some are calling this a revenge attack for the Dahieh bombing, the event in Dahieh occurred earlier this month, whereas it would seem that planning for the Aug. 23 Tripoli bombings started 6 months ago—if this narrative about Syrian security approaching the Tripolitan sheikhs is correct. Aspects of this case parallel that of Michel Smaha, who was arrested a year ago this month. Some will interpret the Tripoli bombings as a continuation of the Syrian regime’s efforts to use terrorism for political influence in Lebanon—after failing with Smaha, then pursuing the same objectives through other assets a few months later, culminating in this month’s attacks. Smaha is still in jail after a year, and the trial has been postponed until December. For articles on the Smaha story, see: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Ultimately, these events will serve to place an uncomfortable level of pressure on those people of Tripoli who have a pro-Syrian regime political affiliation. After this bombing, it will be easier for their opponents to frame them as a dangerous element that is up to no good, and increase the threat level that they face within the highly-charged and tense environment of northern Lebanon.

Cyprus ready to facilitate evacuation of Cypriots and other citizens from Syria and Lebanon – FG

Conspiracy Theories: The One Thing Everyone in Lebanon Has in Common – Atlantic – good article

“Americans see us as Bin Laden, as terrorists,” he says with a sneer. “But when the world talks about Hezbollah, they call them a militia. We have brains. We know the Americans are behind everything that’s going on. They’re sitting watching the blood of Muslims being spilled, and they turn a blind eye.”

Chemical Weapons and Responses

Russia to send ships to Mediterranean as US mulls Syria strike – Al Jazeera America

Russia will send two ships to the east Mediterranean to strengthen its naval presence because of the “well-known situation” there, Interfax news agency said on Thursday referring to the Syria crisis.

The agency quoted a source in the armed forces’ general staff as saying an anti-submarine vessel and a missile cruiser would be sent in the coming days because the situation “required us to make some adjustments” in the naval force.

Syria pays for Russian weapons to boost ties with Moscow – Reuters

… Although it was not possible to say for certain if they are bringing weapons, the number of ships travelling to Syria from a Ukrainian port used by Russia’s arms export monopoly has increased sharply since April. …

Weapons Assad Uses Shouldn’t Affect U.S. Policy – Stephen Walt

Even if proven, the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government does not tip the balance in favor of U.S. military intervention. To think otherwise places undue weight on the weapons Assad’s forces may have used and ignores the many reasons that U.S. intervention is still unwise.

Of course it is not good that Assad’s forces may have used chemical weapons, but it is not obvious why the choice of weaponry changes the calculus of U.S. interests in this case. The brutal nature of the Assad regime has been apparent for decades, and its forces have already killed thousands with conventional means. Does it really matter whether Assad is killing his opponents using 500-pound bombs, mortar shells, cluster munitions, machine guns, icepicks or sarin gas? Dead is dead, no matter how it is done.

Proponents of action argue that the U.S. must intervene to defend the norm against chemical weapons. Using nerve agents like sarin is illegal under international law, but they are not true “weapons of mass destruction.” Because they are hard to use in most battlefield situations, chemical weapons are usually less lethal than non-taboo weapons like high explosive. Ironically we would therefore be defending a norm against weapons that are less deadly than the bombs we would use if we intervene. This justification would also be more convincing if the U.S. government had not ignored international law whenever it got in the way of something Washington wanted to do.

And intervention is still a bad idea. Airstrikes cannot eliminate Assad’s chemical arsenal and are unlikely to tip the balance in favor of the rebels. And even if they did, this situation would give Assad a bigger incentive to use these weapons more widely. Assad’s fall would create a failed state and unleash a bitter struggle among the various rebel factions. …

… Obama may be tempted to strike because he foolishly drew a “red line” over this issue and feels his credibility is now at stake. But following one foolish step with another will not restore that lost standing. …

A gruesome test of realpolitik in Syria  – FP – Daniel Drezner

Assad’s Brother Seen Linked to Syria Chemical Attack – Bloomberg

The powerful brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is suspected of authorizing the chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of Syrian civilians, according to a United Nations official who monitors armed conflicts in the region.

Maher al-Assad, the younger brother of the president, commands the regime’s Republican Guard and controls the Syrian Army’s 4th Armored Division, an elite unit that the opposition says launched the Aug. 21 attack on the eastern Ghouta suburbs of the capital, Damascus.

The use of chemical weapons may have been a brash action by Maher al-Assad rather than a strategic decision by the president, according to the UN official, who asked not to be named.

Identifying the chain of command behind the chemical attack would go into calculations about who, what and how to strike in any retaliatory action, the UN official said. If Maher al-Assad is the culprit, for example, a Republican Guard stronghold may be targeted rather than a presidential facility, the official said.

Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, doubts that such an important action — openly defying U.S. President Barack Obama’s “red line” against the use of chemical weapons — would be done without Bashar al-Assad’s approval.

“It’s inconceivable to me,” Landis said in a phone interview. “There has been nothing to indicate that Bashar is just a figurehead.”

Shadowy Figure

For now, Maher’s role is largely a matter of conjecture. He’s a shadowy figure with a reputation for loyalty to his brother and brutality toward their opponents. Early in the uprising, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly denounced his “savagery.”

“I don’t doubt that he is ruthless, but I also don’t doubt that Bashar is ruthless,” said Landis. “Is he more ruthless than Bashar? I think that is a useless line of inquiry because they are both killing people with abandon.”

… “Maher is the knee-capper in this operation,” said Landis. “He is in charge of doing the heavy lifting of punishing people and preserving the regime through military means.”

“Why Would Assad Cross the Red Line right when the UN inspection team was visiting?” asks Free Halab. The answer: because the team was never free of the Syrian regime’s control.

The UN team was only a couple of miles away, but they may have just as well been on the other side of the planet. Assad decides where, when and how they can or cannot go whether they were let into Syria or not. By the time Assad did allow them entry [yesterday only to Moadamiye in Western Ghouta and today…] it might have been too little, and already too late.

Briefing Parliament, Foreign Minister Emma Bonino called the chemical attack a “war crime” but said her government wouldn’t support military action without U.N. Security Council authorization. She said: “Italy would not actively take in any military action … beyond the context of the Security Council, which for us is and remains the only point of legal reference that cannot be ignored.”

Nusra threatens to rocket Alawite villages over alleged chemical attack – Hurriyet Dailey

“For every chemical rocket that had fallen on our people in Damascus, one of their villages will, by the will of God, pay for it,” Abu Mohammad al-Golani said in the recording posted on YouTube.
“On top of that we will prepare a thousand rockets that will be fired on their towns in revenge for the Damascus Ghouta massacre.”

Assad’s oldest son, Hafez, weighs in on the prospect of getting bombed, on Facebook: here and here

Obama Promises Syria Strike Will Have No Objective – New Yorker – Andy Borowitz – Satire

Video: PBS Newshour – President Obama: ‘I Have Not Made a Decision’ on Syria

Obama Set for Limited Strike on Syria as British Vote No – NYT

Does Obama know he’s fighting on al-Qa’ida’s side? – Fisk

If Barack Obama decides to attack the Syrian regime, he has ensured – for the very first time in history – that the United States will be on the same side as al-Qa’ida. …

Obama’s Bluff – STRATFOR

McCain Says Obama Gave ‘Green Light’ to Syria to Use Chemical Weapons – Daily Beast

Video: Former NATO commander: Syria strike a bad move – U.S. retired Col. Douglas Macgregor led Kosovo mission – CBC

Earlier in the month, WORLDBytes asks British citizens on the streets of London their opinions about intervention in Syria, video here

Intercepted Calls Prove Syrian Army Used Nerve Gas, U.S. Spies Say – FP

Last Wednesday, in the hours after a horrific chemical attack east of Damascus, an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with a leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people. Those conversations were overheard by U.S. intelligence services, The Cable has learned. And that is the major reason why American officials now say they’re certain that the attacks were the work of the Bashar al-Assad regime — and why the U.S. military is likely to attack that regime in a matter of days.

But the intercept raises questions about culpability for the chemical massacre, even as it answers others: Was the attack on Aug. 21 the work of a Syrian officer overstepping his bounds? Or was the strike explicitly directed by senior members of the Assad regime? “It’s unclear where control lies,” one U.S. intelligence official told The Cable. “Is there just some sort of general blessing to use these things? Or are there explicit orders for each attack?” …

Here you can download the US Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons

An excellent post that clarifies the history of and arguments concerning military responses to the use of chemical weapons: Crime and punishment in Syria – by Scott at the blog Five Seas

The Syrian regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons would not be the first war crime committed by the regime since the start of the uprising in March 2011. Summary executions, torture, and indiscriminate shelling of civilians have been recurrent elements of the government’s response to the uprising. Indeed, opposition armed groups have also been guilty of war crimes, including summary executions and torture. War crimes are nothing new in this conflict. But now, following this most recent allegation, politicians, analysts and journalists are all talking about one thing: possible military intervention.

I’m not here to question claims of fact. Let’s assume that chemical weapons were used by the Syrian regime in Ghouta, and that the attack killed over 1,400 people, as the US claims. This would constitute yet another war crime. So why act now, in particular?

There are two lines of argument, which seem to be often confused. One follows a logic of punishment. The other invokes principles of humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect. The UK government’s (defeated) motion on Thursday tried to link these two approaches. But they should be kept separate.

The Syrian government should be punished for the war crime of using chemical weapons, runs the first view. States have exhausted most of their non-military coercive tools — condemnations, economic sanctions, embargoes, referrals to the Security Council and to the ICC — and so military action is, so it is argued, the only option left for punishing the Syrian government. The logic behind the punishment is firstly one of reprisal, and secondly and more importantly, one of deterrence — both to deter the Syrian regime from using such weapons again and to deter others from using such weapons. It is this wider perspective, beyond the Syria conflict, which explains the buzz of debate and action since this latest allegation emerged.

The use of chemical weapons shocked the world’s conscience during the First World War. Subsequently the Geneva Protocol banning the use of chemical weapons was drawn up in 1925, mentioning that such weapons are “justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilised world.” Ever since, the use of chemical weapons has been a major international taboo, which has (surprisingly, perhaps) rarely been broken. This is why their use constituted a “red line” for Obama. For him and other leaders, the idea that a state can use such banned weapons with impunity (let alone against its own people), is an unbearable affront to the conscience of the civilised world, which it is a legal — and moral — obligation to punish. As John Kerry said last week, “What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of morality.” This goes some way to explaining why military intervention is being so actively considered at this particular moment.

So much for the theory of the punitive strike. Now for the practice. The idea is to carry out “surgical”, “limited” military strikes, so that the cost for the Syrian regime of using chemical weapons again is too great. This is the objective of deterrence. Of course, the objective of reprisal is fulfilled by any strike that harms the government.

But what worries me are these two words that are often used to describe the proposed military strikes — “limited” and “surgical”. Neither is ever defined. What is a limited bombing campaign? Is it limited in the means it uses (e.g. only air strikes)? Or in the time it lasts? Or in what it targets? Or in its objectives? Probably a combination of these, but it is not clear. It is left up to military planners; the targets chosen for their missiles will not be the subject of public consultation. And the difficulty is that if one is attacking through a logic of deterrence, then always more can be justified: after all, who can determine with certainty what level of destruction will be necessary to deter the Syrian regime from using chemical weapons again? Is it possible that as the conventional military capacity of the regime is steadily worn down by punitive strikes dealt by a “coalition of the willing”, so its propensity to resort to chemical weapons might increase? Might the only sure deterrent be, in the final analysis, to remove the regime? This is the slippery slope argument against a punitive, deterrent strike.

Then there is this other word “surgical”. It indicates precision: targets will be determined with precision, and then “neutralised” with equal precision. But precision does not always mean accuracy. Mistakes are bound to happen, just as they did during the Nato interventions in Libya and Kosovo. This is an inevitable consequence of any military intervention. This would contribute to the civilian death toll. In addition, it would give Assad new arguments and impetus to continue his stand (what this Foreign Policy article charmingly calls the “PR catastrophe” consequence).

So: limited, surgical strikes to punish and deter the Syrian regime are an attractive option. The government of Syria is alleged to have committed another war crime, but this time of a different nature. It must be punished so that it does not use chemical weapons again, and importantly so that others aren’t tempted to use them either, thinking they too will escape punishment. But two elements count against this approach, the slippery slope towards full-blown regime change, and unintended civilian casualties. Perhaps the first difficulty could be overcome by setting down very strict parameters and objectives in advance. But the second issue is harder to get over: some civilian casualties could be justified if there was a high probability that the strikes would decisively deter the regime from using chemical weapons, thus preventing future civilian casualties. But, first, that a strictly limited intervention would achieve this is far from clear. And second, with so many being killed and wounded by conventional weapons, it seems arbitrary to set an objective of reducing casualties due only to chemical weapons (a point made by John Holmes in this Guardian piece). The UK government motion that was defeated proposed exactly this arbitrary objective: “this Resolution relates solely to efforts to alleviate humanitarian suffering by deterring use of chemical weapons and does not sanction any action in Syria with wider objectives.”

We come then to the second argument for military intervention: the responsibility to protect. State sovereignty implies responsibility: states have a a responsibility to protect their people. When a state fails in this duty, the principle of non-intervention in a sovereign state’s internal affairs gives way to the principle of international responsibility to protect. Arguably, this point was passed long ago in Syria. It is not this chemical attack that has tipped the number of civilian casualties from “acceptable” to “unacceptable”. This first condition for the application of the responsibility to protect principle is met, then: the Syrian state no longer protects its people, and therefore has forfeited its sovereignty.

For a military intervention to be justified by the “responsibility to protect”, several further conditions need to be met. First, the primary purpose of the intervention must be to prevent further human suffering (“right intention”). Second, military means must be a last resort; all non-military means must have been exhausted. Third, the scale and intensity of the military campaign should be the minimum necessary to ensure the prevention of human suffering that is intended (“proportionality”). And fourth, and most importantly perhaps, there must be a reasonable chance of halting the human suffering which justified the intervention, with the consequences of the intervention not likely to be worse than those of inaction.

Let’s grant that the first and second conditions are met in the current Syria scenario. There’s always room for debate on whether the prime motivation in these cases is really humanitarian, but let’s just assume it is here. The same goes for the second condition: one can always argue that further negotiations and diplomatic moves should be tried; all one can say is that so far not much has come of the various non-military measures that have been adopted, and there is no immediate prospect of success through such measures.

That brings us to the third and fourth conditions, which are intrinsically linked: to ensure reasonable prospects of success, the campaign may have to be massive, even going as far as changing the regime. There are two problems with such a massive campaign. It may well create more suffering than that which it was intended to halt. And — not to be overlooked — in the current post Afghanistan and Iraq climate, there is no appetite for a long, messy, costly regime-change-cum-nation-building exercise, especially in somewhere as complicated as Syria.

None of the current models of military intervention being proposed for Syria makes the case for how the intervention would have “reasonable prospects” of halting the human suffering in Syria without adding to it. Most talk is of those “limited”, “surgical” strikes. And this is where there is a confusion. In advocating this kind of limited military intervention, politicians rely on the principle of “responsibility to protect” and cite humanitarian motivations. But they do not make the case for how such strikes carry reasonable prospects of reducing human suffering in Syria. The only case advanced is the weak and arbitrary objective of reducing human suffering caused by chemical weapons (already discussed).

So much for the two lines of argument supporting a military strike, viz. punishment and the responsibility to protect. The latter is a non-starter: there is no stomach for a long, involved campaign, and in any case no-one can be sure of the unintended outcomes of such a campaign, especially with the proliferation of less than desirable armed opposition groups.

Politicians should stop couching intervention in humanitarian terms, as the argument can’t be made. Instead, those who wish to advocate intervention, should do so in terms of punishment and deterrence, being mindful that a single civilian casualty from such a campaign cannot be tolerated. But this strategy should not be presented on its own. It should be linked to a political strategy and a purely humanitarian strategy. The idea of using such strikes to push the Syrian regime and its allies towards political negotiations should be explored, and could be adduced as a further argument for a punitive kind of strike. I don’t know what precedents there are for the success of this sort of approach.

And, most importantly, politicians, analysts and journalists should put more emphasis on the purely humanitarian aspect of the conflict, in order to galvanise more financial support for aid to the 1.7 million refugees and several million internally displaced. This huge population of poor, displaced, dispossessed Syrians — and those who will join them — are those whom any military intervention would notionally be aimed at protecting. International efforts should be more concentrated on those who already need assistance. Talking and writing about helping families who have fled their homes seems to command fewer headlines than speculation about what kind of Tomahawk missiles US warships could fire from the eastern Mediterranean. But the long-term consequences of the conflict might well depend much more on how millions of homeless Syrians are helped to get back to normal life, than on the kind of munitions dropped on the Syrian Air Force intelligence headquarters.

Eight things to consider before intervening in Syria (ECFR) – Anthony Dworkin, Daniel Levy and Julien Barnes-Dacey

Don’t repeat the Iraq mistake – Ottawa Citizen – Brian Davis, former Canadian Ambassador to Syria

… In 2003, Canada refused to join in the U.S.-led “coalition” and it proved to be a wise decision. It was based on a variety of arguments and on a firmly grounded policy with regard to international law, to Canada’s role in international action and to Canada’s understanding of history and the Middle East region. There was also little support among Canadians for joining the invasion.

The StephenHarper government lacks an informed and forward thinking policy on the Middle East. Aside from blindly supporting Israel at the expense of effective relations with Arab countries, its reactions to developments in that region are largely of the knee jerk variety. Virtually no long-term policy work has been done to prepare for these types of situations. Because of this, we could well acquiesce to requests from the U.S. and others to form a “coalition of the willing” in an attack against Syria, simply because we are asked, not because it has been thought through. It is noteworthy that when Canada refused to join the attack on Iraq in 2003, one of the people to criticize that decision was Stephen Harper.

It is deeply distressing to see the toll that the Syrian civil war has taken and continues to take on the Syrian people and the country. We all want to see that ended. But, the question one has to ask is whether attacking the Syrian regime will do that. …

Arab League Stance Muddies U.S. Case – NYT

The leaders of the Arab world on Tuesday blamed the Syrian government for a chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of people last week, but declined to back a retaliatory military strike, leaving President Obama without the broad regional support he had for his last military intervention in the Middle East, in Libya in 2011.

US Forces in Place for Attack, and Possible Syrian Targets – Bloomberg

Bloomberg

Syrian regime moves prisoners to likely targets of western military strikes – National

Syrian authorities have moved prisoners from their jail cells to installations the government believes could be targets of western military strikes, pro-democracy activists in Damascus and the opposition said yesterday.

Where’s this all going?

Sometime back we wrote about revolutionary Syrians who had become disillusioned with the opposition to the point of abandoning the rebels and re-joining Syria’s army. Similarly, we are also hearing voices of frustration coming from long-time supporters of the Syrian regime, even those who have stood by the Syrian regime for over two years of conflict. One recent example came in a message received from a friend:

My sister has been at a hotel in Lebanon for nearly a year. Nearly 90 percent of the people living in it are Christian Syrians. I visited last December. Almost all have been die-hard supporters of Bashar and the regime. They have been depressed for a long time watching the news.

I just got a call from her telling me how jovial and happy the mood was today. The people suddenly feel that the USA is preparing for war. “But this may mean that the regime will fall,” I countered. “The people don’t care anymore. They just want this over. They want to go back. They have run out of money. They are done. War by the USA will put an end to this and this is why they are happy today. Something they have not experienced for a while,” she said.

For months we’ve had a poll question on the site that asks: “Will Syria maintain territorial integrity post-conflict?“ Amazingly, the response percentages have hovered at exactly 50%-50% until just recently. Everyone’s trying to predict where this conflict is taking Syria and the regime, and what the eventual outcome will look like. Theories are abounding, and we hear many from readers, such as Yamin, who emailed us a list of what he considers possible:

(1) Syria to be ruled by the current Syrian Government as before March of 2011 – Impossible

(2) Syria to be ruled by a reformed government headed by the current Syrian Government – Possible and Likely

(3) Syria to be ruled by the Opposition headed by the Syrian Coalition – Possible but Unlikely

(4) Syria to be ruled by Islamists headed by the Syrian Coalition – Possible but Unlikely

(5) Syria to be ruled by extreme Islamists – Impossible

(6) Syria remains one state as we know it – Possible and Likely

(7) Syria splits into two – Possible but Unlikely

(8) Alawite State in the coast – Impossible

(9) Alawite State between the desert and the coast – Possible but Unlikely

(10) The coast merging and creating Greater Lebanon – Possible and Likely

Seth Kaplan provides his own detailed list of possible outcomes in the following article:

Seven Scenarios for the Future of Syria – Global Dashboard

… There are at least seven scenarios for the future of the country:

1) Assad victory. Although this is more likely than before due to continued support from Iran and Russia, the entry of Hezbollah fighters into the fray, and continued fragmentation among the rebels, it is not very likely because the regime lacks the manpower and resources to reconquer all the territory lost. It does, however, have a stronger position than a few months ago, and has been consolidating its hold on the territory it controls.

2) Good rebel victory. At the moment, this likely needs significant outside assistance to happen. Iranian and Hezbollah aid has to be curtailed. A significant number of Alawites have to be convinced that they will be safe after they lay down their arms. And outside aid has to be delivered in a way that strengthens and consolidates moderate forces such that they take over the country. Moderates would rule inclusively and without retribution against losers. But this scenario looks very unlikely as of now because moderate forces are heavily fragmented and extremist groups have gained power in many opposition areas.

3) Bad rebel victory. In this case, extremist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, which has announced its allegiance to al-Qaida, take advantage of the curtailing of Iranian aid and foreign assistance to claim victory. This would lead to massive retribution and a rigid orthodoxy. It would also produce an even greater refugee crisis, as millions of Alawites and Christians flee into Lebanon and Turkey. The “good” rebels, such as the Free Syrian Army, the main rebel umbrella organization, should ideally exclude the extremist groups from any military or political coalition, but they are too powerful for this. Exclusion could also lead to greater conflict, or even a second civil war. In any case, what the good rebels think may be irrelevant: the extremists are better positioned to win the war. They have done relatively well in the fighting when compared to other rebel groups and have greater cohesion.

4) Stalemate. At this point, a stalemate is very likely. The two sides are not strong enough to control all or even most of the country. If either side makes significant gains, the other is likely to be reinforced from abroad. This would not necessarily be a bad thing, as a stalemate that went on for an extended period of time and showed both sides that they cannot win is the only way to encourage them to take negotiations seriously. And negotiations are the only conceivably way to end the war if no major power intervenes.

5) Country breakup. The longer the war goes on, the more likely this will happen. In some ways, it already has. The existing regime, backed by Alawites, many Christians, and some of the old Sunni elite, would retain control over a strip of land that included Damascus and much of the coast. It would be supported by Russia and Iran. Sunnis would control an equivalent amount of land, stretching from the northwest to the Iraqi border, including possibly Aleppo (see map). It would be backed by Sunni states, though divisions between these would have to be overcome (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey have backed different factions). The Druze would control the southeast, probably in alliance with the Sunnis. A Kurdish northeast might seek independence or some sort of alliance with Iraqi Kurdistan. This scenario might lead to peace faster except that neighbors would both oppose any division of the country and want to keep backing their particular client mini-state.

6) Regional conflict. The likelihood of this also increases the longer the war goes on. Lebanon and Iraq have already suffered from spillover: bombs have gone off in South Beirut and Tripoli in the past week and Sunni extremists have been strengthened in Iraq in recent months. It is not out of the realm of possibility that these trends will continue and a broad Sunni-Shiite conflict will engulf the whole Levant. This is the worst result, and would have even greater consequences for the region. Over 50 million people would be directly affected.

7) Chaos.This is the Somalia scenario. An extended period of statelessness and persistent conflict would institutionalize a war economy, and give emerging warlords, militia leaders, and criminal networks a vested interest in continuing the conflict. Those outside the country would be encouraged to reestablish their lives elsewhere, reducing the chance that they will ever return. Those within the country would increasingly be left without schooling or economic opportunity beyond the war effort. More would flee.

These seven scenarios are not completely separate from each other. Stalemate could, for instance, lead to greater spillover. The country’s breakup could be accompanied by chaos.

International Options

Although no outside power will intervene with enough force and staying power to end the conflict at this point, there are still a number of important low risk actions outsiders can take:

1) Red lines over the use of chemical weapons or other WMDs must be enforced. The United States should follow through on its threats or the use of these will increase, and many more civilians will suffer the consequences.

2) Regional contagion must be prevented. The international community should do more to bring together the leaders of the various factions in Lebanon and Iraq to work out their differences or at least agree to work together to minimize spillover before it is too late.

3) More must be done to unite and empower the moderate rebel groups. This is the only force whose victory could lead to reconciliation.

4) More thought ought to be undertaken to determine what structure of government might work in such a deeply divided country. Calls for elections are stale when trust is so low and the end of the war so far away.

5) A stalemate that leads to a ceasefire should be encouraged, as it is probably the best end result that is possible at this point. Peace negotiations will lead nowhere, but anything that reduces or ends the bloodshed should be considered.

Eventually the only answer for the country—and possibly the whole Levant region—is a heavily decentralized system of government that allows each local group or area to manage their own affairs in some form of weak confederacy until trust and trade can gradually recover enough so that people clamor for a more centralized system. Unfortunately, the modern state system, which empowers central governments and insists on rigid ways of organizing states and the divisions between them, will make it hard to take this route.

Syria Comment Exclusive: Kelly Flanagan has written a scholarly analysis on the Syria Conflict, attempting to predict future outcomes for the insurgency. Below is an introduction to the paper; to download Kelly’s entire analysis, click here: Ending Insurgency, Analyzing the Syrian Conflict

With the Syrian civil war continuing for nearly thirty months and diplomatic efforts stalling, what can the history of civil wars tell us to expect?  Drawing from the study “How Insurgencies End,” by Ben Connable and Martin C. Libicki at the RAND Corporation, this paper discusses several possible components of uprisings-turned-insurgencies and correlates them with the likelihood of insurgent success.  The paper analyzes each component in conjunction with the Syrian conflict.  Factors discussed are: duration of the conflict, urbanization, available sanctuary for the insurgents, third party intervention for the government, third party intervention for the insurgents, networked or hierarchical military of the insurgency, and use of terrorism. 

The duration of the conflict and the use of terrorism appear, thus far, to be inconclusive in determining the outcome of the war.  Bashar al-Assad’s support from third party backers actually favors the success of the insurgents, as does the third party sanctuary the insurgents receive from Turkey.  Favoring the regime, on the other hand, is the networked makeup of the insurgent army and the country’s high degree of urbanization.

The tipping-point factor that needs to be considered by policymakers is third party support on behalf of the insurgents.  The correlation between third party intervention for the insurgents and their success is much higher than the success rate without external support.  Whether third party military support remains status quo or is strategically augmented by the supporting parties is likely to be the main component in deciding whether or not a peace agreement or an insurgent victory is achieved.

Runnin’ with the Rebels

Read this frightening and amazing story of an American photojournalist kidnapped by rebels who eventually managed to escape after a harrowing period of imprisonment: American Tells of Odyssey as Prisoner of Syrian Rebels – NYT – Read all four pages!

Robin Yassin-Kassab visits rebel territory, has a much different experience. Personal account here:  Journey to Kafranbel

Bay’ah to Baghdadi: Foreign Support for Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham – Aymenn al-Tamimi – This is an important article for those following rebel factions within Syria, interesting photos showing support for ISIS from Somalia and Saudi Arabia

Islamist militants drive Free Syrian Army out of Raqqa – Daily Star

Fighting between ISIS and the Ahfad al-Rasoul brigade for control of Raqqa – which fell out of the control of president Bashar Assad in March – has intensified over the last week. The battle culminated with the jihadist group detonating a car bomb early Wednesday at the city’s main train station, killing Rasoul commanders Abu Mazen and Fahd Hussein al-Kajwan.

Free Syrian Army leaders have acknowledged that the fighting between their brigades and Islamist rivals has reached a critical stage.

The FSA says the Islamists’ main concern is not to overthrow Assad, but to establish an Islamic state in Syrian territories.

Elizabeth O’Bagy and Thomas Pierret have both recently been making the argument that moderate forces are winning out over extremists in the Syrian opposition. Here are some examples:

External support and the Syrian insurgency – Thomas Pierret – FP

Would arming moderate Syrian rebels reduce the influence of their radical counterparts? This question, which has been extensively debated by proponents and opponents of indirect military involvement in Syria, has perhaps become obsolete: backing the most pragmatic insurgent groups is what Saudi Arabia has been doing for months now, and it seems to work. …

… recent military developments show that Syrian insurgents have become increasingly dependent on state supporters for their logistics. Gone are the days when rebels could storm lightly defended regime positions with assault rifles and a few RPGs. The retreat of loyalist forces on heavily fortified bases last winter has required a major quantitative and qualitative increase in the opposition’s armament. This is something only foreign governments, not jihadi utopians, can offer. Given Saudi Arabia’s apparent determination to lead the way in that respect, this situation will probably continue to favor mainstream insurgents over their radical brothers in arms in the foreseeable future.

On the Front Lines of Syria’s Civil War – Elizabeth O’Bagy – ISW

… The conventional wisdom holds that the extremist elements are completely mixed in with the more moderate rebel groups. This isn’t the case. Moderates and extremists wield control over distinct territory. Although these areas are often close to one another, checkpoints demarcate control. On my last trip into Syria earlier this month, we traveled freely through parts of Aleppo controlled by the Free Syrian Army, following roads that kept us at safe distance from the checkpoints marked by the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq. …

ISW

… Contrary to many media accounts, the war in Syria is not being waged entirely, or even predominantly, by dangerous Islamists and al Qaeda die-hards. The jihadists pouring into Syria from countries like Iraq and Lebanon are not flocking to the front lines. Instead they are concentrating their efforts on consolidating control in the northern, rebel-held areas of the country. …

Charles Lister disagrees: Syria’s moderate rebels wane as extremist forces dominate – National

The most notable trend in Syria in 2013 has been the increasing strategic supremacy of Islamist groups, particularly in the northern half of the country. Every major opposition military victory since September 2012 has been Islamist-led.

Another by Lister: New fears for Syria’s jihadists – FP

Miscellaneous

“Bounded Rationality” ??????? ????????? – an interesting theoretical analysis by Camille Otrakji in Arabic – watch here

The CTC Sentinel has a new issue entirely centered on Syria, including the following titles:

From the Aron Lund article:

… This article identifies and profiles some of the most important non-state actors in Syria. It finds that the opposition remains severely fragmented. Although foreign-backed efforts to realize the long-standing goal of a central “Free Syrian Army” leadership for the mainstream insurgency have achieved some progress recently, the resulting Supreme Military Command has little internal cohesion and is held together almost entirely by outside funding. The Syrian regime has also begun to experience a fragmentation of its security apparatus, caused by its increased reliance on local and foreign militia forces, although these problems are still in their early stages. …

The Witnesses – FP – David Kenner

Twitter, NYTimes and Huff Po Whois and DNS records altered, Syrian Electronic Army takes responsibility – TNW

At approximately 3pm PST, the Syrian Electronic Army seemingly hacked into Twitter, Huffington Post and NY Times’ registry accounts altering contact details, and more significantly, DNS records. Modifying DNS records of a domain will allow SEA to redirect visitors to any site of their choosing.

First reported by Matthew Keys, this is the latest of many attacks by the pro-Syrian government computer hackers who align themselves with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

The flurry of DNS hacks began when the group initially posted a tweet with a screenshot of the whois records for Twitter.com and a link for others to verify its authenticity…

This is how the Syrian Electronic Army ‘hacked’ the New York Times and Twitter – TNW

Saudi prince’s swipe at tiny Qatar draws riposte – Reuters

9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask – WP

From Max Fisher: The one map that shows why Syria is so complicated

Syria’s opposition considers national rebel army, Islamists angered – Reuters

Syria’s Western-backed political opposition plans to create the nucleus of a national army to bring order to the disparate rebel forces battling President Bashar al-Assad and counter the strength of al Qaeda-linked rebel brigades.

The latest attempt to unite the rebels coincides with fierce debates in Washington and other Western capitals over whether and how to boost support for Assad’s opponents after an alleged chemical weapons attack by government forces on Wednesday.

Some earlier material we noted but didn’t post in a timely fashion:

International Jihad and the Syrian Conflict – Nick Heras interviews Aaron Zelin – Fair Observer

Support for rebels will help push Syrians away from extremists – National – Hussein Ibish

Extremists are increasingly dominating the Syrian rebellion, especially since the beginning of this year. This has significantly strengthened the position of the dictator, Bashar Al Assad, by validating his narrative about “Islamic terrorism” – that began as a fiction during the period of peaceful, unarmed protests but is now a reality that he is instrumental in shaping and driving.

… Those who argue against arming any of the rebels because of the strength of radical movements are citing the self-fulfilling prophecy, and grim logical consequences, of their own consistent “hands-off” policy recommendations: reluctance to support the FSA for fear of the emergence of extreme Islamists has inexorably and inevitably led to precisely that development.

An amazing moment of hope: a Syrian soldier drops his weapon and walks over to speak to the rebels, reminds everyone that they are all the same people. As with the other articles in this section, I was unable to post when it was timely, due to traveling. This story made the rounds quickly a month ago, but should be remembered, as it revealed an amazing moment of humanity. al-Arabiya: Syrian officer drops own arm, talks to rebels

Another beautiful, human story: Love in the Syrian Revolution – Wendy Pearlman

Syria: Thousands Flee to Iraq – NYT

At least 29,000 Syrians have flooded into northern Iraq since Thursday, the United Nations refugee agency said Monday, calling it one of the largest cross-border migrations since the Syrian conflict began in 2011. Officials said 20,000 crossed over on Thursday alone. More than 1.9 million Syrians have already sought refuge in neighboring countries; more than 180,000 are now in Iraq. (Aug. 19)

Why Fewer Ground Reports Are Coming Out of Syria – CSM

https://twitter.com/ASE/statuses/371393089484914688

If it is Determined that the Assad Regime Used Chemical Weapons Against Civilians, Should the United States and its Allies Attack Syria?

In answer to this question, Joshua Landis and Syria Comment provide the following statement:

The US must respond to the use of chemical weapons in a forceful manner, but should not launch a broader intervention in Syria.

Preserving the widely respected international norm banning the use of chemical weapons is a clear interest of the US and international community.

The US, however, should avoid getting sucked into the Syrian Civil War. Thus, it should punish Assad with enough force to deter future use of chemical weapons, but without using so much force that it gets drawn into an open-ended conflict.

The reasons why the US should avoid a wider intervention is that it has no partner within Syria or the international community to help shoulder the burden of nation-building.  All the countries of the region want Washington to solve their Syria problem, but none want to send in troops.

The Syrian opposition is dysfunctional and composed of over 1,000 militias, the strongest of which are radically pro-Islamist and virulently anti-American. Most are not prepared to work with the US or provide responsible government for the country.

The barbarism of the Assad regime is horrifying, but the US cannot solve the bitter ethnic, sectarian, and factional rivalries in Syria. It should, however, attempt to dissuade Assad from using chemical weapons, and can employ force in this endeavor.

Syria Comment’s Position on the Conflict More Generally

Consistently arguing against intervention since the beginning of the conflict has elicited a degree of animosity and anger from those waiting expectantly for the Syrian regime to fall. This feeling is understandable as so much of the country has been destroyed.

We at Syrian Comment are not insulated from the suffering in Syria, but encounter it daily as our friends, family, and associates both in and outside the country relate their stories of anguish and loss. With close to one-third of Syrians displaced (two million having fled the country and close to five million internal refugees) the suffering is staggering. We regularly hear pleas from those we know for personal help and support, often beyond our means.

The argument against intervention, therefore, is a position we maintain while unceasingly observing and witnessing the heartbreaking bloodshed. Despite the tremendous outcry of pain and loss, we still believe that intervention in Syria is not a viable option for America for several important reasons.

Some of those reasons include:

1) Bombing is not a solution: Mere bombing will not provide a solution; in order to disarm militias and protect Syrians, the U.S. would have to put peace-keeping forces on the ground to end revenge killings and provide security, yet Washington has ruled out sending occupation troops into Syria.

2) The financial burden is too high: The U.S. lacks the resources or will to spend enough money to do the necessary nation-building in Syria. This is why having an international coalition willing to send troops into Syria is so important. Militias have to be disarmed and a new state has to be built. Suppressing competing militias and building new central governments in both Iraq and Afghanistan has cost in excess of one trillion dollars apiece.

3) The lack of desire on the part of Americans for another long-term Middle East entanglement without a foreseeable end.

4) The opposition is incapable of providing government services: Millions of Syrians still depend on the government for their livelihoods, basic services, and infrastructure. The government continues to supply hundreds of thousands of Syrians with salaries & retirement benefits. Destroying these state services with no capacity to replace them would plunge ever larger numbers of Syrians into even darker circumstances and increase the outflow of refugees beyond its already high level. Syria can get worse.

Most militias are drawn from the poorer, rural districts of Syria. Most wealth is concentrated in the city centers that remain integral (such as Damascus, Lattakia, Tartus, Baniyas, Hama, etc.), which have survived largely unscathed in this conflict, and have not opted to continue the struggle. If the militias take these cities, there will be widespread looting and lawlessness which will threaten many more civilians who have managed to escape the worst until now.

Many in these urban centers have managed to continue leading fairly stable lives up to the present; despite the tremendous level of destruction seen so far, many areas are still a long way from the bottom. It would be preferable to avoid a Somalia-like scenario in the remaining cities and provinces.

It’s not at all clear that U.S. intervention can improve the economic or security situation for Syrians.

5) Entering the conflict would mean America battling on multiple fronts, not only against the regime: The U.S. has declared itself at war with al-Qaida. If we were to intervene, we would have to enter a new front against the most powerful and effective Syrian opposition militias, in addition to the war against Assad. Our forces would be targeted by extremists and more radically-Islamist militias. We would be fighting a multi-front war.

6) The potential for ethnic cleansing and revenge killings is high: The different ethno-sectarian communities and socio-economic classes are renegotiating the dynamics of their relationship inside Syria. For the last 50 years, Alawites have monopolized the ramparts of power in Syria. They have allied themselves with other minorities and important segments of the Sunni majority, and the regime has preserved its power through a careful sectarian strategy. The rebellion, led primarily by Sunni Arabs of the countryside, aims to supplant the Alawite hold on power. The US cannot adjudicate the new balance of power that will emerge in Syria. It is not prudent to dramatically tip the balance of power in such a supercharged environment of sectarian hatred and class warfare.

Military Action at Present Should Target Chemical Weapons Only

[This heading was misunderstood by some to mean a strike on chemical weapons stockpiles themselves; the intended meaning was that a strike should be designed to deter chemical weapons use. Sorry for the vagueness.]

While the U.S. and the American people are no allies of the Syrian regime (and for good reason), pushing hard for a rebel win today is not in US interests and is unlikely to benefit Syria. Punitive measures taken against the regime following the use of chemical weapons should be conducted with the purpose of deterring the future use of chemical weapons—not to change the balance of power in favor of the rebels.

This is said with full recognition of the terrible atrocities and killing taking place within Syria, including the many crimes of the regime. The Assad regime is not an entity to be protected or defended, but destroying it today may throw the country into greater chaos and suffering and pull the U.S. into a morass that lacks any visible solution.

Long Term Goal of a Power-Sharing Agreement

The US should strive to persuade all parties to reach a power-sharing agreement to end the war. This can only happen with the cooperation of Russia and other players, such as Iran. It is not likely to happen soon, but such a Geneva-style agreement would provide an important framework for a peace process down the road. If Syria is to be kept together as a unified state, a power-sharing agreement must be hammered out, with or without Assad.

Aron Lund writes:

Liwa Asifat al-Shamal, or the Northern Storm Brigade, is the main group, or one of the main groups, in Aazaz, north of Aleppo and very close to the Turkish border. They’re a mid-sized faction in the northern countryside – not tremendously important to the revolution in general, but a major force in their core area around Aazaz, which is strategically important for rebel logistics.

Their original leadership was involved with border smuggling before the revolution (the late Ammar Dadikhi, “Abu Ibrahim”), but they took up arms pretty early on. They also seem to be quite seriously involved with fighting in the north, as evidenced by the role they played in the Mennagh siege, and they have relations with the SMC and other legit opposition bodies. So despite some shady business, it’s clearly not a “fake” rebel outfit.

Their main importance comes from controlling the Bab al-Salama crossing into Turkey ever since it was captured in 2012. I assume they’ve used that to wield power over (and perhaps extract money, guns, ammo, aid from) foreign sponsors and other battalions using the crossing. At any rate, they grew into a force to be reckoned with after seizing the border post. They’ve also set up a media center there, and help provide security and services for a lot of international visitors who come from Turkey. There’s been some good articles and tv features by people meeting/embedding with their forces, and they got quite a lot of  attention when John McCain dipped in through Bab al-Salama, if you recall that.

Recently they’ve lost some influence, after Liwa al-Tawhid (a much bigger SMC faction which is also from the northern countryside, but quite busy with the war in Aleppo City) forced them to re-negotiate their division of labor, presumably after applying some sort of pressure. According to the new rules, Asifat al-Shamal will have to share control over Bab al-Salama 50-50 with Tawhid. The terms of the deal mean that they have joint control over border facilities & inspections, as well as the responsibility to run checkpoints along the road down towards Aleppo –  and, although it doesn’t say so, they will presumably split any benefits arising from this. The deal also stipulated that Asifat al-Shamal will have to submit to the Aleppo Sharia Commission (a non-SMC judiciary and proto-government in northern Syria, which Tawhid backs along with more radical Islamist factions) in all legal matters/disputes. They hadn’t done that before. Whether the deal has been successfully applied on the ground yet, or at all, I don’t know.

Asifat al-Shamal is also the group that kidnapped a group of Lebanese Shia, who tried to pass through Bab al-Salama in summer 2012, saying they were pilgrims. They’re still holding them. Originally Dadikhi insisted that the Shia were secret agents of Hezbollah, IRGC or some other hostile organziation, but they later seemed to drop that line, since no one believed it. Nowadays they simply say they want female and other prisoners freed in return for releasing the hostages. In practice I assume they’re just after money at this stage, or if it’s a prestige thing, or simply a way to get press attention. Or maybe they really think they’re Hezbollah. I don’t know. Turkey has allegedly been involved in negotiations.

——————

This is a few days old, but here’s a very interesting pro-government view from the Nubl & Zahra Shia community, of what happened at Mennagh airport at the time of capture:https://www.facebook.com/zhraa.nubbol.n.n/posts/566600950053289.From this description, it seems like a pretty desperate breakout. The SAA forces left 15 men in a “martyrdom” force behind to cover the retreat – all were killed or captured. The others then split into groups and fled towards the few remaining pockets of government control around Mennagh. One group made it to the Shia town of Nubl, but apparently only thanks to air cover from the government, while another fled towards the Kurdish villages of Afrin, where they were granted asylum by the Kurdish YPG forces.

That last part is interesting. The YPG has let it be known that they “captured” a group of fleeing SAA soldiers from Mennagh, and confiscated all their guns and tanks. But this version, which appears to be written by someone in direct contact with the defenders of the airport, says the Kurds saved them, provided hospital care to the wounded, and even ambushed and annihilated a rebel unit that was tailing them (Jabhat al-Nosra by their account, but they call everyone Jabhat al-Nosra). That’s more or less consistent with how the YPG presents its politics: they will provide humanitarian assistance to everyone in need, and are open to negotiated passage, but try to enter Kurdish areas without permission and you’re dead.

But – the Nubl/Zahra pro-gov version also talks about YPG-SAA coordination before the fall of the base, and speaks warmly of the Kurds as their comrades in arms. This  suggests a level of cooperation between the SAA and YPG which undermines YPG attempts to portray themselves as essentially neutral between the Arab sides.

That said, it concerns a very particular region, Afrin, where both Kurdish and Shia villages have been under Arab (particularly Islamist) rebel pressure. So although the situation might seem similar in other places, I’m not sure you can necessarily extrapolate this to other areas.

(Also, here’s the Islamic State communiqué on the capture of Mennagh, if you haven’t seen it: http://jihadology.net/2013/08/07/new-statement-from-the-islamic-state-of-iraq-and-al-sham-on-the-battle-of-the-last-ten-days-liberating-the-mannagh-airbase-in-the-state-of-aleppo)

 

AN Writes:

There was news that an agreement was reached with Liwa Asifat al-Shamal to where a certain number of female detainees would be released from government prisons in exchange for 2 of the 9 hostages before Eid, but negotiations failed. On Friday, first day of Eid for Shiaa muslims, a Shiaa group calling itself “the visitors of the Imam Al Mortada” kidnapped two Turkish pilots in Beirut because they believe that Turkey has the power to release the hostages and is involved in the kidnapping. After the kidnapping, news came out that earlier this month, Turkey had informed that UN that it will pulling part of its UNIFIL contingency out of Lebanon and limiting its participation to Turkish marine forces. Turkish government asked its citizens in Lebanon to leave the country following the kidnapping.

 

From Dr. Landis Twitter feed:

Syria is consolidating into three cantons.
Posted by Joshua Landis

The Syrian Arab Army is on the retreat in the North, Aleppo, Idlib and now some high points East of Latakia as well. The Free Syrian Army is making progress in Damascus countryside as well. These important advances seem to have reversed the momentum that the Syrian regime captured following its successful campaign at Qusair. Many have begun to speculate that roles have been reversed and that the Syrian Arab Army is now in retreat in contrast to few months ago.

But the Government is making progress in Homs and Hassakah with the help of the Kurds and is stalemated on several other fronts, which points, not to a rout or collapse, but to the consolidation of cantons that have been emerging out of the fragmentation of Syria for over a year: the government controlled West and South, the Opposition controlled North and East around Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, and a Kurdish controlled Far East.

Aron Lund writes:

I’m not sure the fall of Mengh represents momentum nationally either way – the conflict is so localized. Rebels have been making slow progress up north, despite the Quseir and Ghouta setbacks. It see-saws a bit back and forth, but I think these past months are more indicative of a (quite strong) consolidation in Assad’s core areas (liberally defined to include Homs). Assad is not making national gains only consolidating his core areas.

Fall of Mengh Airbase outside of Aleppo

The important airport and military base, Mengh, outside of Aleppo has finally fallen. For over a year it resisted capture, despite daily bombardments and frequent attacks by the opposition. This pro-government Facebook site gives the one side of the story.

 

Foreign Policy summarizes:

Syrian opposition forces reportedly overtook the government’s Mingh air base in Aleppo province early Tuesday, after repeated attacks over nearly a year working to seize control. The final push is believed to have come from nine rebel groups, including Islamist factions and Chechens, and was led by two foreign men, one believed to be Saudi Arabian, who carried out a suicide attack in an armored vehicle. Opposition fighters have made other recent gains in the Latakia province, overtaking several Alawite villages, pushing deeper into the government stronghold. However, the Syrian regime celebrated its own victor with the defense minister touring the recently seized Khalidiyeh district of Homs.

Pro-government sources are saying that troops inside the airport were aided by the PPK, a Kurdish group, to escape to Afri, a Kurdish region north of Aleppo, here’s a map of two areas.  Sana’s article reports that all the airport security forces are safe, that the airport was empty and the terrorists (opposition forces) have suffered a lot of losses.

It seems likely that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria along with the Jaish Muhajerin forces and lots of al-Qaida style foreign fighters spearheaded the airport attack. They could now move on to Nubul and Zahra, the two Shi`a holdouts in the north. They are next door. One does not even want to think about how that could end.

This from Anne Barnard of the NYTimes

… The base was first besieged by a Free Syrian Army brigade called North Storm, and joined by fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham and a group calling itself Jaish al-Muhajireen wal Ansar. Muhajireen means emigrants, and the group, which carried out several suicide attacks at the base, is led by Russian speakers from Chechnya and other parts of the Caucasus.

Mr. Farzat said Chechen Islamist fighters near the airport had refused to let the defecting government soldiers flee, so he helped them escape by another route. “I give the Islamic fighters credit for the liberation,” he said.The seizure of the base could have an impact on the stalemated fight for Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, by freeing up rebel fighters and antiaircraft weapons to put pressure on Aleppo’s airport, which rebels have been unable to take despite months of trying. It could also dampen the morale of government troops in other remote outposts.

Abu al-Haytham, a rebel fighter who fought for months to seize Minakh and is now in Turkey, called the capture of the base a morale booster and “a strike against the regime.” But, he added, “it won’t change anything on the ground — we just got some vehicles and ammunition.”

In Latakia, the rebel offensive, involving more than 1,500 fighters led by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, accelerated what had been a gradual rebel push into a province whose government-held central city has been a relatively secure haven for displaced Syrians from war-torn areas.

Government forces withdrew Monday from a number of villages in the coastal mountains, said Ammar Hassan, an opposition activist in close touch with rebels.

He said rebels had seized four mountaintop military posts that had been shelling villages below, and were trying to advance farther toward the coast and toward Qardaha, the ancestral mountain village of President Bashar al-Assad’s family.

The advance brought fighting deeper into the heartland of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam to which the Assad family belongs, heightening fears of sectarian conflict. Alawites here have long feared they would face revenge killings by the mostly Sunni insurgents, and pro-government Alawite militias have been accused of killing Sunni civilians in the area.

Some Alawites remained in their villages as rebels advanced, and a few wounded Alawites were treated in makeshift rebel hospitals, said Mr. Hassan, who added, “Of course the majority of the residents fled to the city.”

AN writes:

Also, has there been any real evidence that Hezbollah or any non-Syrian Shi`a are fighting alongside the Syrian Army outside of Qusayr, Sayda Zaynab and Nubul and Zahraa? Opposition people are claiming that Hezbollah is fighting on all fronts. When Hezbollah was really involved and sending troops we were seeing the funerals of the fighters being sent back, that stopped after Qusayr but the Syrian Opposition remains determined to place Hezbollah on every front they’re  fighting. They’ve been accusing the Hezb of being involved since the beginning but the only real and substantiated evidence that we have of hezbollah fighting there is limited to Qusayr and Sayda Zainab as far as i know, am i missing something?

Following the fall of the airport, Col. Akidi visited the site and thanked the Islamic State, Jaish Muhajerin forces (lots of AQ-style foreign fighters) and the FSA groups that helped accomplish this mission. This video shows Akidi alongside Abu Jandal Al-Masry, a member of Jaish Muhajerin forces who in the video seems to be speaking in the name of the ISIS

FSA groups decided to rename the airport after the founder of the North Storm brigade Amar Dadikhi(Abu Ibrahim) who died of a bullet wound that struck him near one of the airport walls at one point during the +10 months siege. Amar Dadikhi became popular after the kidnapping of Lebanese Shiaa pilgrims in the early days of the Syrian uprising, 10 9 of which remain in the custody of his group till today.

by Matthew Barber

Thanks to Aymenn al-Tamimi for tweeting this photo

The scale of this propaganda piece is impressive: An ISIS billboard in Raqqa promoting shari’a law. The yellow text at the top says “The state’s civil law is contrary to the religion of Allah,” followed by a verse from the Qur’an (3:83 “Do they, then, seek a religion other than Allah’s, while to Him submits whoever there is in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly, and to Him they will be brought back?”), and finally signed “Your brothers at the Raqqa Da’wa Office.”

Changing topics…

In the last post Aron Lund discussed the possibility of the fragmentation of centralized control within the “regime side” (or whatever term we should use to refer to that part of Syria that stands opposite the rebels, but may not entirely be represented by the government/Syrian regime). A simple example of the kind of phenomenon where authority is contested (and therefore weakened) among those under the regime-loyalist umbrella is given in a new article (in Arabic). The gist is as follows:

A member of the National Defense Forces (shabiha) tried to cut the line in front of a bakery where people were waiting to buy bread. An army officer stopped the shabih and yelled at him, whereupon the shabih called for back-up from the “Ba’ath Brigades.” The Ba’ath Brigades arrived, attacked the army officer and his men, and forced them to get down on their knees. The army officer, as well, had already called for back-up, so 5 jeeps arrived (possibly with Air Force Intelligence), and arrested all the shabiha involved. All of this is based on opposition sources and comes following another story of shabiha attacking policemen who were overseeing the distribution of gas canisters. In this case, the shabiha also attacked the officers when they refused to let them cut the line.

Among the Kurds

??? ?????

Following the assassination of Issa Hisso, a Kurdish politician (article in Arabic), Kurdish forces declared “?????? ?????” (“general mobilization”—”nafir” refers to a horn blown for warning or before battle) asking all able people to take up arms (article in Arabic). Turkish forces are now in full alert along the border (article in Arabic).

Now in a stellar display of unity and cooperation vis-a-vis the Kurds, the FSA, the ISIS, Ahrar al-Sham, and a host of other groups have apparently together issued a joint statement against the PKK. Thanks to A.N. for providing the following translation of the article from ??? ?????

We, the battalions working in the cities of Minbij and Sirin and Shyoukh and Jarablos:

The revolutionary and military council, Liwaa Al Tawhid, Liwad Jond Al Rahman, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Ahrar Al Sham, Liwaa Ashab Al yamin, Liwaa Al Yarmouk, Liwaa Ahrar Al Shyoukh, Souqour Al Sham:

 

After we became certain that the PKK is without a doubt a party belonging to the regime of the tyrant criminal Bashar al-Assad—because they hosted delegations loyal to the regime (Naser Qandil) in order to setup plans to destabilize the the safe areas; and received weapons and ammunition by air to execute these plans and help this regime as did Hizb Allat in Qusair; and they pulled their forces from the mountains of Turkey and Iraq and brought them to north Syria; and lately they stopped wheat trucks from reaching the liberated areas; and denied checkpoint passage to the mujahidin heading to the battle fronts with the regime; and the big displacement campaign that they’re running in their areas; and the random apprehensions on their checkpoints; and their attempts to create a ethnic fitna between Arabs and Kurds who lived together for hundreds of years and who share a strong bonds and family ties and compassion towards each other and they turned it into a hostile relationship with hate and resentment that drains a lot of our time, effort, blood and money; and thus achieving the goals of the broken and tired regime giving him enough time to catch his breath and arrange his cards and survive in front of the large advancement of our blessed revolution—and based on that we decided:

Kurds could help shift course of war in Syria – The Star Online

The head of Turkey’s main Kurdish party has welcomed contacts between the Ankara government and Syria’s Kurds, saying it could step up pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and help change the course of the civil war,

Turkish intelligence officers met in Istanbul last week with Saleh Muslim, head of Syria’s Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Kurdish group whose militias have been fighting for control of parts of Syria’s north near the Turkish border.

The meeting followed Muslim’s declaration that Kurdish groups would set up an independent council to run Kurdish areas of Syria until the war ends. Ankara fears that kind of autonomy could rekindle separatist sentiment among its own, much larger Kurdish population as it seeks to end a 30-year-old insurgency.

“Saleh Muslim’s visit to Istanbul is a concrete sign that Turkey is moving towards changing a policy that sees Kurds as a menace,” Selahattin Demirtas, head of parliament’s Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), told Reuters in an interview.

“It won’t just affect Turkish-Kurdish relations but also the course of events in Syria by creating pressure on the regime,” he said.

“Kurds can be effective in Syria, and we need to increase support for them. Western countries, including the United States, should establish proper ties with Syria’s Kurds.”

Difficulties for Syrians in Egypt

[I wrote most of this section on Syrians in Egypt over 10 days ago, but wasn’t able to post due to traveling. I believe it’s still relevant.]

Someone sent me a particularly moving image this week. Month after month of viewing bombed homes and beheaded apostates can eventually produce a dull numbness. But something about the tragic character of this image brought tears to my eyes.

It took me back to the feelings many of us experienced when faced with some of those first images to come out of Dera’a, such as one I remember of a man carrying the body of a boy whose head was split apart by a bullet.

The trend of violence from that day until now has only worsened, and as men continue to carry the bodies of young children, the flow of Syrians exiting the country also continues. But the situation for Syrians in the countries where they seek shelter is fraught with other challenges, as has now become the case in Egypt.

I haven’t verified all of their articulations of the new circumstances, but in the last couple days, multiple unrelated Syrian friends who fled Syria for Egypt have contacted me claiming that the Egyptian government is dramatically shifting policy toward the Syrians who have taken refuge there. They feel that there has been a reversal of several policies that were in place to help them. Chiefly, they are saying that the government will not renew their temporary residencies. A tremendous level of uncertainty afflicts them, since they no longer feel welcome in Egypt, yet are faced by the fact that most other countries have closed their doors to immigrating Syrians. Complicating the situation is the fact that without an embassy, those in need of travel documents / passports are no longer able to secure them.

One friend told me today that his wife is about to give birth. He cannot obtain a passport for his child, because former president Morsi closed the Syrian embassy. Egypt will not renew his residency, meaning ought to leave the country. But the Egyptian government will not allow him to travel with a child who has no papers, obviously. They are now caught in a bewildering limbo in which every choice is the wrong choice.

Another friend believes Syrians need to either leave the country or register with the UN as refugees: no third option for residency.

Furthermore, a new wave of anti-Syrian sentiment has begun sweeping through parts of the country. After some Syrians may have participated in pro-Morsi demonstrations, Syrians in Egypt have told me that they are being branded as “pro-Ikhwaan” as a whole, as well as being accused of contributing to prostitution. In amazingly “tribal” style (when every member of the extended unit is judged as carrying the same shared characteristics), suddenly all Syrians as a collective are defined as being aligned a certain way or as engaging in certain activities.

One informed me that though the Syrian dialect was something enjoyed by Egyptians and which he flaunted when he first arrived, he now hides his accent and tries to sound Egyptian.

Egypt is also making it nearly impossible for any additional Syrians to enter the country. A visa is now required, and obtaining it from Syria requires getting cleared by Syrian security… we all know what that means in Syria, and for a government that recently closed its Syrian embassy in order to express its opposition to the current apparatus there, to now force Syrians fleeing the political violence of the Syrian state into the very arms of the abuser it flees—in order to seek permission to leave—is the very height of irony.

Syrians feeling pushed out of Egypt are wondering where exactly they should go; are they expected to return to Syria? A Syrian friend in Egypt, who fled the violence of his native Qabun, sent me this photo of his neighborhood, I assume taken following destruction this week:

Not exactly an ideal time to go home. This is the very edge of Damascus, not a far-outlying suburb billed as “Damascus.”

Another moving image I encountered recently, this one of a father with his young daughter from Homs:

For more of what Homs looks like now, see this from SkyNews: Dramatic Images Of Destruction In Homs. Beyond merely a bad time to go home, for many there will be no home to return to.

Articles have begun appearing discussing the same issues that these Syrians in Egypt have been talking about:

Syrian refugees caught up in Egypt’s turmoil

A thin wall was all that separated Syrian refugee Ahmed Al Hemsi from his 62-year-old father at Cairo International Airport when immigration officers told his father he would not be allowed into Egypt.

“He was crying when he talked to me on the phone,” Al Hemsi, 26, told IRIN. “This was the first time in my life I heard my father crying.”

Al Hemsi’s father, who had just arrived from Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, is one of thousands of Syrians affected by a new set of security measures enacted by Egyptian authorities following the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi and bloody clashes between Morsi’s supporters and opponents.

Government supporters accuse Syrian refugees of participating in the clashes and taking part in attacks against anti-Morsi demonstrators in several Egyptian cities.

The new security measures include the requirement that Syrian refugees and asylum seekers get entry visas to Egypt from an Egyptian embassy, as well as security approval.

But many Syrians say, given that Egypt severed its diplomatic relations with Syria, getting an entry visa to Egypt from Damascus is impossible, and that the process is difficult at embassies in other countries.

“Our understanding of the new measures is that we are no longer welcome in Egypt,” said Arkan Abulkheir, a Syrian community leader in Cairo. “The fact that some Syrians had committed violations by getting involved in Egypt’s politics does not mean that Egypt should punish all Syrians.”

There are between 250,000 and 300,000 Syrian refugees in Egypt now, according to the Egyptian government.

The conflict in Syria has created the world’s worst refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said this week, noting that more than 6,000 people were fleeing every day.

Nearly 1.8 million refugees from Syria are registered with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.

The government’s new tougher line includes tighter security checks for Syrian refugees in Egypt, with the threat of deportation for Syrians who do not have residence permits.

Previously, Syrians were able to get a three-month visa when they entered Egypt for the first time. After that visa expired, the Syrians could then apply for a one-year residence, but this is no longer the case.

A security official told the newspaper Al Watan on 11 July that police have orders to arrest Syrians and check them.

Abulkheir was stopped by a policeman on the street a few days ago. The policeman asked about his passport and his residence permit.

“He told me that he would have sent me back to Syria if my residence permit was not valid,” Abulkheir said. “Thanks are to God, the permit was valid for six more months.”

Syrian refugees say they are afraid to go out lest they be arrested or deported.

Before the change of government and these new security measures, Syrian refugees already faced a variety of challenges, but the new measures are making life even harder.

When they came to Cairo two months ago, Al Hemsi, his mother and his younger brother had to leave their father behind in the Syrian city of Daraa because they did not have enough money to buy him a plane ticket.

He finally travelled to Cairo on 8 July after the family raised US$250 for the flight. Since he was refused to entry to Egypt, he has been living in a mosque in Beirut.

“We do not know how he eats or lives his life,” Al Hemsi said. “He does not have any money. He is also too frail to work.”

School’s out

Another change has come in the education sector. Syrian refugees were previously allowed to enrol their children in state-run schools and universities, and were given equal treatment with Egyptians when it came to fees. This is no longer the case.

Abu Mustafa, a Syrian refugee in his mid-forties, went to a school in 6 October, a neighbourhood southwest of Cairo, a few days ago to enrol his three children for the new academic year, which is expected to start in September. He was told by the headmaster that Syrians are no longer allowed at state-run schools, which have lower fees than private schools.

“He said I should enrol them in a private school,” Abu Mustafa said. “But this is very difficult for me to do.”

To enrol his children in a private school, Abu Mustafa would have to pay a minimum of 7,000 Egyptian pounds (US$958) for each of them. Unemployed and living on charity, this is too much money for him, and for the tens of thousands of other Syrian refugees in the country.

Political tension

The new measures against Syrians coincide with a fierce campaign against them by some of Egypt’s politicians and opinion-makers, who accuse them of harbouring support for the deposed president and of contributing to Egypt’s current turmoil.

An Egyptian politician recently called for the execution of Syrians and Palestinians if they are arrested while taking part in protests or fights on the streets. …

Syrian Refugees in Egypt Swept up in Turmoil – AP

Egyptian officials turn back a planeload of Syrians at Cairo airport. A popular presenter on Egyptian television warns Syrians to steer clear of protests or face the consequences. An Egyptian state school refuses admission to Syrian children.

Once welcomed with open arms in Egypt, many of the tens of thousands of Syrians who took refuge here from the civil war at home have now found themselves targets of hate speech and intimidation. Their dramatic change in fortune is one of the unexpected consequences of the Egyptian military’s ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, whose Islamist-dominated government offered them favorable conditions.

The shift could have a profound impact on the lives of Syrians in Egypt as they currently find themselves in a sort of legal limbo, waiting to see where the political winds will drop them. In what many see as a hint of what lies ahead, Egypt’s new military-backed interim government already has imposed new travel restrictions.

That has spooked many Syrians who fear their current visas won’t be renewed and they could be forced to leave Egypt. Many have invested their savings in businesses or simply cannot return to their war-ravaged cities.

… “Egypt may be going through tumultuous times, but it must not return anyone, including Syrians, to somewhere threatening their life or freedom,” Nadim Houry, the deputy Middle East director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement last week. “While Egypt is going through a very difficult period, it simply should not strand Syrians this way, especially those who have fled such a devastating conflict at home.

The U.N. says some 70,000 Syrians are registered in Egypt, although officials estimate the actual number may be twice that since many have opted not to register. That would make Egypt home to the fourth-largest community of Syrian refugees after Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.

Those who came to Egypt received a warm welcome. Morsi’s government supported the rebels’ cause, and kept in place a decades-old open-door policy that allowed Syrians to come and go without prior visas. They were eligible to receive medical care at state hospitals, while their children could enroll in government schools.

Over the past few months, Syrians redefined some parts of Cairo, opening their own restaurants and cafes in areas where many of them settled.

But the warm welcome quickly evaporated after the military toppled Morsi on July 3 after four days of mass protests calling for the Islamist leader’s removal.

Television networks critical of Morsi aired allegations that the Muslim Brotherhood was paying Syrian refugees to take part in pro-Morsi protests. The arrest of at least six Syrians taking part in violent street clashes only fanned the flames. …

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom provides the following factsheet on the “regional refugee catastrophe.” Information specific to each country receiving refugees is provided.

As of July 17, UNHCR reports that more than 1. 7 million Syrians are refugees in neighboring countries. UNHCR predicts that 3.5 million Syrians potentially could become refugees by the end of 2013. This large number is exerting significant pressure on neighboring countries’ economies and stretching their already limited resources and services. Due to these pressures, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan either have closed their borders or limited daily refugee inflows.

Obama halts delivery of F-16s to Egypt amid unrest – Reuters

Thoughtful Observations

A good writer with interesting reflections on the Syria conflict is posting a blog called Notes on Error. Here are some excerpts from a few posts:

On sectarianism in the conflict: Scenes from the religious war, iii

It is an understandable though melancholy truth that in the tragedy of armed conflict, the narrative that seeks to explain events often lags behind the details that determine events. Policy and psychology work together to delay such inferences as seem, in retrospect, to have been unmissable – as anyone who has paid attention to the long eclipse of Syria will know.

… With the torrent of terrible news pouring out of Iraq, we who are watching from afar must now brace ourselves for another round of narrative delay, which seeks to conceal a fearsome fact: Iraq has been definitively captured and thrown into the Syrian maelstrom. Iraq is now also in a state of civil war.

Martin Kobler, the United Nations envoy to Iraq has proclaimed that that the conflicts in Syria and Iraq (and, sotto vocce, Lebanon) are merging into a single engagement.

From Mr. Kobler’s report to the Security Council, from July 16:

I am deeply concerned by the recent events in Iraq. I regret to report that the last four months have been amongst Iraq’s bloodiest in the last five years. Nearly three-thousand men, women, and children have been killed and over seven thousand more injured. The perpetrators of this violence are taking advantage of two leading factors of instability in the country. These include the ongoing political stalemate and the Syrian crisis.

Narrative – that is, policy – will take some time in catching up with these words, and in the days and weeks ahead there will be much to say about this new war. We may content ourselves at the outset with an unnerving observation: Iraq is the fault-line for the Sunni-Shia divide. It has been since Islam’s first civil war in 656, and remains so to this day.

In other words: the war of religion in the Middle East is metastasizing at a rate that should shock the composure of anyone who makes it their business to pay attention to such things. …

The Iraqi plunge:

… Beginning in the “local” context: yesterday, The Islamic State of Al-Qaida of Iraq and the Levant staged spectacular, coordinated attacks on two prisons in Baghdad. It would be difficult to overstate the intricate boldness of these attacks, which were the most advanced operations of Islamic terror in the region since the withdrawal of American troops two years ago and demonstrate the enhanced capabilities from the recent merger – uncertain as all the details may be – of the Al-Qaida franchises in Iraq and Syria.

The attacks began with a series of suicide car bombs that were driven into the outer walls of the prisons, followed by waves of suicide attackers wearing explosive vests who ran through the breaches to destroy the inner fortifications. Individual infiltrations followed hard upon and all the while the facilities were bombarded by rocket fire. It was only after the application of air power from the security forces that the attacks were broken, and by that time 500 Al-Qaida prisoners had been liberated.

It is unwise to take seriously Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s claim that the Shi’ite militia of Moqtada al-Sadr was involved (he’s picking his own bones here), but it seems likely that the escapes were husbanded by elements from within the prisons. The central government’s grip on the security situation is tenuous, and requires comment, but Maliki’s vain evasions only aggravate his crisis of credibility.

In any case, this operation, and the consolidation of Sunni extremism between Iraq and Syria that it denotes, is bad news of the first order. But, working in parallel, a hardening within the Shia camp is deepening the overall sensation of impending calamity.

… A struggle is underway between the two intellectual centers of Shia political power: Najaf, in Iraq, and Qom, in Iran. It may be simply said (too simply, really) that the character of this difference has to do with the tensions between Arab and Persian Shi’ism. The former, which has strained itself to interpret events in Syria as a political struggle, and which maintains a certain theological distance from such matters, has urged Iraqi Shias to spurn the fight there and not fan the sectarian flames. It is in no small part through efforts of the clerics in Najaf, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, that Iraq has remained, for so long, out of the Syrian war.

In Qom, the situation is different. The Islamic Republic of Iran, whose influence in Iraq has steadily increased since the American occupation and the election of a Shia government there, has been issuing quite contrary edicts. Their version of Shi’ism merges the political and theological spheres and, through the counsels of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the faithful are enjoined to travel to Syria and fight against what they regard as a Sunni insurgency.

In other words, as over the past months we have witnessed the Sunni legions consolidate on one side of the sectarian divide, we are now seeing Shia extremism beginning to clarify on the other. Mesopotamia is where these two forces have historically met, and it seems, more so with each passing day, that the two wings of Shia Islam are preparing a critical conclave in the same location.

The struggle has only begun to bloom, but as with so many other prolonged factors in this war, the center of gravity slides to the extremes, and we must wonder whether the dramatic Sunni attacks of yesterday will further decide the contest in favor of the intervening Shi’ism of Qom, and against the more measured Shi’ism of Najaf.

On the further-reaching consequences that the war will necessarily have for the human community, and regarding the prospect of action in response to it: Homs and Shame:

… The time when we might have intervened just in Syria and helped move things in a salutary direction has passed. What was once a national uprising is now a regional sectarian war, and I’m not sure how one intervenes in that. We’re in uncharted territory, but that is partly, in my view, a consequence of not having engaged earlier.

That the problem has become really complicated does not arrest any of the consequences, one of which is as follows: the eastern third of Syria and the western third of Iraq are now a single entity where the only functioning power is Al-Qaida. In other words, a sort of radical Islamic quasi-state is being born, which is the common enemy of humanity. (Even Assad views this development as an existential crisis.)

Your framing of the essential choice is, I think, correct. We either do nothing and watch the horror, or we intervene and make everything, so to say, bigger (if not quite worse). Intervention would mean escalation, but that’s just the way it is.

It is, despite the esoteric religious elements, a geopolitical event, as Russia, and our allies like Turkey and Jordan, know all too well. As for “winning”, I don’t know what that would look like, but I know two necessary components: Assad and Al-Qaida must be destroyed.

One of the articles referenced in the above blog posts is quite interesting: Syrian conflict increases Shi’ite divisions – Asharq al-Awsat

Senior Shi’ite ayatollahs in Qom, Iran, have issued edicts urging their followers to join the fighting in Syria, while many Iraqi clerics based in Najaf remain opposed to involvement in the fighting.

Shi’ite militia commanders responsible for recruiting fighters in Iraq said the number of volunteers has increased considerably since the issuance of these edicts, despite divisions within the clergy.

While the Iranian government and some Qom-based ayatollahs are enthusiastic about supporting Assad, Shi’ite authorities in Najaf, led by Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, have objected to Shi’ite volunteers going to Syria to fight in a war which they see as political, not sectarian.

Despite Sistani’s position, however, some Shi’ite parties and militias in Iraq, which are loyal to the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have sent their members to fight in Syria. …

Sayyeda Zeinab gets bombed: Shells hit major Shiite shrine near Damascus

Mortar shells struck near a major Shiite shrine outside Damascus on Friday, killing its caretaker in an attack that threatens to further escalate sectarian tensions in Syria’s civil war, the government and activists said.

State-run news agency SANA said shells fired be rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad landed “in the vicinity” of the revered Sayida Zeinab shrine, killing Anas Roumani, the shrine’s administrative director. Several people were wounded in the explosion, SANA said.

… In Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has called it “a duty” to protect the shrine, saying that if Syrian rebels destroyed it, that would ignite a sectarian war with no end

Opinion from NYT: End the conflict by engaging with Iran: To Oust Assad, Pressure Hezbollah – by JONATHAN STEVENSON

SYRIA has put President Obama’s enlightened realism in international affairs to its stiffest test. Direct military intervention could immerse the United States in yet another open-ended Middle East war. Doing nothing would mean failing to live up to America’s humanitarian obligations and harming America’s regional interests.

But the main impediment to a political deal remains President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal intransigence. And there is something America could do to pressure him. The most powerful inducement for Mr. Assad to reach an acceptable compromise would be a loss of support from Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based, Iranian-financed Shiite militant group. In Lebanon, popular anger over Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria is rising, and the United States must exploit this opportunity, even if it means negotiating directly with Iran to rein in its Lebanese proxy.

… The way to Hezbollah’s heart is through Iran. The Obama administration should bite the admittedly hard bullet and start cultivating Iran as a participant in negotiations for a peace deal in Syria. Iran’s newly elected moderate president, Hassan Rowhani, wants better relations with pro-rebel Saudi Arabia. And despite Iran’s insistence that its Syria policy hasn’t changed, Mr. Rowhani is likely to be less obstructionist than his predecessors and could open up space for genuine compromise. America should also be receptive to power-sharing scenarios that preserve a role for Mr. Assad’s fellow Alawites in a new Syrian government.

Washington should also incentivize reluctant anti-Assad forces, whose disunity has lately strengthened Mr. Assad, by indicating that America is prepared to increase arms shipments to moderate rebels in Syria only if they are willing to consolidate and negotiate. Tough diplomacy along these lines could also increase the internal leverage of Iranian officials with doubts about Mr. Assad’s viability while softening Iranian hard-liners.

Some Israelis have argued that the Syrian civil war usefully bogs down both the Assad regime and Hezbollah and bleeds Iran. Though superficially appealing, this rosy view is trumped by the prospect that cross-border violence could destabilize Lebanon, Jordan and even Turkey. Such a spillover could also cause the current Iranian-Saudi proxy war over Syria to escalate into a more direct and dangerous confrontation that might ultimately discourage Iran from making the nuclear compromises that the United States so badly wants. …

Syrian Sunnis fear Assad regime wants to ‘ethnically cleanse’ Alawite heartland – Guardian

… Homs, long a place where a Sunni majority lived in co-existence co-existed with minority Christian and Alawite communities, has now been a city of cantonments for almost 18 months: Alawite areas are surrounded by security walls that are off-limits to opposition areas. The countryside to the north and east, where Sunni and Alawite communities live nearby each other, has been volatile for much of the past year, with massacres documented in Sunni communities in Houla, Banias and Hoswaie.

The apparent cleansing is not all one way though. North of Latakia, Alawites have been chased out of their villages near the Turkish border by opposition groups, which in that area are dominated by jihadists. …

Containing the Fire in Syria  – Ryan Crocker

The awful conflict in Syria grinds on, with more than 100,000 dead and no end in sight. The calls to “do something” – anything – become louder: arm the rebels, enforce a no-fly zone, send in the Marines. Before the United States acts, Americans should reflect on the realities in Syria in a historical context. Here are some relevant dates and events.

Syria, February 1982: The Assad regime corners the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, the country’s fourth largest city. For the minority Alawite government, an offshoot of Shia Islam, the fundamentalist Sunni Brothers are an existential threat. Assad rings the city with armor and artillery, and methodically destroys its center. The Brotherhood is largely eliminated, along with more than 10,000 Sunni civilians. The regime knew that the day of revenge might come and spent years developing the security, intelligence and military apparatus to deal with it. …

… So this current fight didn’t start in the southern Syrian city of Dara’a in 2011. Nor is it part of the so-called Arab Spring. It began decades before. Lebanese, Palestinians, Iranians, Jordanians, Iraqis and Syrians – Sunnis, Alawis, Christians and Druze – all remember. Americans may not have ever really understood it in the first place. The history helps explain the ferocity of the fight on the part of both the regime and its opponents, and it illustrates why this regime is not like those in Egypt, Tunisia or Libya. It was ready for this war.

… The opposition, in contrast, lacks cohesion and organization. As is often the case in these conflicts, the most radical elements demonstrate the greatest discipline such as Al Qaeda in Syria – Jabhat al-Nusra. It is what makes arming the opposition such a dangerous and uncertain proposition.

… Much has been said about a political settlement. The conditions are simply not present. Neither the opposition nor the regime is ready to deal seriously with each other, and the opposition is too divided in any event to develop a coherent position. Nor will a meeting between regime representatives and opposition elements in exile produce meaningful outcome, even if it could be convened. The influence of the exiles on those actually doing the fighting is approximately zero.

… I was in Lebanon recently, where the outgoing prime minister gloomily predicted a renewed civil war of which there are already signs with clashes between Sunnis and Alawites in the northern city of Tripoli, in the northeast and attacks on Hezbollah-controlled areas in Beirut. If the violence spreads, the Palestinians will join forces with the Lebanese Sunnis against the Shia, and that in turn will radicalize Palestinians in Jordan’s already fragile monarchy. Both countries need our security and economic support, for the refugee influx and their security forces.

This will be a long war. There is little the United States can do to positively influence events in Syria. Our focus must be on preventing further spillover beyond its borders. There may come a point where exhaustion on both sides makes a political solution possible. We are nowhere near that point. And my fear is that at the end of the day, the Assad regime prevails. We must be ready for that too.

Musa is a Research Fellow with the Southwest Initiative for the Study of Middle East Conflicts (SISMEC) and an analyst with www.SyriaReport.net. He has a MA in philosophy from the University of Arizona.

Musa al-Gharbi: Al-Qaeda’s renaissance – Your Middle East

Far from being rendered irrelevant by the Arab Spring, the organization seems to be on the verge of a major and enduring resurgence

Following the military coup which removed Hosni Mubarak, it was widely reported that al-Qaeda was rendered obsolete by the Arab Spring. Fareed Zakaria, for instance, pronounced:

“The Arab Revolts of 2011 represent a total repudiation of al Qaeda’s founding ideology. For 20 years, al Qaeda has said that the regimes of the Arab World are nasty dictatorships and that the only way to overthrow them is to support al Qaeda and its terrorism. And then, in a few weeks, the people of the Arab World have overturned two despotic governments by means of non-violent demonstrations and they have begun a process of reform and revolution that will alter the basic bargain between the ruler and ruled in the Middle East…”

This sentiment was only amplified in light of the U.S. assassinations of al-Qaeda’s senior leadership: Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Abu Yaya al-Libi and Said al-Shehri (among others)—personality strikes which continue to this very day despite the growing evidence of blowback.

… Although there were certainly methodological and ideological disparities, the aspirations of al-Qaeda and the Arab Spring protesters were superficially commensurate: al-Qaeda had long been working against Hosni Mubarak, Ben Ali, Bashar al-Asad, and Gaddafi—just as they had previously fought Saddam Hussein. They unambiguously embraced each of these revolutions, and even called for further uprisings in authoritarian states like Saudi Arabia. However, so long as the protests remained peaceful, al-Qaeda was, in a sense, sidelined. Ironically, the Western interventions/escalations in Libya and Syria gave them an “in” and subsequently al-Qaeda has played a decisive and growing role in those theaters.

Contrary to Western assumptions (fueled by media disinformation), the Libyans did not rise up in great numbers to overthrow Gaddhafi, and there were few military and government defections. Accordingly, the colonel continued to advance on Benghazi despite the NATO-imposed no-fly zone. Foreign fighters from AQIM rushed in to compensate for the lack of indigenous resistance—but even then the local population refused to provide the rebels with provisions or support, forcing NATO allies to overstep their mandate in UNSCR 1973 (just as they did in UNSCR 1441), likely in violation of international law.

The al-Qaeda flag flew next to the rebel flag in the opposition capital of Benghazi, while an al-Qaeda detainee released from Guantanamo Bay became one of the more prolific leaders of the rebellion. To this day, al-Qaeda and its affiliates maintain a strong presence in Libya, largely thanks to the lawlessness which continues to prevail over much of the country, and due to the gratitude of the local population.

Ultimately, these groups would deploy the very resources which NATO provided, and the autonomy afforded them in the absence of Gaddhafi, in order carry out an attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, resulting in the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens. AQIM subsequently took advantage of their base in Libya to plan and execute a successful conquest of northern Mali, prompting a French intervention of unspecified length in their former colony. This, in turn, led to an AQIM response attack in Algeria which killed scores of foreign nationals from around the world.

In Libya, al-Qaeda and its affiliates were among the primary beneficiaries of U.S. and allied arms, funding, training, and supplies. We know this, in part, because they have subsequently deployed these assets throughout the Maghreb, but they have also been relied upon in Syria—just as the weapons provided to the rebels in Syria were used in a failed al-Qaeda attack in Jordan; and yet the Obama Administration has decided to openly endorse arming the rebels (under the false-pretext of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government), despite the overwhelming evidence that most of these weapons have ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda affiliated groups.

Al-Qaeda was quick to endorse the Syrian “uprising;” they began by bombing targets in Damascus and quickly stepped up their involvement from there. The late Abu Yaya al-Libi called for a “violent jihad” in Syria without compromise or “illusions of peacefulness” until President al-Asad is overthrown. The al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front was primarily responsible for the rebel gains in Aleppo, which marked a turning point in the rebellion—they have since become the most effective and influential fighting force in the Syrian theater. Even rebel forces which are not directly affiliated with al-Nusra or the ISI are increasingly adopting al-Qaeda tactics (guerilla warfare, suicide bombings, IED’s, etc.) in order to combat the superior firepower of the Syrian government. …

… It would be hard to imagine a better scenario for al-Qaeda and their ideology: secular tyrannies have been falling throughout the Middle East—replaced by Sunni Islamist-dominated governments with solid ties to minority-blocks of conservative/radical parties, such as the Salafists. And as formerly antagonistic forces are being overthrown, al-Qaeda has been able to exploit the regional instability to set up new bases of operation. The organization is increasing its presence in the Sinai Peninsula, continues to control large swaths of Yemen and Somalia, and enjoys substantial support in Pakistan. …

The Wealth of Syria: Looting and Scandals

The following Bloomberg article cites a report from the website Trafficking Culture (“Researching the global traffic in looted cultural objects”) that provides the following before-and-after satellite images of the ancient city of Apamea, an archeological site in Syria serving as an example of the tremendous looting that has taken place. In the second picture, thousands of holes are visible where looters have dug into soil that archeologists have not yet explored:

Apamea before: via Trafficking Culture, via Dr. Ignacio Arce, via Google Earth

Apamea after: via Trafficking Culture, via Dr. Ignacio Arce, via Google Earth

Syrian Looters in Bulldozers Seek Treasure Amid Chaos – Bloomberg

When the uprising against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad began two years ago, satellite images showed the ruins of the ancient Hellenic city of Apamea surrounded by green farmland. A year later, photos reveal a moonscape blighted by hundreds upon hundreds of holes.

Looters in bulldozers armed with automatic weapons are exploiting the mayhem of Syria’s civil war to seize sites including Apamea, founded in 300 B.C. by one of Alexander the Great’s generals, where colonnaded streets stretch for almost 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) along a hilltop.

“It’s tragic, objects from archaeological sites risk being lost without us ever knowing they existed,” said Jonathan Tubb, keeper of the Middle East department at the British Museum. “It can be callous to talk about this in the face of appalling human loss, but Syria’s cultural heritage is of such great importance to our understanding of human history that it’s only right we’re concerned.”

There are more endangered heritage sites in Syria than anywhere else in the world, the United Nations, Educational, Scientifid and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, said this year. The country has more than 10,000 archaeological sites left by the Greeks, Romans, Ottomans and other civilizations.

“We feel bitter and sad — many sites have been destroyed before our eyes,” Mamoun Abdul-Karim, head of Syria’s Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums, said in an interview from Damascus. “Clandestine excavations are most dangerous because they mean eternal death, while sites damaged by fighting can be restored.”

Baghdad Looting

Abdul-Karim said his department stored artifacts in safe places to prevent a repeat of the pillaging that emptied the National Museum of Iraq of its Mesopotamian relics after the March 2003 war that toppled Saddam Hussein. He said that while antiquities officials have started local initiatives that include watch groups of tribal elders and civilians to protect sites, they’ve been confronted by gangs of heavily armed men and earth-moving equipment.

“Preventing the smuggling of antiquities and clandestine excavations is the responsibility of every Syrian,” he said. “Even if we have political disagreements, let’s not disagree over the country’s heritage.” …

While looters dismember Syria’s treasures from within, the black gold under Syrian soil is eyed from without: West’s main aid group for Syrian rebels collapses into disarray – Telegraph

The group had been considered a potential game-changer whose money-raising abilities would equip the rebels with much-needed modern weapons.

But instead of using a unique US licence to funnel funds to the opposition, the group has spent months pursuing a fruitless dash to make millions of dollars from Syrian oil.

One former staff member has alleged that the leadership had become “obsessed” with landing a jackpot oil deal and lost sight of its core mission to back the rebels.

Opposition and Oppositions

Britain randomly decides people shouldn’t play with Nusra: UK Bans Syria’s Al-Qaida-Linked Nusra Front

… The government said Friday that it considered the Nusra Front and Jabhat al-Nusra nothing more than alternative names for al-Qaida, which has long been outlawed. The ban takes effect immediately. …

And just when it’s getting more attractive: Comics Series on Western Muslim Volunteering for Nusra

Syria’s Nusra Front tries to show it’s a different kind of al Qaida – McClatchy

Two al Qaida-linked rebel groups in Syria appear to be distancing themselves from each other in what may be an effort by the Nusra Front, which the United States has branded as an international terrorist organization, to remain relevant amid signs that major portions of the Syrian population are chafing under harsh rule by conservative religious fighters.

A series of incidents in which residents and fighters in rebel-held areas have protested what they say is a heavy-handed approach to a raft of issues have put Nusra and the other group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, on the political defensive even as the umbrella group of rebels that the West recognizes, the Free Syrian Army, comes under pressure by the United States to reduce the groups’ influence.

“The jihadists are rightly worried that the U.S. will demand action against jihadists as a vetting bottom line. They talk a lot about the FSA being recruited by the CIA to fight them,” said Joshua Landis, an associate professor at University of Oklahoma who’s an expert on Syria.

When the Obama administration agreed last month to supply weaponry to the Free Syrian Army’s Supreme Military Council, it quickly became clear that ensuring that those weapons didn’t go to Nusra or the Islamic State was a major condition of the aid, which nevertheless has been slow to materialize. Adding to the tensions has been the killing by an Islamic State member of a commander from a pro-Free Syrian Army unit in the mountains along the Syrian coast, allegedly in a dispute over a checkpoint.

In an effort to tamp down the perception that the Free Syrian Army was powerless over these al Qaida-linked groups, a commander in the area said the Free Syrian Army had demanded an arrest. The Islamic State’s response was to order the arrest and trial of the suspected shooter.

That hasn’t yet happened. “There has been no reaction from his group,” said Tasmim al Laathiqiyah, a member of the Khalwah Bin al Azwar Battalion, a rebel unit affiliated with the Free Syrian Army.

In another incident, disgruntled civilians in the northern city of Aleppo demonstrated over the weekend to protest Islamic State checkpoints that prohibited them from visiting government-controlled portions of the city.

The issue for Nusra is to not become the target of that bitterness. Nusra was created by veterans of al Qaida in Iraq, the jihadi organization that gained fame during the U.S. occupation of Iraq by opposing the American presence and later battling that country’s Shiite Muslim majority in a bitter sectarian war.

Nusra’s approach in Syria – many of its members are Syrians who fought against the American presence in Iraq – has been shaped by what happened to al Qaida in Iraq, whose harsh policies eventually turned Sunni Muslim tribal leaders against it. Once the tribal leaders rebelled, they joined with the United States to push the group out of Iraq’s largest province, Anbar.

While the United States has said Nusra and al Qaida in Iraq are indistinguishable from each other – the U.S. designation of Nusra as a terrorist organization declared it to be simply an alias for al Qaida in Iraq – some analysts say Nusra has adopted more palatable policies, even as its leader, Abu Mohamed al Jawlani, has pledged allegiance to al Qaida and its leader, Ayman al Zawahiri. …

Foreign Fighters Flocking to Syria Stirs Terror Concerns – Bloomberg

The U.S. and European Union are seeing an increasing number of radicalized young Muslims going to Syria to fight, a development that raises the danger that they will return to conduct terrorist attacks at home.

The war is providing both a rallying point and a training ground for radical Islamists from other nations, according to Matthew Olsen, director of the U.S. government’s National Counterterrorism Center. Their numbers are increasing and the radicals, such as those joining the al-Nusra Front, an offshoot of the terrorist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, are now “the most capable fighting force within the opposition” to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, he said.

“Syria has become really the predominant jihadist battlefield in the world,” Olsen said at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado. “We see foreign fighters going from Western Europe and, in a small number of cases, from the United States to Syria to fight for the opposition.” …

An interesting example of foreign fighters in Syria is this video about a British woman and convert to Islam who went to Syria and married a Swedish jihadi with whom she’s now starting a family:

Lots of alleged details of Ahmad Jarba’s background: The Syrian National Coalition’s Saudi Makeover  – al-Akbar

(Photo: AFP – JM Lopez)

Over the past few days, the Baath Party and the opposition Syrian National Coalition have both elected new leaders, although the timing appears to be a coincidence. If anything, the scope of the reshuffle indicates that both parties, for their own reasons, have come to acknowledge that their respective models were no longer working, and required a fundamental adjustment in their policies and top brass.

Interestingly, this process has produced two main losers: namely, the Muslim Brotherhood-led wing in the National Coalition and the “old guard” of the Baath. These two groups have been the historical poles of the conflict in Syria over the past decade; therefore, the fact that they have been cast aside almost simultaneously has left many wondering whether this comes in advance preparation for a dialogue between the new Baath gutted of its old guard, and the National Coalition ridded of the Brotherhood.

An official Syrian source closely involved with the Syrian “crisis cell” led from the presidential palace, provides further background to these developments. He believes that the change in leadership of the Baath Party took place as part of a new comprehensive vision for its organization and role. As for the change at the top of the National Coalition, the source reckons it is the result of having to adapt to the ouster of the Brotherhood-led regime in Egypt, as well as a shift in the opposition’s “spiritual leadership” from Doha to Riyadh. …

Ahmad al-Jarba: Personal History

The source maintains that Ahmad al-Jarba’s trek to the highest post in the Coalition was planned from A to Z in the corridors of Saudi intelligence. The man, the source said, has a big rap sheet kept by Qatari, Saudi, and Syrian security services, for acts involving all three countries, and in the past, the three intelligence agencies had even coordinated operations in his pursuit.

The Syrian source provided particulars involving Jarba that were mentioned in official Syrian security records, as a fugitive wanted for criminal offenses, including fraud, corruption, and even assassination plots that were not carried out. According to the source, records show that Riyadh handed over “the suspect Ahmad al-Jarba” to Damascus in 2008, on charges of drug trafficking, in accordance with an extradition agreement between Saudi and Syrian security services (which was suspended at the beginning of the Syrian crisis). Jarba was tried and sentenced to a prison term at the time.

The records also reveal another entry involving Jarba, which the Qatari security services undoubtedly also have in their records, as the source said: After the coup staged by the outgoing Emir of Qatar Hamad against his father Khalifa al-Thani, the latter’s foreign minister fled to Syria, where he became a vocal supporter for restoring the previous emir. At the time, according to the records, Emir Hamad’s people asked Ahmad al-Jarba to assassinate the exiled Qatari foreign minister in Syria. Al-Jarba even received payment after accepting to carry out the mission, the source claimed.

However, Jarba chose instead to expose the plot to the deposed Emir Khalifa, for which he also received a financial reward. The issue proved to have huge political consequences, prompting the Syrian state security agency to investigate and ultimately detain Jarba for a total of five months on counts of fraud.

According to another entry in the Syrian security records, Jarba approached the Libyan ambassador in Damascus shortly after Muammar Gaddafi declared himself Africa’s “king of kings,” and persuaded the ambassador to use Jarba’s help in sending Syrian tribal delegations to Libya to pledge allegiance to Gaddafi. Jarba had introduced himself to the Libyan leadership as the chief of the Shammar tribe of the Jazirah region in Syria (Upper Mesopotamia).

In 2004, he was looking for ways to gain access to the late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, as one of the elders of the Shammar clan, which has branches from Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, all the way to Saudi Arabia. Before Jarba dropped off the grid in Syria, he was being pursued by the Syrian authorities for running brothels in Damascus and Hasakah.

The Secret Decisions of the Doha Meeting

Recently, Saudi intelligence, under Bandar’s direct supervision, began touting Jarba as the chief of the Syrian branch of the Shammar tribe, presenting him inside the Coalition as their pointman for arms purchases. It is likely that Bandar bargained with several blocks in the Coalition over instating Jarba as the president of the opposition group in return for delivering game-changing weapons.

The information available to the Syrian security services indicates that Jarba’s appointment came following pressure from Saudi Arabia during the most recent meeting held by the countries backing the Syrian opposition in Doha. Secret agreements were reached, including one between Paris and Riyadh over the purchase and delivery of advanced weapons for the benefit of the opposition. …

During the meeting in Doha, Saudi intelligence endeavored to polish Jarba’s image among the countries backing the Syrian opposition, presenting him as the chief of the Shammar tribe, and claiming that the groups under his command control the Yaarabia border crossing with Iraq. However, the tribe in Syria is actually led by two elders, Shammar Hamidi Dahham al-Hadi, who has close ties with the President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Massoud Barzani, and Uday al-Meez al-Madloul.

Concerning the claim that Jarba controls groups in Hasakah and Qamishli, it is common knowledge in Upper Mesopotamia that the man has been banished by not only his tribe, but even his close family. His father had distanced himself from his son ever since he was exposed for running brothels, even though Jarba tried at the time to claim that he was only running a company to help young men and women marry. Meanwhile, his brother Zaid is a regime supporter, while his older brother Nawwaf has shunned politics altogether.

The Ever-Shifting Sponsorship of the Coalition

Since its inception, the National Coalition has been moving from the embraces of one regional sponsor to another, according to the Syrian source. Whenever it settles for a new sponsor, the source said, the Coalition elects a new leader named by the current sponsor. …

… This process continues with the appointment of Bandar’s man, Ahmad al-Jarba, as president of the Syrian National Coalition.

A Wake Up Call for the Syrian Brotherhood – Sami Moubayed

When Ahmad Mouaz al-Khatib was elected president of the Syrian National Alliance in late 2012, red flags were raised at the offices of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. The Brothers feared ideological competition from someone who like them, was preaching Sunni Islam. Their niche, after all, was the conservative Sunni Muslim street of Syria, which they supposedly represented and sought to monopolize.

Here was Khatib, a scholar and former preacher at the prestigious Umayyad Mosque, seemingly being parachuted into the job, right from the heart of Damascus. Although politically inexperienced, he came across as selfless, unblemished, and sincere. He came from the midst of domestic suffering within Syria, whereas the Brotherhood operated from exile. Most of its active cadres were second-generation members born and raised outside of Syria. Simply by being himself, Khatib threatened to make them irrelevant, exposing the Brothers as power-hungry politicians blinded by their thundering success in Egypt. Unlike the Brotherhood, Khatib had no ambition of becoming president of Syria. If the pro-regime street motto had been: “It’s either Assad, or we burn the country” the Brotherhood’s unspoken drive seemed also to be, “It’s either us, or we burn the country!” Clearly in Egypt, now ejected from office with little respect or ceremony, they have decided to “burn the country!”

In Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood’s real powerbase today lies strictly in the Idlib countryside, specifically Jabal al-Zawiya, where they still command a sizable community of loyalists. Their influence in the conservative city of Hama, the city to suffer most from their 1982 adventure, had long vanished. Hama today is no longer a “Brotherhood stronghold.” The secular opposition leader Fidaa Hourani, who treated the wounded at her field hospital in early 2011, was more popular in Hama than the entire Brotherhood leadership combined. She was a secular, and not only that, the daughter of Akram al-Hourani, the father of socialism in modern Syria, who had combated the Brotherhood during the golden years of Syrian democracy, back in the ’50s.

Hama notables grumbled when recalling how while their sons were being led to the gallows in 1982, Brotherhood leaders had packed their bags and left to safe exile, leaving the city to sort out its own mess. They blamed the Brotherhood for dragging Syria into an ill-planned confrontation, which led to the killing of anywhere between 15,000-30,000 civilians, without calculating what the regime’s response would be. The Brotherhood knew that popular sentiment in Hama, although anti-regime, was nevertheless not pro-Brotherhood in 2011-2012. They also realized that if the Syrians went to the polls, unlike Egypt, the Brotherhood would never win a landslide victory. …

… The Muslim Brotherhood is now fighting a battle on several fronts: with Egyptian officers in Cairo, with Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, with Mohammad Abbas in Palestine, and with Saudi Arabia in the Arab and Muslim World. This is more than they can chew. If they don’t try to extinguish fires, they will collapse. Both the Egyptian and Syrian Brothers have to put down their guns, sink into self-reflection, study their mistakes, and eventually re-invent themselves after the Egyptian fiasco.

Strategic Intelligence Assessment for Syria (2) – State of Play Part I – Pro-Assad Groups and Moderate Opposition Forces  – Red (team) Analysis – Helene Lavoix

Keeping in mind the complex and fluid character of the situation in Syria we addressed last week, this post and the next will present the current state of play and the various categories of actors fighting in and over Syria, namely the pro-Assad groups, the moderate opposition forces and the Muslim Brotherhood “related” groups, the Islamist groups fighting for an Islamist state in Syria, the groups linked to a global Jihadi Front, and, finally, the Kurds in Syria, without forgetting the external actors. Scenarios for the future will follow from this assessment. The scenarios will then evolve, notably in terms of likelihood, from changes on the battleground and in interactions between all actors. …

Money, guns flowing from Kuwait to Syria’s most radical rebel factions

Syrian rebels have a new source of weapons and cash from inside Kuwait, and their benefactors in the oil-rich state are sending the aid to the most militant and anti-West factions involved in the fight to topple Bashar al-Assad.

The role of Saudi and Qatari governments and individuals in the funding and arming of Islamist fighters in Syria has been well known since the civil war began more than two years ago. But now, guns and money are flowing from private sources and Salafist-controlled NGOs based in Kuwait, and they are going to rebel factions aligned with Al Qaeda.

“We are collecting money to buy all these weapons, so that our brothers will be victorious,” hard-core Sunni Islamist Sheikh Shafi’ Al-Ajami announced on Kuwaiti television last month, listing the black-market prices of weapons, including heat-seeking missiles, anti-aircraft guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Days later, Al-Ajami addressed a small throng outside the Lebanese Embassy in Kuwait and gleefully described slitting the throat of a Shiite Muslim in Syria.

“We slaughtered him with knives,” Al-Ajami said to shouts of “God is Great.”

Syria’s al-Nusra Front – ruthless, organised and taking control – Guardian

Photograph: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad for the Guardian

The al-Qaida-affiliated commander in charge of the oil company in Shadadi, eastern Syria – a lean, broad-shouldered man who is followed everywhere by a machete-wielding bodyguard – was explaining the appeal of jihadi rule to the people of the newly captured town.

“Go and ask the people in the streets whether there a liberated town or city anywhere in Syria that is ruled as efficiently as this one,” he boasted. “There is electricity, water and bread and security. Inshallah, this will be the nucleus of a new Syrian Islamic caliphate!”

The al-Nusra Front, the principle jihadi rebel group in Syria, defies the cliche of Islamist fighters around the Middle East plotting to establish Islamic caliphates from impoverished mountain hideaways. In north-eastern Syria, al-Nusra finds itself in command of massive silos of wheat, factories, oil and gas fields, fleets of looted government cars and a huge weapons arsenal.

The commander talked about the services al-Nusra is providing to Shadadi’s residents. First, there is food: 225 sacks of wheat, baked into bread and delivered to the people every day through special teams in each neighbourhood. Then there is free electricity and water, which run all day throughout the town. There is also al-Nusra healthcare, provided from a small clinic that treats all comers, regardless of whether they have sworn allegiance to the emirate or not. Finally, there is order and the promise of swift justice, delivered according to sharia law by a handful of newly appointed judges.

“God has chosen us to provide security to the people, and we do it for nothing,” he said. “We have vowed to sacrifice ourselves to serve the people. If we leave, the tribes will start killing each other for the oil and the loot. We had to show force in dealing with the tribes. Even now, one to three people are killed every day because of feuding over the oil. We also protect the silos of wheat. All the silos are under our protection.

“All this wealth,” he said, “is for the Muslims.”

The emir of gas

A few miles from Shadadi, travelling through hills dotted with oil pumps that resemble giant, long-legged birds dipping their beaks into the earth, we came to al-Nusra’s most valuable asset in the region, a gas refinery run by a young commander known to his followers simply as the “emir of gas”.

The emir sat on a green mattress on the floor of his office, conspicuously eschewing the computer and desk in favour of the simple way of the Islamist warrior. He was almost skeletally thin, his handsome face framed by long black hair that wrapped lazily around his ears, giving him the air of a mischievous playboy.

When the rebels first captured the refinery, it was run by a joint committee that represented all the battalions in the area. But the emir decided to kick them out, for their “petty theft”.

“The Free Syrian Army [FSA] have no funding so they steal stupid things,” he said contemptuously. “They steal anything.”

The secret to al-Nusra’s power in the east, he said, was organisation: all their captured loot went to a central committee, which he called the “Muslim treasury”. From there, it was directed to the various battle fronts. …

Al-Qaida elements fighting with rebels in Syria constitute the most serious terrorist threat to Britain, and if they were to get their hands on Syria’s chemical weapons the consequences could be catastrophic, according to British spymasters.

Interesting human story with excellent photos: How War in Syria Turned These Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly Weapons Inventors – Matthieu Atkins – WIRED

“These things are for killing people,” he tells me. “Every time I make a bomb, I feel sorrow.”

Miscellaneous

An interesting reminder that this conflict isn’t the first in which scores of foreign fighters have shown up: Australians in Aleppo, 1918

U.N. accepts Syrian offer for chemical arms claims talks – Daily Star

The United Nations has accepted the Syrian government’s invitation for a visit by two senior U.N. officials for talks on the purported use of chemical weapons in the country’s bloody civil war, a U.N. spokesman said Wednesday. …

Massive explosion rocks Homs – NOW

Syrian rebels on Thursday reportedly targeted an ammunition depot in a regime-controlled area of Homs, causing a massive explosion captured in a series of dramatic photos and videos.

The activist Syrian Media Center said that “an ammunition warehouse exploded after being targeted by the Free Syrian Army with Grad Missiles in the Wadi al-Thahab neighborhood [of Homs] which is under the control of the Syrian regime.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 40 people were killed in the blast, adding that the depot was owned by pro-regime militias. …

Syrians confused by TV show that takes middle road, yet has regime-approval: The revolution in Syrian drama – Diana Moukalled

Shelling, massacres and fighting killed more than 2,000 Syrians during the first two weeks of Ramadan. It’s the same tragedy the Syrians have drowned in since the beginning of the uprising.

But Syrian hardship is no longer an event. It’s not even a number or a photo. Syrians now feel that there is a general detachment and less international concern towards their ordeal.

It’s now once again the season of Ramadan, and with popular TV drama series, Arab audiences are kept busy, giving the Syrians yet another reason to be confused.

The dramas have brought back an interest into Syrian reality. What’s happening in Syria has been reflected in a few drama series.

Some of these series are directly financed by the regime and therefore clearly display its side of the story. Some, however, are financed by the private sector, displaying professional production and acting without taking a side in the conflict. This too serves the regime’s interest.

In the TV series “We will return in a while,” there’s no revolution in Syria. The events in the series are a mere background for characters.

Parts of the script acted out by Durid Lahham, who supports the regime, repeatedly describe what’s happening in Syria as a “crisis.” It also includes a lot of sorrow over what’s happening there and nostalgia and longing for the country to be a much better place.

Some coffee shops in Syrian areas under the control of the regime were prevented from airing the series “Wilada Min al-Khasera” (Birth from the Waist) which is considered the most courageous series in reflecting the Syrian reality.
There’s a lot of confusion too that will only be finalized during the last episodes of the series, although its path has begun to appear with every episode.

It’s true that the series tackles security forces’ and intelligence apparatuses’ suppression, torture, detentions and arbitrariness – actions that the Syrians experienced over the past years in the most hideous of manners – but the series has an official permit from the Syrian authorities and most of those who work in the series publicly support the regime.

A picture of the revolution

Therefore, it’s not strange when the series falls within the circle of demonizing the revolution considering that the regime and its mistakes are the best the Syrians can have.

The truth is, discussions on social networking websites reveal confusion and divisions over this year’s Syrian drama which seems to have taken a different approach from that previously adopted.

But which is worse? A realistic drama which the Syrians are living? Or a realistic drama which they escape to in series? …

Fadel Shaker’s rise and fall (or fall and rise, depending on your values) – Once a ‘King of Romance,’ Now an Angry Militant – NYT – Ben Hubbard

His success was a dream come true for this tough port city on the Mediterranean coast: a poor kid whose honeyed voice and ballads of love and heartbreak rocketed him to wealth and fame far from the gun-ridden neighborhood where he grew up.

Fadel Shaker became a superstar, hailed as “the king of romance,” his songs wooing masses throughout the Arab world. He bought a vast, three-story villa with a swimming pool overlooking the city, cars, a private orchard and a beachfront restaurant where he performed at parties.

Then last year, in a move that has baffled fans and friends alike, he renounced popular music as forbidden by Islam, grew a scruffy beard and took up with a hard-line sheik.

Last month during a deadly turf battle with the Lebanese Army in a Sidon suburb, he denounced his enemies as dogs and pigs and boasted that his group had killed two men. …

From Turkey with love: Another Israeli attack on Syria? – RT

… Just when it began becoming apparent that the US and its allies were facing serious regional setbacks in the Middle East and North Africa, reports began circulating about an explosion in Latakia. Unverified reports, originating from anonymous sources in Israel in early July 2013, began claiming that Tel Aviv had launched an attack against the Syrian port of Latakia that caused a massive explosion. As the rumours began to circulate in the media, it was dubiously claimed that the Israeli attacks were launched against shipments of Russian-made S-300 air defence systems that were in the process of being delivered to Syria by the Kremlin. US officials would enter the picture by deliberately leaking more information about what happened in Latakia by claiming that Israel used its air force to bomb the port there to destroy a military depot filled with Russian-made Yakhont land-to-sea anti-ship missiles.

Then, on July 15, RT’s Paula Slier would report from Tel Aviv that Israel had attacked Latakia by using a Turkish military base. This would upset the Turkish government, which would deny it and say anyone making the claims was involved in an “act of betrayal.” In response to the Russian report, Turkish officials would up the ante by claiming that the Russian anti-ship missiles in the Syrian port were destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon and that the US and Israel had coordinated the attacks by holding meetings in Turkey with the anti-government militias operating inside Syria. Uzi Mahnaimi would complicate the matter by reporting through the British press that the Israeli attacks were launched from a German-built Dolphin from the sea, which essentially vindicated Turkey by refuting the claim that a Turkish base was used by the Israelis. …

No less conspiratorial than the RT article, a piece questioning all of RT’s reliability – thanks to a concerned reader for emailing it in: Russia Today: State-Funded Propaganda Masquerading as Alternative Media

Russia Today (RT), considered a member of the alternative media, receives its funding from the Federal Budget of Russia as allocated by the Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation. This means that RT is state-sponsored television and therefore would be slighted to the propaganda machine of globalist agendas as set forth by the Russian government. …

Turkish soldier may face 25 years in jail for leaking ‘Reyhanl? bombing files’ – Hurriyet Daily

Militants Attacked Aleppo Armenians Transferring Bus: Video – ArmenPress

Assad visits troops in Damascus suburb – al-Arabiya

Bahraini rights group visits Syria war victims – Gulf Daily News; Commission produces statement – thanks to readers for sending articles they find important

Economy

Syria Weighs Its Tactics as Pillars of Its Economy Continue to Crumble – NYT

Even as the Syrian government makes some gains against the rebels on the battlefield, it is taking a rout on an equally important front: the economy.

Two years of war have quintupled unemployment, reduced the Syrian currency to one-sixth of its prewar value, cost the public sector $15 billion in losses and damage to public buildings, slashed personal savings, and shrunk the economy 35 percent, according to government and United Nations officials.

The pillars of Syria’s economy have crumbled as the war has destroyed factories, disrupted agriculture, vaporized tourism and slashed oil revenues, with America and Europe imposing sanctions and rebels taking over oil fields.

Increasingly isolated in the face of a growing economic crisis that has reduced foreign currency reserves to about $2 billion to $5 billion from $18 billion, a government that long prided itself on its low national debt and relative self-sufficiency has now been forced to rely on new credit lines from its main remaining allies — Iran, Russia and China — to buy food and fuel.

The government has a $1 billion credit line with Iran, and borrows $500 million a month to import oil products delivered on Russian ships, a government consultant, Mudar Barakat, said in a recent interview in Beirut. Some analysts believe the government will need even more aid from those countries to keep paying government workers and a growing roster of security forces.

Now, some officials hope to push through measures to tighten state control of the economy, rolling back some of the modest economic liberalization and support for private business that President Bashar al-Assad introduced early on, in a departure from his party’s socialist roots.

“We’re thinking of going back to the way it was in the 1980s, when the government was buying the main necessities of daily life,” Mr. Barakat said. “We, as a government, must cover the daily needs of the people, no matter how much the cost is, and keep the prices low.”

Syrians Have Become Obsessed With Dollars – WSJ

Syrians are still bitterly divided politically and battles are raging between government forces and rebels across the country. But one thing appears to be uniting people these days: the dollar-Syrian pound exchange rate.

Almost everyone is obsessed with keeping track of the wild swings in the Syrian pound’s value against the U.S. dollar. The frenzy has swept up  salaried workers, housewives, day laborers and cab drivers. Their general inclination is to convert most of what they have into greenbacks as inflation continues to affect most goods and services. …

One Damascus-based university professor says dollar fever has even gripped his handyman, who recently demanded payment in dollars instead of Syrian pounds for his work. …

On Tuesday the government approved new proposed legislation that would criminalize the use of any foreign currency other than the Syrian pound in commercial and retail transactions. …

Some say the Syrian pound’s recent dramatic devaluation was part of a scheme by the government of President Bashar al-Assad aimed at exchanging its foreign currency funds at favorable rates in order to meet the huge commitments it has in Syrian pounds namely civil servant salaries. …

Here is a photo from a Facebook page of people crowding one of many locations where currency is exchanged:

Thousands of Syrian police who joined the rebels are on U.S. payroll – World Tribune

The United States has been paying thousands of Syrian police officers who deserted the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Officials said the administration of President Barack Obama has approved tens of millions of dollars to pay the salaries of police officers who joined the rebels. They said the officers were working to maintain order in rebel-controlled territory, mostly in northern Syria.

“There are literally thousands of defected police inside of Syria,” Assistant Secretary of State Rick Barton said. “They are credible in their communities because they’ve defected.”

In an address to the Aspen Security Forum on July 19, Barton, responsible for State Department stabilization operations, did not say how many Syrian police deserters were on the U.S. payroll. He said the officers were receiving about $150 per month, a significant salary in Syria.

The address marked a rare disclosure of direct U.S. aid to Sunni rebels in Syria. Congress has approved more than $50 million for the Syrian opposition, much of which has not been spent.

Barton said the police officers remained in their communities despite their defection from the Assad regime. He said the U.S. stipend was meant to ensure that they stay on the job.

“We’d rather have a trained policeman who is trusted by the community than have to bring in a new crowd or bring in an international group that doesn’t know the place,” Barton said.

Other Essential Content, Right…

Liberals, Communists and Assorted Infidels: The Ultimate Guide to Arab Secularists – Karl reMarks

Everyone agrees that secularists are the real force behind the ‘Arab Spring’, yet we know so little about this obscure of group of people that toils in virtual anonymity. Aside from the occasional foray onto the BBC, CNN, The Guardian and international leadership conferences, that is. But who are these people really? To answer that question, we commissioned an authoritative study that will for the first time shed light on Arab secularists, their different political groups, and what their favourite drinks are.

The Liberals

The liberals are the granddaddies of all Arab secularists. They see themselves as the vanguard in the fight against Islamists, and they often say things like: “this is not my true Islam”, despite not having set foot in a mosque for 17 years. They mostly work for the UN, the World Bank, and western think tanks, but this doesn’t fool Arab leftists who know that this is the perfect cover for the western imperialist conspiracy.

Like their western counterparts, Arab liberals are very flexible about their principles these days. After all, dogma isn’t useful to anyone. They show this open-mindedness by making statements like: “is voting really necessary for democracy?” and “should illiterate people have the right to vote?” But somehow this intellectual courage is often mistaken as an expression of Fascist tendencies.

Arab liberals like to describe themselves as ‘entrepreneurs’, both in the intellectual and business sense. They’re really cool like that. But for some reason they don’t like to advertise the fact that they’re working for the family company which has a monopoly on BMW spare parts in the entire Levant.

Major locations: Liberals describe themselves as ‘based between Vienna and Cairo’, by which they mean they go to Egypt for five days a year to visit Auntie Samiha in Zamalek.

Favourite drinks: Whiskey. Or Pepsi if they’re really devout.

The Libertarians

The libertarians are liberals who also like porn. The good porn with pictures and stuff, not the complicated type in serious novels that liberals and leftists like.

The Communists

It used to be said that “when it rains in Moscow, Arab communists open their umbrellas.” But since the demise of the Soviet Union, Arab communists have been wandering around aimlessly, mostly trying to organise the third annual party conference that will bring new blood in. The second conference was organised 47 years ago.

While waiting for the objective conditions to ripen, Arab communists spend their time calling each other ‘comrade’ and talk about workers’ rights in the abstract. Someone promised to introduce them to some workers and they’re very excited about that.

Major locations: London, Paris, and one street in Beirut.

Favourite drink: cheap vodka.

The Revolutionary Socialists

The revolutionary socialists are to communists what Luke Skywalker is to Darth Vader. Or that’s what they like to believe. Revolutionary socialists are so right-on it’s painful. But they get away with it because they rarely venture outside social media, where they can manage their splinter groups and disagreements in a safe, digital environment.

Revolutionary socialists use swearwords like ‘Stalinist’, ‘Fascist’ and the utterly damning ‘neo-liberal’. That is primarily because most Arabic swearwords carry explicit gender bias and are inherently discriminatory.

Major locations: New York, Barcelona, middle-class neighbourhoods in Cairo, Beirut and Amman.

Favourite drinks: Arak, organic ale.

The Anarchists

Anarchists are revolutionary socialists who still live with their parents and can afford to be more radical.

Major locations: The global collective struggle.

Favourite drinks: They’re not old enough to drink.

The Nasserites:

The Nasserites are the true spirit of democracy in the Arab world. To this day they hold the record for the most democratically correct elections in history, the 1965 elections in Egypt, in which 99.9999% of the population figured the correct answer. This feat of true democratic alignment between people and leadership is yet to be matched anywhere in the world.

The Nasserites believe in Arab unity, dignity and the fight against imperialism. All they ask of the people, whose interests they have at heart, is not to make a fuss about minor details like torture, suspension of the rule of law and economic collapse while they are pursuing those lofty objectives.

The Nasserites like their leaders tough, manly and charismatic, and preferably from a military background. It doesn’t literally say with a hairy chest, but you can read between the lines. But their malicious opponents have somehow misinterpreted this is as a sign of misogyny and an attempt to marginalise women from positions of power.

Major locations: The Glorious Arab Ummah. (Not to be confused with the Islamic Ummah, which is usually in jail when Nasserites are in power.)

Favourite drinks: The humble yoghurt peasants drink. And champagne.

The Baathists

Wankers. No, seriously, that’s the scientific definition.

Due to a tragic shortage of crosses, this rebel brigade has expressed a dire plea that more crosses be supplied to the opposition as soon as possible; Qatar and Saudi Arabia have yet to state a firm commitment regarding the needed aid.

MEET ALI KAYALI

The murder of the Syrian regime loyalist Mohammed Darrar Jammo in Lebanon, now said to have been an internal family affair, led to much firing in the air. At Jammo’s funeral in Latakia, there was a heavy presence of militiamen, and militiawomen, who were there to pay their respects to the dead. These fighters belong to a group now known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Iskanderoun/Syrian Resistance, which considered Jammo one of their own. It is led by a certain Mihrac Ural, who works under the nom de guerre of Ali Kayali.

Kayali is a Turkish-born Alawite, and now a naturalized citizen, having lived in Syria since the early 1980s. His background is murky and controversial. He cut his teeth in 1970s Turkey as an ultraleftist, then took up arms against the government and added the cause of Syro-Arab nationalism to his repertoire. From there, he entered the Beqaa Valley-centered underworld of Syrian-backed radical factions, developed a connection to the Kurdish PKK, and also seems to have struck up a lasting relationship with the Assad regime itself. Exiled in Syria since escaping a Turkish prison in 1980, Kayali ran a small splinter faction of his communist sect, the THKP/C-Acilciler, and worked to reattach the Hatay (or Iskanderoun or Alexandretta) province to Syria. This is a longstanding Syrian government demand, and Hafez al-Assad briefly toyed with the Hatay separatists in his cold war with Turkey. But it was a passing fancy, and Kayali himself had been long forgotten by the time Bashar took over and patched up relations with Turkey.

Ali Kayali, doing his Young Stalin impersonation

After the start of Syria’s unrest in 2011, Kayali suddenly reappeared as a force to reckon with. He began recruiting young Alawites on the coast to PFLI/Syrian Resistance, and set them to work as a pro-regime militia. The group has been fighting to keep rebels contained to the Sunni areas of northern Latakia, and even made some forays into the Homs region. While it uses Syrian-nationalist and leftist imagery, Kayali’s group has only made half-hearted attempts at hiding its Alawite character. Kayali himself is often accompanied on official occasions by a rising Alawi religious figure called Mowaffaq al-Ghazal. This spring, Kayali’s militia was rumored to be involved in the Baniyas/Beida massacres, a sectarian slaughter of Sunni civilian families and one of the worst war crimes to date in the Syrian conflict. He has also been accused by his enemies of involvement in narcotics trafficking into Hatay and of organizing bomb attacks in Turkey. But details are scarce, and it’s very difficult to tell fact from fiction.

But, now – here was Kayali at the funeral of Mohammed Darrar Jammo, sheikh Ghazal at his side. The PFLI/Syrian Resistance had in fact organized part of the funeral ceremonies, along with the party, state and army. In pictures from the event, we see Kayali’s militia fighters in full camouflage and battle gear, waving flags and rattling off some obligatory AK47 rounds. Banners and placards glorifying the group and its martyrs were held high. Kayali himself had a seat of honor next to the Christian and Alawite religious dignitaries, with representatives of the army also on the scene. The photographs show Ali Kayali basking in the adulation of his supporters – a loyal fighter for Assad, but now also a political figure in his own right.

Chilling with Abdullah Öcalan

THE SHABBIHA MISNOMER

The Syrian opposition has had a tendency to lump together every pro-Assad organization under the term ”Shabbiha”, just like the Assad regime would want us to believe that all the rebels are ”Wahhabis”.

The ”Shabbiha” term itself comes from old Alawite coastal smuggling gangs, some of them linked to Fawwaz al-Assad. (This great post by Mohammed D. has more on that.) It was originally a local phenomenon, and first entered the national – and international – lexicon when thugs cracked down on the Latakia-Baniyas protests of March 2011. For the local demonstrators that reported the killings, the word ”Shabbiha” had a very specific meaning. But many other reporters and opposition members took the term and ran with it. Soon, it was being applied to pro-Assad vigilantes all across Syria, causing much confusion about how Fawwaz al-Assad and his little gang of street brawlers could be everywhere at the same time.

Opposition gossip about how you can recognize a ”Shabbiha member” by his white sneakers or this or that style of beard, particular cars and so on, not to mention their ?-heavy Alawite coastal accent, have been spread as fact in the media. But in reality, of course, there was no single Shabbiha movement and no single type of Shabbiha character. The people called ”Shabbiha” belonged to lots of different organizations and communities. Syria is a complicated place, and just about every corner of the country has inhabitants who for some reason have seen fit to fight for Assad. Far from all have been Alawites, and most have had nothing whatsoever to do with Fawwaz al-Assad.

For example, a gang of mafiosi from a politically connected Sunni clan played the part of ”Shabbiha” in Aleppo, until its leaders were captured and summarily executed by rebels in July 2012. Something similar went down in Idleb City, where gangs of Sunni regime supporters did Bashar’s dirty work, until the army stepped in. Tribal rivalries played a part in Deir al-Zor, while Arab-Kurdish tension and the ambiguous role of the PKK influenced developments in Hassake. In Quseir, some members of the Kasouha clan – Greek Orthodox – set up checkpoints to stop the opposition. In Homs and many other places, local Alawite thugs were funded by regime-connected businessmen like Rami Makhlouf, to transform their street gangs into well-armed militias. (Aziz Nakkash has written better than anyone else about how sectarian and regional dynamics, and politics and money, helped shape the militia structure in the Homs region.)

The Abul-Fadl al-Abbas Brigade in Damascus

A thousand contradictions, and a million nuances – yet, most of the media swallowed the opposition’s ”Shabbiha” concept hook line and sinker. The USA Department of the Treasury even went as far as sanctioning ”The Shabbiha” as if it were an organized nation-wide group led, of course, by Fawwaz al-Assad. Which probably says more about how the US government is run than it does about the Syrian militias.

Today the “Shabbiha” term is generally used in this new, post-2011 meaning – as a generalized, insulting description of an Assad supporter. That happens to words, and it’s okay. But it’s also important to try to look behind such vocabulary, since it serves a political purpose. On the one hand, it’s been useful for the opposition – but it has also, quite unintentionally, helped the regime conceal the increasing fragmentation of its repressive apparatus.

WHO ARE THE PRO-ASSAD MILITIAS?

It’s news to no one that the opposition movement in Syria is extremely fragmented, but what hasn’t received enough attention is that something similar seems to be happening on the regime side. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, it too has begun to decentralize and drift apart. Assad’s growing reliance on local proxies, paramilitary forces, and foreign militias is the best evidence.

Ali Kayali’s PFLI/Syrian Resistance on the coast is only one example. The most common type of pro-Assad militia has been the Popular Committee, a sort of government-backed neighborhood watch which has mushroomed across the country since spring 2011. When the uprising began, the regime could also draw on a legacy of Baathist paramilitary groups, most of them set up during the intra-party power struggles in the 1960s and to counter the Islamist uprising of the 1980s. The Baath’s paramilitary wing, the Popular Army, is the best known of these groups. But they were far from the only such group – in the early 1980s, even the state-run Peasants’ Union created its own armed wing. Add to this some Palestinian client groups like Ahmed Jibril’s PFLP-GC, Fath al-Intifada and al-Saeqa, other international proxies, and the bodyguards and thugs loyal to individual members of the ruling family. Fawwaz al-Assad’s original Shabbiha gangs on the coast were only the best known. And of course, many Alawite villages and neighborhoods will receive arms one way or the other, whether it is organized or not.

Hilal Hilal, new Baath Party boss

The Baath Party has also reportedly begun putting guns in the hands of its members. Hilal Hilal, who led the Baath’s Aleppo branch, successfully oversaw the creation of a new party militia to counter the rebels there. He claimed to have gathered 5,000 volunter fighters in the newly created Baath Battalions already by November 2012. Hilal has just been named Bashar’s assistant regional secretary; it may not sound very impressive, but it means he’s now responsible for running the day-to-day affairs of the Baath Party. If he received that post as a reward for holding his ground in Aleppo, and for successfully militarizing the local party branch, we can assume the same thing is now going to be repeated elsewhere.

Last but not least, of course, we’re seeing Shia jihadist groups flood into Syria, just like their Sunni counterparts. Chief among them are the Lebanese Hezbollah, which will require no further introduction, and the Iraqi-majority Abul-Fadl al-Abbas Brigade in Sayyeda Zeinab, south Damascus. There are several other, smaller Shia militia formations, many of them connected to Islamists in Iraq, as has been so well documented by Phillip Smyth.

LOSING COHESION, LOSING SOVEREIGNTY

Ali Kayali and two Abul-Fadl al-Abbas commanders in July 2013

These militias have been very useful to Bashar al-Assad and his government, but they also represent a weakening of its centralized structure. There’s already talk of how some pro-Assad gangs have begun to self-finance through smuggling, looting, protection rackets and so on. That makes them able to keep fighting for Assad – but it also makes them less dependent on him. Neighborhood leaders, tribal figures, and militia bosses are all developing power bases of their own, no longer limited to the titular positions granted them by Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian regime is, since 2011, slowly losing the trappings of state sovereignty, even in the areas still held by Assad. Hezbollah is now propping up Baath control in the strategic Quseir area – and it’s an Iranian client, not a Syrian one. The Iraqi Islamists of the Abul-Fadl al-Abbas Brigade help keep the opposition away from the Damascus International Airport. But they do so to protect the Sayyeda Zeinab area from rebel incursions, for their own religious reasons, and to protect the Iraqi Shia who live there – not because they have strong feelings about who should operate Syrian Air. Meanwhile, men like Ali Kayali have taken up arms on behalf of the regime, gathered their own private armies, and are now rising political stars on their home turf. There must be hundreds of similar but smaller militia bosses now, in neighborhoods and villages across Assad-held Syria.

These fighters, some of whom are only indirectly linked to Assad or even to Syria, will eventually emerge as powerbrokers in their own right. Just like Assad felt the need to reward Hilal Hilal and other effective Baathist hardliners, he will have to share resources and power with militia commanders on the fringes of the state.

If Assad were to win the war and reconquer Syria – but I can’t fathom how – he could probably bring his many militias back in line without major problems. But he isn’t winning, and the war will go on, and on and on.

Wait long enough, and at least some of these newly-empowered regime subcontractors will realize that they have become dictators of their own little republics – stretching sovereign from Abu Ali’s cornershop to the street by the gas station. When the day comes that Assad can neither protect them nor finance them, their loyalty to him will be tested. Many are going to stick together in the ex-regime camp out of fear or ideology or sectarian solidarity, but others will transfer their allegiance to someone who can pay their way – whether it’s a bigger militia leader, a wealthy businessman, a foreign government like Iran, someone else inside the regime, or even an opposition group.

The central Syrian state has begun to disintegrate, but the regime’s component parts are not going anywhere. They will adapt to anarchy, like everyone else.

CAN ASSAD KEEP DECENTRALIZATION IN CHECK?

An artist’s rendering of the crisis in Syria

The Baath Party and Syria’s official media are trying to conceal and reverse this process as best they can. Regime propaganda is very centralized and on-message, and internal discipline seems impressively strict even after two years of war. The cult of personality around Bashar al-Assad also helps. His centrality is not just about dictatorial powers, it’s also symbolic. Assad-era Baathism is all about a fusion of Party, Nation and Leader as Souriya al-Assad, in classic fascist style. The president was always the symbolic embodiment of that holy trinity, and cult worship of him has been the pillar that kept big-tent Baathism standing. For as long as Bashar is around, every opponent of the uprising will know who s/he is supposed to rally around (Assad), whose instructions to obey (Assad), and what type of regime to ask for (Assad). Not an inspirational ideology, but it goes a long way towards presenting a common front. The Syrian regime needs an Assad like an army needs a flag.

A regime supporter who recently died fighting for the Martyr Saad Zamam Regiment, an NDF faction in eastern Damascus

But even if this symbolic unity helps a lot, reality can’t be ignored. Unless the war changes course dramatically, the regime won’t be able to reverse the ”militiafication” of its repressive apparatus, it can just try to cope with it and control the process. In 2012, many Popular Committees and other local militias began to be merged into a bigger and supposedly more cohesive paramilitary organization, called the National Defense Forces. It seems to have received some level of Iranian financing and training, and we saw it play a role in the regime’s recapture of Quseir not long ago. But putting Volkssturm at the frontline was never a sign that your war is going well.

However much the creation of the NDF helped Assad to re-centralize control over the pro-regime armed movement, he can’t buck the trend in the long run. We may be years from the day the that these changes take full effect. But there is no doubt that if this conflict goes on, and Assad continues to grow weaker, then the withering of state sovereignty will proceed unchecked. Warlordism is coming, and not only on the opposition side. Cracks can now be seen on fringes of the regime, and the center will not be spared.

— Aron Lund

Added on July 24, 2013: Several people have sent me an article just published by the Aks al-Sir website, that illustrates some of these issues very well. The article is based on a text first published on Kulluna Shuraka, an influential opposition news site run by the UAE-based dissident Ayman Abdel-Nour. For context, Jeremana is a suburb of Damascus, mostly populated by Christians and Druze. What follows is my own translation of the article.

Republican Guard forces have arrested the man responsible for the Basel Street checkpoint in the city of Jeremana, this Monday, “Abu Yazin” Basel Seif. They also arrested “Abu Ayman” Emad Dawoud, who is responsible for the Oscar checkpoint that leads to the airport road, as well as other people. This was part of a campaign started days ago, with the arrest of the Shabbiha leader Hussein Shoeib.

The arrest of Shoeib provoked the wrath of his adherents (about 50 people). They launched an armed attack on the so-called National Defense Forces in Jeremana, which had been set up by the regime using people from Jeremana, led by one of them called Farhan al-Shaalan. It frightened the city and forced shops to close, according to the Kulluna Shuraka website.

An activist in the city says that the people arrested today were useful to the regime at the start of the uprising, when they worked alongisde it to repress the movement and persecute activists in the city and outside of it. They broke into houses and robbed their owners and attacked them. With some of them, the situation reached a point where they established their own private prisons in the cellars of their houses and on farms, to kidnap and extort people, particularly outsiders who were not from the city, in exchange for money. They also used these places to collect and resell what they had stolen. This created discontent with their actions among people in the city.

Analyzing the reasons for the campaign against the Shabbiha in Jeremana, the activist says that their actions blossomed and they started to work for their own purposes, and some of them began to refuse the orders to go on security assignments outside the city, fearing that this would be dangerous. Conflicts about the “loot” started to appear among them. Each group was linked to a particular security section, and they began to reveal the theft and transgressions of each other.

On the other hand, the regime has created what is known as the Popular Committees, and developed them into what is known as the National Defense Army [sic] in the city (some 600 young Druze and Christian men). It set up a structure for them, and gave them the Water Unit building to serve as headquarters, and turned them into an organized force on the ground. It also sent tens of them on training courses in Iran, and distributed arms and communications equipment among them, and it gives them a monthly salary. Therefore, the “first” Shabbiha have become a burden to the regime, and it became necessary to cut them down to size in order to win public support in the city, and to get rid of the danger posed by so-called “disloyal” groups that it did not fully control, which competed with the new groups for “loot” and stolen goods.

In the previous post, Aymenn al-Tamimi discussed developments in the relationship between two primary al-Qa’ida affiliates operating in Syria: Jabhat al-Nusra, and the ISIS. Through his analysis he concluded that in some areas the distinction between Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is blurry, while in other areas the two seem to visibly operate as distinctly separate groups. He also believes that though a “grand ideological clash” between the two groups is not impossible, it is premature to point to one at present. Now, in part two, Aymenn delves into the growth of ISIS power in specific communities and discusses the plausibility of predicted FSA – ISIS confrontation.

The Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham Expands Into Rural Northern Syria

by Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi for Syria Comment

Introduction

In a post for Jihadology a few weeks back, I identified how the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS) was playing an important role in the fighting on the outskirts of the city of Aleppo and in the surrounding countryside. Since that time, it has become apparent that the group has been seeking to expand outwards and to consolidate control over outlying towns in both the Aleppo and Idlib regions, particularly those of strategic importance along or near the border with Turkey.

Azaz

This initiative has already served to foster division. For example, in the town of Azaz, which is in close proximity to the Turkish border, a protest ocurred on July 1 against ISIS’ entry into the town and its attempt to establish headquarters there. Yet on July 5, Azaz saw a counter-rally in favor of ISIS featuring a slogan common for such demonstrations—‘Labbayka ya Allah’ (‘I am at your service, God’)—accompanied by conspicuous numbers of ISIS flags.

It should be noted that this pattern of division—between those members of Syrian society who support ISIS vs. those who do not—is also observed in the city of Aleppo itself, where ISIS supporters have generally held separate rallies from those of other demonstrators. (I have found one notable exception: a rally on June 4 for the then-besieged city of Qusayr in the area of al-Firdus, featuring both ISIS and Free Syrian Army [FSA] flags).

Resentment over the ISIS presence in Azaz grows. One notable outlet for this disapproving sentiment is a youth activist Facebook page called ‘The Youth of Aleppo—Azaz’ which posted the following status: ‘We ask the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham to establish their state from Iraq [meaning ‘in Iraq’?] since the system of prostitution [there] has not yet fallen.’

The group has also circulated an alleged statement from a local council in the town of Tel Abya? in Raqqah Governorate claiming that the ISIS has confiscated internationally-donated generators intended to provide drinking water for the residents of the town.

On the other hand, ISIS is attempting some outreach to the locals of Azaz, offering Qur’an and Sunnah recitation competitions—among other religious activities—for the population during Rama??n.

Jarabulus

As for other towns, here is a photo of the ISIS headquarters in the northern border town of Jarabulus. The banner reads: ‘The Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham: Province of Aleppo. Emirate of Jarabulus.’

Another photo shows the flag of ISIS flying over Jarabulus:

One activist page on Facebook called ‘Jabhat al-Nusra does not represent me’ claims the following to give context to the first photo: ‘Photo from Jarabulus following the seizure of it by al-Qa’ida after battles with the FSA. It is said that ISIS then killed scores of civilians, among them children, during al-Qa’ida’s attempt to occupy the town.’

In a similar vein, on June 15, the Arabic news outlet al-Waie News claimed to cite a local source in Jarabulus on clashes between ISIS and a rebel battalion known as the ‘Family of J?dir,’ which uses the FSA flag.

The source claimed that the clashes started after a member of ISIS was wounded during a round of celebratory gunfire that followed a concord reached between the two groups, giving rise to a renewed violent battle between ISIS and the Family of J?dir for fifteen hours, resulting in ISIS’ seizure of the town, as well as the killing of one ISIS fighter and several from the Family of J?dir.

On 13 June, the leader of the Family of J?dir—Yusuf al-J?dir—released video testimony in which he claimed that ISIS launched an attack on the home of Ahmad al-J?dir and then began shooting at dozens of innocent civilians, resulting in the deaths of several children: among them, Mahmoud Kerkaz, Sheikho Shawish, Ibrahim al-Ahmad, and a young Kurdish girl. He continues by documenting other alleged acts of ISIS aggression in the town.

It thus appears that ISIS seized control of Jarabulus by force. One thing that is important to note from the opposing testimony is the issue of naming. The source for al-Waie News from Jarabulus merely sees ISIS as a new name for Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) in the town, and Yusuf al-J?dir likewise deems the two names interchangeable.

Thus, even if my formulation for the city of Aleppo itself—that ISIS and JN are two separate entities—applies here, the perception of at least some residents of the town nevertheless differs. As in Raqqah, the two may well be interchangeable in Jarabulus.

The concept of interchangeability could make sense here in light of the fact that JN has had an active presence in the northern Turkish border areas in the past (cf. clashes with Farouq Battalions in April on the border in Raqqah Governorate). Certainly, Jarabulus has been known for a JN presence in the past: here is a video of a JN-led rally in Jarabulus from December 14, 2012, featuring the chant of ‘We are An?ar Allah.’

In this context, one should also note a revealing report from the Damascus Bureau, which actually visited Jarabulus. The reporter, Youssef Shaikho, explains that Jabhat al-Nusra in Jarabulus supported the announcement of ISIS, and most of its fighters in the town are native Syrians, providing a notable exception to the media narrative of ISIS as a group solely composed of foreign fighters.

Further blurring the lines of group-alignment and public sentiment, not all those who, like al-J?dir, use the FSA flag in Jarabulus are necessarily opposed to ISIS’ ideological vision. For example, here is a Facebook activist page from Jarabulus that uses the FSA flag. Yet it has put up a status that laments the loss of the Khilafa (Caliphate) and denounces the UN and its decision-making as a mere front for occupation.

In any event, ISIS is now said to be operating an active Shari’a court in Jarabulus, which has allegedly executed three young men recently on charges of rape and murder. ISIS is also accused of detaining the son of a prominent martyr from the Family of J?dir known as Abu Fur?t.

In terms of the reasons behind the J?dir-ISIS clashes, one should be cautious about presenting them as a simple ideological battle. It rather seems to have been a power struggle for control of an important border area. The Kurdish PYD, as the Damascus Bureau notes, also has a small activist presence in Jarabulus, yet it has been left untouched and tolerated by ISIS.

At the same time, ISIS is trying to counter the allegations put out about its conduct in Jarabulus by emphasizing local support in the town for the group, including children.

al-Bab

Another town in rural Aleppo where ISIS is establishing its presence is al-Bab. On July 5, the outlet Sa?a ash-Sham al-Islami put up a set of photos of a meeting for Dawah  held by the ISIS in al-Bab. [Da’wa means “invitation” and often refers to proselytism—the inviting of others to join Islam. In this case, it refers to outreach to Muslims to strengthen their faith.]

In contrast to what appears to have been a more aggressive approach in Jarabulus, ISIS seems to be engaging in an active outreach effort to the population of al-Bab. Thus, the local outlet al-Bab Press reported that ISIS is running school bus services for children who have seen their education disrupted for many months by Assad regime bomb attacks. A local FB page in al-Bab also gave an account last month from an ISIS fighter of clashes between ISIS and Assad regime soldiers aided by Hezbollah fighters in the wider Aleppo area.

Manbij

The town of Manbij offers a case contrasting with that of al-Bab. Recently, Manbij has seen a protest rally against ISIS. The demonstration was sparked by two grievances against ISIS: first, ISIS is accused by some local activists of destroying works of art in Manbij, and second, of kidnapping a local sheikh. Protests continued into Friday of last week, on which day ISIS had been holding a daw’ah meeting in Manbij featuring a number of locals in support of the group, as per the photo below.

Prior to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s announcement of the formation of ISIS in early April, Manbij had been known for an active JN presence in alliance with Ahrar ash-Sham, who together took on the Farouq Battalions in violent clashes in the town at the beginning of the month, resulting in the expulsion of the Farouq Battalions from Manbij.

The clashes began after Ahrar ash-Sham had arrested a certain Abu Khaldun, a friend of the leader of the Farouq Battalions in Manbij. Ahrar ash-Sham and its allies justified the arrest on the grounds that this man had been one of the leading criminal figures in Manbij and had to be put on trial by the Shari’a committee in Aleppo, while emphasizing that there was no fundamental conflict between them and those under the banner of the FSA.

Following the defeat of the Farouq Battalions, Ahrar ash-Sham held a victory rally in Manbij on 6 April with dozens of supporters and allies, featuring the al-Qa’ida flag and a banner reading ‘The Ummah wants an Islamic Khilafa.’ The person who uploaded the video described it as being held in celebration of the expulsion of ‘gangs of thieves’- a common charge leveled against the Farouq Battalions in the north, which unlike the Ikhwaan-aligned Homs division lack ties to any major Islamist groups.

On a side note, the rally itself should illustrate that those who posit a strict dichotomy between supposedly ‘nationalist’ Salafists in Ahrar ash-Sham as opposed to transnational jihadists are mistaken. This rally in Manbij and Ahrar ash-Sham’s statement on JN’s pledge of allegiance to al-Qa’ida show that concepts of the transnational ummah that supersedes “artificial borders” and the nation-state of Syria are often blurred in Ahrar ash-Sham’s ideological thought.

Of course, one also must not generalize in the opposite direction and portray all of Ahrar ash-Sham as bent on an international Khilafa. Yet whenever non-Islamists protest against groups like ISIS, as a rule Ahrar ash-Sham can be expected to side with the latter (cf. the case of Raqqah which I documented last month).

In the context of Manbij, therefore, one should not be surprised about a blurring of distinction between Ahrar ash-Sham’s support base and what is now known as the ISIS presence. Indeed, it is also apparent that there is another virtual mirror front of ISIS active in Manbij: namely, Ansar al-Khilafa, which is composed of a mix of native Syrians and foreign fighters, though exact proportions are unclear.

Ansar al-Khilafa is most prominent in rural Aleppo and Latakia. In the April rally led by Ahrar ash-Sham, it is likely that there were Ansar al-Khilafa supporters among the crowd. Here is a recent mural put up in Manbij in support of the group:

ad-Dana

The final case we come to on the subject of ISIS’ expansion is that of ad-Dana in Idlib, near the border with Turkey. Here, a protest rally is said to have taken place against ISIS (though no video footage of it has emerged so far), sparking violent clashes. Yet it is the only case where we have a mainstream media outlet allowing ISIS to give its full side of the story thanks to an al-Jazeera English report (H/T: @khalidelmousoui) from the town. In the report, ISIS fighters claimed that those denouncing their presence were actually agents of the Assad regime.

However, it appears that this testimony is contradicted in an account given by pro-ISIS activists in Idlib, who denounced the clashes as ‘the work of some of the apostates of the Free Army.’ Meanwhile, a pro-ISIS Twitter user complained at the time of the clashes that the ‘malicious Free Army’ was besieging ISIS and expressed concerns about the beginnings of a ‘Sahwa’ movement against ISIS.

As of now, the al-Jazeera report says that ISIS is the only remaining armed group in the town. This is corroborated by local Idlib activist testimony that there are now no armed clashes in the town and reconciliation initiatives are underway. At the same time, claims that ISIS executed dozens of supporters of those identifying under the banner of the FSA—stemming chiefly from an ad-Dana rebel leader’s testimony were denied.

That said, both the rebel leader whose testimony is given by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the al-Jazeera report corroborate each other on the ISIS fighters as being from outside Syria.

Now in control of the town, ISIS is running a school for the children, and the ISIS presence as reported by al-Jazeera is corroborated by a video that has now emerged of ISIS fighters manning the entrance into ad-Dana.

Conclusion

In short, these various cases illustrate ISIS’ growing power in the north of Syria. ISIS is clearly not a force to be dismissed as marginal without any real support on the ground, even as its presence is undoubtedly sparking backlash in many areas. Above all, these recent developments as regards ISIS’ expansion vindicate to an extent my prediction in March in a guest post for Syria Comment about the emergence and establishment of jihadist strongholds in the north and east of Syria.

In terms of the future, one needs to be skeptical of the narrative being put out by Supreme Military Command (SMC) supporters of a looming, grand-scale FSA effort to take on ISIS in the north of Syria in a fundamental clash of ideologies. Resentment at the ideological level is more to be expected from civilian protestors rather than armed rebels.

One should particularly note my distinction here between SMC supporters and those in general who go by the banner of the FSA. While SMC supporters would like to portray all of those under the banner of FSA as opposed to ISIS, the evidence speaks otherwise, exemplified in this recent statement by an FSA military council in Aleppo denying rumors of clashes between their ‘brothers’ in ISIS and JN.

SMC supporters are likely the source of at least some of the allegations against ISIS, including the recent claim that ISIS is planning to declare a wider northern state after Rama??n: plausible in light of ISIS’ expansion in northern Syria but as of now uncorroborated in pro-ISIS circles.

Other rumors likely originating from pro-SMC sources include an alleged statement by JN distancing itself from ISIS (not released through JN’s official channel al-Man?rah al-Bay??, so therefore suspect) and claims that ISIS killed Abu Fur?t of Jarabulus, when his funeral actually took place a few months before ISIS was announced.

In particular, the reports attempting to portray JN in open conflict with ISIS are building on a narrative stemming from a Reuters piece in which JN was portrayed as a group of native Syrians disillusioned with the machinations of the foreign fighters of ISIS, hinting at the possibility of JN teaming up with other rebels to take on ISIS.

The motivation for spreading rumors about ISIS is quite apparent: namely, the SMC’s bid to secure Western arms, which will then be supposedly used to take on what Western nations like the UK perceive to be the number-one threat emanating from Syria.

In any case, the current PR war between SMC supporters and ISIS supporters will continue. Feeling the pressure, the latter have recently announced the formation of a new forum intended to counter purported media disinformation about the group. Thus can the exchange of claims and counter-claims be expected to intensify. Ascertaining the full truth short of getting on the ground will remain elusive.

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University. His website is http://www.aymennjawad.org. Follow on Twitter at @ajaltamimi