The Raqqa Story: Rebel Structure, Planning, and Possible War Crimes

Written by Matthew Barber for Syria Comment, with research from the Syria Video team
April 3, 2013

Syria Comment Sunday unveiled Syria Video, a web application that maps and aggregates video footage of the Syrian war. This service does not attempt to measure or compare the respective levels of video content uploaded by conflict participants aligned with the regime vs. the opposition. Syria Video functions as an organized archive for the mass of video material that is already available on the web; the interpretive process is left up to the viewer whose experience is made easier through the mapping of uploaded video by geographical location.

In what follows, we will present our findings on the timeline of events in Raqqa and the organization of the rebel groups operating there, informed by various forms of social media, the most important of which was video material acquired by Syria Video. Aside from any informative value, this report demonstrates the potential of Syria Video as a research tool. Historically unprecedented, information is different in the Syrian conflict—in how it is both acquired and used. The war in Syria is the first conflict of its kind to have such extensive documentation of everyday events captured on video, providing us with levels and kinds of information absent in previous conflicts. Syria Video represents an initial attempt to tap into this expansive resource. In our endeavor to form a clearer understanding of how events unfolded in Raqqa, we relied heavily on Syria Video as an information gathering resource that contributed material that could help revise and expand on the leading narrative already being developed and amended by journalists and others.

The advantages and limitations of relying on uploaded video to construct a picture of events should be considered. The kind of information that can be gathered from uploaded video is different from that gathered by a reporter who has the opportunity to pursue inquiry through direct engagement with actors. However, working with a large quantity of video can facilitate the discovery of emerging patterns and trajectories of events through access to a kind of perspective inaccessible to a journalist on the ground.

The Structure and Relationships of Rebel Groups Operating in al-Raqqa

Syria Video has made it possible to acquire a sense of the number and hierarchical structure of rebel groups who participated in the Raqqa takeover. We have identified over 80 rebel units in Raqqa alone that are grouped into larger bodies that cooperate together.

Figure 1 shows the structure of “Jabhat Tahrir al-Raqqa” (“The Raqqa Liberation Front”), made up of both Free Syrian Army battalions and Islamist battalions. (Click here for .pdf of chart)

Fig. 1

The methodology for mapping these militias involved first reviewing announcements released by brigades (who often list each battalion linked to them) and the crosschecking by searching for each battalion and identifying which brigade they say they are linked to. Colors in the chart identify duplicate groups. These could be errors on the part of announcement videos released, multiple groups using the same names or the same group switching teams.

In this map, all battalions under “Military and Revolutionary Council” belong to the FSA, and all the other groups listed are Islamist. But this entire “united front” was only one piece of the Raqqa takeover, and was not the most important (or even second most important) force in the offensive. The graphic does not include Ahrar al-Sham or Jabhat al-Nusra who operate independently. All three bodies cooperated in coordinating the Raqqa takeover.

Based on available material reviewed by the Syria Video team, it would appear that Ahrar al-Sham was the real mastermind and spearhead of the Raqqa offensive. Jabhat al-Nusra was second in importance in this operation, providing significant support. Also participating was the Raqqa Liberation Front of fig. 1. The participants of the overall offensive could be visualized thus:

Fig. 2

It will be helpful to continue the discussion of this coalition within a timeline that places the development of these rebel groups with events in Raqqa.

Raqqa Timeline

The following are some of the major events since last summer that led up to the current capture of al-Raqqa.

August 2, 2012               The Raqqa Military Council (a union of multiple rebel brigades) is created. This partnership identifies with the Free Syrian Army.

September 19, 2012    Tel Abyad is captured by the forces of the FSA Military Council, about a month and a half after that group’s formation.

December 20, 2012     The Military Council is restructured, with some groups being expelled and others being admitted.

December 25, 2012     Five days after the Military Council is restructured, it joins with a significant number of Islamist groups fighting in the province to form the larger Raqqa Liberation Front (Jabhat Tahrir al-Raqqa). This is the larger body represented in Fig. 1.

January 12, 2012          The Raqqa Liberation Front and Jabhat al-Nusra work together to take the Raqqa–Deir Ezzor highway.

February 11, 2013        The Raqqa Liberation Front and Jabhat al-Nusra are joined by Ahrar al-Sham for the offensive in Tabqah (also called Thawra), a town near the city of Raqqa. Another group, Liwa al-Tawhid (primarily active in Aleppo) comes to aid in the overthrow of Tabqah which happens on the 11^th. A statue of Hafez al-Assad is burnt in Tabqah, 20 days before the one toppled in Raqqa city. The victory of this offensive resulted in the rebels capturing a large amount of weapons and ammunition, likely used later in taking Raqqa city. See Jabhat al-Nusra with captured weapons and Ahrar al-Sham with captured weapons.

February 17, 2013        Ceasefire between Kurds and Syrian rebels is brokered in Ras al-Ain (east of Tel Abyad in nearby muhafiza of Hasake) by Michel Kilo and others. Jabhat al-Nusra refuses to sign the agreement, but stops fighting after the other rebels sign. On the same day, the rebels in Raqqa muhafiza elect new local council to preside over the province and designate Tel Abyad the new headquarters until the city of Raqqa could be overthrown.

February 20, 2013       Ahrar al-Sham carefully plans for the offensive on the city of Raqqa during this period, and it is around this time that we have the first glimpse of another emerging Islamist rebel group, Liwa Umanaa’ al-Raqqa. Since the takeover of Raqqa would be largely conducted by outsiders (rebels not from the Raqqa muhafiza), Ahrar al-Sham cleverly fashioned a sub-group (whose name means “Brigade of the Trustees of Raqqa”) consisting of fighters from Raqqa, to legitimize the offensive and serve as the “local face” for Ahrar al-Sham. Liwa Umana al-Raqqa will later become the primary instrument for maintaining order and implementing Islamic law in the city.

Fig. 3

March 2, 2013            Ahrar al-Sham leads the alliance shown in Fig. 3 in a large-scale attack on the city of Raqqa. This is a well-organized, well-planned military operation, dubbed Gharat al-Jabbaar (“The Raid of the Almighty”). The offensive is announced by both Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra. The muhafiz (governor) of Raqqa and the head of the Ba’ath party are captured and seen in a video speaking about the takeover alongside their captor, the “Emir” (who in later videos becomes known as “Dr. Samer”). Consistent with Ahrar al-Sham’s plan to have the offensive appear as a local operation, they are not featured in this significant video (significant for showcasing the most important prisoners captured by the regime so far). Instead, the group that announces itself in this widely-seen video (and which beyond serving as the local face of the offensive for Raqqans also served as the face of the Raqqa takeover for us) was called “Jabhat al-Wahdet al-Tahrir al-Islamiyye.” Based on what we’ve gleaned from Syria Video, this group—though acting as frontman—was not as significant a force in the offensive as the other major players. Its ranks were drawn by combining one of the FSA battalions (Kitaabet al-Nasir Salahudin) and one of the Islamist brigades (Liwa Huthayfa Ibn al-Yaman). That it was newly formed resolves our earlier question about why the “Emir” first says he is with the FSA before quickly switching to “Jabhat al-Wahdet.”

Fig. 4

The mix of FSA and Islamist fighters comprising Jabhat al-Wahdet illustrates the difficulty of distinguishing between Islamist and nationalist energies on the ground.

This developing picture of the Raqqa offensive as a largely outside operation which utilized shrewd techniques to appear local corroborates the first report I received after the takeover from a tribe member who asserted that the tribes—long closely supportive of the regime—had not suddenly en masse suspended their loyalty. However, this needs to be explored further, as there is evidence of at least one tribe making a switch to the opposition. This tribe (“????? ???? ????”) announced that it took up arms to oppose the regime on May 5 (but that was several days after Raqqa fell). Their militia is called “???? ??? ???? ?????” and they called on other tribes to join ranks in fighting the regime.

March 5, 2013             Liwa Umanaa’ al-Raqqa assumes responsibility of the city to “show the people that the fighters are their brethren.”

March 6, 2013            Prisoners are promised safe passage for surrender, and later exterminated. See section below on possible war crime.

March 8, 2013            Abu Jassim, one of the heads of “army security” in Raqqa (a branch of the mukhabaraat), is killed. His head has been shot at point-blank range and his body is dumped from the back of a pickup into the street where it is left through the day and night, as people come by to kick it and spit on it, saying that he had been a very oppressive and ruthless character in the local power structure. Please be warned that the videos are extremely graphic: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

March 9, 2013             Videos are posted by rebels claiming to have besieged the regime’s 93^rd Brigade at an army base in Ain Eissa, further north from Raqqa city within the muhafiza. Underscoring the trend of outsider initiative in the Raqqa offensive, 3 of the 4 militias besieging the base are from Jabal al-Zawiya, Idlib.

March 31, 2013           A convoy of the 93^rd Brigade comes out of the base and engages in conflict with the rebels. Rumors begin to circulate that tanks were being sent to re-take the city, but these are unconfirmed and likely untrue. Rebels remain confident that the muhafiza will remain under their control, but until now the muhafiza of Raqqa is not completely empty of regime presence. The 93^rd Brigade and Division 17 both remain.

A War Crime in Raqqa?

Syria Video has found six videos dealing with a particular group of prisoners who were promised safety in exchange for surrendering after the city of Raqqa fell to the rebels. The prisoners were regime soldiers with army security, and according to the rebels talking in the videos, they were offered safe passage in return for laying down their arms. The man with the camera says to the effect of: “With God’s help Nusra was able to take the base after negotiating and promising the dogs of Assad to give them safe passage if they surrendered.” We see the rebels loading the prisoners onto a bus, presumably to drive them out of the city. What seems to have happened instead is that the bus was fired upon, killing the prisoners inside it. March 6 is the date of the surrender, when we see the prisoners on the bus. The next time we see the bus, it is after dark the same day. The bus is destroyed. Riddled with bullet holes, its windows are shot out and its tires are flat. The possessions of the men are strewn about on the ground outside the bus. (They had originally boarded the bus with clothes and suitcases, probably having expected they would be sent home.) In a subsequent clip the man filming climbs into the bus and shows us a body on the floor near the back:

The next day we see the bus in the daylight, with the destruction more visible.

What exactly occurred here is not clear. In one clip we hear the man filming say “the rebels gave them safe passage but the soldiers betrayed that trust.” We also hear someone say “thank god the rebels were able to prevent this group from joining the 17th Division” and the attitude is that the soldiers were killed “because they were trying to flee.” What seems odd about these statements is that one of the men filming acknowledges that the soldiers were killed inside the bus. Furthermore, why would they have run away having already given up their guns and been loaded onto a bus that was moving out? If they were planning on running from the beginning, they would not have abandoned their weapons. And why would they need to run if they were being conducted out of the city under guarantee of safety? What does seem clear is that they were all killed (a man filming acknowledges this), and that they were killed unarmed, after having surrendered. Also confusing is that though the bus is destroyed by bullets, the presence of a high quantity of blood is not readily visible inside the bus (that we could detect), though in the sole clip that we have of the bus interior, it is nighttime and dark. If the men were marched off the bus and slaughtered, it would not have made sense to destroy the bus with gunfire. Some shell casings can be seen on the floor inside the bus, indicating that shooting took place inside. Did soldiers shoot from inside or was the bus boarded by rebels who shot the soldiers inside it? Could the soldiers still have had weapons?

Perhaps one rebel group promised the soldiers safe passage, and then another group showed up and disagreed with that decision, deciding that they should be executed. One of the men filming indicates that al-Nusra was arriving on the scene after base had already been taken. The names of two other groups are heard mentioned in the clips: Ahfath al-Rasuul (the grandsons of the Prophet) and Jabhat al-Shura. At one point a man says the “the lions of Jabhat al-Nusra have given them al-amaan” (referring to a kind of pledge guaranteeing security that according to the Islamic religion is quite serious and must not be breached). If the bus had been attacked by another party after leaving, it would explain the evidence of attack from without (the shot tires) and if soldiers had responded with fire it would explain the shell casings, though this would mean that not all of their weapons had been taken by the rebels. Another possibility is that the bus was boarded and the shell casings are from the attackers who shot the soldiers inside. It’s impossible to know who was responsible for the act until we have more information and any theory is speculation at this point, but the evidence we have points toward a war crime on the part of the rebels. It’s not certain that we’ve discovered every video related to this incident, though we were unable to find more in our search. Hopefully more information will emerge soon regarding the incident.

Islamist Governance

As described above, an Islamist rebel group called Liwa al-Umanaa’ al-Raqqa (Fig. 3) was formed by Ahrar al-Sham to serve as a local face for the largely outsider-conducted offensive to take the city. Featuring local members, the group served to legitimize the operation. But more than this, the group also represented a strategy on the part of Ahrar al-Sham to introduce Islamist rule and the use of Islamic law in the city. This was a very well-organized project; unlike examples of haphazard campaigns around Syria, the Islamists in Raqqa were considering from the outset how they would maintain smooth administration of the city after the attack. Their planning and organization were impressive, but could also be seen as the exploitation of the conflict to further their own religio-political agenda and impose an unfamiliar brand of religious rule over the city, apart from the will of the local people.

An example of their effort to keep the city functioning in an orderly fashion can be seen in a video featuring their management of the transportation system. They have made sure to keep the buses running and to have drivers ready to work. The bus in the video has “Umanaa’ al-Raqqa” spray-painted on its front. In another video, members of the group can be seen guarding a museum.

While it seems the rebels have provided security and administration, concerns exist about the style of religious law being implemented in the city. As in other areas in Syria now under control of Islamists, a “hay al-shari’a” has been established (a body functioning as a shari’a court) that decides punishments for crime. The following video shows us a man who was beaten for illicit behavior with a woman. They accused him of raping her, but the woman’s statement denied this, claiming that they were alone together because she was being threatened by other men and that this man had “saved her from kidnapping.” It appears that they are possibly lovers who concocted the story to justify having been alone together, and that the man was punished for being alone with a woman.

Whatever the actual offense was, the video shows his body severely beaten. The hay al-shari’a meted out his punishment, and the members of Umanaa’ al-Raqqa are functioning as police, bringing transgressors to the shari’a court.

Other groups have also taken advantage of the situation to promote their brand of Islamism. Jabhat al-Nusra has established a “missionary center” from which they have been handing out gifts to the people in a campaign to win hearts and stomachs.

More about governance in Raqqa can be gleaned in these excellent recent articles by Rania Abouzeid: 1, 2, 3.

Conclusions

The information presented above represents a developing picture of Raqqa, one that is not perfect. With time, additional clarity may correct aspects of this account. For now, conclusions we’ve drawn from a significant amount of analyzed video content include the following:

1)      The fall of Raqqa could have been anticipated if we had been following events occurring in the muhafiza. Most of the governorate was already under rebel control by the time the city fell. (Here’s a video from Feb. 13 purporting to show the burial of 46 regime soldiers in Tabqah.)

2)      The attack that overthrew the city of Raqqa was led by several groups from outside of the muhafiza, but it was coordinated with some groups inside.

3)      The taking of the city was primarily an Islamist-conducted operation. Some FSA units participated, but their role was minimal. We previously postulated that the ceasefire in Ras al-Ain facilitated the Raqqa takeover by freeing up FSA rebels, but now that it is clear that the FSA role in taking Raqqa was minimal, it appears that the ceasefire was not a significant factor.

4)      Ahrar al-Sham, not Jabhat al-Nusra, was the primary force behind the takeover (from what we can tell with our current data). Ahrar al-Sham seems to be the most organized group working in the country—even their media reflects this. Jabhat al-Nusra did play an important role in the takeover, which was well-planned by Ahrar al-Sham, with a high level of coordination between the groups participating. They worked together so closely that they even coordinated their separate video announcements.

5)     Ahrar al-Sham not only planned for legitimacy by engineering an insider Islamist group comprised of locals to be the “face” of the operation, but they also planned for post-takeover Islamist governance. The two groups of Liwa Umanaa’ al-Raqqa and Jabhat al-Wahdet al-Tahrir al-Islamiyye were formed a short time prior to the incursion and remain active in administering the city and in continuing the offensive against the regime’s remaining forces in the muhafiza. The boundaries between the Islamist groups are difficult to distinguish; the two regime prisoners who first appeared in the video with Jabhat al-Wahdet later appear in a video with Jabhat al-Nusra, extolling their virtues as cooperative captives tend to do so well.

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The bulk of video content uploaded from Syria originates from opposition-aligned parties. The representation of video material acquired by Syria Video reflects this reality. Upon encountering this abundance of rebel-filmed footage, some initial visitors to the new (and still developing) service suggested that Syria Video is deficient as a tool for critically approaching the conflict. Let me emphasize: the element of criticism must be introduced by the user. Syria Video does not provide analysis; the user performs it.

Syria Video works with what it finds online. We hope to incorporate all relevant channels from both sides of the conflict. Making that material available in an archive does not equate the promotion of the views expressed in that material. The quantity of video from the rebels will always be greater because there’s more of it. But even if all the videos provided were exclusively from the opposition’s side, the service would still have value as a tool for historians, researchers, and others studying the conflict—and that is its primary purpose: a tool for research, not an attempt to shape opinion.

Most material that has acted in a self-incriminating fashion—on both sides of the conflict—has come from videos that those parties themselves (regime forces and rebels) have captured and uploaded. Therefore, even if Syria Video had a political agenda, it would not be a given that the service would be tilted in the favor of one side merely because of an overabundance of material originating from that side. The section above dealing with bus in Raqqa should demonstrate this fact.

A tremendous amount of fraudulent information has been propagated through deceitful videos produced by actors on both sides of the conflict—this has been a reality from the beginning. With tens of thousands of individual videos already acquired, you are certain to encounter such clips on Syria Video. Remember, the responsibility to interpret critically rests with you. Syria Comment cannot (and need not) constantly hold the viewer’s hand through the interpretive process.

In sum, for those with sensitivities about politicization of media coverage and analysis of the conflict, please realize: an archive is not a mouthpiece. This material is already out there and others are already using it. We simply want to make the vast mass of it more accessible in an organized form. It is available for you as well. Feel free to draw your own conclusions from any material you engage. We hope you enjoy.

by Aron Lund for Syria Comment

David Ignatius has written an article in the Washington Post called “Sorting out the Syrian opposition”, where he provides names and manpower figures for the Syrian insurgency. He’s basing his argument on reports from a Syrian opposition group. I happen to know which one, but I haven’t seen the actual report, so I won’t comment on that.

The Ignatius article itself is, however, rather confused, and readers should beware. Let’s pick it apart.

THE SYRIAN ISLAMIC LIBERATION FRONT

— Excerpt: ”The biggest umbrella group is called the Jabhat al-Tahrir al-Souriya al-Islamiya. It has about 37,000 fighters, drawn from four main subgroups based in different parts of the country. These Saudi-backed groups are not hard-core Islamists but …” etc.

The group he’s referring to is the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (SILF, until recently known as SLF, without the ”Islamic”). It was formed in mid-2012, and incorporates the biggest mainstream Islamist groups of the insurgency. The SILF includes the Farouq Battalions (mainly Homs + Turkish border), the Tawhid Brigade (Aleppo), the Suqour el-Sham Brigades (Idleb),  the Islam Brigade (Damascus), and a bunch of others.

Some of these groups were originally created in the name of the FSA but ”salafized” as the war went on, reflecting the new mood in the rebel movement and foreign funding requirements. It’s a basically mixed bag of opportunistic and principled Islamists, ranging from ideologically fuzzy big-tent movements (Tawhid Brigade) to rather grim-looking salafis (Islam Brigade).

They’re not simply ”Saudi-backed”, although they may be that as well (whatever it means, with all these princes doing their own thing). The northern wing of Farouq, for example, is well known to enjoy Turkish patronage. It’s been attacking Syrian army positions through Turkish territory, and it’s no coincidence that the main northern border crossings (outside Kurdish territory) are now controlled by Farouq. Several groups in the SILF also enjoy sponsorship from a donations network set up by Mohammed Surour Zeinelabidin, an influential Syrian salafi theologian whose relations with the government of Saudi Arabia are not good at all.

THE SYRIAN ISLAMIC FRONT

— Excerpt: ”The second-largest rebel coalition is more extreme and is dominated by hard-core Salafist Muslims. Its official name — Jabhat al-Islamiya al-Tahrir al-Souriya — is almost identical to that of the Saudi-backed group. Rebel sources count 11 different brigades from around the country that have merged to form this second coalition. Financing comes from wealthy Saudi, Kuwaiti and other Gulf Arab individuals. Rebel sources estimate about 13,000 Salafist fighters are gathered under this second umbrella.”

The names seem so similar because one of them is wrong, which should be obvious from the bungled Arabic grammar. The real name of this group is ”al-Jabha al-Islamiya al-Souriya”, or the Syrian Islamic Front (SIF).

The rest of the info seems correct, although the group itself claims to have about 25,000 fighters. Of course, only a minority of fighters are hardcore Islamists — most are simply religiously-minded Sunni men recruited off the street — but the central leadership holds to a strict salafi line. Some member factions seem a little less committed, but as an alliance, the SIF is dominated by a group called Ahrar al-Sham, and they’ve been salafi from day one. (As it happens, I just wrote a long report about the SIF and its member factions, which you can download here.)

WHO?

— Excerpt: ”A third rebel group, known as Ahfad al-Rasoul, is funded by Qatar. It has perhaps 15,000 fighters.”

Well, maybe. There’s about a million different local groups in Syria called Ahfad al-Rasoul (”Descendants of the Prophet”), including some which are part of the SIF and the SILF and the FSA.

If there’s also an overarching Qatari-sponsored country-wide alliance of such factions, I haven’t heard of it, but I guess it could still exist. Judging by media reports and rebel statements on who conquers what in Syria, they’re not the dominant force anywhere in the country. Or maybe they’re just quietly playing sheish-beish and smoking argileh on Sheikh Hamad’s expense, because unlike a fighting army of 15,000, that could fly under the radar.

JABHAT AL-NOSRA

— Excerpt: ”The most dangerous group in the mix is the Jabhat al-Nusra, which is an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq. By one rebel estimate, it has grown to include perhaps 6,000 fighters. But this group, perhaps fearing that it will be targeted by Western counterterrorism forces, is said to be keeping its head down — and perhaps commingling with the Salafist umbrella group.”

If by ”keeping its head down” you mean roaring full throttle into every battle in Syria, I suppose you could have a point. And they do in fact have something to say on the subject of heads, but not their own.

Whether Jabhat al-Nosra is ”the most dangerous group” depends on your point of view. For Assad? Possibly. For the USA? Very likely — perhaps not in the form of Jabhat el-Nosra itself, but they suck a lot of people into Qaeda-style salafi-jihadism, which is bad news for US security in the long term. For Syrian Sunni civilians? Not at all. For Syrian non-Sunni civilians? Maybe, maybe not. They’re ideologically extreme Alawite-baiters, and do not hesitate to kill civilian opponents or murder POWs, but they seem to have maintained a certain level of discipline in conquered areas so far. This is unlike some non-Islamist factions who randomly loot their way through civilian neighborhoods, and who sometimes express themselves in more sectarian and genocidal terms than any salafi. (Yeah, looking at you, Salaheddin Brigades of the Hama FSA.)

FREE SYRIAN ARMY, IDRISS EDITION

— Excerpt: ”Idriss and his Free Syrian Army command about 50,000 more fighters, rebel sources say.”

Rebel sources being Idriss and his Free Syrian Army command, I imagine. But OK. There’s a lot of people who claim to be part of that alliance, although it’s not true that the leaders ”command” most of them in any way at all (which I discussed with Koert Debeuf here; for context, first see here). Brig. Gen. Salim Idriss seems to be a nice guy, and he currently also seems to enjoys a degree of moral authority over parts of the revolutionary movement. But as far as I can tell, he has yet to issue a direct order to armed groups that will be obeyed out of earshot.

In fact, can anyone recall when rebels last captured anything inside Syria, and gave credit to Idriss and the FSA? Meanwhile, the SILF, SIF and Jabhat al-Nosra have been racking up garrison kills and village captures by the dozens every month since late 2012. That lack of raw power on the ground doesn’t make Idriss an unimportant figure, since he sits at the top of a major trickle-down mechanism for international sponsorship and now also enjoys a measure of political recognition, but lets keep things in perspective.

For those interested in this faction, Elizabeth O’Bagy just published a very interesting report. I think it’s maybe a bit on the optimistic side, but it’s still a must-read.

DON’T DO THIS

— Excerpt: ”Realistically, the best hope for U.S. policy is to press the Saudi-backed coalition and its 37,000 fighters, to work under the command of Idriss and the Free Syrian Army. That would bring a measure of order and would open the way for Idriss to negotiate a military transition government that would include reconcilable elements of Assad’s army.”

Here’s where it gets really weird. See, most of the ”Saudi-backed coalition” (SILF) is already part of Idriss’s (rather nominal) FSA command structure. All their main leaders are there. Abdulqader Saleh of the Tawhid Brigade and Osama el-Joneidi of the Farouq Battalions are members of the ”General Staff Advisory Council” under Idriss, Ahmed Eissa of Suqour el-Sham is part of the ”Northern Front Command”, and Zahran Alloush of the Islam Brigade sits on the ”Southern Front Command”. So, to indulge Mr. Ignatius by presuming that such an FSA structure actually operates on the ground, these two groups already overlap. Idriss does the talking, but out of the 50,000 FSA fighters, a full 37,000 come from the Islamist militias of the SILF. (No, I have no idea whether these numbers are accurate, but let’s accept them for the sake of discussion.)

To add to the confusion, at least one SIF faction (the Haqq Brigade of Homs) is also part of Idriss’s FSA command structure. It’s military commander, Abderrahman el-Soweiss – an ex-Hezb al-Tahrir prisoner who now runs a sizeable chunk of the Homs insurgency – has been named by Idriss as one of five commanders on the Homs front. That brings the number of Islamist fighters in the “secular” FSA to about 40,000 out of 50,000, and I’m still curious about who exactly makes up the remaining 20 percent.

Bottom line, Ignatius’s proposed strategy is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of these groups. The Idriss network, pace Debeuf, is not so much a functioning command hierarchy as it is a symbolic ”flag” to rally rebels amenable to Western and GCC support, and a distribution channel for guns, ammo and money from Saudi and other sources.

Many of the other groups mentioned here work in a similar fashion. They are not cohesive alliances, they are political planks and coordinating bodies for largely autonomous rebel factions, who have banded together to increase their military weight, acquire political representation, and gain access to foreign funds (state and non-state). The main exceptions are Jabhat el-Nosra and maybe the SIF, which seem to be reasonably cohesive and well delineated from the others.

BUT THEN AGAIN

From a self-interested US perspective, it might still be a good strategy for Washington to back the Idriss group, which unlike previous FSA incarnations has the significant advantage of existing outside of Twitter. The way to do it would be to make sure it receives abundant resources, and to help solidify the Islamist mainstream insurgency around it – i.e., the SILF, some of the SIF, and various unaffiliated strays.

That would of course require a level of cold-blooded realism not currently apparent in US policy circles, which have been making shrill little cries of shock and terror about talking to Islamists for over a decade – never mind arming them. But if the US is not prepared to deal with Islamist actors in Syria because they are theocratic and anti-semitic, or whatever, it should just excuse itself from Syrian insurgent politics entirely. Islamism is now the name of the game among Syria’s armed factions, so let’s not pretend that this conflict is something it’s not.

Anyway, political sensitivites aside, the American deep state already seems to be on the case. And I imagine that the purpose of the US backing such an armed coalition is to make it the platform on which a not-too-wobbly political leadership (of the Ghassan Hitto/Ahmed Moadh al-Khatib variety) could stand, and from there negotiate along the Geneva parameters with what’s left of the Assad regime. Or if that doesn’t work, the US & its allies will at least have built up a powerful client militia for future use. You can imagine it as kind of a Syrian Sahwa, like the one in Anbar, except this plays out while the Baath regime is still crumbling and with no US forces nearby. Or, with a little less optimism, think of it as the next TFG.

It does have a whiff of Dr. Strangelove to it, and the results won’t be a pretty sight, whatever happens, but I guess that’s just politics: you always work with all you got, and you never get all you want.

— Aron Lund

Correction, April 8, 2012: Thomas Pierret kindly pointed out that I’d mistakenly included Shuhada Souriya in my list of SILF members. That’s wrong, and I’ve now removed it from the text. It’s leader Jamal Maarouf is a member of the “Northern Region Command” in Salim Idriss’s FSA network, but they’re not in the SILF. Not that it would necessarily be a bad fit ideologically – the reason is more likely that the SILF was co-founded by Maarouf’s local rival in the Jebel Zawiya region, Ahmed Eissa of Suqour el-Sham.

The Syrian parliament recommends the creation of 3 new governorates in Syria.

The local pro-government al-watan newspaper says that the minister of local management Omar Ghalawanji ordered his ministry staff to start implementing the recommendations of the parliament. The article lists the 3 new governorates at the end:

1.  Aleppo to be split in two, Aleppo and Rif Aleppo with Minbij as the capital of the rif (countryside)
2. Splitting Al Hassaka and turning the Qamishli region which covers 60% of Hassaka into a governorate and it would be named Al Qamishli
3. A new governorate to be named Al-Badia and its capital Tadmor (Palmyra), this governorate would include Tadmor and the surrounding areas which now belong to Homs.

The parliament decision was taken in December based on the “Budget and Accounting” committee local management recommendations.

‘6,000 killed’ in bloodiest month for Syria crisis – Tuesday 2 April

New interview with Assad by Turkish opposition journalists

The interview will be broadcasted today. This is just a trailer. Opposition forums are that saying that this is Assad’s way of denying assassination rumors that have been floating around. In this trailer he attacks Erdogan and says that the Erdogan government is implicated in Syrian blood and that Erdogan has been lying since the start of conflict

Syrian business man in Kuwait offers 10 Million SYP (approx. $95,000) for the capture of al-Jazeera and al-Arabia reporters in Syria and handing them to the authorities, live on state TV:

Asma al-Assad on Saturday celebrating mothers days with the mothers of Syrian army soldiers, Youtube
Here is a translation of the video thanks to A.N.

To all Syria’s mothers who sent their children….all their children, to protect the homeland, its pride and unity
Man in background: As i leave, i kiss the warmth of your morning. as i open the house door, your soul surrounds me, your soul protects. And those who protect Syria, like her sun…never die.

First woman: I have 8 children, and all 8 are in the army. And like every mother, i would like to have my children around me, but in this hour…they’re the redemption of the homeland. And on mother’s day, like every mother i tell him, stand by your homeland and defend it.

Second woman: I have 3 children in the army, Today is mother’s day and i vowed them for the country, i vowed them for Syria. Because Syria is the mother of all, and may god protect this country, protect Syria and protect the children and protect the Arab Syrian army.

Third woman: Every time i try to lay my head on the pillow, my eye finds that empty spot, i lay my hand on the pillow and the blanket and i smell them, i touch the pillow and the blanket and i try to smell their scent from the blanket.

Fourth woman: Today is Mother’s day and i really wish that my kids are ok, in the army, and may god protect this army and the homeland, may he protect Syria.

Fifth women: I have 3 boys in the military, my heart is on fire every time they leave the house. One was martyred and the other 2 i pray to god to protect them for me. A mother gathers…and Syria has gathered…
Fifth woman whispers ‘habibti’ [my beloved one] as she walks towards Asma al Assad. Asma hugs her and tries to comfort her.

Fifth woman: This is the mothers day occasion and i remember him wherever i go, he used to celebrate it with me, i wake up thinking of him and tell him goodbye before i go to sleep…And i praise Allah, this is a medal that i put on my chest….my beloved one was martyred and he was the most precious thing in my life, praise to Allah, praise to Allah…

Sixth woman: I have 4 boys, i would die for them but they’re vowed to this land…Anything as long as god ends this situation. Let them all die, i won’t be upset, if it end this situation(war)

Asma: When a child goes away, a mother’s heart will long for him, even his brothers are around to make up for his absence, the heart will always yearn for the one that is missing.

[mothers: the kid is precious but the country is more precious] But when they are all missing, who will the heart yearn to? they are all missing, They’re all risking their lives for the country. When something happens, we look up and we don’t see the missing one, we hug the ones that are here and we pray for the ones who are not, for Allah to protect them.

We start asking, how? where? what happened in his area? And when we realize that what happened wasn’t close to him we start praying for the rest of the youth of this country, for Allah to protect them. But if they were all missing, who are we going to hug? But if they were all missing, who do we ask about? About which area are we going to ask? And if we were able to check on one of them and make sure he’s ok, how are were going to check on the rest?

Every woman that has a child protecting this country is a majestic mother, and the woman that has a martyred child, who scarified its most precious thing to this country is more majestic. But you, what can one say about mothers like you, who send all their boys , and some of you, their daughters and husbands as well, you sent all of them to protect and defend this country. All of you are waiting for a child to celebrate mothers day with, but your children are all celebrating mother’s with Syria, who’s the mother of all. They say, there’s nothing more precious then a child except for the child of the child.

I know that there are mothers who sent off the child and the son of the child to protect this country and i know that some you have packed their grandchildren bags themselves before those grandchildren went to volunteer and enlist.

These hands are the ones that nurtured and taught, and as they nurtured their children, they also nurtured the love of the country in those children. And with every heart beat of horror and fear for them, there’s another heart beat of determination, persistence and power.

The stand that you take today, is an example for me and for every Syrian mother who was taught that she has to give a lot, and that for sacrifice to be considered as such, it has to be bigger. Today, like every year, the spring starts and this year, you are the spring and your tenderness will help the flower, roses and jasmine bloom. The jasmine that you’ve protected and still protecting with your souls and children. It is true that the child is precious, but you have shown the entire world, that the country is more precious. Its true that the child is part of the soul, but by sending all your children to protect it, you’ve taught us with your actions, and not in words, that the soul loses its value for the sake of the country.

Its true that mothers are precious, very precious, but you’ve taught us that the homeland is more precious. Instead of worrying about yourselves and your lives, you worried for all of Syria, instead of your children worrying about you, they worried for all the mothers of the homeland and they went to protect you and the homeland, knowing that Syria is the mother of all.

Today, they, along with me, you and a lot of mothers with us, came together to tell our motherer Syria, that the homeland is precious. May Allah protect you[Syria], and if your youth remains like this, you’ll be okay every year

“The Revolutionary Front to Free Syria” Formed in Egypt

It is an empty shell writes Aron Lund.

A reporter sent me this information and asked if this the group was legitimate.

A spokesperson for the Free Syrian Army Council of Damascus and Suburbs said his council sent a representative to meet with about 30 to 40 percent of armed rebel forces who sent representatives to Cairo who on Sunday agreed to form the Front Revolutionary to Free Syria.

He said they want to work with Idriss and Khatib and Hitto but formed their own large council to be sure the Coalition and Idriss’s commanders find the foreign funding and distribute it equitably (my words).  If I understood him correctly he said this new military-political union represents about 50 to 60,000 Syrian rebels.

The numbers given are much too high. The group does exist, el-Jabha el-Thawria li-Tahrir Souriya. Here’s a thing on it in Sharq Awsat.

I can’t tell what’s happening with people like this Abu Hadi, on the ground in Syria, but as far as I know all of the factions involved are microscopic and exile-run.

– Wahid Saqr is an Alawite ex-security defector who has long been in exile in London, with no known entourage.

– Louai Zoubi is an eccentric ex-jihadi salafi from Deraa who has been making noise about armed action since late 2011, but seems to sit in Saudi Arabia or somewhere. Two of the groups involved consist of him and his cronies (Mouminoun Yusharikoun & Majlis Tamthili Meidani). It is a bit of a tell that they need to count him twice to make the front seem bigger.

– Gen. Hajj Ali (also from Deraa) was supposed to lead the KSA-backed “Syrian National Army” in Aug-Sep (can’t remember) 2012, but that fell apart instantly after being founded. He’s in Jordan I think. If I’m not mistaken he might still be the top-ranking defector so far, but he hasn’t got any real allies. Until now, that is. The group he claims to represent is probably just him and a few other defectors.

– The tribal council could be a real force, there’s something like that which has been involved in previous coalitions. But there’s probably several such councils, I have no idea what this represents.

From the people involved, I’d guess there’s been Saudi funding, or at least funding from interests associated with KSA. If someone were to pour lots and lots of cash into this over an extended period of time, it might evolve into something bigger, but if not it sounds like a totally marginal project. What unites these people is mainly that they have no influence on their own.

Aron Lund

News Round Up

Fear and loathing in Damascus: ‘Why are they doing this? Why are they trying to starve us?’

The civil war raging in Syria is sparking shortages and fury in Damascus’s Old City, writes Alex Thomson, Chief correspondent for Channel 4 News.

… A middle-aged man shouted in English: “You are not welcome. You are starving us. You are stopping us living here. You should report this. It is the sanctions. Go home.”

It was a shock, in a country whose hospitality to foreign strangers is renowned. He would not shake hands. It was not the fighting that angered this businessman, nor the British government’s apparent wish to arm the rebels, but the EU sanctions that are preventing the transfer of money…”The sanctions are a huge problem,” said Abu Adham. “They affect prices enormously and also affect the sources of all our raw materials. Sometimes we can find alternatives but it is not easy and we have had to discontinue certain of our lines.”…

The cause of much disruption is indisputable. Damascus’s oil, petrol and diesel comes largely from a refinery to the west of Homs, 100 miles north. Road tankers are regularly attacked, as is the pipeline that connects the refinery to the capital. The highway south to Jordan is also increasingly exposed to rebel attacks. The only unaffected road out, either for people or for freight, is westwards to Lebanon.

There are long queues of cars for the few petrol stations still operating in Damascus, which are themselves targets for incoming mortars or even car bombs. People line up for fuel, tempers easily fraying, and the smell of petrol hangs heavy in the air as jumpy soldiers push people back and try to maintain order.

“I am seeing 30 years of economic planning fall apart before my very eyes,” said Elaine Imadia, shopping for fruit and vegetables with her daughter. A resident of the city for 53 years, she still has the drawl she acquired growing up in Palisades, New York. Her husband, Mohammed Imadi, is a former economy minister and a founder of Syria’s stock exchange.

“Prices have trebled and I really do not know how the poor people are managing right now,” she said. “The entire economy is being dismantled. Look around you here – the price of meat is unspeakably high and that’s just the beginning of it all.”

In fact you didn’t need to look far to see how the poor people are managing. They are doing something which is commonplace on the streets of London and New York – but until now has been a rarity in Damascus. A middle-aged woman sat at the street corner, quietly begging from passers-by.

Inside Obama’s Syria Debate
By Adam Entous, 29 March 2013, The Wall Street Journal Online

With the death toll mounting in the Syrian rebellion, the Obama administration has stepped up calls for strongman Bashar al-Assad to give up power.

But two years into the bloodiest chapter of the Arab Spring, the administration, under pressure from lawmakers and allies, has only taken halting steps to help provide training, equipment and intelligence to moderate rebel fighters.

That incremental shift is the product of a wrenching, behind-the-scenes debate over how best to drive Mr. Assad from power, contain Islamist factions inside the rebellion and keep the U.S. from being sucked into a new conflict just as it exits its longest war.

A reconstruction of months of conversations within the administration—based on interviews with two dozen senior officials in Washington, Europe and the Middle East—suggests that process has been slowed by internal divisions, miscalculations and bureaucratic inertia.

The Pentagon drew up military options but made clear to the White House they were unpalatable. State Department calls for intervention grew but weren’t aggressively pursued or enough to overcome White House resistance. Administration lawyers, meanwhile, raised doubts whether the U.S. even had a legal basis for using force in Syria. And America’s allies talked up the need to do something but got cold feet at crucial junctures so little was done.

Just as pressure to intervene grew last summer, White House officials were buoyed by a series of attacks where rebels appeared to be getting close to killing Mr. Assad. Several senior officials now acknowledge the U.S. misjudged how long Mr. Assad could hold on.

The cautious approach comes from the president himself, buttressed by advisers including Denis McDonough, now the White House chief of staff. Their view: Syria is awash in arms and adding more risks worsening violence without improving rebel chances of victory.

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came to believe late last year that Washington could no longer watch the Syria carnage from the sidelines. But Mrs. Clinton and other advocates of arming the rebels didn’t in the end aggressively push for the initiative, put forward by then-Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus, as it became clear where Mr. Obama stood, according to current and former administration officials.

Arming Syrian rebels divided the cabinet coalition that had championed the 2011 Libya campaign, pitting Mrs. Clinton against U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice who emerged as a leading voice of caution.

The most engaged U.S. effort thus far comes from the CIA, which is working with European and Arab spy services to provide intelligence, training and logistical support to select rebel groups, according to U.S., European and Arab officials. Nevertheless, CIA operatives are frustrated by what they see as the Obama administration’s reluctance to provide the rebels with the items they say they need most, including arms and cash, according to current and former officials.

The CIA declined to comment.

The U.S.’s Syria strategy is emblematic of the administration’s policy of limiting Washington’s role as global policeman. In NATO’s campaign against Libya’s Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Mr. Obama insisted European powers play a leading combat role. After French forces went into Mali to fight al Qaeda linked forces in January, Mr. Obama sent cargo and refueling planes to help Paris but no fighter jets or armed drones.

Critics within the administration and in the Syrian opposition say the administration’s reluctance to arm moderate groups has strengthened Islamist fighters who could dominate the country when the regime falls.

At a news conference last week in Jerusalem, Mr. Obama defended his approach.

“It is incorrect for you to say that we have done nothing,” he said. “We have helped to mobilize the isolation of the Assad regime internationally. We have supported and recognized the opposition. We have provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support for humanitarian aid.”

From the outset, the U.S.’s moves were marked by caution. In August 2011, after months of debate among top advisers, Mr. Obama called for Mr. Assad to “step aside.” Still, Mr. Obama by design didn’t say the U.S. would “force” Mr. Assad out, according to officials who helped formulate the statement.

In one meeting in January 2012, a senior U.S. official met in California with supporters of the Syrian opposition and said “all options are on the table”—the U.S. government’s official position.

“But as I was mouthing the words, I began to wonder if I was doing the right thing,” said the official, who has since left the administration. “It was always a struggle to keep up (rebel) morale without misleading anyone.”

In April, the Pentagon readied preliminary options for White House staff that included no-fly zones and limited aerial strikes, but they weren’t presented to the president.

In the weeks that followed, top White House officials met with planners at the Pentagon to discuss options, which included arming rebels without links to Islamist groups and providing them with tactical training. No option received much high-level support at the time. “Nobody could figure out what to do,” a senior defense official said.

America’s hands-off policy was dealt a shock on June 22 when a Turkish reconnaissance plane was shot down by Syrian air defenses.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised alarms in the U.S. by suggesting that Turkey might invoke NATO’s Article V, which says alliance members should treat an attack against one as an attack against all, potentially triggering a military response.

Neither the U.S. nor NATO was interested in rushing to Article V, a message that was conveyed to the Turks, according to NATO diplomats. Turkey instead invoked Article IV, which triggered emergency consultations but no further action. And U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s supreme allied commander, had NATO’s defense plan for Turkey rewritten to reassure the Turks and deter Damascus from widening the conflict.

NATO was so wary of getting pulled into Syria that top alliance officials balked at even contingency planning for an intervention force to protect Syrian civilians. “For better or worse, Assad feels he can count on NATO not to intervene right now,” a senior Western official said.

Within the Obama administration, pressure for a policy change began to grow in July after diplomatic efforts by international envoy Kofi Annan collapsed, sapping hope for a nonmilitary transition. Rebels upped the ante by taking their military campaign to Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. Opposition leaders were hopeful the U.S. would intervene on their behalf, based in part on comments from top State Department and CIA officials.

Senior officials who wanted the U.S. to do more, particularly at the State Department, grew frustrated with the White House, according to current and former officials.

The administration committee charged with Syria policy was kept on a tight leash by Mr. McDonough, then the deputy national security adviser and a close confidante to Mr. Obama, participants say. They said Mr. McDonough made clear that Mr. Obama wasn’t interested in proposals that could lead the U.S. down a slippery slope to military intervention; instead, he had the committee focus mostly on post-Assad planning.

“It was clear to all participants that this was what the White House wanted, as opposed to really focusing on key questions of how do you get to the post-Assad period,” one participant said.

Administration officials said one of the reasons the committee was told to focus on post-Assad planning was because intelligence at the time created “a sense” in the White House that Mr. Assad could be killed by rebels or his own people, eliminating the need for riskier measures to support the rebel campaign.

Officials said Mr. McDonough held smaller side meetings in which officials debated whether the White House should authorize so-called “accelerants”—covert measures designed to speed Mr. Assad’s fall. Those proposals, too, met with caution at the White House, which worried it could undercut U.S. efforts to persuade Russia to halt military aid to the Syrian regime.

Likewise, high-level White House national security meetings on Syria focused on what participants called “strategic messaging,” how administration policy should be presented to the public, according to current and former officials who took part in the meetings.

Another administration official disputed that account, saying there were multiple cabinet-level meetings “with extensive and rigorous analysis presented” and that he didn’t recall strategic messaging ever being a “central topic of discussion at senior levels.”

In July, shortly after Mr. Annan’s negotiations broke down, the U.S. military’s Joint Staff began formally presenting military options to the White House. One of the no-fly zone options called for a bombing campaign followed by round-the-clock combat air patrols.

In those briefings, attendees say, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other top military officials emphasized the risks, including hitting civilians: “It would look like we were carpet bombing the Syrians,” said a former senior U.S. official who attended one of the briefings.

Defense officials say the Joint Staff presented the best options available. Top military commanders acknowledge they weren’t enthusiastic about the options because they didn’t see them as viable. “Some things are what we call wicked problems,” one senior defense official said.

Advocates of intervening faced another hurdle: administration lawyers. Lawyers at the White House and departments of Defense, State and Justice debated whether the U.S. had a “clear and credible” legal justification under U.S. or international law for intervening militarily. The clearest legal case could be made if the U.S. won a U.N. or NATO mandate for using force. Neither route seemed viable: Russia would veto any Security Council resolution, and NATO wasn’t interested in a new military mission.

Administration lawyers honed a third legal justification: collective self-defense, according to current and former officials involved in the deliberations. To work, however, Syria would have to attack one of its neighbors. Besides occasional errant Syrian artillery shells that veered into Turkey, Damascus kept a lid on cross-border tensions to avoid provoking a response.

In August, Mrs. Clinton flew to Istanbul, prepared to look at a no-fly zone, which Ankara earlier had floated to NATO as an option. But Turkish officials told their American counterparts later in August that they weren’t prepared to move forward with a no-fly zone, and the option—already opposed by the U.S. military because of concerns about Syria’s air defenses and Russia’s reaction—died there, U.S. officials say.

The idea of arming secular rebels was popular among CIA field officers who wanted better relations with fighters. It also was more palatable to administration lawyers.

The debate came to a head in an October meeting in the White House Situation Room.

Mr. Petraeus, leaning forward during his presentation, made a forceful case for arming rebels, arguing it would help the U.S. build pro-Western allies and shape future leaders of a post-Assad Syria.

Mrs. Clinton spoke in favor of the initiative but her remarks were brief. U.N. Ambassador Rice argued strongly against arming the rebels, citing doubts about the opposition. Ms. Rice through a spokeswoman declined to comment.

Other White House advisers worried that providing arms, without toppling Mr. Assad, risked making the U.S. look ineffectual. Moreover, such a move would leave the president open to attack if the arms found their way into the hands of extremists.

Shortly after the meeting, Mr. Petraeus resigned over an extramarital affair. A CIA analysis played down the impact of arming the rebels on accelerating Mr. Assad’s fall, and the proposal to arm the rebels died.

At a congressional hearing in February, Republican Sen. John McCain, who has long advocated intervening to protect Syrian civilians and arm rebels, asked then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Dempsey if they had supported the Petraeus-Clinton proposal to arm the rebels. Both men said yes.

The answer infuriated the White House, which didn’t want to put a spotlight on internal divisions and the options privately presented to Mr. Obama.

As the administration debated what to do, the death toll in Syria soared, from 4,000 in late 2011 to nearly 70,000 now, according to U.N. estimates.

In his first news conference as the new defense secretary earlier in March, Chuck Hagel called the administration’s decision to provide only nonlethal support the “correct policy.”

BRICS Summit draws clear red lines on Syria, Iran
By Sharmine Narwani, April 3, 2013,

on Syria, the BRICS fully backed the Geneva principles as the framework for resolving the two-year conflict:

“We believe that the Joint Communiqué of the Geneva Action Group provides a basis for resolution of the Syrian crisis and reaffirm our opposition to any further militarization of the conflict. A Syrian-led political process leading to a transition can be achieved only through broad national dialogue that meets the legitimate aspirations of all sections of Syrian society and respect for Syrian independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty as expressed by the Geneva Joint Communiqué and appropriate UNSC resolutions.”

An Islamic cleric has cleared the path for rebels in Syria, who are trying to oust President Bashar Assad, to rape women, so long as they’re non-Sunni. Salafi Sheikh Yasir al-Ajlawni, who hails from Jordan but who lived in Damascus for 17 years, …

Syria rebel fighters not ready to give up power after war
LA Times

Rebels on the ground say they, not expatriates or educated opposition outsiders, deserve leadership roles in a civilian government for post-conflict Syria.

….Several armed rebels watched as another rebel, a tall, slender man in a black ammunition vest and bandanna, scurried from vehicle to vehicle, asking: “Where’s the 500? Here, give me the 500.” In his hands he held a stack of cash and passes stamped with the seal of the newly formed highway patrol.

The patrol was set up two months ago to quell crime on the roads, mostly robberies and kidnappings, and had been widely praised until it began imposing a toll in March: 500 Syrian pounds (about $7) for cars and 1,000 pounds for tractor-trailers.

There are now almost two dozen checkpoints stationed along the highway from the Turkish border through Aleppo and Idlib provinces, manned by hundreds of rebels……

A Black Flag and a Cup of Coffee in Raqqa, Islamist rebels won the battle for the city – The New Yorker – Rana Abouzaid

For the next few hours, the men engaged in a combative and highly charged discussion. It was about the black banner, but more than that about the direction the Syrian uprising has taken. The men of the house feared that it had been hijacked by Islamists, led by Jabhat al-Nusra, who saw the fall of the regime as the first step in transforming Syria’s once-cosmopolitan society into a conservative Islamic state. All four men said they wanted an Islamic state, but a moderate one.

A few days earlier, a massive black flag bearing the shahada had been hoisted atop a flagpole in Raqqa city’s main square, in front of the elegant, multi-arched governorate building. “We will become a target for American drone attacks because of the flag—it’s huge,” said Abu Noor, a wiry young man who worked in a pharmacy by day and at night volunteered to guard the post office near his home against looters. “They’ll think we’re extremist Muslims!” (There haven’t been such strikes in Syria yet, though the possibility is much discussed here.)

“There is no moderate Islam or extremist Islam,” the Jabhat member said calmly. “There is only Islam, and Islam is under attack in the West regardless of whether or not we hoist the banner. Do you think they’re waiting for that banner to hit us?” he said.

Abu Mohammad, an older man in a tan leather jacket and a white galabia (a loose, floor-length robe), interjected: “What we’re saying is, put the flag above your outposts, not in the main square of the city. We all pray, we all say, ‘There is no god but God,’ but I will not raise this flag.”

“This is an insult to people who died for the revolutionary flag,” said Abu Abdullah, a former English major at the university.

“We are not forcing anything on anyone,” the Jabhat member said. “We offered it as a choice. We did not take down the revolutionary flags in the city—even though we could have.”

Official Vision of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Carnegie – March 29, 2013

From Syria Deeply

A Profile of Yakzan Shishakly, a man who went from managing an air conditioning business in Texas to running a refugee camp inside Syria. The Olive Tree Camp in Idleb province is now home to 26,000 people, at peak times 1,000 people show up in a day. In a follow-up Google Hangout with Shishakly his insights on the humanitarian crisis were profound: fears of epidemics spreading as winter thaws, kids who once hoped to attend school now selling cigarettes in the street.

In the southern part of the country, we looked at how Kidnappings and Extremists in Swaida Lure the Druze into Conflict – reaching into a religious community that had stayed relatively neutral until now.

The Stalemate in Syria, By MATTHIEU AIKINS – NYTimes blog

….As a result of the relative calm, civilians have returned to the city in droves. A photographer friend who had last visited in November was astonished to see neighborhoods he remembered as ghost areas now bustling with activity during the day — streets packed with cars, carts piled with fresh vegetables and supplies like LED lights, batteries and dry goods. There is even fresh fish from the Euphrates, trucked in from Deir Ezzor, more than 300 kilometers away.

The hospitals, mercifully, are no longer the charnel houses they were when heavy shelling rained on civilian areas daily. “There are less casualties than before, even though there are many more civilians,” said Abdul Qadr Mohannad, a surgeon at the Al Daqaq Hospital.

The humanitarian situation is still dire, of course. Most rebel areas lack reliable access to electricity, water or proper medical care; garbage is piling up in the streets; and unemployment and inflation have put many families in desperate financial straits. But for the moment an uneasy calm prevails over the city. Neither side seems interested in committing the manpower, the weaponry and the ammunition necessary to break through the other’s line…..

New Hashish home delivery business in Damascus, caused by deteriorating police force grip. Sky News. Increased smuggling operations across the lebanese-syrian border

FSA soldiers and regime forces “selling crude oil by the truck to Turkey”, according to new Guardian interview with a Nusra fighter:

Foreigners make up a tiny fraction of the Syrian opposition | FP Passport
Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Syria in Danger of Replicating Christian Exodus in Iraq – christianpost.com 

Moaz al Khatib offers the idea of a face to face tv appearance with Bashar: video

Israelis: What do you think of what is happening in Syria? by Corey Gil-Shuster (below)

First Christian Brigade formed in Syria (Cannot verify)

Ahrar al-Sham final video on blowing up check points around Aleppo.

Iraqi intelligence says Syrian and Iraqi Islamic extremist groups ramping up cooperation (VIDEO) – Fox News

Syria rebels on the ground not ready to give up power after war, say they, not educated opposition outsiders, deserve leadership in a civilian government – latimes.com

Syrian rebels said close to chemical weapons cache – The Times of Israel

From an Aleppo business man – “My father’s Aleppo business this month better than last three.”

Ancient Synagogue burns in Damascus, rebels and government exchange blame, March 31, 2013 by Jewish News – JNS.org.

read my blog on “How the jihadi factions are willing to apply Sharia in al-Raqqa” levantnbeyond.blogspot.fr/2013/04/how-ji…

Chechen Insurgency Leader Doku Umarov Tells Chechens Not to Fight in Syria By Mairbek Vatchagaev | Eurasia Daily Monitor

Turkey’s Economy Slows to Lowest Since 2009 By Daniel Dombey | Financial Times

Iraq’s Christians Face Hardship, But Peaceful Easter Also Highlights Promise By Jane Arraf | The Christian Science Monitor

As Syria’s War Rages, Villagers Who’d Fled to Cities for Better Lives Return By David Enders | McClatchy Newspapers

From Stresscom

Economy
US-Syria trade close to nil: Trade between Syria and the United States fell some 93 percent in 2012 according to the US Census Bureau.

Syria’s HDI improves: Syria improved its Human Development Index value, in spite of the increasingly violence, according to the UNDP.

Telecommunication industry sustains heavy losses:Profits halved last year at MTN-Syria, one of Syria’s two mobile phone operators, over rising expenses, according to audited statements published by the company.

International Reactions
France backtracks on arming Syrian rebels: French President Francois Hollande said on Thursday that the situation in Syria was still too unsure to start supplying weapons to opposition rebels.

Russia and Iran continue their support to Assad: Iran and Russia harshly criticized the Arab League for allowing an opposition leader to fill Syria’s vacant seat at the organisation’s annual summit. Russia also said it will fight the opposition’s move to take Syria’s UN seat.

Syria Video

Syria Comment Announces a new web service: Syria Video, which can be found at http://syriavideo.net

Syria Video is a web application that maps and aggregates Syrian war videos by tracking a large number of YouTube channels. The channels have been identified as reliable and tied to specific towns or regions of Syria. Syria Video collects all new videos released on these channels and attempts to identify their location in Syria and then displays them in chronological order. Since going online in early January, Syria Video has collected over 40,000 videos from 42 Syrian cities and 10 governates. Syria Video is an automated system, and thus, gathers videos in an unbiased manner.

Syria Video is our first attempt to bring order to the online Syrian war-sphere and has the potential to provide valuable insight to the conflict.

The Syrian government has tried to exploit the fog of war to gain advantage over its opponents by barring foreign journalists, restricting what Syrian journalists can report, and attacking its own citizen journalists.

Opposition activists have struggled to counter this blackout by posting a growing stream of YouTube videos. They are intended to keep the international community abreast of the revolution’s progress, to produce sympathy for their cause, raise money, and advertise their exploits and victories.

The footprint of the Syrian conflict on the web has been tremendous. The daily barrage of videos, tweets and Facebook posts coming out of Syria, has the potential to provide great insight into events occurring in any given area across the country. The lack of clarity that we face in following these events is not so much due to the lack of information, but to the overwhelming amount of it.

*Syria Video is a Syria Comment project and is funded by the Center of Middle Eastern Studies, the Director of which is Joshua Landis. CMES is part of the College of International Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

Inquiries about Syria Video can be directed to [email protected]

This Jabhat al-Nusra shaikh gives a speech, while standing above the decapitated body of a Syrian officer.

The slain officer commanded the 38th brigade, which was stationed at Saida very close to Deraa near the Jordanian border. Al-Nusra defeated the brigade a week ago. Here is the translation of the Shaikh’s triumphant speech warning all presidents, kings, amirs, security officials and military officers of the oppressive Arab regimes that they will be killed and abased in the same fashion. The free Arab and Muslim people are on the march and will not be satisfied until they have slain their oppressors. It gives interesting insight into Jabhat al Nusra rhetoric and stands as a warning to Arab politicians and security chieftains in generally. The shaikh reminds us that al-Nusra has far reaching plans for the region. It is not clear if the Shaikh is Syrian. He uses the word “Generalat” for generals, which is not Syrian. He also refers to a military rank as “musheer”. Syrians don’t use this rank much at all.

Here’s the translation of the video (by A.N. to whom I am very grateful)

The Nusra fighter starts by quoting Surat At-Tawbah [14-15]:

Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and will disgrace them and give you victory over them and satisfy the breasts of a believing people. And remove the fury in the believers’ hearts. And Allah turns in forgiveness to whom He wills; and Allah is Knowing and Wise. (Sahih international translation)

O’ Tyrants of the world, our Arab world especially. This is the fate of every arrogant, unjust, spoiled and damned tyrant [as he points to the beheaded body]

This is the fate of the ruling generals of the Arab world, in armies and in what is falsely and fraudulently labeled “security systems”, when in reality its a system of torture, injustice and tyranny

This is their fate; They get their heads chopped off and stepped on along with their titles and rank.

Al Moushir, Al Fariq, al Liwaa, al Amid, al Akid, al Moukadam, al Raed and all the ranks are under our feet. Thanks to Allah

This is the fate of every tyrant, oppressor criminal, every enemy of Allah, every enemy of Islam and Muslims and every enemy of jihad and the mujaheddin.

This is their fate; They get their heads chopped off and stepped on along with their ranks, medals, ribbons, looks and pictures, if Allah wills it [inshallah]

This is their punishment, humiliations and disgrace and it will be more disgraceful in the afterlife and they won’t be saved, if Allah wills it.

This is the fate of all the tyrants and all tyrannical idol worshiper, ignorant, infidel, polytheistic, criminal, corruptor governments, rulers and regimes.

This is your fate, to the end, to the disgraceful death in life and to the fires of hell in the afterlife Damn their fate. All of them, the generals and officers in the armies and security systems of the tyrants, as well as their governments and if Allah wills it, to their Presidents, Kings and Emirs, if Allah wills it….

Soon, they will be defeated, they will be defeated, they will be defeated. And glory to Allah and his prophets and the believers. And glory to the mujaheddin in the name Allah and glory to Islam and Muslims

And shame and disgrace on the ignorant worshipers of idols, the criminals, the unjust and the corruptors. The disgrace and shame and disappointment and the fire of hell in the afterlife, if Allah wills it, the fire of hell to all of them. Their ranks and their salaries won’t help them there, nor will their medals or ribbons or looks or pictures and nor all the commands and guards and bodyguards. No one will help them and nothing if Allah wills it. Your God is on the lookout, and the Soldiers of Allah everywhere are on the lookout for every unjust criminal tyrant, if Allah wills it.

And they will receive the fate as this unjust criminal corruptor [points at body], the damned Amid Mahmoud Darwish, if Allah wills it, and if Allah wills it, it will happen to all the unjust generals in the Arab armies and its security systems, the criminals and corruptors. This is their fate and to hell with them….

——————————————————————-
Another commentator‘s video, shows an interview with supposed FSA commander on an FSA-related channel, he’s being interviewed to confirm news he had released earlier, about the possible death of Bashar al Assad. He’s asked to confirm and he indeed confirms the news, saying an officer in the Iranian revolutionary guard had shot him, he knows this through an “honorable” officer they have planted inside the presidential palace.

It seems to be untrue and can be easily debunked, so why use it?

In this video, a group of Syrian soldiers are preparing for Iftar during the month of Ramadan. According to the cameraman, they are all planning to desert soon. He highlights their military style shorts along with other evidence to prove their identity.

As the camera moves inside their room we can see that they have a TV set. The cameraman points at the TV screen showing a stream of army soldiers declaring their desertion , they point at the screen and say that that’s going to be them soon.

That obvious fictitious piece of propaganda is aimed directly at Syrian army soldiers who don’t have access to anything but these channels along with the already discredited state run media. Its a media war as well.

News Round Up

Official data from the Turkish banking agency shows that Syrians have deposited almost $4 billion in Turkish banks…For now, Aleppo’s loss is Turkey’s economic gain, certainly in Gaziantep, a city with historical links to Syria. In Ottoman times, Gaziantep was part of Aleppo province.

And once again, the Turkish border city is intertwined with Syria. The Sanko Park mall was built a few years ago to cater to Syrians who easily crossed the border to shop on weekends. Now, more than 30,000 Syrian businessmen have come to Turkey to escape the war — attracted by government policies that allow them to open factories and offices and make lucrative deals, said Barazi, the furniture store owner.

Can Aleppo recover if the business community stays in Gaziantep?

Syria’s Kurds, deeply divided, may determine the war’s outcome
WLADIMIR VAN WILGENBURG,  The Globe and Mail

Syria Analysis: International Aid Fuels Key Insurgent Victories in South EA Worldview

Today, insurgents from the Dawn of Islam Brigade captured several key checkpoints across a town named Dael (often written Da’el) in Daraa Province (map). There are reports that the fighters have control of the entire town.

Dael’s fall is significant. It may be the defining example of how the international effort to give military assistance to the rebels, led by Saudi Arabia and the US, is rapidly changing the face of the war.

Control of Daraa Province gives the rebels access to Syria’s border with Jordan, from where outside forces are providing military assistance.

Rebels claim to take key city in southern Syria
By Babak Dehghanpisheh: March 29

Lawlessness Spreading in Rebel-held Syria, Widespread looting, crime running rampant and rebel factions fighting among themselves – VOA

The U.N. Security Council released a statement Wednesday in which it expressed that it is has become increasingly concerned with military activities in the Golan and the heightened threat to U.N. personnel on the ground.

Rebuff of missile request helps Assad – Syria opposition leader
By Yara Bayoumy and William Maclean

DOHA (Reuters) – The refusal of international powers to provide Patriot missile support for rebel-held areas of northern Syria sends a message to President Bashar al-Assad to “do what you want”, Syrian opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib said on Wednesday

Alkhatib, a popular figure in the opposition, also said he would not rescind his resignation as leader of the main anti-Assad alliance but he would still perform leadership duties for the time being.

NATO said on Tuesday it had no intention of intervening militarily in Syria after Alkhatib said he had asked the United States to use Patriot missiles to protect rebel-held areas from Assad’s air power.

“Yesterday I was really surprised by the comment issued from the White House that it was not possible to increase the range of the Patriot missiles to protect the Syrian people,” Alkhatib told Reuters in an interview.

“I’m scared that this will be a message to the Syrian regime telling it ‘Do what you want’.”

Asked about his resignation on Sunday as leader of the rebel coalition – which he has said was motivated mainly by frustration at Western reluctance to increase support for the opposition – he said: “I have given my resignation and I have not withdrawn it. But I have to continue my duties until the general committee meets.”

Meanwhile, Assad sent an appeal to the BRICS economic forum, meeting in South Africa, for help in ending the conflict in Syria. In a letter to the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), Assad said Syria is being subjected to “acts of terrorism backed by Arab, regional and Western nations.”

Syrian Conflict’s Impact is Felt Across Border in Iraq By Ernesto Londoño | The Washington Post

Towards a Grand Bargain With the PKK By David L. Phillips | Today’s Zaman

A Two-Track Solution to the Syrian Crisis By Edward Djerejian | Asharq Alawsat

Room for Debate: What Can Obama Accomplish in the Middle East? By Several Writers | The New York Times

Why Stay in the Middle East?
by Leon Hadar, The National Interest | March 27, 2013

Bashing the critics of their foreign-policy agenda as “isolationists” hasbecome the last refuge of military interventionists and global crusaders.The tactic helps sidetrack the debate by putting the onus on theiropponents—those skeptical of regime change here, there and everywhere—todisprove the charge that they want Americans to shun the rest of the world.

And now proponents of maintaining American military hegemony in the MiddleEast have been applying a similar technique, accusing those who call for adebate on U.S. interests and policies in that region of advocating retreat and appeasement.Like the accusation of “isolationism,” the suggestion that a reassessment of current U.S. policies in the Middle East amounts to geostrategic retrenchment is part of an effort to shut down debate and maintain the status quo. But questioning the dominant U.S. Middle East paradigm, which assumes that Americans have the interest and the obligation to secure a dominant political-military status in the region, now goes beyond strategic and economic calculations being debated by foreign-policy wonks in Washington.

Most Americans have only basic knowledge about the Middle East and U.S. interests there, beyond words that trigger a visceral fear (“oil” and “Israel” and “terrorism”). But most of them are now telling pollsters that they want to see U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as possible, are opposed to new U.S.-led regime change and nation building in the Middle East, and are skeptical about the utility of Washington taking charge of the Israeli-Palestinian “peace  process.”Indeed, you don’t have to be a deep strategic thinker to conclude that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a major military and diplomatic fiasco (no more Iraqs, please); that Washington exerts very little influence on the political weather (where it’s “spring” or “winter”) in the Arab World, a place where they lost that loving feeling for America a long time ago; or that Israelis and Palestinians are not going to live in peace and harmony anytime soon, even if President Obama would spend the rest of his term engaged in diplomatic psychotherapy sessions with them at Camp David.

It is becoming quite obvious to most Americans that sustaining the foundations of the Pax Americana in the Middle East is no longercost-effective. Especially at a time when many members of the middle class have yet to recover from the economic devastation of the Great Recession and their representatives in Washington cannot agree on how to manage the ballooning federal deficit.Reversing the classic model of foreign-policy making (leaders decide and then the public follows), leaders and the experts in Washington have been…

This new approach must encourage regional powers like Turkey, Egypt, Iran, the Arab Gulf States and Israel to operate under the assumption that the United States would not be there to micromanage the balance of power in the region. It also should provide incentives for Washington’s European allies to protect their interests in a region that is after all in their strategic backyard.Moreover, the U.S. economy has never been dependent on oil imports from the Middle East (it now receives about 14 percent of its energy supplies from the region). There is no reason why America should continue to spend its resources to provide economic competitors like China with free military protection for access to Middle Eastern oil.Israel would also have to adjust to the new realities of U.S. power in the Middle East. Israelis need to recognize that Washington would not be able to bail them out if and when they behave irresponsibly: U.S. support cannot be a substitute for reaching an agreement with the Palestinians and being integrated into the Middle East.The United States could continue to act as the “balancer of last resort” in the Middle East, working together with regional and global powers to help strengthen stability and promote economic prosperity in the region. But it cannot and should not sustain the current status quo there anymore.*

NPR Wins Peabody Award for Syria Coverage

Thanks to bartolo’s blog

Arming Syria rebels not solution, peace envoy Brahimi says – PanARMENIAN.Net

American who fought for Al Nusrah Front arrested in US (VIDEO) – The Long War JournalObama did not approved NSC recommendation to give body armor to Syrian rebels – Foreign Policy

Rape and sham marriages: the fears of Syria’s women refugees – Channel 4 News

Tunisians Raise Alarm on Possible Fatwa Encouraging ‘Sexual Jihad’ in Syria- Al-Monitor

France’s Hollande says too early to send arms to Syria rebels – Reuters

Dera’a is Falling
by Matthew Barber for Syria Comment
March 29, 2013

According to an article published yesterday by al-Quds (???? ????: ?????? ???????? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ?? ????), Syrian MP Waleed Zoubi has asserted during a session of parliament that large areas within the muhafiza (governorate) of Dera’a have fallen under the control of rebels, and that the presence of regime forces is dwindling. His remarks indicate that Dera’a is in the process of falling, and served as a wake-up call to the Syrian parliament about the shift of control in that region. Zoubi countered reports that the highway (which runs from Damascus to the Jordanian border, through Dera’a) is still secured by the Syrian military, declaring that much of it is under the control of armed militants, who also control much of the Syrian-Jordanian border, including near the Golan. He also said that a number of military positions in the muhafiza have been emptied of regime forces for “unknown strategic reasons.”

Waleed Zoubi – Captured image from al-Quds

After the “retreat” that Zoubi alludes to, he said that these positions have been replaced with forces of Jabhat al-Nusra. Though we already knew that Syria near the Golan was under rebel control, Zoubi stated before the parliament that the highway is completely under rebel control from Kherbet Ghazalah to Jordan. He said that the loss of the highway involved the fall of the most important military site in Dera’a (which he wouldn’t name, knowing that the session was being broadcast on live TV), leaving only the 61^st Brigade to provide “western cover”—it’s unclear whether he means the entirety of the western muhafiza, or the western highway, since two parallel highways run from Damascus to Jordan through the muhafiza of Dera’a, Kherbet Ghazalah being located on the eastern highway.

Furthermore, today rebels have announced that they have taken Dael, a town north of the city of Dera’a on the western highway. This means that both highways are likely now under rebel control, which would effectively cut Damascus off from the city of Dera’a and the most important stretch of the Jordanian border. Rebels claim that the three checkpoints that secure the center of the town of Dael and its northern and southern entrances have been overrun by militias.

The liwa that Zoubi refrained from mentioning in the parliament’s televised session was the 38th Brigade which was besieged for 15 days by Jabhat al-Nusra and FSA forces, finally being taken by the rebels 6 days ago. This brigade was located in Saida.

On the map image, the blue and red indicate the western (old) highway and eastern (new) highway, respectively. Kherbet Ghazalah is at the top right, to the east of Dael. Traveling down the eastern highway brings one to Saida, the (former) location of the 38th Brigade (green star) and the point one must turn west to reach the city of Dera’a. MP Zoubi’s concern regarding the fall of Saida to rebel control is easy to understand, since the site can allow or block access to nearby Dera’a from the primary highway. As of today, however, it seems that both of these thoroughfares are in opposition hands. See this stream of latest videos  from Dael, and this stream of videos from Kherbet Ghazala.

The end of the following video shows a tank in the possession of al-Nusra being shelled by regime forces in the vicinity of the 38th Brigade.

Another video shows an interview (Arabic only) with an al-Nusra fighter after they finally won the siege of Saida; a third from Saida shows fighters celebrating; a fourth includes some leaders of the offensive. Now for Dael: Released just a few hours ago is this video in which rebels announce victory in the operation dubbed “The Mother of Martyrs Battle”-“????? ?? ???????”; in this one a rebel shows viewers how regime forces blew up one of their own trucks full of ammo with an RPG when defeat drew near, so that rebels wouldn’t have the benefit of using them.

Other Arabic websites have said that MP Waleed Zoubi is from Dera’a. In the session of parliament, he stated that 20 days ago he alerted the presidency and government to the presence of armed militants who were taking control of specific locations, but that no responsive action was forthcoming. His words before the parliament were not framed as a protest but as an alert to Syrians, yet such honesty in the parliament is still uncommon. Zoubi presented his remarks as one concerned about seeing the muhafiza overrun by insurgents. Nevertheless, his open acknowledgment of loss of both territory and the morale of regime forces in Dera’a elicited objections from other MPs who tried to silence him, whereupon he demanded that they not interrupt him.

   Photo from Sana

What remains fascinating is the dance that must be performed around the reality of events on the ground. It’s permissible to say that foreign terrorists are causing havoc in Syria, but it’s not acceptable to acknowledge that the uprising includes Syrian participants, let alone that the uprising is primarily Syrian—that’s been the case from the beginning. But that other MPs would try to prevent Zoubi, even at this late hour, from merely discussing in parliament the practical problem of a very real loss of territory is a telling reminder of the persistence of the Ba’athist cult of unreality. How can the regime fight its war without acknowledging its battles? Is it loyalty to mention terrorism, but treason to admit losses? Is patriotism the acknowledgment of conflict with “unknown” assailants coupled with a simultaneous pretending that no failure is occurring? Zoubi mentioned the descent of Syria into a state of war and warned that “if terrorists prevail, chaos will prevail,” yet apparently, even if an area is falling out of the regime’s control, it is still taboo to acknowledge it directly.

Subsequent Syrian news coverage of the parliamentary session made no mention of Zoubi.

This article was prepared with assistance from Syria Video, a project related to Syria Comment to be unveiled soon.

Rebel Mortar Attack Kills Students at Damascus University

Today I spoke by phone with the director of the university’s architecture department, a personal friend. Yesterday’s mortar attack hit a cafeteria located just outside the architecture building. The death toll is between 15 and 20, all students, with more than 30 injured. 12 of the dead were architecture students, all studying together in the same department. Mortars have become quite common in eastern Damascus, where attacks launched from Jobar and Qabuun regularly hit the Christian neighborhoods of Bab Tuma and Qasaa’. (In fact, the mortar that killed the university students was only one of at least 6 mortars in Damascus yesterday: friends reported 3 in Qasoor [north of Abbasiyiin] and 2 in Qasaa’.) But for shells to touch down in Baramke (where the university is located) is an emerging phenomenon. (Less than three weeks ago one hit the football stadium in Baramke killing 6 civilians and injuring near 30.) As rebel activity has moved inward into neighborhoods like Yarmouk, the number of areas from which mortars can be fired into the center of Damascus has increased. It is difficult to say exactly where the mortar that killed the students yesterday was launched from, since they supposedly have a range of about 8km. –MTB

Photo from NBCNews

The story from Reuters  and  BBC

The Irresistible Call of Jihad

A former U.S. soldier has been arrested and charged with illegally using a weapon on behalf of an al Qaeda-affiliated group in Syria.

Eric Harroun, 30, of Phoenix was arrested Tuesday night by the FBI at a hotel near Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia. A Justice Department official tells CNN that FBI agents questioned Harroun at the hotel, then took him into custody.

Harroun appeared Thursday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, and was charged in connection with his alleged use of a rocket-propelled grenade in Syria.

The law used to charge him states, “Any national of the United States who, without lawful authority, uses or threatens, attempts, or conspires to use a weapon of mass destruction outside of the U.S. shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or if death results, may be punished by death.”

… The organization he allegedly fought with, al-Nusra Front, is one of several aliases used by the al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist organization. The organization claims responsibility for nearly 600 terrorist attacks in Syria, the Justice Department said.

An FBI affidavit says Harroun crossed into Syria in January 2013 and fought against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. He posted photos and videos of himself on the Internet handling RPGs and other weapons, it said.

The Pentagon declined to comment on Harroun’s arrest. However, “It’s always a concern when terrorist networks in that part of the world and elsewhere seek to recruit Americans, whether they’re in the military or not,” spokesman George Little told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

No, Islamists will not dominate in Syria by Rami Khouri, The Daily Star

“The fast pace of developments in and around Syria in the past week has pushed the country more quickly toward the end of Bashar Assad’s regime, a situation many of us thought was imminent last autumn. He did not fall then for reasons that are evident today. The first is that Assad’s strategy from the start of the uprising against his rule two years ago this month turned out to be that he would, first, bludgeon into submission civilians who demonstrated against him (as his father had done in Hama 30 years earlier). And when that failed he would cede territory to them, but continue to hit their areas hard using air power and missiles. The Syrian government that ruled nationally has disappeared, to be replaced by fortified military bases tightly controlled by Assad loyalists, cousins and desperado fellow Alawites who are prepared to destroy Syria to save themselves.

The second is that this is a losing strategy, because the regime’s circling of its wagons in a few areas makes it more vulnerable than ever to the continued successes of Islamist rebels and the enhanced strengthening of the secular rebels (thanks to aid and training from Arab and foreign powers). As both prongs of the armed opposition advance on the regime’s isolated strongholds, and rockets fall in the center of Damascus, Assad’s constricted bases will panic, and ultimately collapse.” …

Syria could turn into a large Lebanon, should current trends continue for a year or more.

If, on the other hand, the Assad regime falls quickly and is replaced by a legitimate government that receives substantial foreign assistance during the transition and reconstruction period, I would expect two important developments to occur: Syria’s traditional secular nationalism and cosmopolitanism will reaffirm themselves, and this will reduce the influence of those Islamists whose sudden prominence – Presto! Meet the Nusra Front! – is due to their military actions…..

Minority Report: Shiites and Druze

Syria’s Shiites offer different picture of war – LA Times

Shiite Muslims who fled Syria for Lebanon tell of an ‘ethnic cleansing’ campaign by rebels intent on creating a Sunni-run Islamic state.

Each evening, Ali Jamal and other men in this border town grab their Kalashnikov assault rifles, jump on their motorbikes and ride across the irrigation canal into Syria to protect their homes.

The enemies are Sunni rebel “terrorists,” he says, who target Jamal and his neighbors because they are Shiite Muslims.

“Imagine, these people used to be our neighbors,” said the 40-year-old farmer, perplexed by the transformation. “Now they want to kidnap and kill us.”

Tensions gripping the villages along the border here between northeastern Lebanon and Syria illustrate the increasingly sectarian nature of the 2-year-old Syrian conflict and the risks it poses for the entire region.

The predominant narrative of the Syrian war is that of a tyrannical government largely run by members of a Shiite sect, the Alawites, brutalizing a people yearning for freedom.

However, in the largely Shiite towns and villages of Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, people who have fled Syria tell a different story. They speak of an “ethnic cleansing” campaign carried out by rebels intent on creating an Islamic state run by Syria’s Sunni majority.

In the face of rebel attacks, Shiites in dozens of villages just inside Syria have fled here to a part of Lebanon dominated by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, the villagers and Hezbollah representatives say. Those who have been displaced credit Hezbollah, which is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., with providing shelter and security.

… In the adjacent town of Hermel, Ali Haydar Kheyr Din, 46, recounted how he was kidnapped by rebels on a Syrian road and held for four days. His captors went through his cellphone contacts one by one and accused him of being a Hezbollah operative, said Din, who says his family owns a factory in Homs.

“You’re Shiite, of course you’re Hezbollah,” said one of the captors, according to Din. He said he was blindfolded for most of the time he was captive. “Tell us how you get the arms into Syria,” the rebel interrogator demanded at the home where he was held. …

In Swaida, Kidnappings and Extremists Finally Lure Druze into Conflict – Syria Deeply

Swaida, the Druze-majority province that borders Daraa, has escaped much of the violence in Syria’s brutal conflict, serving as a haven for refugees and a source for humanitarian aid. But a spate of kidnappings, and the rise of jihadist groups such as Jabhat Al Nusra, have left residents to fend for themselves as Syria transforms into a failed state.

And it’s the traditional leaders of society, religious men and prominent civilians, who are stepping in to ease ethnic and sectarian tensions. Swaida’s dignitaries have taken up this role, much as their fellow peacemakers are intervening in conflicts between Arabs and Kurds in the north and east, Alawites and Sunnis in Homs and Hama, and Shiites and Sunnis in Aleppo and Idlib.

The Druze of Syria have largely rejected the movement to topple the Assad regime, but the province of 400,000 people has accepted internal refugees and was a source of aid to besieged neighbors in Daraa. They have also defied repeated requests from one of the sect’s top leaders, Lebanese politician Walid Jumblatt, who has urged the Druze to collectively join opponents of the Assad regime.

Swaida’s protest movement has grown in recent months.

Rima Flihan, a member of the National Coalition and a Druze from Swaida, said the province was “the lung [for Daraa], and used to regularly sneak humanitarian aid to Daraa, including medicine and bread through secret routes.” The provincial capital, Swaida, had its first protest on March 25, 2011, and a large protest in Sultan al-Atrash Square in April 2011, but the opposition’s activity was limited there and was instead centered in the smaller city of Shahba, she added.

… Swaida’s meager participation angered Assad loyalists in the province. Supporters of the Assad regime in Swaida mobilized around the government, responding in part to a fear campaign that painted the uprising as a radical Islamist movement that was hostile to minorities such as the Druze, which many Muslims consider a heterodox sect.

“The regime used sectarian language to terrify the Druze about the Salafi threat, using its tools such as [Lebanese Druze pro-Assad politician] Wi’am Wahhab and others” to deliver the message, Zoabi said. This divisive rhetoric was fueled by the scant coverage that Swaida’s opposition activists received from “pan-Arab satellite channels such as Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, which only concentrated on the Sunni areas that rose up against the regime,” he added.

Animosity between the sects increased and turned violent, starting with kidnappings between armed groups in Swaida and Daraa. On May 25, the Mu’tasim Brigade of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), based in neighboring Daraa, kidnapped 14 Druze soldiers from Swaida who were heading to a prison in Daraa. The act was seen as a sectarian provocation in Swaida, and militants there responded by kidnapping over 60 people from different areas in Daraa. …

… The interregnum created by a receding government in Syria forced civilians to act, or risk a spiraling of these types of hostilities. This danger is heightened as the rebellion approaches regions where religious and ethnic minorities are local majorities, such as Swaida, the Mediterranean coast and mountain range, Kurdish majority cities, and Salamiyeh in Hama, and the only answer so far has been for civilian leaders to stem the cycle of violence.

But the introduction of a new element, the jihadist Jabhat Al Nusra in Daraa, has added another layer of complexity to the conflict. In December, Nusra fighters attacked a checkpoint near Swaida but weren’t able to make a clean getaway. Swaida’s pro-regime popular committees, a euphemism for shabiha, killed two Nusra fighters and detained some of its fighters.

Nusra responded by kidnapping 17 people from Swaida including Sheik Abu Khaled Jamal Iz al Din, a respected Druze leader, and refused to release them until its fighters were freed. This YouTube video from Dec. 27 showed the hostages held by Jabhat Al Nusra pleading for Druze religious and tribal leaders, including Sheik Hanaoui, to cut a deal with the group.

Sheik Hanaoui said he led a delegation from Swaida and met with four Nusra fighters in Om Walad village in Daraa province. After hours of talks, the delegation came to an agreement with Nusra to release the hostages, Hanaoui said, but added that Nusra then broke the agreement for unknown reasons.

Nusra hasn’t commented on the incident.

“Solving problems between Swaida and Daraa has become difficult. Our mission has gotten more complicated because of Jabhat Al Nusra. They won’t listen to anybody,” said Ayham Haddad, a political activist based in the U.S. and a member of the first mediation committee.

“Jabhat Al Nusra sees the Druze as infidels, therefore they see attacking and kidnapping them as justified,” said Zoabi, the Daraa activist. The group “has no local reference here, and their excommunicating ideology is catastrophic in societies like Syria.”

Opinion

Reasons to remain optimistic about Syria by Leila Nachawati Rego for al-Jazeera

… The attempts to push the country toward a self-fulfilled prophecy of sectarianism are extremely dangerous. The fact that the Assad administration has survived this long in its crusade against its own people, and continues to destroy every inch of life and ancient history, is excruciating. The daily loss is unbearable.

While all of this is true, there are many reasons to remain optimistic considering what Syrians have accomplished in two years under extreme pressure. The reasons are related to the internal dynamics of a people desperate for free expression, association and communication after decades of terror and isolation.

… Despite the fact that the regime has not been able to produce any non-violent response to citizen demands, non-violent protests continue to take place all over the country on a weekly basis.

Demonstrations are not the only manifestation of peaceful resistance and civil disobedience. From the strikes to the sit-ins, from the “peace brides” to the celebration of Women’s Day through countless citizen mobilisations, daily resistance against oppression has not stopped.

It is important to be aware of these initiatives, which co-exist with the militarisation on the ground and do not usually receive international attention.

… Much like the emergence of theatre during the army coups of the 50s and 60s, new manifestations of creativity and artistic expression are flourishing in the region in this period of uprisings, regime change and transition.

There is a constant and increasing production of music, graffiti, independent films, poetry, cartoons, video-art, puppet shows and all forms of free expression after decades of art serving the power structures.

These independent, often collective productions are part of a new Syrian reality that has flowered without the regime’s consent, and it survives every attempt to silence its expression. Mostly uncovered by mainstream media, it constitutes in itself a ground for optimism. …

In Syria, the Rebels Have Begun to Fight Among Themselves
By Rania Abouzeid / Tal AbyadMarch 26, 20134 Comments

The day started like a regular Sunday for Mohammad al-Daher, better known as Abu Azzam, the commander of the rebel Farouq Brigades in the vast swathe of eastern Syria called the Jazira, a region that stretches from the Turkish border to the Iraqi frontier and encompasses the three provinces of Raqqa, Hasaka, and Deir Ezzor. He had a series of meetings in the morning in a number of locations in the bustling town of Tal Abyad on Syria’s border with Turkey as well as in the partially destroyed former police station that is the Farouq’s headquarters. And he was going to visit his mother.

By late-afternoon, however, the burly 34-year-old Raqqa native would be lying in a hospital bed – wounded by members of the ultraconservative Islamist group Jabhat al-Nusra (which the U.S considers a terrorist organization with links to Al-Qaeda). Abu Azzam’s targeting has blown open a sharp rift and long-brewing conflict between the more-secular nationwide Farouq brigades and the Jabhat. The two groups are among the most effective, best organized and most well-known of the many military outfits aligned against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — and the fight between them is just beginning……(read the rest – brilliant reporting)

Syrian opposition seat deepens Assad’s diplomatic isolation – Arab News

A four-man delegation of the Syrian opposition took the nation’s seat at the summit. The delegation included interim Prime Minister Ghassan Hitto and Alkhatib, who, despite stepping down as president of the Syrian National Council, led the Syrian delegation in Qatar.

The SNC presented a number of demands to change the destiny of the Syrian nation.

King Abdullah lashed out at the Assad regime for unleashing deadly weapons on his own people in full view on the international community….

Jihad in Syria (Part II): The Assad Regime Perspective
By Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
for Syria Comment, March 25, 2013

In my previous article I examined the question of how jihadists in Syria conceive of their jihad against the Assad regime. But how does the regime portray jihad?

Earlier this month, many observers were surprised by a statement issued by the Supreme Iftaa Council, whose leader is Mufti Ahmad Hassoun, the most senior Sunni cleric in Syria as Grand Mufti, with strong ties to the regime. The council’s fatwa was a call for jihad to defend Assad’s government.

I provide my translation of the statement below, as quoted by the Syrian Arab News Agency and reproduced on a pro-regime site called Zanobia (named after the empress of the Palmyrene Empire that had seceded from Rome in the Crisis of the Third Century: an apt symbol for the regime’s professed stance of ‘resistance’ to supposed Western imperialism). I highlight parts in bold for my own emphasis:

“God Almighty has said: Those who have obeyed God and the messenger after injury has struck them. To those among them [i.e. the believers] who have done good and feared God is a great reward. Those to whom the people have said, ‘The people had indeed gathered against you [i.e. the believers].’ But it increased them in faith and they said, ‘Our reliance is God and He is the best dispenser’ [Qur’an 3:172-3].

And the Almighty has said: Permission [to fight] has been given to those who are being fought because they have been wronged, and verily is God able to grant them victory [Qur’an 22:39].

And the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) has said: Whosoever fights so that the word of God may be- as it is- supreme, he is fighting in the cause of God [Sahih Bukhari 4:52:65].

And he said: There are two sorts of eyes, which Hellfire does not impair. One eye has overflown [i.e. cried] with fear of God, the other has spent the night guarding in the path of God [i.e. jihad to protect the Ummah: Sunan at-Tirmidhi].

And he said: Whosoever is killed protecting his wealth is a martyr; whosoever is killed protecting his blood is a martyr; whosoever is killed protecting his life is a martyr; whosoever is killed protecting his family is a martyr [Sunan at-Tirmidhi, Number 1421, Sahih].

Sons of Syria the fatherland, sons of our Arab and Islamic nation, in the darkness of the conditions, which the Syrian Arab Republic is witnessing on account of the war that has attacked the nation- the work of a number of states that wish for the fragmentation of the Arab and Islamic nation, through the targeting of Syria’s stances and support for freedom, national self-determination, human dignity and resistance.

The country that has remained lofty through the ages of time in the face of Zionist aggression and its policies of expansionism. Verily there is the targeting of our Syrian people and the brave army; that is, the targeting of steadfastness, resistance, and today our people who bring forth the best of their sons to defend Syria against arrogance, humiliation, subordination and partition for the area; for they wish to break up Syria just as they did to a number of other states.

So verily does the Supreme Iftaa Council in the Syrian Arab Republic call on our Syrian Arab people to the undertaking of the obligation according to the Shari’a. First, that the defense of united Syria and the Syrian people is a duty of all the sons of our people just as it is a duty of all the Arab and Islamic states.

And we implore our people in Syria to stand shoulder to shoulder with our Syrian Arab army and our armed forces and we call on our sons to fulfill the religious duty of joining the Syrian Arab army for the defense of our homeland which the heavens have blessed and which the Imam of the prophets [i.e. Mohammed] called to him.

And we warn about standing in the face of our Syrian Arab army and our armed forces since that constitutes betrayal and contributing to the weakening of its strength that has been made ready and continues to be so for decisive battle against the Zionists and whoever stands behind them that contributes to the achievement of the goals of the enemy.

Second, appeals of affection to our sons in the Syrian Arab army as you boldly embark on battles in defense of our people and our nation by the watch of God Almighty in your Jihad and your defense of Syria, raising high the word of God and righteousness in our precious homeland.

The protection of the land, the homeland, dignity, honor, and wealth, for the art of warfare is a duty of faith and patriotism, in which they have thus protected the blood of the innocents, the sanctity of the land, and dignity.

May your stand be with our Syrian people as a stance of protection and custody for our human, economic, cultural and historical wealth. God aid you in His victory and your stand since in Him are the best of the land, the unity of our land, and the security of our people.

The Almighty has said: Don’t be weak and do not grieve, for you will have the advantage if you are believers [Qur’an 3:139]. Oh God, protect the land of Syria, its people, and its army by your guardianship; and aid us, oh God, in victory and assist us.”

Notable is the opening invocation of a number of Qur’anic verses and hadith traditions. The implication of all of these quotations is the idea of defensive jihad for Syria against the rebellion. I highlighted Qur’an 22:39 in bold because jihadist groups who conceive of their fight against the Assad regime as defensive in nature also invoke this verse.

Before proceeding further, one should dispense of Ammar Abdulhamid’s misleading term “Alawite Jihadism.” While Abdulhamid does explain that “Alawite Jihadism” did not develop as a “strictly religious phenomenon,” it implies that there is some kind of specific religious struggle behind the efforts of Alawites fighting for the Assad regime.

On the contrary, to the extent that pro-Assad Alawite fighters express any sentiment about religion, it is normally in the form of a non-religious bloodline identity, which often includes opposition to Islam, and not merely the Sunni form of it as Abdulhamid implies, though the anti-Sunni rhetoric is undeniable

In the most extreme manifestation, this can give rise to statements like ‘F— you and your prophet [Mohammed].’ A more subtle variation on the anti-Islamic hostility is to ask rhetorically, ‘Who is your God? Isn’t Bashar your God?’ The latter, as I have argued before, does not so much reflect actual worship of Assad (as Abdulhamid seems to think) as simple mockery of the fact that the deity the detainees worship is not saving them from torture and death.

In any event, even if one were to suppose that the Syrian Alawite community at large is still attached to the traditional faith and its practices that remain very much alive in southern Turkey, the fact is that traditional Alawism does not teach jihad as a form of armed struggle.

Rather, as Yaron Friedman noted, jihad takes the form of taqiyya (i.e. not disclosing aspects of the faith to outsiders for fear of persecution) and mystical initiation, while the notion of ‘martyrdom’ (being a shaheed) takes on a metaphorical meaning.

If there were some kind of specific religious zealotry behind the support for Assad with calls for jihad, then it would have been apparent among at least some of Turkey’s Alawites. Instead, what we find is that support for Assad among this community is rooted in perceptions that Turkey is backing extremist armed groups targeting Alawites- with feared potential of leading to spillover into Turkey with sectarian bloodletting.

Coming back to the fatwa for jihad, it actually fits in perfectly well with the Assad dynasty’s approach of ‘Sunnification’: a policy that contributed much to the divorcing of the Alawite community in general from a real religious identity. For the Alawites, as Joshua Landis has noted previously, ‘Sunnification’ meant declaring Alawites to be orthodox Twelver Shi’a, while encouraging apparent religious practices along the lines of orthodox Sunni Islam.

Continuing his father’s own example of public piety, Bashar has the state media make a big deal of his attendance of mosques for special Islamic occasions. Even the manner of prayer captured in photographs is shown to be in conformity with Sunni Islam, contrasting completely with the organization and practice of prayer among Alawites in Turkey (for more on the latter see this book).

While ‘Sunnification’ might seem like a very cynical ploy to disguise a minority-dominated despotism, it is a policy in keeping with Ba’athist ideology, which, as envisioned by Ba’ath party-founder Michel Aflaq (a Greek Orthodox Christian), equated Islam with Arabist identity. This equation is most clearly seen in his lecture “In Memory of the Arab Prophet,” which argued:

“We [i.e. Arab nationalists] shall always bear witness to Arabism as the body that hosts the spirit of Islam…The relationship of Islam to Arabism is not like any other relationship between nationalisms and religions. The Arab Christians will be aware of this when their nationalism reaches its complete awakening and they regain their true essence. Islam is their national culture and they need to saturate themselves with it, so they can understand it and love it, so that they protect Islam as they would protect the most valuable of the components of their Arab identity.”

One should compare Aflaq’s remarks with Arab nationalist thinker George Habash’s claim that “Islam…is one of the basic components of Arab nationalism. Similarly, one can say that the culture of a Christian Arab is Islam.”

The ideal Ba’athist regime, just as it should defend Arab identity, should thus uphold the ‘essence’ of Islam, and try as far as possible to bring minorities- Muslim or non-Muslim- within that fold. This is exactly what the Assad dynasty has been upholding, and the question of jihad is no less relevant.

Among the regime-aligned clergy, consider the case of the recently assassinated Sheikh Muhammad Said Ramadan al-Buti. Buti was one of those behind the above fatwa. One thing to notice immediately is that the fatwa does not accept any identity for Syria beyond the Arab one, despite the fact that Buti was Kurdish by heritage: a perfect example of the fulfillment of Aflaq’s Arabist ideology for a state. In his writings, Buti touched on the subject of jihad on more than one occasion.

In a work he wrote back in the 1990s, entitled ‘Jihad in Islam: How to Understand and Practise It,’ Buti tried to characterize jihad as something defensive in nature (for the relevant excerpts if buying the book is inconvenient, google for a free PDF copy of this book, which, whatever you think of its author and conclusions, nonetheless presents al-Buti’s arguments fairly). Several years later, however, Buti wrote the following in commenting on Qur’an 9:5:

“The verse (9:5) does not leave any room in the mind to conjecture about what is called defensive war. This verse asserts that holy war, which is demanded in Islamic law, is not a defensive war because it could legitimately be an offensive war. That is the apex and most honorable of all holy wars. Its goal is the exaltation of the word of God, the construction of Islamic society, and the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth regardless of the means. It is legal to carry on an offensive holy war.”

For the Assad regime, which in keeping with Ba’athist ideology claims to protect ‘true’ Islam, this kind of discourse posed no problem. Jihad as warfare- offensive or defensive- is not only acceptable but also desirable so long as it is directed at the right targets.

Thus there was no real ideological contradiction in sending jihadists into Iraq while playing a part as a torture destination for international terrorist suspects in the CIA’s rendition program: it is just that the latter jihadists were regarded as practicing an illegitimate form of jihad in a posing a perceived threat to Syria itself.

And so it is with the present Syrian civil war: attacking the Assad regime- so the reasoning goes- is not really jihad at all. One should observe that in criticizing the rebels, Syrian state media never attack the concept of jihad per se; instead the jihadist rebels- seen as al-Qa’ida-aligned and working for foreign powers- are denounced as ‘terrorists,’ ‘takfiris,’ ‘Wahhabis’ or agents of ‘Zionism’ (on the last, cf. the fatwa itself).

Instead, those who wage true jihad fight for the regime. Those who wage true jihad will defend the unity of the Syrian Arab nation and thus also the Arab and Islamic nation from the sinister forces that seek to tear both apart.

Now one can understand how a band of Assad loyalists in Raqqah– where the regime as in the Aleppo area forged significant Sunni Arab loyalist ties- vowed to fight ‘true jihad against the Free Army and Jabhat al-Nusra’ in a video that emerged this month during the fall of that city to rebel forces (hat-tip: @Syrian_Scenes).

In conclusion, the Assad regime, like the jihadists, portrays jihad in the current civil war as a defensive enterprise. The fatwa for jihad issued by regime-aligned Sunni clerics may of course be used to play on any potential Sunni Arab disillusionment with treatment at the hands of rebel factions whose behavior may be deemed religiously extreme.

Yet it should not be thought that the fatwa is somehow out of keeping with the regime’s ideology: rather, the very nature of that ideology makes a pretense to the guardianship of what constitutes ‘true’ Islam and therefore legitimate forms of jihad.

The appeal to jihad in keeping with said ideology in turn demonstrates that the regime still thinks it can fight for control over all of Syria and believes it has substantial support spanning all the country’s ethnic and religious groups- including Sunni Arabs, and not merely a tight loyalist Alawite circle.

* 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
E-mail: [email protected]
Twitter: @ajaltamimi

In this interview with Al-Arabiya, Syrian opposition leader Michel Kilo accuses the Muslim Brotherhood and Mustafa Sabbagh’s Qatari-backed faction in the Syrian opposition of catapulting Ghassan Hitto to the Prime Ministership of the interim government in a non-consensual manner: “Qatar wanted Hitto…and the Qatari-backed group in the National Coalition agreed on Hitto and imposed Hitto without any political or consensual considerations that considers Syrian interests in terms of a national cause…” Kilo argues that the Hitto election sidelined Muaz al-Khatib and led to his resignation. Here is my article on these tensions.

This was particularly true after Qatar invited Hitto to represent Syria in the Arab Summit meeting to take place on Tuesday. Khatib was also invited, but he would be a third wheel. All eyes will be on Hitto, the newly elected Prime Minister, who is expected to form a government.

Liz Sly has a good article, “Syrian opposition in disarray as its leader resigns, The Syrian opposition is now leaderless at a time when the United States is stepping up its support. She quotes Amr al-Azm, who has great insight into the opposition.

“The coalition is on verge of disintegrating,” he said. “It’s a big mess.”

The trigger for Khatib’s departure was the selection last week of Ghassan Hitto, a relatively unknown Syrian-born U.S. citizen, to head a proposed interim government. Khatib and his supporters had opposed the creation of an interim government at this time, as had the United States, whose diplomats argued against the move on the grounds that it created an unnecessarily divisive distraction from the goal of bringing down Assad’s regime, according to Syrian opposition members.

While the pro-Western opposition leaders fiddle, Syria burns. The real story is being fought out on the ground by militia leaders who are becoming the real leaders of Syria.

The Islam Front and Jabhat al-Nusra are gaining strength. They are flexing their growing muscle after taking Raqqa and clearing out the Deir az-Zur region. Now they are headed down the Eastern highway toward Damascus. The forces around Aleppo and in the Northwest will have to come through Hama and Homs, which is impassable. Already al-Nusra has a strong foothold in the Damascus region in the Palestinian neighborhood of Yarmouk, around the Jabal Druze, and in the Daraya-Adhamiya region of Damascus.

The US and British are trying to build up forces around Damascus as well, in order to take the capital. They are working hand in glove with Saudis and particularly the Jordanians. Hence the many stories about US training missions in Jordan and cooperation with Jordanian  intelligence. Some believe that the US, British and French may be developing a strategy to spearhead a move on Damascus before the Islamic Front and al-Nusra can capture it for themselves. But it is not clear how committed the US and the West are to manning up the opposition in the South of Syria to gain the jump on the growing Islamic tide washing down from the North.

Many Damascenes are fearful of being overrun by the North. The time-honored divide between North and South Syria is again gaining relevance. There is precedence for war between north and south. In 1954, at the end of General Shishakli’s four year rule of Syria, which developed into the country’s first real dictatorship, Syria split in half. The north was the site of a military uprising that began with disgruntled Druze soldiers in Deir az-Zur teaming up with Baath Party leaders, opposition leaders in Homs that looked to Hashim al-Atassi, and Aleppo notables. Military units from the North began to descend on the South, where Shishakli remained ensconced. Civil War was avoided at the last minute because the US and Saudis were able to convince Shishakli to resign and fly off to exile in Saudi Arabia and eventually Brazil. See my article about this, here.

Today, Syria is not so lucky. North and South could be in for a real fight, dividing the country not only along geographic lines but also along ideological lines.

Ghassan Hitto, Syrian National Coalition PM, visits Aleppo north of Syria – Video

Daughter of Syria’s slain cleric Bouti speaks out to say that her father would never have contemplated changing his view that Muslims and Syrians should support Assad even if he were corrupt and bad. This conservative view follows the traditionalist line of thinking within Islam that even years of suffering under an oppressive and corrupt ruler are better than one moment of Fitna, or civil war.

A friend writes:

I just watched two of the worst videos I have seen so far.

1- a guy’s head was chopped off. I cannot imagine doing this to an animal. Yes, the guy’s crime was that he was a regime supporter.

2- Just watched a video of regime soldiers filming 16 bodies that they had killed moments earlier. As they record the gruesome bodies, one says to the other, “hopefully the “ameed” or general, will give us an “ijaze” (vacation) after he sees the video. The other guy says, “man there is so much meat lying around it must be falling in price “al lahm rakhsan”

3-There is no country called Syria any more.

4- Why do i watch this stuff? Because images like this speak volumes about the truth. And that truth is that killing and slaughter will rein supreme for years to come.

5- If interested in the videos, i will be glad to send. on second thoughts, may be i won’t

Drones & Intervention

We included a report in a previous post that the CIA is eyeing Syria for the use of drones. Now a report by Chuck Hagel and David Boren suggests that the drone program is aberrant and problematic for the CIA:

U.S. intelligence too focused on killing suspected terrorists – Secret report raises alarms on intelligence blind spots because of Al Qaida focus – Washington Post

A panel of White House advisers warned President Obama in a secret report that U.S. spy agencies were paying inadequate attention to China, the Middle East and other national security flash points because they had become too focused on military operations and drone strikes, U.S. officials said.

Led by influential figures including new Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and former senator David L. Boren (D-Okla.), the panel concluded in a report last year that the roles of the CIA, the National Security Agency and other spy services had been distorted by more than a decade of conflict.

The classified document called for the first significant shift in intelligence resources since they began flowing heavily toward counterterrorism programs and war zones after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

… John O. Brennan, Obama’s former top counterterrorism adviser, who was sworn in as CIA director this month, told Congress in February that he planned to evaluate the “allocation of mission” at the agency. He described the scope of CIA involvement in lethal operations as an “aberration from its traditional role.”

Following this comes the possibility that the program may be moved from the CIA to the military. From FP’s AFPAK Daily:

U.S. officials said this week that the White House is working to move its lethal drone program from the CIA to the Department of Defense, which would make the targeted killing campaign dependent on the consent of host countries and subject to international laws of war. But it remains unclear to what extent the move will bring greater transparency and accountability to the program, as the current proposal leaves Pakistan, where the vast majority of U.S. drone strikes have taken place, under the jurisdiction of the CIA. And the program could be transferred to the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, a sector of the military that is just as (if not more) secretive than the CIA.

CIA provides intelligence to Syrian rebels: report – AFP |

Fighters from the Free Syrian Army run during heavy fighting in Mleha suburb of Damascus, January 25, 2013. — Photo by Reuters/File

WASHINGTON: The US Central Intelligence Agency has been feeding information to select rebel fighters in Syria to try to make them more effective against government troops, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

Citing unnamed current and former US officials, the newspaper said the new CIA effort reflected a change in the administration’s approach that aims to strengthen secular rebel fighters. The CIA has sent officers to Turkey to help vet rebels who receive arms shipments from Gulf allies, the report said. But administration officials cited concerns about some weapons going to Islamists, the paper noted.

In Iraq, the CIA has been directed by the White House to work with elite counterterrorism units to help the Iraqis counter the flow of Al Qaeda-linked fighters across the border with Syria, The Journal said. According to the report, the West favours fighters aligned with the Free Syrian Army, which supports the Syrian Opposition Coalition political group.

Syrian opposition commanders said the CIA had been working with British, French and Jordanian intelligence services to train rebels in the use of various kinds of weapons, the paper said.

The move comes as the al Nusra Front, the main Al Qaeda-linked group operating in Syria, is deepening its ties to the terrorist organisation’s central leadership in Pakistan, The Journal said. The new aid to rebels doesn’t change the US decision against taking direct military action, the paper noted.

Here’s more on drones: Daily Beast – Exclusive: No More Drones for CIA

At a time when controversy over the Obama administration’s drone program seems to be cresting, the CIA is close to taking a major step toward getting out of the targeted killing business. Three senior U.S. officials tell The Daily Beast that the White House is poised to sign off on a plan to shift the CIA’s lethal targeting program to the Defense Department.

The move could potentially toughen the criteria for drone strikes, strengthen the program’s accountability, and increase transparency. Currently, the government maintains parallel drone programs, one housed in the CIA and the other run by the Department of Defense. The proposed plan would unify the command and control structure of targeted killings and create a uniform set of rules and procedures. The CIA would maintain a role, but the military would have operational control over targeting. Lethal missions would take place under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which governs military operations, rather than Title 50, which sets out the legal authorities for intelligence activities and covert operations. “This is a big deal,” says one senior administration official who has been briefed on the plan. “It would be a pretty strong statement.”

… Lately, Obama has signaled his own desire to place the drone program on a firmer legal footing, as well as to make it more transparent. He obliquely alluded to the classified program during his State of the Union address in January. “In the months ahead,” he declared, “I will continue to work with Congress to ensure that not only our targeting, detention, and prosecution of terrorists remain consistent with our laws and systems of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.”

Shortly after taking office, Obama dramatically ramped up the drone program, in part because the government’s targeting intelligence on the ground had vastly improved and because the precision technology was very much in line with the new commander in chief’s “light footprint” approach to dealing with terrorism. As the al Qaeda threat has metastasized, U.S. drone operations have spread to more remote, unconventional battlefields in places like Yemen and Somalia. With more strikes, there have been more alleged civilian casualties. Adding to the mounting pressure for the administration to provide a legal and ethical rationale for its targeting polices was the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a senior commander of al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate, who also happened to be a U.S. citizen. (Two weeks later, his 16-year-old son was killed in a drone strike, which U.S. officials have called an accident.) The recent nomination of Brennan to head the CIA became a kind of proxy battle over targeted killings and the administration’s reluctance to be more forthcoming about the covert program. At issue were a series of secret Justice Department legal opinions on targeted killing that the administration had refused to make public or turn over to Congress.

… Losing its drone program will, at some level, be a blow to the CIA’s identity. The program has given the agency a prominent and—ironically—highly visible role in the terror wars. And the spies can take credit for severely degrading, if not decimating, al Qaeda’s core organization in Pakistan. At the same time, according to multiple officials, there has been relatively little pushback from the CIA’s top leadership. One reason might be a sense of relief that the CIA would no longer own such a controversial program. The more likely reason? The man who engineered the idea—John Brennan—is now in charge.

Beyond drones, intervention seems to be back in the conversation, and for some voices (oddly reminiscent of Iraq) “chemical weapons” are being cited as the scale-tipping threat.

Top Democrat endorses Syria no-fly zone – FP – by Josh Rogin

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) endorsed Tuesday the idea of establishing a no-fly zone inside Syria and attacking the air defenses and air power of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Levin chaired a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday morning during which he asked Adm. James Stavridis, the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, if NATO was discussing attacking Assad’s air defenses. Stavridis acknowledged the idea was under discussion but said there was no unified NATO position on the issue.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) then asked Stavridis if NATO is doing contingency planning for military operations inside Syria. “We are looking at a wide range of operations, and we are prepared, if called upon, to be engaged as we were in Libya,” Stavridis replied.

Stavridis said that the NATO Patriot missile batteries currently deployed in Turkey have the capability to shoot down Syrian military aircraft in a radius of 20 miles. McCain pressed Stavridis to give his personal opinion as to whether or not establishing a Patriot battery-enforced no-fly zone in northern Syria would speed the end of the conflict. “My personal opinion is that would be helpful in breaking the deadlock and bringing down the Assad regime,” Stavridis said.

After the hearing, Levin directly endorsed the idea of attacking Syrian air defenses and using the Patriot missile batteries in Turkey to establish a no-fly zone inside Syria in an interview with The Cable. “I believe there should be the next ratcheting up of military effort and that would include going after some of Syria’s air defenses,” Levin said.

… Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Tuesday called for the United States to put boots on the ground in Syria to secure chemical weapons sites, in light of new allegations that chemical weapons were used in Aleppo province.

The intervention discussion seems to be making a comeback as other voices are urging greater U.S. participation. A report from the Baker Institute says it’s time for the U.S. to “prepare a more focused strategy that strengthens the moderate political forces in Syria and engages Syria’s regional and international stakeholders…” but stops short of recommending the kind of intervention being discussed above.

Rice University: United States should execute new strategy toward Syria, Baker Institute special report says

The special report recommends that the U.S. should consider supplying military assistance to vetted leaders of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in an effort to support the moderate opposition, protect Syrian civilians and abate extremists. In addition, the U.S., in conjunction with NATO, should form a joint special operations command in Turkey to monitor the distribution of this assistance and provide logistical support, communications and training to vetted commanders. “What is needed is to combine military assistance with a coordinated strategy of capacity building within the opposition, which can then have measurable results and importantly, not lead the U.S. into any overextended commitment,” Bowen said.

Coming after Tony Blair’s Iraq War-anniversary remarks that if the war had not taken place Iraq “would be worse than Syria” is this article claiming that “Syria is already more violent than Iraq:”

Syria Is Already More Violent Than Iraq And its destruction will define the Middle East for years to come. BY DAVID KENNER | MARCH 20, 2013

The year 2006 was pure horror for Iraq. It was hard to imagine the war going any worse: Sunni groups, spearheaded by al Qaeda’s powerful local affiliate, launched a series of bloody suicide bombings against
Shiite holy sites and civilian areas. On Feb. 22, 2006, a bomb ripped through the golden dome of the al-Askari mosque, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam — though no one was killed in the attack, more than 1,000 people were killed in just the first day of sectarian bloodletting. Meanwhile, Iran-funded Shiite militias were making a mockery of the Iraqi government’s claims of authority, controlling huge swathes of territory and attacking U.S. forces that tried to stop them.

According to the Brooking Institution’s Iraq Index, a total of 36,591 Iraqi civilians and security forces died violently that year. Another 3,902 insurgents were killed in the fighting, according to figures released by the international military coalition. That means an average of 3,374 Iraqis were killed each month, or roughly 111 Iraqis died per day.

The destruction wrought by the Syrian conflict has already surpassed that horrible level of violence. The United Nations estimates that 70,000 people have lost their lives in Syria since the beginning of the conflict, and the death toll has only escalated in recent months. According to the pro-opposition Violations Documentation Center, 4,472 Syrians have been killed on average each month since December. That means over this span of time, an average of 149 Syrians have lost their lives daily.

Syria’s population is roughly two-thirds that of Iraq — it is home to roughly 22 million people, while Iraq’s population totals around 31 million. Syria’s victims, in other words, are coming from a considerably smaller population pool.

Blair’s notion that the Iraq war prevented chaos in the Middle East seems even more ridiculous considered against the article’s following paragraph:

Ten years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, it is hard to escape the war’s effects on the Middle East: It shaped rising Sunni-Shiite tensions throughout the Arab world, served as the frontline in the U.S. struggle with Iran, and altered the political landscape in Damascus and Beirut.

In other words, the sectarian fallout from the Iraq war help set the stage for the sectarian character of the conflict in Syria.

Contra the intervention position is this piece maintaining that a political solution is thwarted by demands that Assad leave before negotiations take place:

Opinion: ‘Assad Must Go’ Is the Wrong Solution – By Susanne Koelbl – Spiegel

…World powers are also fighting over who is to have influence in the region. It’s the West and its allies against the old allies of the regime…

The West insists that for any negotiations on an end to the Syrian civil war to happen, President Bashar Assad must first step down. The demand is fatal and only prolongs the bloodletting, allowing Syria to slip into anarchy while radical Islamists slowly hijack the revolution.

Preconditions Prevent an End to War

…..Analysts in Ankara and Washington are underestimating the tenacity of the Syrian government. They’re also overlooking the fact that many of the Assad loyalists and the nearly 3 million Alawites, of which President Bashar Assad is one, have no choice but to fight to the last round. If they’re defeated, they’ll have to face the worst. “If the rebels come to this city, they’ll eat us alive,” said one wealthy businessman in Damascus. Thousands of others share his fear. The opposition is already kidnapping Alawites, Christians, secular Sunnis and simply the affluent, in addition to staging targeted killings of representatives of the government.

Through the one-sided demonization of the Assad government and the precondition set by the US that nothing can proceed until the despot steps down, the West has essentially blocked any solution through negotiations. It has also destroyed hope for an armistice, a possible orderly division of the country or the establishment of safe zones for refugees.

The war just goes on, also because Iran cannot allow the Syrian government to be replaced by Sunnis with close ties to Riyadh and Washington. And Russia is also not about to give up its influence in the region without a fight. All this translates to the destruction of an entire country, the home to 21 million people and a unique cultural heritage. Syria could soon fall into anarchy, fractured into war zones and Islamist enclaves.

The country has a way to go before the atrocities of its civil war reach their peak. That’s true not just for Assad, but also for the various revolutionary groups, of which not a small number have already been radicalized or overtaken by radical Islamists. And the West has so far mostly sympathized with them without criticism.

This past summer, political scientist Robert Pape (University of Chicago), published his new “Pragmatic Standard of Humanitarian Intervention.” (Just to be clear: “Humanitarian intervention” = military intervention.) Pape believes that powerful nations have a responsibility to intervene in instances of “mass homicide” on the part of tyrannical regimes, in order to save lives, though measures to prevent the imperialistic abuse of intervention must be followed. He also has a criteria for when intervention can take place. Before foreign powers can intervene, there must be:

(1) an ongoing campaign of mass homicide sponsored by the local government in which thousands have died and thousands more are likely to die; (2) a viable plan for intervention with reasonable estimates of casualties not significantly higher than in peacetime operations and near zero for the intervening forces during the main phase of the operation; and (3) a workable strategy for creating lasting local security, so that saving lives in the short term does not lead to open-ended chaos in which many more are killed in the long term.

Pape’s examples of successful models for intervention are:

…four cases of reasonably successful humanitarian intervention demonstrate when and how the new standard could be effectively applied: the Kurds in northern Iraq, as well as Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, and Libya today. All of these interventions occurred in response to a government-sponsored mass homicide campaign, and each saved thousands of lives at little cost to the interveners and provided lasting security to the target populations.

Aside from the ongoing question of success in Libya, the obvious point is that intervention should not take place unless the strong likelihood that it will lead to security can be demonstrated. (Pape also includes a philosophical framework as to why intervention should be conducted only at low risk to the intervening forces. See his full article in International Security, link above.) Though the mass homicide in Syria is obvious, the second two items in Pape’s criteria are what lead him to state:

At present, Syria is a case of a state-sponsored mass homicide campaign that almost surely would not meet the new standard’s requirements of a viable, low-cost intervention plan and an enduring security strategy for the threatened population. … In Syria, there is no viable plan for military action with low risks for the interveners…

This perspective seems similar to that held by Obama who, along with Jordan’s King Abdullah, yesterday articulated a clearer position on the U.S.’s lack of involvement with Syria:

Obama, King Abdullah II warn of dangers from widening Syrian conflict (Scott Wilson) Post

AMMAN, JORDAN — President Obama and King Abdullah II of Jordan warned Friday of the mounting danger Syria’s widening civil war poses to this neighboring kingdom but offered only fresh demands that the Assad government step down immediately. ….Obama pledged an additional $200 million in aid to Jordan this year to help address the growing needs of almost half a million Syrian refugees, equal to roughly 10 percent of the kingdom’s population.

But Obama, speaking inside a cavernous dark-wood hall alongside the king, also raised the question he said preoccupies his administration regarding Syria. His concern is how the fighting, which has killed an estimated 70,000 people, will shape the religious and cultural makeup of a long-repressed nation.

He warned that Syria could become a beachhead for Islamist extremism, adding “that is why the United States has a stake” in the war’s outcome. Abdullah, too, warned that the increasing sectarian cast to the war threatens to pull the country apart.

Asked by a Jordanian journalist why “the leading superpower” does not intervene in Syria, Obama suggested that the unpredictable nature of the civil conflict has left him no policy option that would guarantee more good than harm, either through a direct military strike or by arming Syrian rebels.

“The sight of children and women being slaughtered that we’ve seen so much I think has to compel all of us to say, what more can we do?” Obama said. “And that’s a question that I’m asking as president every single day.”

But, he added, “ultimately what the people of Syria are looking for is not replacing oppression with a new form of oppression.”….

Tony Blair’s idea that the war in Iraq somehow saved it from becoming “like Syria” is amusing; most saw the U.S. “intervention” in Iraq as the catalyst for its ensuing violence and instability. If the above article is correct, Syria’s violence has already surpassed Iraq’s, without any foreign intervention or support (without Western support, at least). If intervention looks like the invasion of Iraq (boots on the ground), it would obviously only exacerbate the conflict; if intervention looks like airstrikes, there’s still the problem that the real battles in Syria are in urban centers (as Pape mentions). If we abandon intervention and focus on arms, the question remains: will arming the underdog in this conflict speed the end of the violence, or merely establish a parity between two segments of the population who will not give up fighting the other? Regardless of the answer, Europe is leaning toward military support:

E.U. moves closer to arming Syria rebels (Michael Birnbaum)

BERLIN — The European Union edged closer Friday to lifting an embargo against shipping arms to Syria’s opposition, but differences remained about the feasibility of giving a boost to moderates there while bypassing militant jihadist groups….

Germany has been one of the major opponents and any shift may bring other countries along.

“We must prevent heavy weaponry from falling into the wrong hands,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told reporters in Dublin on Friday. But in a separate interview published Friday in Sueddeutsche Zeitung, he said that “at the same time we know that we must be ready to change our policy if there is a change in the situation.”…..The Syria embargo will expire at the end of May if the E.U. takes no action before then, and Britain and France have urged that sanctions continue on Assad’s government but that exceptions be added to allow antiaircraft and antitank missiles to be sent to rebel groups….

But Europeans are split on whether there is anyone to arm within Syria’s fragmented opposition. Weapons such as shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles would be useful in the fight against Assad, but they would also be useful in taking down a Western airliner. Some European countries, including Germany, believe that the only rebel group in Syria with the organization to effectively use heavy weaponry against Assad is the Jabhat al-Nusra, or al-Nusra Front, an Islamist group that has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States for its suspected ties to al-Qaeda.

“What makes us very nervous is that al-Nusra is stronger than people believe it is,” said a senior European official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal intelligence assessments.

That official said that lifting the weapons embargo may be largely symbolic, because Britain and France may not have significant stockpiles of weaponry to send to rebel groups. But lifting it would give Europeans greater leeway to channel arms from Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar to rebels training in Jordan and Turkey….

Another voice reluctant to see intervention take place is Noam Chomsky:

The Guardian

What does Chomsky, who has infuriated some with his dismissal of the “new military humanism“, think should be done in Syria, if anything? Should the west arm the opposition? Should it intervene? “I tend to think that providing arms is going to escalate the conflict. I think there has to be some kind of negotiated settlement. The question is which kind. But it’s going to have to be primarily among Syrians. Outsiders can try to help set up the conditions, and there’s no doubt that the government is carrying out plenty of atrocities, and the opposition some, but not as many. There’s a threat that the country is on a suicidal course. Nobody wants that.”

How does the Western public feel about intervening? The Iranians seem happy to report that they’re against it:

Americans, Britons against Syria regime change by war: Survey
Sat Mar 23, 2013 – Press TV

The poll was conducted in mid-March on 3,646 British and 1,022 American adults aged 18 and over.

A new survey indicates that the American and British public are against any foreign military intervention in Syria aimed at overthrowing the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

According to the binational YouGov-Cambridge poll, Britons, by a 59-point margin (68%-9%), reject the idea of military intervention in Syria with the aim of toppling Assad’s government.

In the US, the Americans are against the idea of regime change in Syria through foreign military intervention by a 26-point margin (42%-16%), the survey says. The poll also showed a deep public skepticism about arming the militants in Syria.

The study shows that, with a 29-point margin, 45 percent of Americans, versus 16 percent of them, are against any Western plan to supply lethal support to the militants in the Arab country.

In Britain, the poll indicates that 57 percent of the Britons oppose arming the militants, while only 16 percent of the British public are in favor of that idea. The poll was conducted in mid-March on 3,646 British and 1,022 American adults aged 18 and over.

The news comes as European foreign ministers have failed to reach an agreement on whether to lift an arms embargo on Syria to pave the way for sending weapons to militants. The European Union should decide on the thorny issue on June 1 when Syria sanctions are largely expected to be renewed.

Whether or not intervention or arms support would worsen the casualty levels of the conflict, not intervening likewise means a continuing spiral of violence and the growing exodus of people from a destroyed country. One current example amidst the worsening violence are Armenians fleeing in greater numbers, awakening recollections of their history:

BBC – Armenians flee Syria for their ancestral homeland

A century after their ancestors fled mass killings in Ottoman Turkey, Armenian communities are again on the move – amid fears they could become victims of violence in Syria.

…”The good thing here in Armenia is that you know the language, the alphabet, the religion,” says Mr Atamian, as he sips aniseed-flavoured tea in one of the new Syrian-Armenian restaurants, which have been opened in Armenia’s capital Yerevan by people fleeing the war. “When I came here, I thought: ‘the people look like you. The faces, physically, they’re like you!'” he added.

… Increasing numbers of ethnic Armenians from Syria are now joining him. More than 10,000 have fled here since the fighting started two years ago – and 7,000 have applied for residency. Aleppo, which is home to most of Syria’s 100,000 Armenians, has seen some of the heaviest fighting. People fleeing the city say the street battles and the bombings have become too dangerous. Armenians, who are traditionally middle-class merchants, say their businesses are being ruined by the chaos of war.

But when you ask Armenians which side they want to win the war in Syria, they avoid expressing support for either the rebels or the government – and tell you they only want peace. The official line of the Armenian government is neutrality. Many Armenians are terrified that relatives back in Syria will be targeted by the rebels, if the Armenian community is portrayed as pro-Assad. Others, who want to return one day, fear reprisals from the Syrian authorities if they are seen as supporting the uprising.

Click for Video: Dr. Landis and Richard Haass, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations, discuss intervention and other options on the Charlie Rose Show

Opposition

The emergence of a visible Alawite opposition?

Fearing stark future, Syrian Alawites meet in Cairo
Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Reuters, March 22, 2013

Opposition campaigners from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect will meet this weekend to support a democratic alternative to his rule and try to distance the community from wholesale association with the government’s attempts to crush a two-year uprising.

The two-day meeting in Cairo, the first by Alawites supportive of the revolt, will draft a declaration committing to a united Syria and inviting the mainstream opposition to cooperate on preventing sectarian bloodletting if Assad falls and agree on a transitional justice framework, organizers said.

A statement by the organizing committee of the Alawite conference said: “The regime, which is becoming more isolated and weak, is working on turning sectarian zealotry into bloodshed. There are anti-regime forces also pushing toward sectarian warfare.”

“Depriving the regime of the sectarian card is crucial for its ouster and for negotiating a Syrian national covenant on the basis of a modern statehood and equal citizenship and justice,” the statement said.

About 150 Alawite figures, including activists and religious leaders, who were mostly forced to flee Syria for supporting the revolt, will attend the conference in Cairo, which will start on Saturday.

Alawites were prominent in a leftist Syrian political movement that was crushed by Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, in the 1970s and 1980s, along with Islamist opposition.

DEMOCRATIC ASPIRATIONS

Among prominent Alawites currently in jail is free-speech advocate Mazen Darwish, who worked on documenting the victims of the crackdown against the revolt, and Abdelaziz al-Khayyer, a centrist politician who advocated peaceful transition to democratic rule.

Issam Ibrahim, a lawyer who is helping organize the conference, said the uprising had given the Alawites a chance to show the sect was not monolithic, and that it aspired like the rest of the population to live under a multi-party democracy, while fearing the rise of Islamist extremism.

Ibrahim recalled taking part in a pro-democracy demonstration at the beginning of the uprising in the Sunni district of al-Khalidiya in the central city of Homs when the protesters came under attack by a pro-Assad militia.

“A group of us took refuge in a house, and the house owner, who did not know I was Alawite, began cursing Alawites. When my comrades told him I was one, he came to me and gave me the keys to his house.”

“We are in a sectarian crisis and the political forces of the opposition are falling into a serious error by not discussing it,” Ibrahim, whose father was jailed for years under the rule of the elder Assad, told Reuters.

He said the document that would emerge from the conference “will affirm Alawite commitment to national unity and inter-communal existence and civic peace,” mirroring a stance the sect’s leaders took during French colonial rule in the 1920s in opposition to proposals for partition of the country.

“There is an Islamist current that is expanding at the expense of the democratic civic current, which needs to unite,” Ibrahim said. “We as Alawites are Syrians first. We are trying to be part of a real change.”

There seems to be more than one version of the same article, with different info:

Fearing stark future, Syrian Alawites meet in Cairo – Orlando Sentinel

Followers of the religion of Bashar al-Assad who oppose the Syrian president met in Cairo on Saturday to support a democratic alternative to his rule, seeking to untangle his fate from their own.

In the first meeting of its kind by Alawites who support the revolt, delegates aimed to draft a declaration supporting a united Syria and to invite other opposition groups to cooperate on preventing sectarian bloodletting if Assad falls.

“We are inviting all of the opposition to confront the sectarian problem being ignited by the regime. The last card the regime can now play is civil war and the partition of Syria,” said veteran opposition campaigner Bassam al-Youssef, an Alawite who spent more than a decade in jail under the iron rule of Assad’s father, the late President Hafez al-Assad…

Muslim Brotherhood Holds Sway Over Syrian Opposition By: Hassan Hassan for Al-Monitor. Posted on March 21.

…The appointment has been a significant victory for the Brotherhood and its allies, restoring its control over the opposition after a period in which talks of dialogue threatened the group’s vision for regime change in Syria. The Brotherhood, along with Qatar and Turkey, hopes for a complete downfall of the regime to steer the transitional period and ensure its enduring control over the state. As US academic and Syria expert Joshua Landis pointed out, the move was partly aimed to kill Khatib’s initiative of dialogue with the regime.

“To this end, Hitto’s first words were that he would not negotiate with the Assad regime,” Landis wrote on his website, Syria Comment. This argument is further bolstered by the fact that neither Saudi Arabia, Jordan nor other key (Western) players were informed of Hitto’s appointment, according to a senior diplomat familiar with the process…..

Robert Ford says that Ghassan al-Hitto, the new Syrian opposition PM, is ‘more Texan than Muslim Brotherhood’

Dismissing concerns at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ford insisted that Hitto, narrowly elected this week by the Syrian National Coalition as interim premier, was “not a religious extremist — far from it.”

A militant Islamist/jihadi nexus is emerging in northern & eastern Syria. Some thoughts on an increasingly cooperative militant alliance
by Charles Lister, 22nd March 2013

….Led by Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya and Jabhat al-Nusra, this nexus is having a significant strategic impact on the northern Syrian insurgency. Recent examples of this jihadi operational alliance include the seizure of Al-Raqqah city on 4 March (Operation al-Jabaar); the seizure of Brigade 113 air-defence base in Deir ez Zour on 10 March; and the 15 March Khan Touman operation….

Tunisian architect turned jihadist talks of holy war in Syria

Abou Ayman is a young Tunisian architect who left everything behind to wage holy war thousands of kilometers from his home. He is one of several thousand foreign jihadists currently fighting against the Syrian regime….

Key dissidents leave Syria opposition
Last updated: Wednesday, March 20, 2013

ISTANBUL — At least 12 key members of Syria’s National Coalition said on Wednesday they had suspended their membership in the main opposition body, a day after the election of the first rebel prime minister. The group of 12 included the Coalition’s deputy Soheir Atassi and spokesman Walid Al-Bunni.

Their decision came amid bitter disagreement over the election of Ghassan al-Hitto as the first opposition premier. Other members who said they had “frozen” their membership in the Coalition included Kamal Labwani, Marwan Hajj Rifai, Yehia Al-Kurdi and Ahmad Al-Assi Jarba, with sources saying more such announcements were expected.

Though the dissenting members said they had different reasons for their decisions, some expressed their opposition to Hitto’s election, and the process by which he was chosen. “The Coalition is a non-elected body, and as such it does not have a right to choose a prime minister on a majority vote. There should have been consensus,” Labwani told AFP.

Hitto was elected Tuesday by 35 of approximately 50 Coalition members present in Istanbul, after some 14 hours of consultation. Some members who opposed his election walked out before the vote.

“We Coalition members weren’t elected to represent the Syrians. So the only person Hitto represents is the 35 Coalition members who voted for him. This government is a gift to (President) Bashar Al-Assad’s regime,” Labwani said. “The key issue is the timing and way in which the voting took place. The Coalition pushed for a majority in a group that was not elected,” Bunni told AFP.

“Each of us had different reasons for freezing our membership. We will release a statement that represents us all in the coming days,” Bunni added.
Atassi announced her decision on her Facebook page: “Because I am a Syrian citizen, I refuse to blindly follow and to be an accessory. I announce I am freezing my membership in the National Coalition.”

Atassi could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. Atassi, a secular female activist, was praised for her key role in the Coalition when the group was formed in Doha in November, amid concerns the opposition was dominated by men and Islamists.

Hitto, a former IT executive who has lived in the United States for decades, is expected to name a technocratic government that will move inside Syria, attempting to bring rule of law and basic services to large swathes of rebel-held territory. — AFP

Syria’s refugee brides: ‘My daughter is willing to sacrifice herself for her family’ – Woman takes a cut to help Syrian refugee girls in Jordan find Arab grooms from all over Middle East

Um Majed, a 28-year-old Syrian refugee, procures young brides for Arab men all over the Middle East.

By: Hamida Ghafour Foreign Affairs reporter, Published on Fri Mar 22 2013

AMMAN, JORDAN—Nezar’s face is tight with expectation as she arrives for the meeting. She is a heavy-set mother of 12 and as she arranges herself on the small sofa in Um Majed’s living room she removes her black veil and the pious black gloves that allow her to shake hands with men who are not her relatives.

Um Majed sets down small cups of hot Turkish coffee to ease the tension. Nezar is a Syrian refugee and looking for a husband for her daughter. She lists the girl’s qualities.

“She is tall and pretty,” she tells Um Majed. “She finished the seventh grade.”

“There is one available. He is Saudi,” Um Majed answers.

Um Majed, 28. is a Syrian refugee, who doesn’t want her real name published because of her shame about what she does for a living: procuring young brides, zoom

This is what Nezar wants to hear. Saudis, flush with petrodollars, will pay well. She has high hopes for this Saudi. So does Um Majed who will earn a $287 fee if the two sides agree to the match….

Red Crescent volunteers accused by both sides of helping the other side: Fed up with partisanship, Homs volunteers strike – by Lauren Williams

HOMS, Syria: From her schoolroom office at the Asma High School – now a makeshift refugee camp in the central Inshaat district of Homs – a young Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteer is in tears.
… Despite the desperate and growing need, the woman – who manages the distribution of food, blankets, tents and medical supplies in coordination with U.N. agencies, such as UNHCR, and the World Food Program, at the school – is packing her things to abandon the families to their fate.

She and other volunteers in the Homs governorate – one of the most needy governorates in Syria – are striking, complaining of what they say is danger, deliberate targeting and partisanship that has made their job impossible.

“We have been stopped from going to places to provide health and emergency services, we have been threatened, we have been arrested, we have been killed for doing our job,” the woman says, holding her head in her hands with frustration. “We had an agreement with the government that the Red Crescent should not be questioned or harassed for helping people. We are volunteers and we are nonpartisan. We should be allowed to do our job.”
… At least 30 SARC volunteers have been killed in the course of the Syrian conflict, but the organization has resisted divulging the parties responsible for each death, in line with its charter.

“They accuse us of helping the terrorists and even giving them weapons. In some opposition areas, we have not been able to give food. … They either won’t let us in or they took the supplies themselves,” the woman says.

“They think these people are terrorists who do not deserve help.” The woman was speaking in the presence of government representatives. Asked whether she is worried about making the claims, she says she is certain of what she was saying. “I don’t care,” she adds. “This is what is happening.”

Government officials assured The Daily Star no harm would come to the woman following her claims, insisting she was free to express her opinion.

Obama in Israel

Haaretz – Obama’s wake-up speech to Israelis: Don’t let your freedom drown in the swamp of occupation – by Ari Shavit

A few months ago Amnon Dankner published a sharp, amusing article in the new newspaper Sof Hashavua. He described how Shimon Peres’ innovative technological project causes Israel to detach from the Middle East and sail westward through the Mediterranean Sea, like a sort of floating island.

Laughter aside, Dankner nailed the spirit of the time. In recent years Israel has been feeling, thinking and behaving as though it is no longer located in West Asia and can exist as an island that has broken off from it. As if there was no Arab world, no Palestine, no Iran. No Arabs, no settlers, no occupation.

The Israeli aircraft carrier ? covering a mere 20,000 square kilometers ? feels that thanks to its economic and technological might it can live like an autarky with no relation to the environment.

No man is an island, the English poet John Donne wrote in the 17th century. In the 21st century it’s clear to all that no nation is an island either. Certainly not a nation of eight million Israelis surrounded by 350 million Arabs. Certainly not a nation in which six million Jews share the land with more than five million Palestinians. Certainly not a nation that insists, even in the second decade of the third millennium, on occupying another nation.

… This afternoon President Obama will say his piece to the islanders. Obama will hug us in his own way. Obama will tell us we have a glorious, humanistic, inspiring heritage. Obama will say our national enterprise is a justified enterprise of liberation. He will acknowledge our affiliation to the land and our right to it and the great things we have done here.

His words will be spiced with warm sentences that will melt hearts. But after giving us that love we thirst so much for, Obama will ask us a few difficult questions. Do we see where we’re floating to? Do we understand where we live? Are we prepared to mortgage everything we have built within the Green Line in order to subjugate the nation living beyond the Green Line?

Obama is an American president, so he will speak in a reserved manner. Barack Obama is a civilized man, so he will be polite. But the message concealed in President Obama’s speech in the International Convention Center in Jerusalem ?(Binyanei Hauma?) will be clear ? Israelis, wake up. Don’t let the freedom state you’ve established with so much labor drown in the swamp of the occupation.

Don’t let your Jewish Athens become a Sparta of eternal war. Don’t delude yourselves that you’re an island. You’re not. You must find a reasonable way to coexist with the Arabs surrounding you and with the Palestinians you still rule.

Obama’s speech will be a wake-up speech. He will give us an almost last chance to wake up from the stupefying coma we’ve sunk into in recent years. He will suggest we change course and begin to grapple with our real survival problems.

After Obama, John Kerry will come to do the dirty work. But only if the president touches the hearts and opens the heads here today, will his secretary of state have a chance to succeed.

On Passover eve, the man who was once likened to Pharaoh has come to set us free. Let their people go, he will say. Free yourselves and save yourselves by freeing their people.

While the section above mentions a “new” Alawi opposition that opposes partition, some seem to prefer a separate Alawi state:

Haaretz – Time to put an Alawite state on the map – by Ely Karmon

Obama’s visit is an important opportunity for Israel to lobby for a grand agreement between the U.S. and Russia to protect and disarm the Alawite minority in Syria after the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime.

Over 80,000 people have been killed since the beginning of the civil war in Syria, tens or hundreds of thousands have been wounded and more than a million Syrians have become refugees, most of them Sunnis. The implosion of the Syrian state and the formation of a separate Alawite mini-state, a possibility entertained by very few observers when the civil war began two years ago, is now, in the eyes of the majority of analysts, the most plausible outcome of the conflict.

The almost inevitable collapse of the Assad regime is likely to provoke tremendous acts of revenge by Sunnis against their former rulers, the Alawites, with massacres that will put the comprehensive violence that has already happened in the shade. The open and growing threats by Sunni Islamist opposition leaders are a prelude to the coming catastrophe.

The Alawite leadership is aware of this impending threat, and has prepared for a retreat to an “Alawite Fortress” in the Mediterranean coast region and the Alawite Mountains; to create a neutral “buffer zone,” the regime has already ethnically cleansed the Sunni rural areas near the big cities bordering their enclave.

Lebanese observers have mentioned a plan to build a territorial corridor between the Alawite statelet and the Shia regions in Lebanon that are controlled by Hezbollah and by sympathetic Christians, who fear a radicalization of the Lebanese Sunnis more than all else. It is possible to see the battles that some 1500 Hezbollah fighters are waging in Syria, near the north-eastern border with Lebanon, as contributing to this plan.

It appears that Iran, too, is becoming involved in the Alawite Fortress project. Iran’s active involvement in Syria is intended not only to defend the Assad regime but also aimed at bringing this future Alawite mini-state under Iran’s protection. The Assad government could transfer its huge non-conventional weapons arsenal to this territory to serve as an ultimate insurance policy against a massacre of the Alawites.

A radical Alawite state with non-conventional capabilities, with the presence of an Iranian expeditionary force, a territorial link to Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, plus a Russian strategic military umbrella in Tartous is a recipe for a permanent threat to the rest of Syria, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey and for continuing instability in the region and beyond.

Many pundits, including American officials, are aware that a solution to the Syrian quagmire implies close cooperation with Russia. The two powers are already discussing the best approach to avoid chaos in Syria, emphasizing possible loss of control over the Syrian chemical arsenal.

To hamper the formation of such a clearly dangerous Alawite entity, the United States and Russia need to agree a “grand bargain”. Such an agreement would need to include the following:

The U.S. and Russia guarantee the security of an Alawite statelet as well as the safety of the Alawites elsewhere in Syria;

The two powers guarantee Lebanese territorial integrity;

No Iranian/Hezbollah military or para-military presence would be allowed within this statelet;

All Syrian non-conventional weapons (chemical, nuclear and biological) that may have been transferred to this statelet will be removed and destroyed under international supervision (in the same manner as the Gadhafi regime’s chemical weapons were destroyed after the regime’s fall);

The United States and NATO will recognize the legitimacy of the Russian military presence within the future Alawite territory;

As a quid pro quo, Russia will recognize the independence of Kosovo, already recognized by most Western powers.

What are the clear advantages of this agreement for both the U.S. and Russia as well as other countries in the region? Such an agreement will strategically weaken Iran and Hezbollah. The agreement could go some way toward improving the atmosphere of cooperation between Russia and the United States concerning the Iranian nuclear project and could help coordinate the necessary political and operational measures to hamper the formation of jihadist enclaves in Syrian territory.

Turkey is likely to strongly oppose the formation of an independent Alawite state, because of the possibility that the Syrian Kurds will form an additional autonomous entity, thus influencing the Kurds in Turkey and threatening Turkey’s internal stability. But Turkey must take in consideration that – in any case – it will probably not be able to prevent the formation of this Alawite entity. Moreover, Ankara has to consider that the Alawites in Turkey (some 500,000 people) and the Alevis (more than 15 percent of the population), who even now are opposed to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policy on Syria, would blame him for grievous inaction if he blocked the formation of enclaves now and stood by while their Alawite brethren were massacred.

Israel also has an interest in opposing the formation of a radical Alawite mini-state under Iranian protection, but Jerusalem would still benefit from the neutralization of the non-conventional weapons that threatened it under the Assad regime.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit is an important opportunity for Israel to lobby for a grand agreement that would save many lives in the region, while advancing critical multilateral cooperation.

Ely Karmon is the Senior Research Scholar at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya. He is also the Senior Research Fellow at The Institute for Policy and Strategy at IDC.

Obama ends Israel visit by brokering end to dispute with Turkey (Joel Greenberg, Scott Wilson)

JERUSALEM — Prodded by President Obama, Israel and Turkey agreed Friday to end a three-year rift caused by a deadly Israeli commando raid on a Turkish ship bound for Gaza, a rapprochement urgently sought by the United States to help contain spillover from the worsening fighting in Syria.

…Bowing to a long-standing Turkish demand, Netanyahu apologized for the deaths of nine activists aboard the Turkish ship and promised to reach an agreement on compensation to their families, according to a statement from his spokesman….A senior Israeli official said that while Israel and Turkey had come close in the past to an understanding to restore ties, Friday’s agreement was spurred by the Syrian conflict….

Soli Ozel, an international relations professor at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University, said normalized relations between Israel and Turkey would free them to cooperate on intelligence sharing and containing a possible spillover of the fighting in Syria.

“Syria is very much at the center of this,” he said….

Weapons

How Brown Moses exposed Syrian arms trafficking from his front room Leicester-based blogger’s monitoring of weapons used in conflict has been taken up by media and human rights groups Matthew Weaver, guardian, Thursday 21 March 2013

Egypt Update

Egyptians Clash at Muslim Brotherhood Offices

Thousands of Egyptian protesters clashed with riot police and backers of the president’s Muslim Brotherhood on Friday, ransacking several offices nationwide as anger over allegations of beatings and power-grabbing boiled over into the largest and most violent demonstrations yet on the doorstep of the powerful group.

As night fell, streets surrounding the Brotherhood headquarters were littered with shattered glass, charred vehicles, stones and gloves stained with blood. The number of injured reached nearly 100 from the two sides.

“We came to the stronghold of the Brotherhood. No more protests in front of the presidential palace because those ruling Egypt are here,” said 50-year-old Hamat Awat, a female protester while running away from volleys of tear gas fired by black-clad riot police guarding the headquarters.

… Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Yasser Mehres blamed opposition parties for calling Friday’s protest outside the group’s headquarters. He said it gave way for “thugs” to infiltrate and attack Brotherhood offices.

A frightened and angry Egyptian friend writes: “We couldn’t get to our home in Mokatam. All the neighborhood is under fire. We could not even approach. It seems under siege. 164 injured so far. We are gonna to spend that night at my sister’s. Clashes remained here till dawn. Main street here is like after-battle and everything is quiet now. Hope it’s not just a break. Thanks for your prayers. Please tell your people that Obama, in a different way, is supporting another “FREE” Iraq here (coming very soon)!!!”

The Muslim Brotherhood’s treatment of women reveals its agenda for Egypt – by Nervana Mahmoud

On Saturday in Cairo, a young Egyptian female activist, Mervat Moussa, was slapped to the ground by a member of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood. Her only crime was demonstrating in front of the Brotherhood’s main headquarters. Rather than apologizing for the appalling behavior of one of its members, some officials from the Brotherhood went on the offensive, claiming that their headquarters was attacked by “a number of demonstrators who devoted their efforts to insulting and cursing the Muslim Brotherhood and its leadership using the dirtiest swear-words, provoking our young people in front of their headquarters.”

The incident occurred only a few days after the Brotherhood released a strong statement condemning a draft United Nations declaration calling for an end to all forms of violence against women, claiming that it would lead to “complete disintegration of society.”

…The appalling assault on Ms. Moussa, a conservative Muslim who wears the Islamic headscarf, has finally exposed the myth that the battle for women’s rights in Egypt is between liberals and Islamists. In reality, it is a battle between one camp that uses religion as a tool and another one, equally pious, that wants to detach religion from the political equation.

Resources

Syria as an Arena of Strategic Competition – RAND
by Jeffrey Martini, Erin York, William Young

“When Duty Calls: A Pragmatic Standard of Humanitarian Intervention,” by Robert Pape – International Security, volume 37, issue 1, pages 41-80

Big Trouble in Little Greater-Syria

A Bailout for Cyprus – BBC

BBC

The coming hours will decide Cyprus’ fate as it struggles to meet the terms of an international financial bailout, the government spokesman says.

Parliament will debate plans to raise the 5.8bn euros (£4.9bn; $7.5bn) needed to qualify for the 10bn-euro bailout, having rejected an earlier deal.

Without it, the cash supply to the euro member’s struggling banks may be cut.

… German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that Cyprus’ Eurozone partners are running out of patience with its efforts to secure the bailout.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades held talks on Friday with representatives of the bailout “troika”, which is made up of the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).