![\"Thanks](\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/ISIS-billboard-July-2013-450x337.jpg\")
Thanks to Aymenn al-Tamimi for tweeting this photo<\/p><\/div>\n
The scale of this propaganda piece is impressive: An ISIS billboard in Raqqa promoting shari’a law. The yellow text at the top says “The state’s civil law is contrary to the religion of Allah,” followed by a verse from the Qur’an (3:83 “Do they, then, seek a religion other than Allah\u2019s, while to Him submits whoever there is in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly, and to Him they will be brought back?”), and finally signed “Your brothers at the Raqqa Da’wa Office.”<\/strong><\/p>\n Changing topics…<\/strong><\/p>\n In the last post Aron Lund discussed the possibility of the fragmentation of centralized control within the “regime side” (or whatever term we should use to refer to that part of Syria that stands opposite the rebels, but may not entirely be represented by the government\/Syrian regime). A simple example of the kind of phenomenon where authority is contested (and therefore weakened) among those under the regime-loyalist umbrella is given in a new article<\/a> (in Arabic). The gist is as follows:<\/strong><\/p>\n A member of the National Defense Forces (shabiha<\/em>) tried to cut the line in front of a bakery where people were waiting to buy bread. An army officer stopped the shabih<\/em> and yelled at him, whereupon the shabih<\/em> called for back-up from the “Ba’ath Brigades.” The Ba’ath Brigades arrived, attacked the army officer and his men, and forced them to get down on their knees. The army officer, as well, had already called for back-up, so 5 jeeps arrived (possibly with Air Force Intelligence), and arrested all the shabiha<\/em> involved. All of this is based on opposition sources and comes following another story of shabiha<\/em> attacking policemen who were overseeing the distribution of gas canisters. In this case, the shabiha<\/em> also attacked the officers when they refused to let them cut the line.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n ??? ?????<\/p><\/div>\n Following the assassination of Issa Hisso, a Kurdish politician (article in Arabic<\/a>),\u00a0Kurdish forces declared “?????? ?????” (“general mobilization”\u2014”nafir” refers to a horn blown for warning or before battle) asking all able people to take up arms (article in Arabic<\/a>). Turkish forces are now in full alert along the border (article in Arabic<\/a>).<\/strong><\/p>\n Now in a stellar display of unity and cooperation vis-a-vis the Kurds, the FSA, the ISIS, Ahrar al-Sham, and a host of other groups have apparently together issued a joint statement against the PKK. <\/strong>Thanks to A.N. for providing the following translation of the article from ??? ?????<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n We, the battalions working in the cities of Minbij and Sirin and Shyoukh and Jarablos:<\/em><\/p>\n Kurds could help shift course of war in Syria<\/a> – The Star Online<\/p>\n The head of Turkey’s main Kurdish party has welcomed contacts between the Ankara government and Syria’s Kurds, saying it could step up pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and help change the course of the civil war,<\/p>\n Turkish intelligence officers met in Istanbul last week with Saleh Muslim, head of Syria’s Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Kurdish group whose militias have been fighting for control of parts of Syria’s north near the Turkish border.<\/p>\n The meeting followed Muslim’s declaration that Kurdish groups would set up an independent council to run Kurdish areas of Syria until the war ends. Ankara fears that kind of autonomy could rekindle separatist sentiment among its own, much larger Kurdish population as it seeks to end a 30-year-old insurgency.<\/p>\n “Saleh Muslim’s visit to Istanbul is a concrete sign that Turkey is moving towards changing a policy that sees Kurds as a menace,” Selahattin Demirtas, head of parliament’s Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), told Reuters in an interview.<\/p>\n “It won’t just affect Turkish-Kurdish relations but also the course of events in Syria by creating pressure on the regime,” he said.<\/p>\n “Kurds can be effective in Syria, and we need to increase support for them. Western countries, including the United States, should establish proper ties with Syria’s Kurds.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [I wrote most of this section on Syrians in Egypt over 10 days ago, but wasn’t able to post due to traveling. I believe it’s still relevant.]<\/p>\n Someone sent me a particularly moving image this week. Month after month of viewing bombed homes and beheaded apostates can eventually produce a dull numbness. But something about the tragic character of this image brought tears to my eyes.<\/strong><\/p>\n It took me back to the feelings many of us experienced when faced with some of those first images to come out of Dera’a, such as one I remember of a man carrying the body of a boy whose head was split apart by a bullet.<\/strong><\/p>\n The trend of violence from that day until now has only worsened, and as men continue to carry the bodies of young children, the flow of Syrians exiting the country also continues. But the situation for Syrians in the countries where they seek shelter is fraught with other challenges, as has now become the case in Egypt.<\/strong><\/p>\n I haven’t verified all of their articulations of the new circumstances, but in the last couple days, multiple unrelated Syrian friends who fled Syria for Egypt have contacted me claiming that the Egyptian government is dramatically shifting policy toward the Syrians who have taken refuge there. They feel that there has been a reversal of several policies that were in place to help them. Chiefly, they are saying that the government will not renew their temporary residencies. A tremendous level of uncertainty afflicts them, since they no longer feel welcome in Egypt, yet are faced by the fact that most other countries have closed their doors to immigrating Syrians. Complicating the situation is the fact that without an embassy, those in need of travel documents \/ passports are no longer able to secure them.<\/strong><\/p>\n One friend told me today that his wife is about to give birth. He cannot obtain a passport for his child, because former president Morsi closed the Syrian embassy. Egypt will not renew his residency, meaning ought to leave the country. But the Egyptian government will not allow him to travel with a child who has no papers, obviously. They are now caught in a bewildering limbo in which every choice is the wrong choice.<\/strong><\/p>\n Another friend believes Syrians need to either leave the country or register with the UN as refugees: no third option for residency.<\/strong><\/p>\n Furthermore, a new wave of anti-Syrian sentiment has begun sweeping through parts of the country. After some Syrians may have participated in pro-Morsi demonstrations, Syrians in Egypt have told me that they are being branded as “pro-Ikhwaan” as a whole, as well as being accused of contributing to prostitution. In amazingly “tribal” style (when every member of the extended unit is judged as carrying the same shared characteristics), suddenly all Syrians as a collective are defined as being aligned a certain way or as engaging in certain activities.<\/strong><\/p>\n One informed me that though the Syrian dialect was something enjoyed by Egyptians and which he flaunted when he first arrived, he now hides his accent and tries to sound Egyptian.<\/strong><\/p>\n Egypt is also making it nearly impossible for any additional Syrians to enter the country. A visa is now required, and obtaining it from Syria requires getting cleared by Syrian security… we all know what that means in Syria, and for a government that recently closed its Syrian embassy in order to express its opposition to the current apparatus there, to now force Syrians fleeing the political violence of the Syrian state into the very arms of the abuser it flees\u2014in order to seek permission to leave\u2014is the very height of irony.<\/strong><\/p>\n Syrians feeling pushed out of Egypt are wondering where exactly they should go; are they expected to return to Syria? A Syrian friend in Egypt, who fled the violence of his native Qabun, sent me this photo of his neighborhood, I assume taken following destruction this week:<\/strong><\/p>\n Not exactly an ideal time to go home. This is the very edge of Damascus, not a far-outlying suburb billed as “Damascus.”<\/strong><\/p>\n Another moving image I encountered recently, this one of a father with his young daughter from Homs:<\/strong><\/p>\n For more of what Homs looks like now, see this from SkyNews: Dramatic Images Of Destruction In Homs<\/a>. Beyond merely a bad time to go home, for many there will be no home to return to.<\/strong><\/p>\n Articles have begun appearing discussing the same issues that these Syrians in Egypt have been talking about:<\/strong><\/p>\n Syrian refugees caught up in Egypt’s turmoil<\/a><\/p>\n A thin wall was all that separated Syrian refugee Ahmed Al Hemsi from his 62-year-old father at Cairo International Airport when immigration officers told his father he would not be allowed into Egypt.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was crying when he talked to me on the phone,\u201d Al Hemsi, 26, told IRIN. \u201cThis was the first time in my life I heard my father crying.\u201d<\/p>\n Al Hemsi’s father, who had just arrived from Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, is one of thousands of Syrians affected by a new set of security measures enacted by Egyptian authorities following the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi and bloody clashes between Morsi’s supporters and opponents.<\/p>\n Government supporters accuse Syrian refugees of participating in the clashes and taking part in attacks against anti-Morsi demonstrators in several Egyptian cities.<\/p>\n The new security measures<\/a> include the requirement that Syrian refugees and asylum seekers get entry visas to Egypt from an Egyptian embassy, as well as security approval.<\/p>\n But many Syrians say, given that Egypt severed<\/a> its diplomatic relations with Syria, getting an entry visa to Egypt from Damascus is impossible, and that the process is difficult at embassies in other countries.<\/p>\n \u201cOur understanding of the new measures is that we are no longer welcome in Egypt,\u201d said Arkan Abulkheir, a Syrian community leader in Cairo. \u201cThe fact that some Syrians had committed violations by getting involved in Egypt’s politics does not mean that Egypt should punish all Syrians.\u201d<\/p>\n There are between 250,000 and 300,000 Syrian refugees in Egypt now, according to the Egyptian government.<\/p>\n The conflict in Syria has created the world\u2019s worst refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said this week<\/a>, noting that more than 6,000 people were fleeing every day.<\/p>\n Nearly 1.8 million refugees from Syria are registered with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.<\/p>\n The government\u2019s new tougher line includes tighter security checks for Syrian refugees in Egypt, with the threat of deportation for Syrians who do not have residence permits.<\/p>\n Previously, Syrians were able to get a three-month visa when they entered Egypt for the first time. After that visa expired, the Syrians could then apply for a one-year residence, but this is no longer the case.<\/p>\n A security official told the newspaper Al Watan on 11 July that police have orders to arrest Syrians and check them.<\/p>\n Abulkheir was stopped by a policeman on the street a few days ago. The policeman asked about his passport and his residence permit.<\/p>\n \u201cHe told me that he would have sent me back to Syria if my residence permit was not valid,\u201d Abulkheir said. \u201cThanks are to God, the permit was valid for six more months.\u201d<\/p>\n Syrian refugees say they are afraid to go out lest they be arrested or deported.<\/p>\n Before the change of government and these new security measures, Syrian refugees already faced a variety of challenges<\/a>, but the new measures are making life even harder.<\/p>\n When they came to Cairo two months ago, Al Hemsi, his mother and his younger brother had to leave their father behind in the Syrian city of Daraa because they did not have enough money to buy him a plane ticket.<\/p>\n He finally travelled to Cairo on 8 July after the family raised US$250 for the flight. Since he was refused to entry to Egypt, he has been living in a mosque in Beirut.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do not know how he eats or lives his life,\u201d Al Hemsi said. \u201cHe does not have any money. He is also too frail to work.\u201d<\/p>\n School\u2019s out<\/strong><\/p>\n Another change has come in the education sector. Syrian refugees were previously allowed to enrol their children in state-run schools and universities, and were given equal treatment<\/a> with Egyptians when it came to fees. This is no longer the case.<\/p>\n Abu Mustafa, a Syrian refugee in his mid-forties, went to a school in 6 October, a neighbourhood southwest of Cairo, a few days ago to enrol his three children for the new academic year, which is expected to start in September. He was told by the headmaster that Syrians are no longer allowed at state-run schools, which have lower fees than private schools.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said I should enrol them in a private school,\u201d Abu Mustafa said. \u201cBut this is very difficult for me to do.\u201d<\/p>\n To enrol his children in a private school, Abu Mustafa would have to pay a minimum of 7,000 Egyptian pounds (US$958) for each of them. Unemployed and living on charity, this is too much money for him, and for the tens of thousands of other Syrian refugees in the country.<\/p>\n Political tension<\/strong><\/p>\n The new measures against Syrians coincide with a fierce campaign against them by some of Egypt’s politicians and opinion-makers, who accuse them of harbouring support for the deposed president and of contributing to Egypt’s current turmoil.<\/p>\n An Egyptian politician recently called<\/a> for the execution of Syrians and Palestinians if they are arrested while taking part in protests or fights on the streets. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Syrian Refugees in Egypt Swept up in Turmoil<\/a> – AP<\/p>\n Egyptian officials turn back a planeload of Syrians at Cairo airport. A popular presenter on Egyptian television warns Syrians to steer clear of protests or face the consequences. An Egyptian state school refuses admission to Syrian children.<\/p>\n Once welcomed with open arms in Egypt, many of the tens of thousands of Syrians who took refuge here from the civil war at home have now found themselves targets of hate speech and intimidation. Their dramatic change in fortune is one of the unexpected consequences of the Egyptian military’s ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, whose Islamist-dominated government offered them favorable conditions.<\/p>\n The shift could have a profound impact on the lives of Syrians in Egypt as they currently find themselves in a sort of legal limbo, waiting to see where the political winds will drop them. In what many see as a hint of what lies ahead, Egypt’s new military-backed interim government already has imposed new travel restrictions.<\/p>\n That has spooked many Syrians who fear their current visas won’t be renewed and they could be forced to leave Egypt. Many have invested their savings in businesses or simply cannot return to their war-ravaged cities.<\/p>\n … “Egypt may be going through tumultuous times, but it must not return anyone, including Syrians, to somewhere threatening their life or freedom,” Nadim Houry, the deputy Middle East director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement last week. “While Egypt is going through a very difficult period, it simply should not strand Syrians this way, especially those who have fled such a devastating conflict at home.<\/p>\n The U.N. says some 70,000 Syrians are registered in Egypt, although officials estimate the actual number may be twice that since many have opted not to register. That would make Egypt home to the fourth-largest community of Syrian refugees after Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.<\/p>\n Those who came to Egypt received a warm welcome. Morsi’s government supported the rebels’ cause, and kept in place a decades-old open-door policy that allowed Syrians to come and go without prior visas. They were eligible to receive medical care at state hospitals, while their children could enroll in government schools.<\/p>\n Over the past few months, Syrians redefined some parts of Cairo, opening their own restaurants and cafes in areas where many of them settled.<\/p>\n But the warm welcome quickly evaporated after the military toppled Morsi on July 3 after four days of mass protests calling for the Islamist leader’s removal.<\/p>\n Television networks critical of Morsi aired allegations that the Muslim Brotherhood was paying Syrian refugees to take part in pro-Morsi protests. The arrest of at least six Syrians taking part in violent street clashes only fanned the flames. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The US Commission on International Religious Freedom<\/strong> provides the following factsheet<\/strong><\/a> on the “regional refugee catastrophe<\/strong>.” Information specific to each country receiving refugees is provided.<\/p>\n As of July 17, UNHCR reports that more than 1. 7 million Syrians are refugees in neighboring countries. UNHCR predicts that 3.5 million Syrians potentially could become refugees by the end of 2013. This large number is exerting significant pressure on neighboring countries\u2019 economies and stretching their already limited resources and services. Due to these pressures, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan either have closed their borders or limited daily refugee inflows.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Obama halts delivery of F-16s to Egypt amid unrest<\/a> – Reuters<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A good writer with interesting reflections on the Syria conflict is posting a blog called Notes on Error<\/a>. Here are some excerpts from a few posts:<\/strong><\/p>\n On sectarianism in the conflict:<\/strong> Scenes from the religious war,\u00a0iii<\/a> It is an understandable though melancholy truth that in the tragedy of armed conflict, the narrative that seeks to explain events often lags behind the details that determine events. Policy and psychology work together to delay such inferences as seem, in retrospect, to have been unmissable \u2013 as anyone who has paid attention to the long eclipse of Syria will know.<\/p>\n … With the torrent of terrible news pouring out of Iraq, we who are watching from afar must now brace ourselves for another round of narrative delay, which seeks to conceal a fearsome fact: Iraq has been definitively captured and thrown into the Syrian maelstrom. Iraq is now also in a state of civil war.<\/p>\n Martin Kobler, the United Nations envoy to Iraq has proclaimed that that the conflicts in Syria and Iraq (and, sotto vocce<\/i>, Lebanon) are merging into a single engagement.<\/p>\n From Mr. Kobler\u2019s report to the Security Council, from July 16:<\/p>\n I am deeply concerned by the recent events in Iraq. I regret to report that the last four months have been amongst Iraq\u2019s bloodiest in the last five years. Nearly three-thousand men, women, and children have been killed and over seven thousand more injured. The perpetrators of this violence are taking advantage of two leading factors of instability in the country. These include the ongoing political stalemate and the Syrian crisis.<\/p>\n Narrative \u2013 that is, policy \u2013 will take some time in catching up with these words, and in the days and weeks ahead there will be much to say about this new war. We may content ourselves at the outset with an unnerving observation: Iraq is the<\/i> fault-line for the Sunni-Shia divide. It has been since Islam\u2019s first civil war in 656, and remains so to this day.<\/p>\n In other words: the war of religion in the Middle East is metastasizing at a rate that should shock the composure of anyone who makes it their business to pay attention to such things. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Iraqi plunge<\/a>:<\/p>\n … Beginning in the \u201clocal\u201d context: yesterday, The Islamic State of Al-Qaida of Iraq and the Levant staged spectacular, coordinated attacks<\/a> on two prisons in Baghdad. It would be difficult to overstate the intricate boldness of these attacks, which were the most advanced operations of Islamic terror in the region since the withdrawal of American troops two years ago and demonstrate the enhanced capabilities from the recent merger \u2013 uncertain as all the details<\/a> may be \u2013 of the Al-Qaida franchises in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n The attacks<\/a> began with a series of suicide car bombs that were driven into the outer walls of the prisons, followed by waves of suicide attackers wearing explosive vests who ran through the breaches to destroy the inner fortifications. Individual infiltrations followed hard upon and all the while the facilities were bombarded by rocket fire. It was only after the application of air power from the security forces that the attacks were broken, and by that time 500 Al-Qaida prisoners had been liberated.<\/p>\n It is unwise to take seriously Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki\u2019s claim that the Shi\u2019ite militia of Moqtada al-Sadr was involved (he\u2019s picking his own bones here), but it seems likely that the escapes were husbanded by elements from within the prisons. The central government\u2019s grip on the security situation is tenuous, and requires comment, but Maliki\u2019s vain evasions only aggravate<\/a> his crisis of credibility.<\/p>\n In any case, this operation, and the consolidation of Sunni extremism between Iraq and Syria that it denotes, is bad news of the first order. But, working in parallel, a hardening within the Shia camp is deepening the overall sensation of impending calamity.<\/p>\n … A struggle<\/a> is underway<\/a> between the two<\/a> intellectual centers of Shia political power: Najaf, in Iraq, and Qom, in Iran. It may be simply said (too simply, really) that the character of this difference has to do with the tensions between Arab and Persian Shi\u2019ism. The former, which has strained itself to interpret events in Syria as a political struggle, and which maintains a certain theological distance from such matters, has urged Iraqi Shias to spurn the fight there and not fan the sectarian flames. It is in no small part through efforts of the clerics in Najaf, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, that Iraq has remained, for so long, out of the Syrian war.<\/strong><\/p>\n In Qom, the situation is different. The Islamic Republic of Iran, whose influence in Iraq has steadily increased since the American occupation and the election of a Shia government there, has been issuing quite contrary edicts. Their version of Shi\u2019ism merges the political and theological spheres and, through the counsels of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the faithful are enjoined to travel to Syria and fight against what they regard as a Sunni insurgency.<\/p>\n In other words, as over the past months we have witnessed the Sunni legions consolidate on one side of the sectarian divide, we are now seeing Shia extremism beginning to clarify on the other. Mesopotamia is where these two forces have historically met, and it seems, more so with each passing day, that the two wings of Shia Islam are preparing a critical conclave in the same location.<\/p>\n The struggle has only begun to bloom, but as with so many other prolonged factors in this war, the center of gravity slides to the extremes, and we must wonder whether the dramatic Sunni attacks of yesterday will further decide the contest in favor of the intervening Shi\u2019ism of Qom, and against the more measured Shi\u2019ism of Najaf.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n On the further-reaching consequences that the war will necessarily have for the human community, and regarding the prospect of action in response to it:<\/strong> Homs and Shame<\/a>:<\/p>\n … The time when we might have intervened just in Syria and helped move things in a salutary direction has passed. What was once a national uprising is now a regional sectarian war, and I\u2019m not sure how one intervenes in that. We\u2019re in uncharted territory, but that is partly, in my view, a consequence of not having engaged earlier.<\/p>\n That the problem has become really complicated does not arrest any of the consequences, one<\/em> of which is as follows: the eastern third of Syria and the western third of Iraq are now a single entity where the only functioning power is Al-Qaida. In other words, a sort of radical Islamic quasi-state is being born, which is the common enemy of humanity. (Even Assad views this development as an existential crisis.)<\/p>\n Your framing of the essential choice is, I think, correct. We either do nothing and watch the horror, or we intervene and make everything, so to say, bigger<\/em> (if not quite worse<\/em>). Intervention would mean escalation, but that\u2019s just the way it is.<\/p>\n It is, despite the esoteric religious elements, a geopolitical event, as Russia, and our allies like Turkey and Jordan, know all too well. As for \u201cwinning\u201d, I don\u2019t know what that would look like, but I know two necessary components: Assad and Al-Qaida must be destroyed.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n One of the articles referenced in the above blog posts is quite interesting:<\/strong> Syrian conflict increases Shi\u2019ite divisions<\/a> – Asharq al-Awsat<\/p>\n Senior Shi\u2019ite ayatollahs in Qom, Iran, have issued edicts urging their followers to join the fighting in Syria, while many Iraqi clerics based in Najaf remain opposed to involvement in the fighting.<\/p>\n Shi\u2019ite militia commanders responsible for recruiting fighters in Iraq said the number of volunteers has increased considerably since the issuance of these edicts, despite divisions within the clergy.<\/p>\n While the Iranian government and some Qom-based ayatollahs are enthusiastic about supporting Assad, Shi\u2019ite authorities in Najaf, led by Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, have objected to Shi\u2019ite volunteers going to Syria to fight in a war which they see as political, not sectarian.<\/p>\n Despite Sistani\u2019s position, however, some Shi\u2019ite parties and militias in Iraq, which are loyal to the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have sent their members to fight in Syria. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Sayyeda Zeinab gets bombed:<\/strong> Shells hit major Shiite shrine near Damascus<\/a><\/p>\n Mortar shells struck near a major Shiite shrine outside Damascus on Friday, killing its caretaker in an attack that threatens to further escalate sectarian tensions in Syria’s civil war, the government and activists said.<\/p>\n State-run news agency SANA said shells fired be rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad landed “in the vicinity” of the revered Sayida Zeinab shrine, killing Anas Roumani, the shrine’s administrative director. Several people were wounded in the explosion, SANA said.<\/p>\n … In Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has called it “a duty” to protect the shrine, saying that if Syrian rebels destroyed it, that would ignite a sectarian war with no end<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Opinion from NYT: End the conflict by engaging with Iran:<\/strong> To Oust Assad, Pressure Hezbollah<\/a> – by JONATHAN STEVENSON<\/p>\n SYRIA has put President Obama\u2019s enlightened realism in international affairs to its stiffest test. Direct military intervention could immerse the United States in yet another open-ended Middle East war. Doing nothing would mean failing to live up to America\u2019s humanitarian obligations and harming America\u2019s regional interests.<\/p>\n But the main impediment to a political deal remains President Bashar al-Assad\u2019s brutal intransigence. And there is something America could do to pressure him. The most powerful inducement for Mr. Assad to reach an acceptable compromise would be a loss of support from Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based, Iranian-financed Shiite militant group. In Lebanon, popular anger over Hezbollah\u2019s intervention in Syria is rising, and the United States must exploit this opportunity, even if it means negotiating directly with Iran to rein in its Lebanese proxy.<\/p>\n … The way to Hezbollah\u2019s heart is through Iran. The Obama administration should bite the admittedly hard bullet and start cultivating Iran as a participant in negotiations for a peace deal in Syria. Iran\u2019s newly elected moderate president, Hassan Rowhani, wants better relations with pro-rebel Saudi Arabia. And despite Iran\u2019s insistence that its Syria policy hasn\u2019t changed, Mr. Rowhani is likely to be less obstructionist than his predecessors and could open up space for genuine compromise. America should also be receptive to power-sharing scenarios that preserve a role for Mr. Assad\u2019s fellow Alawites in a new Syrian government.<\/strong><\/p>\n Washington should also incentivize reluctant anti-Assad forces, whose disunity has lately strengthened Mr. Assad, by indicating that America is prepared to increase arms shipments to moderate rebels in Syria only if they are willing to consolidate and negotiate. Tough diplomacy along these lines could also increase the internal leverage of Iranian officials with doubts about Mr. Assad\u2019s viability while softening Iranian hard-liners.<\/p>\n Some Israelis have argued that the Syrian civil war usefully bogs down both the Assad regime and Hezbollah and bleeds Iran. Though superficially appealing, this rosy view is trumped by the prospect that cross-border violence could destabilize Lebanon, Jordan and even Turkey. Such a spillover could also cause the current Iranian-Saudi proxy war over Syria to escalate into a more direct and dangerous confrontation that might ultimately discourage Iran from making the nuclear compromises that the United States so badly wants. …<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Syrian Sunnis fear Assad regime wants to ‘ethnically cleanse’ Alawite heartland<\/a> – Guardian<\/p>\n … Homs, long a place where a Sunni majority lived in co-existence co-existed with minority Christian and Alawite communities, has now been a city of cantonments for almost 18 months: Alawite areas are surrounded by security walls that are off-limits to opposition areas. The countryside to the north and east, where Sunni and Alawite communities live nearby each other, has been volatile for much of the past year, with massacres documented in Sunni communities in Houla, Banias and Hoswaie.<\/p>\n The apparent cleansing is not all one way though. North of Latakia, Alawites have been chased out of their villages near the Turkish border by opposition groups, which in that area are dominated by jihadists. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Containing the Fire in Syria<\/a>\u00a0 – Ryan Crocker<\/strong><\/p>\n The awful conflict in Syria grinds on, with more than 100,000 dead and no end in sight. The calls to “do something” – anything – become louder: arm the rebels, enforce a no-fly zone, send in the Marines. Before the United States acts, Americans should reflect on the realities in Syria in a historical context. Here are some relevant dates and events.<\/p>\n Syria, February 1982: The Assad regime corners the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, the country’s fourth largest city. For the minority Alawite government, an offshoot of Shia Islam, the fundamentalist Sunni Brothers are an existential threat. Assad rings the city with armor and artillery, and methodically destroys its center. The Brotherhood is largely eliminated, along with more than 10,000 Sunni civilians. The regime knew that the day of revenge might come and spent years developing the security, intelligence and military apparatus to deal with it. …<\/p>\n … So this current fight didn’t start in the southern Syrian city of Dara’a in 2011. Nor is it part of the so-called Arab Spring. It began decades before. Lebanese, Palestinians, Iranians, Jordanians, Iraqis and Syrians – Sunnis, Alawis, Christians and Druze – all remember. Americans may not have ever really understood it in the first place. The history helps explain the ferocity of the fight on the part of both the regime and its opponents, and it illustrates why this regime is not like those in Egypt, Tunisia or Libya. It was ready for this war.<\/p>\n … The opposition, in contrast, lacks cohesion and organization. As is often the case in these conflicts, the most radical elements demonstrate the greatest discipline such as Al Qaeda in Syria – Jabhat al-Nusra. It is what makes arming the opposition such a dangerous and uncertain proposition.<\/p>\n … Much has been said about a political settlement. The conditions are simply not present. Neither the opposition nor the regime is ready to deal seriously with each other, and the opposition is too divided in any event to develop a coherent position. Nor will a meeting between regime representatives and opposition elements in exile produce meaningful outcome, even if it could be convened. The influence of the exiles on those actually doing the fighting is approximately zero.<\/p>\n … I was in Lebanon recently, where the outgoing prime minister gloomily predicted a renewed civil war of which there are already signs with clashes between Sunnis and Alawites in the northern city of Tripoli, in the northeast and attacks on Hezbollah-controlled areas in Beirut. If the violence spreads, the Palestinians will join forces with the Lebanese Sunnis against the Shia, and that in turn will radicalize Palestinians in Jordan’s already fragile monarchy. Both countries need our security and economic support, for the refugee influx and their security forces.<\/p>\n This will be a long war. There is little the United States can do to positively influence events in Syria. Our focus must be on preventing further spillover beyond its borders. There may come a point where exhaustion on both sides makes a political solution possible. We are nowhere near that point. And my fear is that at the end of the day, the Assad regime prevails. We must be ready for that too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Musa is a Research Fellow with the Southwest Initiative for the Study of Middle East Conflicts (SISMEC) and an analyst with www.SyriaReport.net. He has a MA in philosophy from the University of Arizona.<\/p><\/div>\n Musa al-Gharbi: Al-Qaeda’s renaissance<\/a> – Your Middle East<\/p>\n Far from being rendered irrelevant by the Arab Spring, the organization seems to be on the verge of a major and enduring resurgence<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Following the military coup which removed Hosni Mubarak, it was widely reported<\/a> that al-Qaeda was rendered obsolete<\/a> by the Arab Spring. Fareed Zakaria, for instance, pronounced<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cThe Arab Revolts of 2011 represent a total repudiation of al Qaeda\u2019s founding ideology. For 20 years, al Qaeda has said that the regimes of the Arab World are nasty dictatorships and that the only way to overthrow them is to support al Qaeda and its terrorism. And then, in a few weeks, the people of the Arab World have overturned two despotic governments by means of non-violent demonstrations and they have begun a process of reform and revolution that will alter the basic bargain between the ruler and ruled in the Middle East\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n This sentiment was only amplified in light of the U.S. assassinations<\/a> of al-Qaeda\u2019s senior leadership: Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Abu Yaya al-Libi and Said al-Shehri<\/a> (among others)\u2014personality strikes which continue to this very day<\/a> despite the growing evidence of blowback.<\/a><\/p>\n … Although there were certainly methodological and ideological disparities, the aspirations of al-Qaeda and the Arab Spring protesters were superficially commensurate: al-Qaeda had long been working against Hosni Mubarak, Ben Ali, Bashar al-Asad, and Gaddafi\u2014just as they had previously fought Saddam Hussein<\/a>. They unambiguously embraced<\/a> each of these revolutions, and even called for further uprisings<\/a> in authoritarian states like Saudi Arabia. However, so long as the protests remained peaceful<\/em>, al-Qaeda was, in a sense, sidelined. Ironically, the Western interventions\/escalations in Libya and Syria gave them an \u201cin\u201d and subsequently al-Qaeda has played a decisive and growing role in those theaters.<\/p>\n Contrary to Western assumptions (fueled by media disinformation), the Libyans did not<\/em> rise up in great numbers<\/a> to overthrow Gaddhafi, and there were few military and government defections. Accordingly, the colonel continued to advance on Benghazi despite the NATO-imposed no-fly zone. Foreign fighters from AQIM rushed in<\/a> to compensate for the lack of indigenous resistance\u2014but even then <\/em>the local population refused to provide the rebels with provisions or support, forcing NATO allies to overstep their mandate<\/a> in UNSCR 1973 (just as they did in UNSCR 1441<\/a>), likely in violation of international law<\/a>.<\/p>\n The al-Qaeda flag flew next to the rebel flag<\/a> in the opposition capital of Benghazi, while an al-Qaeda detainee released from Guantanamo Bay became one of the more prolific leaders of the rebellion<\/a>. To this day, al-Qaeda and its affiliates maintain a strong presence in Libya<\/a>, largely thanks to the\u00a0lawlessness which continues to prevail over much of the country, and due to the gratitude of the local population.<\/p>\n Ultimately, these groups would deploy the very resources which NATO provided, and the autonomy afforded them in the absence of Gaddhafi, in order carry out an attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi<\/a>, resulting in the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens. AQIM subsequently took advantage of their base in Libya to plan and execute a successful conquest of northern Mali, prompting a French intervention<\/a> of unspecified length in their former colony. This, in turn, led to an AQIM response attack in Algeria<\/a> which killed scores of foreign nationals from around the world.<\/p>\n In Libya, al-Qaeda and its affiliates were among the primary beneficiaries of U.S. and allied arms, funding, training, and supplies. We know this, in part, because they have subsequently deployed these assets throughout the Maghreb, but they have also been relied upon in Syria<\/a>\u2014just as the weapons provided to the rebels in Syria were used in a failed al-Qaeda attack in Jordan<\/a>; and yet the Obama Administration has decided to openly endorse arming the rebels (under the false-pretext of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government), despite the overwhelming evidence that most of these weapons have ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda affiliated groups<\/a>.<\/p>\n Al-Qaeda was quick to endorse the Syrian “uprising;”<\/a> they began by bombing targets in Damascus<\/a> and quickly stepped up their involvement<\/a> from there. The late Abu Yaya al-Libi called for a \u201cviolent jihad<\/a>\u201d in Syria without compromise or \u201cillusions of peacefulness\u201d until President al-Asad is overthrown. The al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front was primarily responsible for the rebel gains in Aleppo, which marked a turning point in the rebellion<\/a>\u2014they have since become the most effective and influential<\/a> fighting force in the Syrian theater. Even rebel forces which are not directly affiliated with al-Nusra or the ISI are increasingly adopting al-Qaeda tactics<\/a> (guerilla warfare, suicide bombings, IED’s, etc.) in order to combat the superior firepower of the Syrian government. …<\/p>\n … It would be hard to imagine a better scenario for al-Qaeda and their ideology: secular tyrannies have been falling throughout the Middle East\u2014replaced by Sunni Islamist-dominated governments with solid ties to minority-blocks of conservative\/radical parties, such as the Salafists. And as formerly antagonistic forces are being overthrown, al-Qaeda has been able to exploit the regional instability to set up new bases of operation. The organization is increasing its presence in the Sinai Peninsula<\/a>, continues to control large swaths of Yemen<\/a> and Somalia<\/a>, and enjoys substantial support in Pakistan<\/a>. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The following Bloomberg article cites a report from the website Trafficking Culture<\/a> (“Researching the global traffic in looted cultural objects”) that provides the following before-and-after satellite images of the ancient city of Apamea, an archeological site in Syria serving as an example of the tremendous looting that has taken place. In the second picture, thousands of holes are visible where looters have dug into soil that archeologists have not yet explored:<\/strong><\/p>\n Apamea before: via Trafficking Culture, via Dr. Ignacio Arce, via Google Earth<\/p><\/div>\n Apamea after: via Trafficking Culture, via Dr. Ignacio Arce, via Google Earth<\/p><\/div>\n Syrian Looters in Bulldozers Seek Treasure Amid Chaos<\/a> – Bloomberg<\/p>\n When the uprising against Syria\u2019s President Bashar al-Assad began two years ago, satellite images<\/a> showed the ruins of the ancient Hellenic city of Apamea surrounded by green farmland. A year later, photos reveal a moonscape blighted by hundreds upon hundreds of holes.<\/p>\n Looters in bulldozers armed with automatic weapons are exploiting the mayhem of Syria\u2019s civil war to seize sites including Apamea, founded in 300 B.C. by one of Alexander the Great\u2019s generals, where colonnaded streets stretch for almost 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) along a hilltop.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s tragic, objects from archaeological sites risk being lost without us ever knowing they existed,\u201d said Jonathan Tubb, keeper of the Middle East department at the British Museum. \u201cIt can be callous to talk about this in the face of appalling human loss, but Syria\u2019s cultural heritage is of such great importance to our understanding of human history that it\u2019s only right we\u2019re concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n There are more endangered heritage sites in Syria than anywhere else in the world<\/strong>, the United Nations, Educational, Scientifid and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, said this year. The country has more than 10,000 archaeological sites left by the Greeks, Romans, Ottomans and other civilizations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel bitter and sad — many sites have been destroyed before our eyes,\u201d Mamoun Abdul-Karim, head of Syria\u2019s Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums, said in an interview from Damascus. \u201cClandestine excavations are most dangerous because they mean eternal death, while sites damaged by fighting can be restored.\u201d<\/p>\n Baghdad Looting<\/strong><\/p>\n Abdul-Karim said his department stored artifacts in safe places to prevent a repeat of the pillaging that emptied the National Museum of Iraq of its Mesopotamian relics after the March 2003 war that toppled Saddam Hussein. He said that while antiquities officials have started local initiatives that include watch groups of tribal elders and civilians to protect sites, they\u2019ve been confronted by gangs of heavily armed men and earth-moving equipment.<\/p>\n \u201cPreventing the smuggling of antiquities and clandestine excavations is the responsibility of every Syrian,\u201d he said. \u201cEven if we have political disagreements, let\u2019s not disagree over the country\u2019s heritage.\u201d …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n While looters dismember Syria’s treasures from within, the black gold under Syrian soil is eyed from without: <\/strong>West’s main aid group for Syrian rebels collapses into disarray<\/strong><\/a> – Telegraph<\/p>\n Even as President Bashar al-Assad has made sweeping advances across parts of his country, the Syrian Support Group (SSG) has been riven by internal divisions and struggled to raise funds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n The group had been considered a potential game-changer whose money-raising abilities would equip the rebels with much-needed modern weapons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But instead of using a unique US licence to funnel funds to the opposition, the group has spent months pursuing a fruitless dash to make millions of dollars from Syrian oil.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One former staff member has alleged that the leadership had become “obsessed” with landing a jackpot oil deal and lost sight of its core mission to back the rebels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n The head of the SSG in Washington resigned last month after the group failed to gain real traction with US officials and its London operation is under threat of closure after falling foul of the Government.<\/p>\n The Foreign Office has demanded the group repay thousands of pounds from a grant after determining that some of the money was improperly spent.<\/p>\n … The West had hoped the SSG, founded in the US in December 2011, would channel support to these moderate elements within the Syrian uprising and in May last year it was granted a coveted Treasury licence allowing it to skirt American sanctions on the country.<\/p>\n But private donations dried up after the US State Department warned the SSG that its funds could not be used for weapons. Instead according to David Falt, a whistleblower who served as SSG’s European government affairs director, the group turned its efforts from fundraising to pursuing large and controversial oil deals under the leadership of Brian Sayers, a former Nato official.<\/p>\n Mr Falt has revealed internal emails between Mr Sayers and others, containing proposals to raise money by selling rights to Syrian oil output.<\/p>\n “Brian and some others were obsessed with the oil. The idea they could raise hundreds of millions from the sale of the oil came to dominate the work of the SSG to the point no real attention was paid to the nature of the conflict,” said Mr Falt.<\/p>\n … Mazen Asbashi, the president of SSG who is now trying to restructure the organisation, said the group’s board was eventually forced to pull the plug on the oil proposals after becoming uncomfortable with the activities of Mr Sayers.<\/p>\n “There were early preliminary discussions but they were never pursued in any serious way,” Mr Asbashi said. “The oil-related issues are complex and our organisation is focused on facilitating non-lethal support to the Syrian Military Council.”<\/p>\n Members of the board claimed that they ordered Mr Sayers to call off the proposals. “He was way out in front of where we were comfortable,” said one board member who accused Mr Sayers of “freelancing”.<\/p>\n But Mr Sayers said both the board and Gen Selim Idris, the head of the Syrian Military Council (SMC), were supportive of the idea of using oil money to help fund the rebellion. “There was no disagreement on the principles of that issue and the notion that somehow I was overreaching is absolutely false,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Britain randomly decides people shouldn’t play with Nusra:<\/strong> UK Bans Syria’s Al-Qaida-Linked Nusra Front<\/a><\/p>\n … The government said Friday that it considered the Nusra Front and Jabhat al-Nusra nothing more than alternative names for al-Qaida, which has long been outlawed. The ban takes effect immediately. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And just when it’s getting more attractive: Comics Series on Western Muslim Volunteering for Nusra<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Syria\u2019s Nusra Front tries to show it\u2019s a different kind of al Qaida<\/a> – McClatchy<\/p>\n Two al Qaida-linked rebel groups in Syria appear to be distancing themselves from each other in what may be an effort by the Nusra Front, which the United States has branded as an international terrorist organization, to remain relevant amid signs that major portions of the Syrian population are chafing under harsh rule by conservative religious fighters.<\/p>\n A series of incidents in which residents and fighters in rebel-held areas have protested what they say is a heavy-handed approach to a raft of issues have put Nusra and the other group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, on the political defensive even as the umbrella group of rebels that the West recognizes, the Free Syrian Army, comes under pressure by the United States to reduce the groups\u2019 influence.<\/p>\n \u201cThe jihadists are rightly worried that the U.S. will demand action against jihadists as a vetting bottom line. They talk a lot about the FSA being recruited by the CIA to fight them,\u201d said Joshua Landis, an associate professor at University of Oklahoma who\u2019s an expert on Syria.<\/p>\n When the Obama administration agreed last month to supply weaponry to the Free Syrian Army\u2019s Supreme Military Council, it quickly became clear that ensuring that those weapons didn\u2019t go to Nusra or the Islamic State was a major condition of the aid, which nevertheless has been slow to materialize. Adding to the tensions has been the killing by an Islamic State member of a commander from a pro-Free Syrian Army unit in the mountains along the Syrian coast, allegedly in a dispute over a checkpoint.<\/p>\n In an effort to tamp down the perception that the Free Syrian Army was powerless over these al Qaida-linked groups, a commander in the area said the Free Syrian Army had demanded an arrest. The Islamic State\u2019s response was to order the arrest and trial of the suspected shooter.<\/p>\n That hasn\u2019t yet happened. \u201cThere has been no reaction from his group,\u201d said Tasmim al Laathiqiyah, a member of the Khalwah Bin al Azwar Battalion, a rebel unit affiliated with the Free Syrian Army.<\/p>\n In another incident, disgruntled civilians in the northern city of Aleppo demonstrated over the weekend to protest Islamic State checkpoints that prohibited them from visiting government-controlled portions of the city.<\/p>\n The issue for Nusra is to not become the target of that bitterness. Nusra was created by veterans of al Qaida in Iraq, the jihadi organization that gained fame during the U.S. occupation of Iraq by opposing the American presence and later battling that country\u2019s Shiite Muslim majority in a bitter sectarian war.<\/p>\n Nusra\u2019s approach in Syria \u2013 many of its members are Syrians who fought against the American presence in Iraq \u2013 has been shaped by what happened to al Qaida in Iraq, whose harsh policies eventually turned Sunni Muslim tribal leaders against it. Once the tribal leaders rebelled, they joined with the United States to push the group out of Iraq\u2019s largest province, Anbar.<\/p>\n While the United States has said Nusra and al Qaida in Iraq are indistinguishable from each other \u2013 the U.S. designation of Nusra as a terrorist organization declared it to be simply an alias for al Qaida in Iraq \u2013 some analysts say Nusra has adopted more palatable policies, even as its leader, Abu Mohamed al Jawlani, has pledged allegiance to al Qaida and its leader, Ayman al Zawahiri. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Frustrated with how the Islamist agenda took over the uprising, defections are no longer a one-way street: Syria: disillusioned rebels drift back to take Assad amnesty<\/a><\/strong> – Telegraph<\/p>\nAmong the Kurds<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Difficulties for Syrians in Egypt<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"man](\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/man-carrying-dead-child.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Qabun,](\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Qabun-July-2013-450x301.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Father](\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Father-with-his-young-daughter-in-Homs-450x299.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThoughtful Observations<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/a>The Wealth of Syria: Looting and Scandals<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Apamea](\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Apamea-before-450x292.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Apamea](\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Apamea-after-450x292.jpg\")
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Opposition and Oppositions<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Jabhat](\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jabhat-al-Nusra-comic-book.jpg\")
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