News From the House of Slaughter

Posted on December 1, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 30/11/12

Rebels forge ahead in Syria; but no end to conflict in sight

In the large slaughterhouse that Syria has become, a new phase is opening up. The stalemate that held for most of 2012 between the forces of the Assad regime and the insurgency against it no longer exists. Rather, the rebels are making slow and steady gains. There is a real prospect that northern Syria in its entirety will fall to the rebellion in the coming months.

Yet while the rebels are pushing back the beleaguered forces of Assad, no unified leadership of the insurgency has yet come into being. Predictably, the best organized and most politically sophisticated elements among the insurgents are those identifying with one of another version of Sunni Islamism.

This is enabling the regime to maintain the core support of the Syrian Alawi community, who rightly fear what awaits them in the event of a rebel victory. It is also creating tensions between elements of the rebellion and the inhabitants of the Kurdish north-eastern part of Syria, where there is little enthusiasm either for Islamism or for a strong new centralized government in Damascus.

The Free Syrian Army and its allies are currently in the process of snuffing out remaining pockets of regime strength in the north of the country. This is an arduous and sometimes costly business but its end is not in doubt.

On November 20th, rebels captured the headquarters of the 46th regiment 25 kilometers west of Aleppo city. The capture of the base brought an end to a 50-day month siege, and netted a large haul of weapons for the insurgency.

The ordnance captured at the base included heavy artillery cannons, rocket launchers, a number of tanks, mortars and rifles. The fall of the base is also a blow to the beleaguered government force still holding parts of western Aleppo city.

The base was a major part of the supply line to this force, which is in danger of encirclement. The fall of Aleppo city in its entirety now looks achievable. This would constitute a strategic blow to Assad.

In addition, the insurgency this month captured al-Hamdan airbase in Deir Ez-Zor province, close to the border with Iraq. The fall of this base leaves the regime with only one major airfield in northern Syria. Since domination of the air is the main advantage remaining to the regime, this constitutes another significant blow. Control of the Hamdan base also strengthens the rebels’ domination of the city of Abu Kamal, along the border.

In recent days, the FSA also claims to have captured the Tishrin dam, along the Euphrates river close to the Iraqi border, and two oil facilities in Deir Ez-Zor governate.

The anti-aircraft capacity of the rebels is improving. Two military aircraft were downed in northern Syria this week – a helicopter gunship west of Aleppo on Tuesday, and a fighter jet over Idleb province on Wednesday.

With the strategic direction of events in the north now clear, attention is turning toward the battle for Damascus. The rebels have already failed once – in August of this year – in their attempt to bring the fighting to the capital. A ruthless regime counter-offensive crushed this attempt. All indications are that the months ahead will witness a second, perhaps more decisive attempt.

The FSA is already claiming to have captured the Marj al-Sultan airbase outside the city, and an anti-aircraft post at Saida Zeinab in Damascus. Regional media reports suggest that the rebellion is now channelling fighters southwards.

The regime, meanwhile, also appears to be preparing for the next phase of the civil war. Assad’s forces are currently fortifying the western coastal region – the heartland of the Alawi sect that forms the bedrock of remaining support for the regime. The capital city itself has in recent months been turned into a fortress, filled with checkpoints and security positions.

Iranian personnel have been sighted in the coastal area. This is set to form a redoubt for the regime in the next phase of the war.

But as preparations for the battle of Damascus take place on both sides, the rebellion remains both militarily and politically divided. Efforts to produce a single military command for the insurgents have proved elusive.

Much hope was placed in the military councils established across the country earlier this year. But key fighting units remain outside of the control of the councils.

Forces such as the Liwa al Tawhid and the Jabhat al Nusra in Aleppo governates are among the most effective fighting groups. They are committed to Islamist ideologies – of Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi type, respectively. They remain outside of the framework of the military council and in uneasy coexistence with it.

The new external political leadership recently established in Doha, meanwhile, has secured the support of a number of western governments but has little or no apparent standing within Syria itself. On the ground, in the regime-free areas, a patchwork of areas of influence, controlled by local strongmen and Islamist militia leaders is emerging.

In the north-east, Islamist gunmen are already colliding with the more secular-minded Kurdish communities of this area. A tense stand-off is under way in the town of Ras al Ain, between the Salafi fighters of the Jabhat al Nusra and forces loyal to the Kurdish PYD. This began after the Islamists drove the regime army from the town and then tried to impose their own ways on the area.

Where is all this headed?

The Assad regime may be retreating to new defensive lines, but this does not mean that it is finished – yet. Alawi areas in the western coastal area could continue to fight on even after the loss of the south – and in any case the battle for the south still has to be engaged.

If the Sunni Arab rebels defeat Assad in Damascus, they are likely to face the additional task of trying to re-conquer the Kurdish north east of the country, against a well-armed population that buys into neither Islamic nor Arab definitions of Syria.

Finally, the rebellion itself is divided between local warlords, squabbling external leaders, and the most effective element – Sunni Islamist militias.

The bottom line: the rebellion is now forging ahead, the Assad regime shrinking. But with over 40,000 dead, there seems little imminent prospect for an end to the killing in Syria.

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Hamas’s Mis-Calculation

Posted on November 18, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Weekly Standard Blog, 18/11.

The crisis now under way in Gaza represents the moment in which the wave of Sunni Islamism that has been achieving triumph after triumph in the region since early 2011 finally crashes up against the Jewish state.

The form in which the crisis is playing out offers some useful early pointers regarding both the strengths and weaknesses of the emergent Sunni Islamist powers in the region.

From the historical perspective, it is now clear that the ‘Arab spring’ – that is, the fall of decrepit Arab nationalist regimes and their replacement by Islamist ones – began not in Tunisia in early 2011, but in Gaza in the summer of 2007. The expulsion of Fatah and the PLO from the Gaza Strip, and their defeat at the hands of the Islamists of Hamas set the prototype in miniature for what has followed in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Yemen.

The Hamas rulers of Gaza understand this point well. They regard themselves as part of a historic process of Islamist advance. The swift and stunning rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in particular led to a sharp change in the movement’s assessment of the balances of forces and what was possible at this moment in its long struggle against Israel.

This change at the level of strategic perspective led in recent months to changes in tactics. In the first years after Operation Cast Lead, Hamas made some efforts to prevent Islamic Jihad and the smaller Salafi organizations from firing at Israel and bringing down retribution. The movement focused on rearming and improving its capabilities. Hamas’s own fighters were rarely responsible for the rockets.

In the course of 2012, this changed. Believing it had its fellow Muslim Brothers in Egypt at its back, Hamas began to allow freer rein to the smaller groups, and to itself participate in actions against Israel along the border.

The Kornet missile attack on an IDF jeep patrolling the Israeli side of the border on November 10th was the sharpest expression yet of Hamas’s attempt to take advantage of what it saw as an altered balance. This action triggered the current crisis.

Hamas has miscalculated. Apparently, the movement assumed that Israel shared its perspective on the changed balance of forces and would acquiesce to Hamas’s allowing and participating in terror attacks on Israel’s south.

Instead, the Israeli authorities have clearly understood Hamas’s intentions, and have responded with a large scale operation with a notably limited aim – namely, to restore ‘deterrence’; that is, to disabuse the Hamas rulers of Gaza of the notion that the current situation makes possible aggression against Israel.

But the greater Hamas miscalculation appears to have been regarding the nature and extent of the support they would receive from the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt.

Ideologically, of course, the Hamas rulers of Gaza and the Muslim Brotherhood rulers of Egypt are birds of a feather. This was graphically demonstrated during the visit of Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil to the Strip. Qandil’s statements, his style, even his appearance were of a piece with his hosts.

But ideology is not the only factor at work. The rulers of Egypt are presiding over a dysfunctional country of 80 million. They are entirely dependent on western aid to avoid the real prospect of hunger. Just prior to the current crisis in Gaza, Egypt had secured a commitment from the European Union for aid totaling $6.4 billion. A $4.5 billion loan is on the way from the IMF. The US is committed to supplying $2 billion a year to Egypt.

But this money, of course, also buys influence. It means that the Egyptian Muslim Brothers cannot simply follow their ideological inclinations.

The result is that as of now, the Egyptian authorities, along with Qatar and Turkey, are seeking to induce Hamas to agree to a renewed ceasefire. The Gaza leaders, are rejecting Egypt’s proposals.

Hamas wants to come out with an achievement. They want a US-supported guarantee that Israel will cease targeted killings, and the lifting of all economic restrictions on Gaza.

There is no chance that either Israel or the US will agree to such demands. 75,000 Israeli reservists have been called up. The Israeli Air Force is currently working its way down a long list of quality targets –both human and infrastructural – in Gaza. Collateral damage is largely being avoided. The Iron Dome system is performing well. Israel is in no hurry.

But the stance taken by Egypt indicates something important. The emergent Sunni Islamist powers in the region differ from the Iran-led Shia bloc, which is self-financing, and which has placed itself on a collision course with the west and Israel.

The Sunni Islamists in Cairo are required by reality to have a different type of relationship with the west. Hamas, in trying to impose new rules of engagement in the wake of the Sunni Islamist advance, failed to calculate this. The result is that the rulers of Gaza are now facing the unattractive alternatives of agreeing to a return to an improved version of the status quo ante, or facing the prospect of a continued Israeli devastation of their capabilities in Gaza.

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Bahrain, Hezbollah and the Sunni-Shia arc of conflict

Posted on November 9, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 9/11/12.

Bahrain this week accused the Lebanese Hezbollah group of responsibility for a series of bombings in the Bahraini capital Manama. The five bomb blasts, in the Adliya and Gudaybiya districts of the city came amid renewed protests by members of the island’s 70% Shia majority against the Sunni Khalifa monarchy. Two Asian cleaning workers were killed.

Information Minister Samira Ibrahim bin Rajab issued the accusation against Hezbollah. She said that the terrorists were operating according to principles set by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and further accused the Iranian media of inciting against the monarchy. The minister did not offer any concrete evidence to back up her accusation of Hezbollah involvement.

Official Bahraini claims of Iranian interference in the internal affairs of the island are nothing new. The ruling al-Khalifa family has long sought to locate the protests against it in the context of the cold war between anti-western Iran on the one hand and the Sunni Gulf monarchies (pragmatically aligned with the west) on the other.

As an ally of the west, and the host of the US 5th fleet, the Bahraini monarchy is keen to depict its internal struggles as a local manifestation of a broader conflict.

Critics of the monarchy argue that this is a comfortable ‘narrative’ for the rulers of Bahrain to promote. It enables them to downplay or ignore very real claims of discrimination and exclusion levelled by the Shia majority.

This tendency manifests itself in concrete ways. In September, for example, a Bahraini civilian court upheld very harsh sentences against leaders of last year’s uprising. A prosecution official said that “some of the accused had relations, and
strived to have relations and intelligence contacts, with a foreign organization, Hezbollah, which works in the interests of Iran.”

But while the instrumental value for the monarchy of accusing Iran is obvious, this does not of itself render the accusations groundless. No concrete evidence has yet been offered to back up claims of Hezbollah or IRGC military support for the Bahraini opposition. Indeed, the Bahraini revolt against the monarchy has been largely non-violent in nature.

But there is considerable evidence to suggest that Teheran is offering financial and political assistance to the opposition in the island.

The regime of the mullahs has long claimed ownership of Bahrain, which it refers to as Iran’s ‘14th province.’ The assertion of this claim has not been confined to mere declarations. Teheran directly assisted a failed pro-Iranian coup attempt by the so-called ‘Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain’ in 1981.

A recent report produced by the American Enterprise Institute traced the financial support of a number of Iranian clerical offices, including that of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, for the Bahraini opposition.

An investigation by a London newspaper into the ‘Bahrain Freedom Movement’, based in the British capital, found that the movement’s leader, Dr Saeed Shehabi, worked out of offices directly owned by the ‘government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.’

Hassan Mshaima, who was among the opposition leaders jailed for life in May, went as far as proposing Iranian military intervention in support of the uprising last year. Mshaima, leader of the powerful Shia Islamist Haq movement, made these remarks in an interview with the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese Al-Akhbar newspaper.

Senior Iranian officials, up to and including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have been vociferous in their overt support for the Bahraini uprising. The Iranian state media has also kept up a steady drum-beat of condemnation of the Bahraini authorities. The criticism grew angrier following the Saudi and GCC military intervention in support of the Bahraini monarchy in March 2011.

From a western point of view, there is an obvious cynicism at the heart of Iranian support for the Bahraini protestors. Iran crushed similar protests at home in 2009. Tehran is deeply involved in the brutal Assad dictatorship’s struggle for survival in Syria.

But of course the Iranian cynicism is directly mirrored by the Saudi approach, which supports revolt in Syria, and suppression of protests in Bahrain. In each, support for representative government and the right to protest is not a factor. The motivation is sectarian and concerned with power.

Where the Sunnis are in power – in Bahrain, for example – the Saudis back the Sunnis. Where the Sunnis are in rebellion, as in Syria, Riyadh is with the rebels. The Iranians use the same logic – supporting the rebels in Bahrain, and the ruling authorities in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

A Sunni-Shia arc of conflict, centered on the rival interests of Teheran and Riyadh is now bisecting the Middle East. This arc stretches from Lebanon, via Syria and Iraq, taking in Bahrain, Kuwait and the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, and extending to north Yemen.

In each of these areas, Sunni and Shia Arabs are competing for power. In each area, the Iranians back the Shia interest, the Saudis and to a lesser extent the smaller Gulf monarchies back the Sunnis.

For both sides sectarian identity is the defining factor.

Saudi and Gulf concerns arise from their accurate identification of Iran’s regional ambitions and its methods for building power and influence.

The Iranians lack powerful conventional armed forces. The tools they utilize are those of creation and/or sponsorship of proxies, political subversion, sectarian propaganda and, where relevant, the use of paramilitary methods.

The Saudis, with a less successful track record in political warfare, are trying to counter the Iranian push using similar methods.

Whoever was directly responsible for the explosions in Bahrain this week, it can be said with certainty that the bombings and their aftermath were another episode in this ongoing, region-wide contest.

This contest, in turn, is notable for the absence of an external guiding hand on either side. Both sides estimate that the US has chosen to unilaterally withdraw from regional leadership. The Iranians are happy about this. The Saudis are dismayed.

Neither side is democratic. Sectarian loyalties mark the borderline. The roots of the enmity go down into past centuries.

The Sunni-Shia arc of conflict looks set to form the key strategic process in the period now taking shape in the Middle East.

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Anatomy of a Revolt

Posted on November 6, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Report, 1/11/12

In northern Aleppo province, the Assad regime only exists in the air. Lack of manpower has forced the Syrian regime to pull back to Aleppo city, leaving a swathe of land under the precarious control of the rebels. But the regime’s air force is still free to strafe and attack. It is a cruel tactic, and a logical one, from Assad’s point of view. It is intended to prevent anything like normal life from coming into being in the areas he has ceded. Life, nevertheless, is continuing in these areas. As it does so, the faultlines of the new Syria the rebels would like to create are becoming visible.

I crossed into Aleppo province from Turkey in late September. My intention was to get a sense of the current balance of forces in the long and grinding civil war under way in Syria. I wanted also to observe the various and disparate forces that make up the rebel-controlled part of Syria, and the interplay between them.

There are rebel checkpoints all the way from the border to Aleppo City. They are operated by different brigades, with clearly different military capabilities and political outlooks. The Bab al-Salaam border crossing, jointly administered by the Free Syrian Army and the Turkish armed forces, is controlled from the rebel side by the Asaf al-Shamal (Storm of the North) battalion. This is a secular force. It operates throughout the province, including in the frontline battle zones of the city itself.

Further toward the city, there are checkpoints operated by the Tawhid Brigade, acknowledged to be the largest single force battling Assad in Aleppo. Unlike Asaf al-Shamal, which has no clear ideology other than opposition to the dictator, Tawhid is an Islamist force, adhering to an ideology of Muslim Brotherhood type Islamism.

Its fighters are well-equipped, serious and businesslike. Tawhid is said to be supported by Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood. It operates independently of the main Aleppo military council, which seeks to bring together the various and disparate rebel groupings of the province.

But despite the checkpoints and the impression of control and coordination, the rebels’ domination of the ground in northern Aleppo is not quite complete. There are still isolated areas in the hands of the regime.

At the entrance to the village of Fafeen, for example, the government controls a large military facility, which served as an officers’ training school before the civil war began in Syria.

The red white and black regime flag flies over the complex and along the walls are large paintings of Bashar Assad, his father Hafez and deceased older brother Bassel. ‘Don’t look in there as we go by,’ my driver Ahmed warned me. Of course I couldn’t resist. But there were no sentries at the entrance, only a locked and imposing looking iron gate and an abandoned guard position. ‘For a while they’d try and put a checkpoint on the road, but the FSA would come along and kill the soldiers within a few minutes,” Ahmed tells me, “So now they just stay in there. They bring the soldiers in and out in helicopters.”

There are also identifiable pockets of civilian political support for Assad in the rebel held area. The town of Sheikh Issa, for example, wedged between Tal Rifaat and Kaljibrin, retains its loyalty to the Assads. The ubiquitous rebel flags and graffiti suddenly disappear as one enters the town, then start up again on the road beyond it.

A deceptive air of normality prevails in the rural area close to the border. In the town of Azaz, children walk to school past a line of burnt out tanks. These are remnants of the fierce battle that drove the last remnants of Assad’s army out of the town in June. The main mosque in the town has a gaping hole in it, a remnant of regime shelling from the same engagement.

But in Aleppo city itself, there is no ambiguity. This is a war zone. The frontline areas are scenes of utter devastation. The civilian population has long since fled these areas. All around is the noise of small arms fire, punctuated every so often by the massive noise of an aerial bomb exploding.

For four days, I travelled from rebel position to position in Aleppo city, interviewing fighters and commanders. At the furthest point forward that I reached, the government positions were a couple of hundred yards away. The fighting in Aleppo was in stalemate in the latter half of September. The men in the forward positions spent long hours waiting.

When fighting began, they told me, it usually erupted out of nowhere. They would receive word that a regime tank or a group of soldiers was moving in the area and would go out to engage them. The firefights in the narrow, ruined streets are short and brutal. When they are over, the two sides return to their adjoining positions and resume the wait.

Abu Ahmed, a gaunt commander in the North Storm battalion with eyes full of fatigue, told me that the main problem preventing further rebel advances was a lack of ammunition and higher calibre weaponry. This, he said, in turn derived from the west’s view of the revolution as controlled by ‘Salafis.’

“There are some Islamic groups,” he admitted, as we talked in a dark room at a frontline position in the Bustan Basha neighbourhood of the city, “But the US has the wrong idea about them. And its afraid to support us because of these Islamic groups. So we have to take our weapons and ammunition from Assad’s army.” Assad, by contrast, was not short of supplies. Because “Assad in the end is just a servant of Iran.”

These themes were repeated to me countless times as I travelled the FSA positions in the days ahead. The certainty in the view of the rebels of their eventual victory, but at the same time the paucity of international support, the non-availability of vital weapons and the shortage of ammunition, which prevented them from breaking the stalemate in Aleppo.

The absence of a clear political strategy and of unity was also plainly apparent. Saumar, commander of the Ahfad al Rasul battalion in the Mashad district, a big and very calm man, slow of speech, surrounded by his fighters, told me “I’m a field commander, and I belong to the Aleppo military council. But not to any external or political group.”

These improvised rebel battalions, consisting overwhelmingly of Sunni fighters from poor rural families, are the backbone of the rebellion against Bashar Assad. They are determined and courageous. But the revolt suffers from an absence of any clear political goal beyond the bringing down of Assad.

The absence of strategic vision is not without exception. And unsurprisingly it is the Islamist forces who have the clearest svision and set of goals. Haji al-Bab, an intense, blue eyed commander of the powerful Tawhid Brigade, was concise and clear when I asked him regarding the goal of his unit’s struggle. “An Islamic state,” he said, “with protection for minorities.”

The Tawhid fighters, well equipped and with high morale, were clearly receiving support from outside, though Haji al-Bab would admit to ‘relief materials only’ in our conversation. Like Abu Ahmed, he also wanted to stress the contrast between the paucity of support for the rebels, and the staunch international coalition behind the dictator.

“We know that the Revolutionary Guards are here. Our forces have captured and killed non-Arabic speakers. There are Russian advisers in Hamdaniyeh in the north of the city,” he told me, before concluding; “As for us – we trust in ourselves and in the help of God. But what we need are anti-aircraft weapons.”

But the Islamists are not limited to involvement in the military struggle. Rather, as the regime civil structures collapse in the Aleppo countryside, there are indications that it is the Islamists who are stepping into the breach.

In Azaz, I spoke with Yusuf al-Shawi, a bright, energetic former FSA commander who is now a senior member of the Sharia Council in the town. Shawi, who was one of the first men in Azaz to take up arms against the Assad regime, told me that the town, after regime forces were forced to leave, was like ‘an empty ship.’ The old structures of policing and law enforcement had collapsed. So the Sharia council was formed, bringing together FSA commanders with senior Imams in the town, to fill the vacuum.

“The new law,” Shawi tells me with a smile, “is Sharia.”

The council is in daily contact with similar committees in Aleppo and Damascus. The intention is to create a Sharia council to hold authority over all Syria. In the meantime, in Azaz, Shawi tells me that the council is the final arbiter in legal matters, and has the power also to judge FSA men if they are considered to have committed crimes.

Yusuf al-Shawi, like the Tawhid Brigade fighters I met, was not a Salafi. Indeed, he stressed his criticism of what he called ‘extreme’ and ‘Takfiri’ interpretations of Islam. Rather, the orientation he represents is that of Muslim Brotherhood type Islamism.

With the absence of any coherent political leadership or real military unity in the revolt, it is not surprising that Sunni Islamists are moving in to fill the administrative vacuum. This is a rural, conservative, Sunni Arab revolt. Its main backers are Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood. The west, which might be able to really build an effective insurgency, has preferred to keep away.

One can also see the building blocks that could help to coalesce an alternative to the Islamists.

But the secular commanders of battalions like the Storm of the North lack international backing and the clear strategy of their rivals.

The military situation has moved on a little since I was in Aleppo. A rebel offensive that began at the end of September rapidly ran aground because of lack of ammunition. The regime still controls most of the west of the city. The rebels have the east. The skirmishing along the fault lines is continuing.

But in an important development to the south, the rebels have taken Maaret al-Numan , a strategically important town situated on the highway between Aleppo and Damascus. If hey can hold it, the regime will have difficulty supplying its forces in the city. So the government army is desperately trying to dislodge the rebels.

But regardless of the outcome, the Syrian civil war looks like having a long course to run, unless increased international support for the rebels can shift the tide.

In the meantime, the killing is continuing. The planes bring the worst of it. The rebels have no answer to Assad’s employment of jet fighters against the population of the rebel held areas. I witnessed an attack by one of these planes on the Dar al-Shifa hospital, a facility that treats local civilians and FSA fighters in the Sha’ar neighbourhood of the city. The civilian population was left quite helpless in the face of the bombing.

The aerial bombings have created a large refugee population that is currently encamped on the northern border separating Aleppo governate and Syria from Turkey. The Turks are doing their best to control the flow of refugees seeking to cross the border. Winter is coming on, and this has the look of a potential humanitarian crisis about it. Families, with children and old people are living in makeshift tent encampments near the border fence. There is little or nothing by way of infrastructure, but at least they feel out of range of Assad’s aircraft.

All wars are cruel. Civil wars are the cruellest of all. To witness the refugee families encamped along the border is to understand the truth of this dictum.

The Syrian revolt against Bashar Assad is being conducted by people of immense courage and determination. But it remains hampered by lack of unity, scarceness of supplies and lack of a unifying strategic vision. The western ‘hands off’ policy is leading to the growing strength within it of Sunni Islamist forces. These elements have international support and a set of coherent goals. But they are not (yet) the whole story of the rebellion.

Facing this disparate, under-supplied, brave insurgency, and the refugee population it seeks to defend, is the army of a brutal regime that benefits from the determined backing of powerful forces – above all Iran and Russia. Both sides, to differing degrees and in different ways, have men, money and motivation to continue. 19 months on, the civil war in Syria looks set to consume more lives in the months ahead, with no end apparent on the horizon.

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Nasrallah Gambles on Assad

Posted on October 19, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 18/10

Growing evidence of direct Hizballah involvement in the Syrian civil war

This week, fierce clashes took place in Syria’s Homs Province, close to the border with Lebanon, between Free Syrian Army fighters and armed men loyal to the Lebanese Hizballah movement. The Lebanese Shia group used its positions in the Beka’a to fire Katyusha rockets at FSA positions across the border.

The Hizballah-affiliated fighters, said by one local resident to number around 5000 men, operate ostensibly to protect the Shia population. Some 30,000 Lebanese Shia live in 20 villages in the area.

Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah claimed that the gunmen were simply local Shia residents who had decided to take up arms to defend themselves, without seeking the advice or permission of Hizballah.

There were few takers for this version of events. The Syrian rebels regard the Shia gunmen as simply another element in the force available to the Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad. Fahd al-Masri, a spokesman for the FSA, noted that rebel forces have observed the movement of large amounts of arms and ammunition across the border from Lebanon to Syria. The rocket fire from Hizballah positions in Lebanon renders Nasrallah’s assertions entirely hollow.

Rather, a growing body of evidence suggests that the events on the border are only a part of a much more significant Hezbollah presence among the pro-government forces in Syria.

This includes, according to credible reports, an involvement by the movement in training efforts to turn the Shabiha militia into a more formidable force. The Alawi Shabiha irregulars are suspected of many of the most heinous acts of sectarian bloodletting which have marked the Assad regime’s attempt to destroy its opponents.

The FSA now claims to be holding 13 Hizballah prisoners, captured in fighting near the town of Qusayr, close to the border.

Hizballah’s actions on behalf of the Assad regime are serving to deprive the movement of the last vestiges of its claim to constitute a grass-roots, Lebanese ‘resistance’ force concerned mainly with fighting Israel.

Events in Syria have made plain what was never really in doubt: Hezbollah is a sectarian instrument of Iran, which formulates policy and acts in accordance with the perceived interests of an Iran-led alliance. Domination of Syria enables Teheran to maintain its supply lines to its proxy on the Mediterranean. It is a vital interest for both the mullahs and their Lebanese clients.

The Shia Islamist movement is therefore deeply invested in the struggle of Assad and the Iran-led interest to triumph over its foes.

The resulting hatred of Hizballah and Iran to be found in rebel ranks is deep and fierce.

In Idleb province, in the areas from which the regime army has withdrawn, opposition activists hoard Hizballah flags. These are many, left behind from the 2006 war, when the Assad regime would deck the streets with them in solidarity with its ally in Lebanon. The opposition activists keep the flags in order to burn them during street protests.

A fighter of the Sunni Islamist Tawhid Brigade in Aleppo City interviewed recently by this reporter refused to even pronounce the name of Hizballah. Instead, he referred to the movement throughout as ‘Hizb a-Shaytan’ (party of Satan).

These sentiments, along with the widespread conviction that Iran and its local allies are the key factor in prolonging the bloodshed in Syria, are storing up an account which in the event of their victory in Syria the Sunni rebels are likely to seek to settle.

Following the killing of senior Hizballah commander Ali Hussein Nasif by the FSA in Homs province last month, the rebels vowed to take the fight to Hizballah’s strongholds in south Beirut.

Whether or not such action is imminent, the decision as to where and when to strike is ultimately a tactical one. On a strategic level, Hizballah is part of Assad’s ‘killing machine,’as US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice recently and eloquently expressed it.

Which means that whatever the tactical details, the Free Syrian Army and Hizballah are already in a state of war.

Lebanon itself has stayed mainly free of direct violence related to the events in Syria. The exception has been the city of Tripoli, where Sunni Islamist supporters of the rebellion have clashed with Alawi partisans of the regime along a number of faultlines. But these disturbances, while bloody, have been localized.

But in the volatile Beqa’a area, where Sunni and Shia populations live in uneasy proximity, each community actively aids its preferred side in the civil war across the border. Sunni villagers remember well the harsh conditions imposed upon them by the Syrian military during its long occupation of the area between 1990-2005. Many young men from this area have crossed the border to fight with the FSA.

Shia towns, meanwhile, send operatives across the same border to fight for the other side. Ali Hussein Nasif, for example, came from the village of Bodai in the western Bekaa, a place of fervent pro-Hizballah sentiment.

Further afield, evidence has emerged of the involvement of senior politicians from the opposition March 14 coalition in efforts to supply arms to the rebels.

All of which means that despite the relative quiet in Lebanon itself, rival Lebanese political forces are deeply invested in the outcome of the civil war across the border.

The Sunni-led March 14 movement, and Lebanese Sunnis in general clearly see the fall of the Assad regime as the key to ending the Shia ascendancy established by Hizballah over the last half-decade.

Hizballah, meanwhile, is neither willing nor able to alter its basic nature as a client and proxy of Iran, to whom it owes its current dominance of Lebanon.

It is therefore embarked on an all or nothing gamble on behalf of its masters. This gamble will end either with the eventual resurgence of the Assad regime – and with it, a strategic triumph for the Iranian interest in the Levant – or with the Syrian dictator’s destruction. The latter outcome may then bring down a fierce Sunni reckoning on both Hizballah and the constituency it controls in Lebanon.

Hizballah, by its very nature, had no choice but to go down this road. Still, seen from this angle, the movement’s participation in the sending of a drone southwards over Israel this month looks like a rather plaintive attempt to change the subject. Hizballah evidently sought to recall the days when its main military efforts were not directed against its fellow Arabs. But as the Syrian civil war threatens to burst its banks and erupt into Lebanon, those days look increasingly distant.

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Erdogan’s Problems with the Neighbors

Posted on October 13, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 12/10.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayep Erdogan, in a speech this week said that Turkey was ‘not interested in war – but we’re not far from it either.’ This rather confused phrase perfectly sums up the dilemmas in which Turkey’s policy toward Syria and the Syrian revolution has placed it.

Turkish vacillation on the Syrian issue in turn reflects broader western indecision. This stands in stark contrast to the determination of the Assad regime’s international backers, and in no small measure is the reason why the regime continues to defy reports of its imminent demise.

When the ‘Arab Spring’ began in 2011, Turkey looked to be a natural beneficiary from it. If the Arabs were looking to combine elections with a greater presence for Islam in public life, the ruling AKP in Turkey could present itself as a model for the achievement of this.

So when the uprising began in Syria, the Turks enthusiastically threw themselves into the fray. Ankara hosted and sponsored the foundation of the opposition Syrian National Council. The notional leaders of the Free Syrian Army established themselves on Turkish soil.

There is evidence also of a much more active Turkish role, with Ankara offering facilities for the training of rebel fighters, and probably also supplying arms.

The west, seeking to avoid direct involvement in the Syrian civil war, was pleased to contract out the central role in aiding the Syrian opposition to Turkey (along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar.)

Many western analysts predicted the early fall of the Assad regime, and Erdogan was presumably looking forward to sponsoring a new, friendly, Sunni regime in Damascus.

The problem is that Assad has held on. The result is a bloody civil war, which is currently at stalemate.

The dictator has been aided by useful friends. Russia and China have blocked any effective response through the United Nations Security Council.

Iran and its proxy Hezbollah have provided know-how, money ($5 billion from Teheran since the start of the revolt) and muscle.

Assad also appears to have shrewdly revived his relations with the Kurdish PKK guerrilla group, which has renewed its military campaign from northern Iraq into South-East Turkey.

The US and the main EU countries, have made do with verbal condemnation of Assad, economic sanctions and some limited covert aid.

Facing the unwelcome prospect of confronting the powerful coalition assembled behind Assad alone, Turkey has been obliged to swallow a number of insults from its neighbor to the south.

The downing of a Turkish F-4 fighter over the Mediterranean in June was the first of these. However, the killing of five civilians in the town of Akcacale earlier this month represented the gravest deterioration yet.

Turkey responded by shelling government troops across the border in Syria, for the first time since the outbreak of the uprising. Rather than desisting, Syrian government forces have lobbed mortar shells across the border on a number of additional occasions, though without more fatalities so far.

Turkey has beefed up its presence on the border, sending 25 additional F-16 fighter jets to its air base in Diyarbakir, in the south east of the country.

There was widespread international condemnation of the Syrian shelling of Akcacale. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen this week pledged that Ankara can rely on the support of the alliance.

Rasmussen would not be drawn on the nature of NATO contingency planning vis a vis Turkey and Syria, however. There is little reason to think that the western determination to stay out of Syria will be moved by the latest events.

This places the Turkish government in a difficult situation. There is little enthusiasm among Turkish public opinion for an incursion into Syria. Turkish intervention in the Syrian civil war would cost lives, and lead to an uncertain outcome.

The opposition CHP party has already begun to make political capital out of the situation. The party argues that Erdogan’s high-profile aid to the rebels has created problems for Turkey by incurring the anger and enmity of the Asad regime, while achieving little of note.

And then there are the Kurds. Should Turkey intervene into Syria, it is likely that the Kurdish guerrilla group would step up its campaign against Ankara, in line with its apparent de facto rapprochement with Damascus.

So Erdogan is faced with a series of unattractive alternatives. He can make a bold move against Assad in the event of continued Syrian shelling. But this will mean entering the Syrian quagmire with no meaningful western support, widespread public skepticism at home, and the prospect that such a move will trigger a fearsome renewed PKK paramilitary campaign.

Or, he can continue to soak up Syrian insults, and risk being exposed as a hapless and indecisive leader, whose bark is worse than his bite.

As of now, the Turkish government appears keen to fudge the issue. The government sought and approved parliamentary approval for possible intervention. But its spokesmen then hastened to make clear that this approval did not necessarily mean that any intervention was imminent.

The Turks have now forced a Syrian passenger airliner to land, on suspicion that it was carrying ‘illegal cargo.’

This is a calculated humiliation for the Syrians. But unless Damascus chooses to further up the ante, gestures of this type will probably form the extent of the Turkish response at this time.

Parliamentary mandate in hand, the Turkish prime minister now presumably hopes that the tit for tat fire across the border can be brought to a messy and unconclusive end.

The apparent rudderlessness of Turkish policy on Syria is itself a product of the more general western confusion.

It was always highly optimistic to suppose that the partial aid of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to the Syrian rebellion would be sufficient to defeat a regime backed by Russia, Iran and China.

The west remains resolutely determined to stay out of further involvement in Syria. Turkey wants to support the rebels, but without direct engagement. The result is that Ankara looks likely to accept ‘rules of the game’ on the border which will mean a tit for tat Turkish response to Syrian shelling, rather than anything more decisive, for as long as large scale loss of life among Turkish citizens is avoided.

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Saving President Assad

Posted on September 29, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Iran and its proxies mobilize to preserve Assad

Jerusalem Post, 28/9.

A report issued by the US Treasury Department this month and picked up by the Washington Post newspaper accused the Lebanese Hizballah organization of increasing its support for the beleaguered regime of Bashar Assad in Syria. This report follows recent statements by senior officials of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps confirming the IRGC’s involvement in an ‘advisory’ capacity in Syria.

The Treasury Department report asserted that the IRGC and Hizballah are coordinating their efforts in Syria, which include training for Syrian forces and provision of military aid.

But while the new ‘revelations’ may garner media attention, they do little more than add additional evidence to a picture which has been plainly apparent since the first months of the civil war in Syria: the Iran-led regional alliance, using its various assets, is engaged in an all out effort to preserve the Assad regime.

The self-styled Iranian-led ‘resistance axis’ is a tight knit bloc whose various components work in close coordination.

Even prior to the outbreak of the uprising against Assad in March, 2011, Iranian involvement in Syria was extensive. The Revolutionary Guards maintained a permanent facility – the ‘Amr’ base – in Damascus.

This IRGC presence in Damascus was, according to Iranian opposition sources, responsible for Iranian military, intelligence, and logistical assistance to Hizballah in Lebanon.

As the Syrian uprising spread in late March, 2011, evidence rapidly emerged of overt Iranian involvement in the attempt to suppress protests.

As early as April 14th, 2011, US officials confirmed that Iran was aiding in the repression.

State Department Spokesmen accused Teheran of providing the Syrian authorities with ‘know how’ for monitoring and shutting down communications by activists.

On April 22 of that year, President Barack Obama said in a statement that Bashar al-Assad “sought Iranian assistance in repressing Syria’s citizens through the same brutal tactics that have been used by his Iranian allies.”

On May 12, 2011, the first concrete evidence of Iranian assistance emerged. A classified, leaked United Nations report stated that Iran was covertly shipping arms to Syria in violation of international sanctions.

The report listed six out of an alleged nine incidents in which Syria was the final destination of illegal arms shipments from Iran. One arms shipment intercepted by Turkish authorities in March contained “60 Kalashnikov rifles, 14 BKC (Bixi) machine guns, 7,920 rounds of Kalashnikov ammunition, 560 60 mm mortars and 1,288 120 mm mortars.

Since then, ample additional evidence has emerged of Iranian arms, personnel and know how reaching Assad.

Defecting Syrian soldiers, too, have confirmed the presence of non-Arab speaking ‘advisers’ deployed with their forces.

A former Syrian paratroop officer interviewed by this reporter in Idleb province in February, 2012 said that the presence of the Iranians and their ruthlessness was one of the central factors which precipitated his own defection.

As for Hizballah, its leader Hassan Nasrallah and its propaganda arms have been outspoken in their support for the Assad regime since the beginning of the uprising.

The US Treasury Department officially designated the organization for supporting the Syrian regime six weeks ago (a move which has little practical import, given that the US already regards Hizballah as a proscribed, terrorist organization)..

In a statement made at that time, David Cohen, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said that Hizballah has “directly trained Syrian Government personnel inside Syria and has facilitated the training of Syrian forces by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qods Force.”

Again, testimony by Syrian civilians regarding the presence of men with Lebanese accents accompanying Syrian troops and paramilitaries in incursions into rebel-supporting areas offers supporting evidence.

An additional component playing a supporting role in the Iranian effort to preserve Assad is the Maliki government in Iraq. According to intelligence reports cited by US officials, Iraq is permitting its airspace to be used to bring weaponry from Teheran to Damascus.

The Syrian civil war is the first clear indication that the new Shia ascendancy, in Iraq, contrary to the hopeful assertions of some analysts, is drawing closer to Iran.

Assad has benefited enormously from the tenacious support he has been offered by his regional allies over the last 18 months. It is this, along of course with the staunch backing of Russia and China, which has enabled him to escape the fate of fellow Arab dictators in Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia.

In offering their staunch backing to Assad, Iran and Hizballah have forfeited much of the support they possessed among Sunni Arab populations. Syrian Sunni supporters of the rebel side now routinely refer to Hizballah (Party of God) as ‘Hizb a-shaytan’ (the party of Satan).

Movement banners and Iranian flags are frequently burnt during opposition demonstrations.
But the Iranians evidently calculate that the concrete presence of an ally in Damascus is worth more than the shifting, nebulous sympathies of the Sunni Arab populations.

The stakes are high for Iran, and the evidence of a concerted, all-out mobilization of resources and assets suggest that Teheran understands them very well.

As part of its effort for regional hegemony, Iran wants to build a contiguous line of pro-Iranian states stretching from the Afghan-Iran border to the Mediterranean Sea. This line would consist of Iran itself, Shia-dominated Iraq, Assad’s Syria and then Hizballah-dominated Lebanon.

The fall of Assad to the Sunni rebels would end this aspiration. Hence Teheran and its allies are working furiously to keep the Syrian dictator in his place. The report issued by the US Treasury Department indicates that the west is clearly aware of what is taking place.

Whether half-hearted sanctions against Iranian and Hizballah officials, and expressions of surprise at Iraqi ingratitude will prove sufficient to offer a counterweight to this all-out effort by Teheran and its allies is an entirely different question.

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Inside Assad’s Killing Fields

Posted on September 28, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Wall Street Journal, 27/9.

Dar al-Shifa hospital in the al-Sha’ar neighborhood of Aleppo is one of two large facilities serving the fighters of the Free Syrian Army here. The hospital also treats civilians in FSA-controlled areas. On Sept. 18, Dar al-Shifa came under attack by the Syrian air force. I was in the hospital at the time and witnessed the bombing.
Attacks like the one on Dar al-Shifa aren’t unusual. Syrian rebels now control roughly 70% of Aleppo, this country’s largest city, with a population of 2.3 million. The Assad regime is fighting back through indiscriminate air attacks on rebel-held districts.

President Bashar Assad succeeded this summer in crushing a rebel attempt to bring the fighting to Damascus, where his regime sits. But rebels remain largely in control of the Idlib and Aleppo governorates near Turkey. The city of Aleppo hangs in the balance, and Assad is throwing substantial resources into maintaining as much control there as possible. His tactics are proving disastrous for the city’s civilian population.

The day before the attack on the hospital, I had entered Syria illegally over the Turkish border. My fixer and I met at a coffeehouse opposite the hospital with two doctors who worked there. I will call them Dr. Amin and Dr. Maher to preserve their anonymity. Dr. Amin, a native of the Syrian city Daraa, returned from work in Saudi Arabia at the start of the uprising to volunteer in Dar al-Shifa. Dr. Maher is from Damascus.

.An elderly waiter brought coffee, and we spoke for a few minutes. Then we went into the hospital, where the staff was in the closing stages of treating around 50 victims of aerial bombing. Most were civilians, with a few young men wearing the camouflage of the FSA. Orderlies were washing a pool of blood on the floor into the drains. A man whose fingers had been sheared off by a bomb fragment was receiving first-aid treatment. Another man, very old and badly wounded, was being wheeled on a trolley, hooked up to an oxygen tank.

The atmosphere was calm, somber. Then everything changed. There were sudden shouts from outside. Then a man rushed in from the street, shouting “Tiyara [airplane]!Tiyara!”
There was a rush for the narrow staircase leading to the basement. Then came the earsplitting roar of a jet engine. It felt like the aircraft was flying a few feet above the hospital’s roof. An instant later, an enormous explosion sent rubble and dust pouring into the hospital reception area. We followed the others down to the basement.

It was narrow and packed, the air thin and full of dust. Everyone expected the fighter jet to make another run. We were surrounded by the hospital staff, the mostly female relatives of the wounded, and their small children. We heard other explosions, still close but not on top of us. If the plane scored a direct hit, the basement would offer entombment rather than shelter.
About a minute passed. Dr. Maher was standing on the stairs. He began to chant a prayer. Several voices joined in. The crying of a small child held in her mother’s arms punctuated the prayer. Two more explosions, farther away. Then the lights in the basement went out. Dr. Maher turned on a flashlight and continued his chant. The atmosphere was eerie: the packed basement, the darkness, the sounds of Muslim prayer and the single point of the flashlight illuminating the face of the young man, in his white coat and surgical mask.
After five more tense minutes, the sense of danger ebbed. If there was going to be another bombing run, it would have happened by now. There were shouts from above and we began to climb the stairs. My fixer, Ahmed, grabbed my arm: “Let’s get out of here, come on.” We ran outside to the road.
The bomb had exploded about 10 yards from the hospital entrance. The road was covered with rubble, disoriented people were everywhere. We ran about 30 yards to our car. The windshield was shattered, the door punched in. We piled in and left the area.
We met up again by chance a few days later with Dr. Maher and Dr. Amin at the FSA hospital in the town of Azaz, not far from Aleppo. Dr. Maher said that the old waiter who had served us coffee before we entered the hospital was one of those killed by the bomb. Dr. Maher wasn’t sure how many others died—there is such a stream of Aleppo casualties in the hospital that tallying who was injured or killed in which particular raid is difficult.
The attack had been carried out by a single jet, invulnerable because of the FSA’s lack of antiaircraft weapons, much less an aerial capacity of its own. The other explosions we’d heard were of rockets fired by the plane as it made its second run over the hospital.
The attack on Dar al-Shifa was a single episode in a civil war in which a dictatorial regime is employing the full weight of its modern military capacity against its own people. The regime’s aerial bombings appear designed not so much to achieve a military end as to demoralize civilians who either support the rebels or might be tempted to.
“We’ve no antibiotics, short of skilled staff, no capacity for surgery,” Dr. Maher told me when we met in Azaz. “But we don’t need medicine. We need antiaircraft weapons.”

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Turkish Difficulty – Kurdish Opportunity

Posted on September 15, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 14/9.

The PKK increase attacks in south-east Turkey. Is this evidence of a grand bargain between the movement, Syria and Iran?

A serious escalation is currently under way in the long conflict between the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Turkish state. The renewed clashes come amid claims by Turkish officials that the PKK is increasing pressure on Ankara as part of a renewed alliance between the Kurdish organization and the Assad regime in Syria.

In the latest round of fighting, the PKK last week attacked four Turkish state and security installations in the Sirnak Province of south-eastern Turkey. 10 members of the Turkish security forces were killed.

The Turks then struck back, launching a major ground and air operation against PKK positions beginning at the end of last week.

Around 2000 Turkish troops took part in the operation. While the ground attack was limited to Turkish territory, Turkish aircraft also bombed targets in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq. The PKK maintains its main headquarters in this mountainous area adjoining the borders with Turkey and Iran.

The Turkish general staff this week released figures claiming that its forces have killed 373 militants of the PKK over the last five months. The Turkish statement also acknowledged that 88 members of the Turkish security forces were killed.

The PKK, meanwhile, dismissed these figures. The Firat news agency, which is close to the organization, issued a rival statement saying that 1035 Turkish soldiers and 101 PKK fighters have been killed over the last five months.

The PKK has also issued a number of direct statements in recent weeks alleging that the Turkish authorities are using the bodies of slain PKK fighters for organ harvesting.

Whatever the precise truth regarding casualty figures, the last period has been the bloodiest seen in this conflict since PKK founder and leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured in 1999.

Amidst the ongoing violence, and the flurry of claims and counter claims between the Turks and the PKK, a fascinating question remains: why is the PKK choosing to escalate hostilities at the present time?

For the Turkish authorities, the reason is very clear: Ankara claims that the Assad regime has re-kindled its long defunct alliance with the organization in recent months. Ankara also alleges the existence of a renewed agreement between the PKK and Iran, and claims that the Iranians are actively aiding the Kurds in the latest round of attacks.

Prior to the outbreak of revolt and civil war in Syria, relations between Ankara and Damascus and Teheran had been steadily improving. But Turkey has taken a harsh stance against the Syrian dictator, domiciling the political and military opposition against him and calling for his ouster.

In response, according to Huseyin Celik, deputy leader of the ruling Turkish AKP party, “Assad is pursuing the idea that ‘my enemy’s enemy is my ally…he’s taking the PKK under his wing and using it against Turkey.”

The Turks point to the peaceful ceding by the Assad regime of a number of towns in the Kurdish north-east of Syria, as further proof of rapprochement between the PKK and the Syrian regime.

Control of the towns has passed to the PYD (Democratic Union Party), which is the pro-PKK franchise among the Syrian Kurds. Turkish officials have alleged that the Syrian authorities left heavy weapons in the area, which are now under the control of the PYD.

Kurdish sources close to the PKK dismiss claims of a renewed strategic alliance between the organization and the Assad regime. They point to recent instances of violence between PYD militants and the Syrian armed forces.

Three Syrian soldiers were killed this week in the Sheikh Masoud area of Aleppo by PYD militants. This attack was carried out, according to Kurdish media sources, following the killing of 21 Syrian Kurds by Syrian forces in the city.

PYD leaders have made clear, however, that they are opposed to any Turkish military intervention into Syria. PKK leader Murat Karayilan stated clearly that any attempt by Turkish forces to enter areas of Kurdish population in northern Syria would be resisted. This is presented by sources close to the PKK as deriving from the determination of the movement to protect Kurds in Syria from Turkish assault, rather than as an element of a grand bargain between the movement and the Assad regime.

Similarly, the Kurds note that the Assad regime has been arming Arab tribes opposed to Kurdish autonomy in north-east Syria.

Kurdish sources, in relating to the renewed fighting in south-east Turkey, prefer to focus on Turkey’s long-standing failure to address the grievances and demands of the Kurds. They note the failure to rescind discriminatory laws, inadequate political representation and refusal to allow Kurds to educate their children in the Kurdish language as factors ensuring the continuation of conflict.

Kurdish denial notwithstanding, it appears that a certain amount of coordination between the PYD and the Assad regime did take place as the regime prepared to pull out of designated areas of north-east Syria. This, however, may well have been due to a narrow and transient confluence of interests rather than a strategic grand bargain.

Assad is short of men and is therefore reluctant to expend scarce manpower on securing remote parts of Syria’s north. The PYD, meanwhile, is glad to take control of a de facto autonomous Kurdish area, at almost no cost. Of course, Assad and his father followed for 40 years a policy of brutal repression against Syria’s Kurds. This legacy and account has not been forgotten. A resurgent Assad would have no hesitation in reverting back to type.

Turkey’s difficulty is the Kurds’ opportunity. Ankara is currently deeply embroiled in the Syrian crisis. Turkey is facing the possibility of a long civil war just across its south-western border. There is a refugee problem. Turkey is committed to the victory of the rebels against Assad, but this victory does not currently appear imminent.

Even without a formal alliance between Turkey’s enemies, it is easy to say why the PKK would find the present time an opportune moment for renewing pressure on the Turks. As for the possibility of a ‘grand bargain’ between Iran, Syria and the PKK – it should not be ruled out, but it would be wise to wait for further clear evidence to emerge beyond statements by the Turkish authorities before drawing any definite conclusions in this regard.

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Military councils move center stage in Syria

Posted on September 9, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 7/9/12

Syrian rebels in the embattled city of Homs this week announced the formation of a joint ‘revolutionary military council’ in the city. The council is intended to act as a leadership and coordinating body with powers to decide on both military and civil issues in areas controlled by the rebels. This latest development in Homs comes a week after the founding of a similar council in Aleppo, which is witnessing heavy fighting as troops loyal to the regime of President Bashar Assad battle rebel forces.

The Aleppo and Homs revolutionary councils join a number of similar bodies already in existence in those parts of Syria under the precarious control of the rebels. The emergence of these bodies is an important development. They are the first embryonic sign of an attempt to build an alternative administration to that of the Assad regime on the ground in Syria.

The councils themselves are disunited, reliant more on local power structures and strongmen than on any remit from above. Groups of independent jihadi and Salafi Islamist fighters in their localities remain outside of their authority. But western countries are now paying particular attention to the councils, seeing them as the best chance for developing a coherent leadership for the rebel side in the Syrian civil war.

One of the notable paradoxes of events in Syria in the last months has been the discrepancy between the growing strength of the insurgency at ground level in the country, and the absence of any coherent revolutionary leadership.

The Syrian National Council, formed under Turkish auspices to provide such a leadership, is fading. It has failed to unite the disparate forces of Syria’s external opposition behind it. More importantly, it has also proved unable to gain the loyalty of those Syrians actually fighting the regime inside the country.

Predictably, rebels and activists within Syria see little reason to subordinate themselves to a squabbling external ‘leadership’ which has shared none of the sacrifices of the last 18 months.

The National Coordinating Body, a supposed ‘rival’ to the SNC, is even less relevant. Opposed to external intervention, this largely secular and leftist grouping is considered by its opponents to be a stooge of the regime. Certainly, it has little presence or effect on the ground.

As a result, the western former backers of the SNC are now ignoring it and looking elsewhere. France and Saudi Arabia are backing former Republican Guard commander Manaf Tlass as a possible interim leader. But Tlass lacks support among the armed rebels, because of his late defection and long record of participation in repression.

In the absence of any coherent external direction for the revolt, the revolutionary councils are growing in importance. The rebellion now controls by default considerable parts of the country. These ‘liberated zones’ are precarious in that Assad’s army can still enter any area that it choses to. But since the regime army is overstretched it has in practice ceded control of these areas.

Recent visitors to north-west Syria described a network of local revolutionary councils which now administer daily life in these areas. The councils, usually headed by a political chief and a military leader, are responsible for law and order, education, health provision, justice, and the administration of all aspects of life in the areas they control.

The revolutionary councils now control large parts of Idleb, Aleppo and Hama governates. In sharp contrast to the situation just a few months ago, rebel fighters travel freely on the highway from town to town in the daylight hours.

The details of life under rebel control vary. A recent Associated Press report from the town of Qurqanya in Idleb governate noted that a rebel-appointed council of judges applies a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law in the town.

Another recent eyewitness account from the mountainous Jebel Zawiya area, a heartland of the insurgency, profiled three rival guerrilla leaders who have divided up the the area between them. The three – Abu Issa, Jamal Marouf and Ali Bakran, were not prominent men prior to the revolution. Each has his own backers and political orientation. The most powerful, Abu Issa, is an Islamist.

Western governments are now engaged in trying to map the loyalties and orientations of the myriad of commanders in control of areas of Syria. A clear understanding of who is who in this complex and confusing political and military terrain is essential in order to know who to back. And it is now clear that the real issue of who leads the Syrian revolution will be decided here, and not in the hotel conference rooms of Cairo and Istanbul.

But the US and its allies are entering the game very late. For most of 2012, it has been the Saudis, the Qataris, the Muslim Brotherhood and extreme Salafi networks which have made the running in supplying and financing the disparate rebel groupings active on the ground. Unsurprisingly, contracting out the job of backing the insurgency to Sunni Islamists and their supporters has helped to produce an insurgency with an influential and growing Sunni Islamist element.

As these groupings now move to take de facto control of areas of the country, the west will be hoping to ensure that representative and civilian government can be achieved at the local level. But the decision on this will depend on local military commanders.

The outcome is likely to vary largely from area to area, and to depend on the local ideological topography, and the sources of support and personal opinions of the commander on the ground.

But what is clear is that the issue of leadership on the rebel side in the Syrian civil war has shifted decisively from external organizations to the emergent revolutionary military councils within Syria itself.

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