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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The House the Muslim Brothers Built

Posted on August 25, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 23/8

The recent events in Sinai are the latest evidence of Egypt’s rapid transformation under the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood.

They are only the most visible manifestation of the Brotherhood’s project in the largest Arab state.

The details of the unfolding situation in Egypt, in turn, may offer clues as to the direction of events in other parts of the region, as Sunni Islamism moves forward to power and influence in a variety of countries.

Events in Egypt have moved forward with astonishing rapidity. The Muslim Brotherhood’s swift victories in parliamentary and presidential elections left the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces as the final barrier to the Brotherhood’s full spectrum domination of Egypt.

President Mohamed Morsy’s bold move this month to annul the constitutional declaration granting SCAF its special powers, and his sacking of a number of senior generals, have removed this obstacle.

This achieved, the Brotherhood is now moving forward to consolidate power. In the committee tasked with drafting the new Egyptian constitution, Brotherhood members and other Islamists constitute a majority. They are pushing to ensure that Islamic Shari’a law forms the basis for Egypt’s governance.

Senior Brotherhood member Essam al-Arian told Asharq Alawsat newspaper this week that it is not right for a supporter of democracy to object to the right of the majority to implement Islamic Shari’a law.” President Morsy has himself said that Shari’a should govern all aspects of life.

Egypt’s current constitution sees Shari’a as the “principal source of legislation.”

Islamists within the committee are fighting to ensure that Article Two of the new constitution strengthens this provision. Representatives associated with the Salafi al-Nour Party initially insisted that Shari’a be named as the “basis” rather than the “principal source” of legislation. A compromise has been reached, according to which the ancient Al- Azhar University will become the final arbiter on matters related to Shari’a. This in itself represents an advance for the Islamists. It indicates that Shari’a and its correct application are set to take a central place in the new Egyptian system of governance now in the process of formation.

The steady advance of the Muslim Brothers must be seen in context. This movement has been in existence since 1928. Its strategic goal is very clear. Khairat al-Shater, one of the most powerful figures in the Egyptian Brotherhood, in a speech in Alexandria on April 21, 2011, detailed the process by which the organization hopes to achieve, or revive, the “Global State of Islam” as he called it.

Shater depicted the process in the following terms: “As Ikhwan [Brothers], we have spent a long time working on the individual, walking along this line, working on the household, working on society. So we are now developing the Muslim individual and Godwilling we will continue. We are developing the Muslim household and God-willing we will continue. We are developing the Muslim society and God-willing we will continue. We are preparing for the stage of Islamic government after this because it is what follows the stage of society.”

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Badie characterized the Brotherhood’s path in similar terms. He outlined the Brotherhood’s strategy as “reforming the individual, followed by building the family, the society, the government and then a rightly guided caliphate and finally mastership of the world.”

It has become received wisdom in policy- making circles in the West that the strategic goal of the Muslim Brotherhood (here described as the “Global State of Islam” and “mastership of the world”) is of no concern. This is because it is seen as merely a nebulous, endlessly deferred utopian aspiration.

It is not clear on what this assumption is based. The Brotherhood has certainly been characterized by patience and flexibility in the 84 years of its existence. But this does not mean that it lacks seriousness or a sense of urgency regarding its objectives.

Where it has held power, as in the Hamas enclave in the Gaza Strip, it has proven to be a skilled, ruthless and tenacious wielder of authority, one that brooks no rivals.

The rapidly unfolding situation in Egypt lends further credence to the view of the Muslim Brotherhood as a sophisticated, patient, deeply radical organization with a clear blueprint for the transformation of society.

The events of 2011-12 in the Middle East constitute the most exciting time for the Muslim Brotherhood since its inception. The group is moving toward power in Egypt. In Tunisia, a party close to the movement is already in government. The Brotherhood, via its Hamas franchise, would probably have captured the leadership of the Palestinians by now, were its Fatah rivals not protected by the IDF in the West Bank. In Jordan, they form the main opposition group (although the Arab monarchies have proved a far less brittle target than the secular republics).

In Aleppo, the Tawhid Brigade, funded by the Brotherhood, is playing the key role in this key sector of the Syrian civil war.

The Brotherhood enjoys the support of AKP-led Turkey, which has given it a leading role in the Syrian opposition structures it sponsors. Qatar and its communications arm, the Al Jazeera Media Network, are also to be numbered among its firmest supporters.

Revolutionary groups do not usually compromise on their strategic goals during the period of their ascent. The goal of the Muslim Brotherhood, as its senior officials openly state, is the creation of states based on Shari’a law, which will then unite and expand. This may in the end prove an entirely delusional goal. But the Brotherhood will nevertheless do its best to push it forward at this, the moment of its triumph.

As one Iranian dissident, a firm opponent of the Brotherhood recently put it: when you build a house, you first draw up the plans, consult, build a blueprint, recruit the labor force, perform groundwork and build foundations. The actual construction of the house is one of the final stages.

The Muslim Brotherhood has laid the foundations. It is now set to embark on a push toward political power and societal transformation in a variety of contexts across the region.

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Silence Speaks Volumes

Posted on August 20, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 17/8.

Lebanon’s former information minister, Michel Samaha, who is closely linked to the embattled regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, was arrested in Lebanon last week. Samaha has since confessed to involvement in the transfer of explosives from Syria to northern Lebanon.

The explosives were intended for use in a bombing campaign designed to increase sectarian tensions in Lebanon.

That the authorities in Lebanon sought to arrest a senior, Syria-linked figure such as Samaha is itself worthy of note. That pro-Syrian elements in Lebanon allowed the arrest to take place, and have organized no major protests against it, is yet more significant.

The arrest of Michel Samaha reveals the nervousness of the dominant pro-Syrian element in Lebanon, as the Syrian civil war grinds on and the Assad regime erodes. It is also a tentative indication of renewed confidence on the part of anti-Assad, anti- Hezbollah forces in the country.

There was never any serious chance that Lebanon would remain immune to the turmoil gripping Syria. Syria’s occupation of its smaller neighbor ended only in 2005.

Since then, in its own unique way, the Assad regime made sure that its power and influence remained, exercised by other means. The politics and governance of the two countries are inextricably linked.

Since January 2011, pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian elements have held exclusive executive power in Lebanon. Their ascendancy was built on the military power of Hezbollah, the haplessness and weakness of their opponents and the menacing presence of neighboring Syria.

The ascendancy of the Iranian-led “resistance axis” in Lebanon looked like a done deal. But the uprising in Syria has shifted the balance.

The Shia and Alawi “resistance axis” of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah is currently engaged in an all-out war to preserve its Syrian element. It has sacrificed much of the kudos it built up in recent years as the most potent military challenge to Israel. Instead, its military assets are today in use in an openly sectarian battle against Sunni forces sponsored by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The plot of which Michel Samaha was a part appears to have been a Syrian attempt to launch a destabilizing campaign of terror in Lebanon. The intention, according to Lebanese media outlets, was to carry out a series of bombings in the Akkar area of northern Lebanon, which would then be blamed on Sunni Islamist extremists.

The details of this operation are familiar.

The Syrian regime has long been a proponent of the “strategy of tension.” It has a long record of constructing phantom Sunni jihadi groups, such as Fatah al-Islam and Jund al-Sham, and using them to spread fear and uncertainty.

Such activity can be useful in a variety of ways. It can be utilized to justify countermeasures.

It can intimidate opponents and send a message. Syria has also made use of genuine Sunni jihadis, and it is quite possible that the operation of which Samaha was a part would also have involved Lebanese Sunni Islamists. The charges against Samaha also indicted two Syrian army officers, one of whom was General Ali Mamluk, the powerful head of national security.

The charge sheet read that Samaha and the officers planned to incite sectarian strife by “by targeting the authority of the state and its civil and military institutions,” through “terrorist attacks.”

Lebanese analysts are currently poring over the details and the implications of the arrests. This being Lebanon, competing conspiracy theories abound. Yet, whatever the hidden intricacies, it is the easily visible evidence which is most fascinating in this case: The Internal Security Forces, which carried out the investigation preceding the arrests, is identified with the pro-Western element in Lebanon. Still, the Lebanese authorities, including the pro- Syrians at the top, would clearly have known about the arrests in advance.

Yet no one appears to have warned Samaha. One might have expected him to be conveniently absent when the police came to arrest him, but he was not.

There have been no furious protests from the Hezbollah/pro-Syrian side of the spectrum. These forces made a mockery of the special tribunal investigating the murder of Rafiq Hariri – making it clear that whatever the court decided, no suspects would be found. They neutralized and emasculated the March 14 movement when it tried to challenge Hezbollah’s state-within-a-state in May 2008.

Yet for Samaha – nothing. By contrast, two prominent pro-Syrian officials – Prime Minister Najib Mukati and President Michel Suleiman – have welcomed the arrest of the former minister and the foiling of the plot in which he played a part.

All of this suggests a subtle but unmistakable shift in the balance of power in Lebanon, due to events in Syria. Just as Bashar Assad is withdrawing his army from increasing parts of his country so as to consolidate those parts that he thinks he can hang on to, so the pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian forces that control Lebanon are no longer attempting to defend every inch of ground. The arrest of Samaha suggests confusion, disunity and nervousness among the formerly triumphant pro-Assad camp in Lebanon. They are watching the massive force of Sunni Islamism rise next door, aware of its potentially disastrous consequences for them.

As the pro-Assad, pro-Iranian hegemony in Lebanon grows weaker, it begins to throw its less important members to the wolves. Still, posing as the impartial defenders of law and order won’t help the Shia ascendancy if Assad loses his fight for survival. At that point, a more general challenge to the status quo in Lebanon is likely to come. The first distant rumble of this may have been sounded last week with the arrest of Michel Samaha.

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Turks Fear ‘Kurdish Spring’

Posted on August 15, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Turkish forces have launched a major offensive in recent days against positions held by the PKK rebel movement in the area of the Turkish-Iraqi border. Up to 2,000 troops are taking part in the operation, according to Turkish media sources.

Turkey’s Interior Minister, Idris Naim Sahin, claimed that 115 Kurdish rebels had been killed by the Turkish security forces – an assertion dismissed by the PKK, which itself claims to have killed up to 49 Turkish soldiers.

The fighting has been going on since July 24, when the Turkish army responded in force to a PKK attempt to seize control of the road between the towns of Semdinli and Gerdiya. The authorities have closed off the area, making it difficult to attain an accurate picture of events on the ground.

A PKK media statement described the Semdinli area as an “area of war,” involving “thousands of enemy soldiers and hundreds of guerrillas,” in which Turkey is using “tanks, warplanes, helicopters and other military technology.”

Semdinli’s mayor, Sedat Tore, who is affiliated with the Kurdish BDP party, told The Economist magazine that Semdinli’s residents are currently surrounded by a “circle of fire.”

From the point of view of the government in Ankara, however, the circle of fire is a Kurdish one, directed against Turkey and currently increasing in its dimensions.

The Turkish move comes at a time when Ankara is deeply concerned at the notable improvement in the strategic position of the Kurds as a result of a series of regional developments. Currently unable to influence events in Syria and Iraq, Ankara appears to be trying to draw a line in the sand at its own border. Turkey is seeking to scotch any attempt to foment unrest among Kurds in Turkey who might feel emboldened as a result of the improving Kurdish position in Syria and Iraq.

Turkey’s concerns, from its point of view, are easy to grasp. Contrary to endless media reports that the situation in Syria has entered its “endgame,” the civil war now under way in that country shows no signs of nearing conclusion. Rather, the various sides are entrenching themselves in their sectarian strongholds and preparing for a long and drawn-out struggle.

Central government in Syria no longer exists in a meaningful sense. The Kurds of Syria’s northeast have taken advantage of the regime’s desire to entrench and consolidate its forces. The Syrian Kurds are natural opponents of the Arab nationalist Assad regime.

But there is also deep suspicion of the Turkish-backed, Muslim Brotherhood dominated Syrian National Council.

There is a strong desire in the Kurdish northeast of Syria to stay out of the fight. Kurdish paramilitaries in that area have sought to prevent the rebels of the Free Syrian Army from activity that could bring down regime retribution.

The regime is now seeking to concentrate its forces in the most volatile and vulnerable areas and is pouring troops into the battle for Aleppo. To free up personnel from its limited pool, it has carried out a withdrawal from the main parts of Kurdish-dominated Hasakah governate.

This area is now under the de facto control of a coalition of Kurdish forces. These forces, in turn, are dominated by the PYD (Democratic Union Party).

This is the franchise of the PKK among the Syrian Kurds. The area now controlled by the coalition led by the PYD includes a long swathe of the 900-kilometer border between Turkey and Syria. This raises the possibility of a new front, directed by the PKK and its allies, from an area of Kurdish autonomy.

The PKK currently maintains its main stronghold in the Qandil mountains between Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and southern Turkey. Ankara is now dealing with the possibility of this situation being duplicated on another of its borders.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan has made clear that Turkey sees intervention against rebel bases in northern Syria as its “most natural right.”

Turkish forces and missile batteries were moved to positions adjacent to the Kurdish enclave in Syria in recent days.

Ankara maintains good relations with the Kurdish Regional Government of Massoud Barzani in northern Iraq. But Turkey was further concerned by Barzani’s brokering in his capital, Erbil, of the agreement between the PYD and the non-PKK-affiliated Syrian Kurdish factions of the KNC (Kurdish National Council), which has made possible joint Kurdish control of the areas abandoned by Assad.

Turkey’s political strategy appears to involve deepening relations with Barzani and the KRG, while seeking to marginalize the PYD.

The PYD, for its part, has sought to stress that Turkish concerns regarding the Syrian Kurds are groundless and that its focus is on ensuring the security of its own community, rather than seeking a base for military action against Turkey.

From a limited, military perspective, this is probably true. The land between northeast Syria and Turkey is less suited for guerrilla actions than is the Qandil mountain area. And Turkey’s track record suggests that it would not hesitate to respond in force to any such actions.

But from a longer-term strategic perspective, Turkey does indeed have grounds for concern. A series of events in the Arab world over the last decade have for the first time put the borders in place since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 seriously into question. The Kurds, who were the central losers from those borders, are the main beneficiaries of this.

The US invasion of Iraq allowed a semi-sovereign Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq to come into existence.

This enclave, while seeking normal relations with Turkey, also permits the use of its territory by rebels engaged in an insurgency on behalf of Turkey’s large Kurdish population.

As a result of the outbreak of civil war in Syria, another Kurdish enclave has emerged in Syria. This enclave is dominated by the sister party to the PKK. But the Iraqi Kurds also exert influence there.

As Arab borders and the integrity of Arab states look more shaky than they have at any time in living memory, Turkey faces the possibility of sharing long-term borders with two semi-sovereign Kurdish entities.

The specter of eventual Kurdish sovereignty and Turkish fear of this are also discernible in the air.

From this point of view, it becomes easy to understand why a move by the PKK in the Semdinli area received such a furious response from the Turkish state army. Ankara is utterly determined to prevent the extension of any Kurdish Spring to its own 25-percent Kurdish minority, and will evidently employ whatever measures and means it deems necessary to ensure this.

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Collateral Damage

Posted on August 4, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 4/8.

Brigadier-General Masoud Jazayeri, deputy chief of the Iranian armed forces, told a reporter this week that Iran would ‘not allow the enemy to advance’ in Syria. He said that no need had yet arisen for direct Iranian intervention in Syria, and expressed doubt that such a need would emerge. Another senior Iranian commander, General Hamid Reza Moqadam-Far of the Revolutionary Guards, echoed Jazayeri’s words. Moqadam-Far confirmed once more the presence of Iranian fighters in Syria, operating alongside the Assad regime’s forces.

The fighting words of these two senior Iranian military officials indicate just how determined Teheran is to stave off the loss of its key client in Damascus. But as is often the case with such public expressions, the ringing Iranian words of warning do not reflect Iranian strength. Rather, they are an indicator of the diminished and problematic situation facing the Iranians across the Middle East as a result of the re-shaping of the Arab world under way since last year.

With few assets remaining and little prospect of new gains, the Iranians are grimly determined to hold what they have. But their staunch backing of existing assets in Syria and Lebanon is itself serving to diminish their chances of spreading their influence further.

Iran’s bid for regional hegemony rests on its ability to successfully interfere in political processes across the Middle East. Central to this ability was the appeal of the Iranian revolutionary model, presented as an authentic, Muslim form of government, challenging the west and its puppets and clients. This all looks rather threadbare in the wake of the Arab upheavals.

As Sunni Islamism takes hold on the basis of mass popular support in key regional countries, the Iranians are discovering that their model of repressive Shia Islamic rule possesses little appeal. This has been demonstrated in a number of notable recent setbacks suffered by the Iranians. Additional mishaps have also reduced the Iranians’ reputation as savvy and feared covert operators.

In Tunisia this week, Sheikh Rachid Ghannouchi, the influential leader of the ruling an-Nahda party, issued a public apology to the people of Syria for having invited members of the Lebanese Hezbollah to Nahda’s 9th party convention. Ghannouchi stressed his party’s support for the Syrian revolution.

Hezbollah, once Iran’s main avenue to the hearts and minds of the Arabs, has become something of a toxic brand, because of movement leader Hassan Nasrallah’s unwavering and loudly expressed support for the Assad regime in Syria.

In Yemen, Iran has sought to build influence through clandestine backing of the Shia Houthi rebels in the country’s north. The Yemeni defense ministry last week announced that the authorities had successfully located and dismantled an Iranian spy network operating in the country. The network, Yemeni authorities alleged, was led by a former Revolutionary Guards commander.

The authorities in Sanaa see the apprehending of this network as important tangible proof confirming Iranian internal subversion in their country. The Iranians rapidly moved to try to prevent diplomatic damage. The foreign ministry in Teheran flatly denied the existence of the espionage cell. To no avail. This week Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour snubbed an Iranian envoy visiting the country who sought a meeting with him. The Gulf Cooperation Council, meanwhile, expressed its support for Yemen and its condemnation of Iran’s activities.

In all-important Egypt, too, the indications are that Iran is losing out to the Sunni Arabs in forging an alliance with the ascendant Muslim Brotherhood. In May, the Egyptian authorities foiled an Iranian plot to kidnap the Saudi ambassador to Cairo, Ahmed Qatan. President-elect Morsy’s office is in the process of taking legal action against the Iranian Fars news agency, for running an apparently bogus interview with him in June.

To this list can of course be added the now familiar stories of Hamas’s exit from the Iran-led regional alliance in recent months, and Iran’s failure, so far at least, to foment Shia versions of the Arab Spring in Bahrain, Kuwait and the eastern province of Saudi Arabia.

The slow crystallization of a Sunni Islamist bloc leaves Iran exposed as a sectarian, foreign, Shia force. The rhetoric of resistance is entirely inadequate to counter this – particularly since the main current evidence of Iranian power on the ground is in Teheran’s backing for Assad’s slaughter of mainly Sunni civilians in Syria.

Iran today finds it increasingly difficult to wield influence outside of areas already allied with it.

Where there is a loser, of course, there is also a winner. In Syria, Egypt and Yemen, it is above all Saudi Arabia which is throwing money at the problems and as of now reaping the benefits of Sunni Islamism’s victories.

Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian, western-aligned regime. A key unanswered question remains whether Saudi petrodollars will keep the emerging Sunni Islamist governments focused on the Shia threat, or whether they will also find time and inclination to act against the west and Israel.

Nor do Saudi advances represent a victory for better governance in the region. A columnist in the Saudi-sponsored Sharq al-Awsat newspaper last week said that Iran’s ‘sectarian, racist and discriminatory’ regional policy has failed. It is worth noting that the Saudis themselves and their allies are no less notable for these three aspects than are the Iranians and their allies.

But what can be said with confidence is that Iran and its Shia-led bloc have emerged as among the main victims of the Arab ferment of 2011-12. Teheran wanted to be engaged by now in a battle with a retreating west for the leadership of the Muslim Middle East. Instead, it finds itself embroiled in a sectarian rearguard action, desperately and brutally trying to preserve its assets against the advance of a rising Sunni alignment.

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A Battle for Two Cities

Posted on July 30, 2012 by jonathanspyer

The Syrian regime is pouring all available resources into its defense of the two main cities of Syria: Damascus and Aleppo.

While simultaneously constructing an Alawi enclave in the northwest, the Assads understand that maintaining control of these central urban areas is vital to maintain their claim to constitute the government of Syria. Lose the cities, and Bashar Assad’s regime will come to constitute just another sectarian force in a Syrian civil war.

As of now, the dictator’s forces appear to have largely succeeded in their mission in Damascus. In Aleppo, the battle is still on. Those who began last week to prepare eulogies for the Assad regime have once again spoken too soon.

This is because while the balance of power in Syria is slowly shifting in the rebels’ favor, the essential cause of the stalemate between the sides remains.

The rebels are now far too numerous and powerful for the regime to entertain hopes of re-imposing its authority throughout the entirety of the country in the foreseeable future.

Assad simply does not have sufficient manpower to carry out an effective campaign of counter-insurgency throughout the country.

A considerable portion of Syria has now slipped beyond Assad’s reach. In the northeast, Syrian Kurds have established their own autonomous area with the help of the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq. This enclave is aligned with neither the regime nor the rebels.

In the northwest, in Idlib province, the regime has abandoned earlier attempts to maintain its presence in rural areas. An area of rebel control now stretches from the Turkish border to just west of Aleppo.

So the regime is following a strategy of scaling down the area it seeks to control and making a supreme effort to ensure that in these designated areas, its authority remains intact and not open to appeal.

This strategy is enabling Assad to hold on because while he no longer has the manpower to hold the whole of Syria, he still possesses sufficient equipment and men to decimate his opponents at any (limited) chosen point in the country. The lightly armed rebels still have no effective answer to air power, artillery and heavy armor.

This pattern played itself out in Damascus this week. The appearance of the rebels in the capital dramatically showcased the weakening hand of the regime. The illusion of normality that Assad had nurtured in the capital for 16 months was shattered.

This, combined with the successful attack on the national security building in Damascus, was an ominous sign from the regime’s point of view.

The regime then rallied its most reliable and brutal forces. Republican Guard Commander Maher Assad’s 4th Armored Division began to drive the rebels from the districts into which they had inserted themselves.

As of now, the vital Midan and Mezzah districts are back in government hands. Sporadic fighting is continuing in some southern suburbs of the city, including Hajar alaswad and Qadam.

The regime is trying to repeat this pattern in Aleppo following the liberation of districts of the city by the Free Syrian Army earlier this week. Aleppo is the largest of Syria’s cities, with a population of 2.5 million. Control of the city would mean the inclusion of a major urban area in a rebel-held enclave for the first time. It would also represent an enormous further blow to the morale of the regime forces.

For these reasons, the regime is utterly determined to prevent the loss of the city. In line with its strategy of retreat and consolidation, the government has withdrawn forces from the Jebel Zawiya area of Idlib province and rushed them to the defense of Aleppo.

Jebel Zawiya, an area with a long tradition of resistance to centralized authority, is one of the heartlands of the revolt. The regime’s concentration of forces toward Aleppo is in effect a conceding of Jebel Zawiya to the rebels, at least for the moment. This is being undertaken to save what can – and from Assad’s point of view what must – be saved.

The regime is approaching the pacification of Aleppo with its usual single- mindedness.

Fixed-wing aircraft have been used to strafe rebel-held areas in the city. Helicopter gunships also kept up a steady fire. Their use underlined the vast difference in equipment between the two sides. Yet the regime’s preference for air power also suggests a reluctance to commit ground forces unless absolutely necessary. Assad’s preference for the use of stand-off fire has been notable in recent months. It may well suggest that he can no longer rely on the loyalty and steadiness of parts of his own army.

Still, it is unlikely that Aleppo will fall to the rebels, so the essential contours of the stalemate are likely to continue to prevail. For as long as they do, thousands more will continue to die in the Syrian civil war, as the rebels slowly endeavor to hollow out and grind down Assad’s killing machine.

To change the balance and push forward, what the rebels need is greater international involvement – most importantly, air cover to establish secure safe zones, training and higher caliber weaponry.

External assistance for the rebels has made the gains of the last months possible. But more will be necessary if the balance is to be tipped in the weeks ahead. So as Assad scorches the Syrian earth, the question as to how long this will continue now largely depends on attitudes in the West, and above all in Washington.

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Is the Palestinian national movement dying?

Posted on July 27, 2012 by jonathanspyer

There is a strong case for saying that the Fatah-led Palestinian national movement, as we have known it from the late 60s onward, is fading from the scene.

But while in practical terms the Palestinian national movement is an increasing irrelevance, the symbolic cause of Palestine nevertheless retains great emotional appeal both for the Muslim world as a whole and for a wide spectrum of western leftists. The result is that a new, loose, global, Islamist-led movement is emerging in its stead to carry the Palestinian banner.

The failed peace process of the 1990s indicated the central dilemma for the Palestinian national movement. It was not strong enough to achieve its maximum goal – of destroying what it regarded as the illegitimate state of Israel. At the same time, with the defeat of Zionism at the very center of its view of the world, it proved incapable of making the compromises necessary for a peaceful partition of the disputed area.

Following Yasir Arafat’s death in 2004, the Palestinian unity which he had created and bequeathed to his people did not long survive.

The 2007 split between Arafat’s Fatah and the Palestinian Islamists of Hamas now has the look of permanence about it.

Hamas is entrenched in its Gaza fiefdom. As a branch of the Muslim brotherhood, its natural partner in the neighbourhood is the Muslim Brotherhood ascendancy in adjacent Egypt, rather than its Ramallah based secular rivals.

As for Fatah, it is the local representative of the rotting secular Arab nationalist movements and regimes which are currently being eclipsed.

It should be noted that the ‘Arab spring’, in terms of successfully toppled regimes, has brought down only secular Arab nationalist regimes of this type. Fatah and the PLO belong to the same era, and the same essential outlook, as the officers’ regime in Egypt, and the Ba’athi regime in Syria, and the other examples of this type which are now exiting the stage of history.

Irony of ironies, the element keeping the Fatah-PLO rulers in Ramallah safe from their Islamist opponents in their West Bank fiefdom is the army of their most hated enemies. Today, the only thing standing between the Palestinian Authority leadership and the fate of Bin-Ali, Mubarak, Ghadaffi and the rest is the Israel Defense Forces.

So the Palestinian national movement has divided into two. The more vital, Islamist element – Hamas – is busy building an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. It controls a sovereign space, outside of Israeli occupation, in which it is building a repressive prototype of Muslim Brotherhood rule. It remains theoretically committed to the destruction of Israel, but in real terms spends its main energies today ruling Gaza.

The remaining Ramallah-based Fatah authority, meanwhile, administers over the lives of 95% of the 2.4 million Palestinian Arab inhabitants of the West Bank, but in a situation of only partial sovereignty. It is safe from Hamas for as long as the implicit threat of Israeli intervention remains. It remains unable to pursue a successful negotiation with Israel because of its adherence to the old shibboleths of the 1960s and 70s vis a vis the ‘right of return.’ Of course, it also has no credible military option against the Jewish state, which is its protector.

Nor is old-style Palestinian nationalism faring any better among the populations living under Israeli rule.

The so-called ‘Palestinian-Israelis’ may vote for nationalist Knesset candidates, but they reject with horror any suggestion that their areas might come under Palestinian Authority rule. In real life, they much prefer the company of the Zionists to their fellow Palestinian nationalists. Understandably so.

The Arabs of Jerusalem, too, are seeking Israeli citizenship in increasing numbers.

Divided, with no strategy for reunification, or for victory, or for compromise. This is the current state of Palestinian politics.

And yet. A bright spot on the horizon remains for all those who still hope for Palestinian victory over Israel. At the very time that the actually existing Palestinian national movement faces a historic nadir, ‘Palestine’ as an idea has made great inroads into the public mind in the west. Particularly, but not only, in western Europe.

The Jewish state’s moorings as part of the western democratic world are more fragile than they were thirty years ago. Fervent anti-Zionism, sometimes shading into open anti-Semitism is closer to the western European mainstream discussion than at any time in the last half century. Israel’s fight against ‘delegitimization’ is not an imaginary struggle.

And of course the rising Islamist elements coming to the fore in the Arab world also despise Jews and reject Israel’s right to exist, no less fervently than did their Arab nationalist predecessors.

These trends are coalescing into a new challenge to Israel. A bizarre alliance of Islamists speaking the rhetoric of human rights, and western leftists dazzled and charmed by Islamist potency and fervor.

This new trend looks set to inherit. But, while waving the banner of Palestine, it is not an independent, coherent Palestinian Arab movement. Rather, it brings together a complex welter of different states (Iran, Turkey, Qatar, perhaps soon MB-led Egypt), their clients and proxies (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizballah, the IHH, the international Muslim Brotherhood, the al-Jazeera satellite channel) and their supporters in the broader Islamic world and the international left.

The old Fatah-led Palestinian national movement, meanwhile, is clinically dead, but maintained artificially – by US and European taxpayers’ money, and by the armed forces of the Jewish state that it came into being in order to destroy.

So is the Palestinian national movement dying? The answer is yes. But it is being replaced by a new phenomenon perhaps best described as a global, Islamist-led campaign for the nullifying of Jewish sovereignty.

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Syrian Diplomat: Regime carried out Damascus bombings

Posted on July 16, 2012 by jonathanspyer

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Nawaf Fares, a senior Syrian diplomat who defected to the rebel side asserted that the Assad regime was responsible for a major act of terror in Damascus, which was blamed at the time on al-Qaida.

The former Syrian ambassador to Iraq left Syria last week.

In the interview with Telegraph correspondent Ruth Sherlock, Fares claimed that the regime set up the bombing of a military intelligence headquarters in al-Qazzaz, ensuring that personnel at the base absented themselves minutes before the explosion, and that the only casualties were civilians.

“All these major explosions,” Fares told the Telegraph, “have been perpetrated by al-Qaida through cooperation with the security forces.”

A degree of scepticism is useful, of course, in evaluating Fares’s statement. He is a newly minted enemy of the regime, and has an interest in blackening its name.

But while the cynicism that would enable a regime to deliberately target its own population may seem shocking, it is in fact entirely in accord with the past practice of the Assad regime.

Indeed, the skillful use of jihadi organizations as tools of policy is one of the hallmarks of the Syrian dictatorship.

As Fares himself notes in the interview, during the Sunni insurgency against US forces in Iraq, Syria opened its border with Iraq to jihadis wishing to enter the country and take part in the fighting.

Damascus airport became a central hub for Sunni Islamists from across the region, who were ferried from there to the Iraqi border.

At the same time, Assad sought to present himself as an ally of the US in the war against terror, and as a “secular” opponent of Islamism.

Similarly, in Lebanon, Damascus has long made use of Sunni jihadis for its own purposes. In recent years, the most well-known instance of this was the emergence of the Fatah al-Islam organization in the Palestinian Nahr al-Bared refugee camp.

This mysterious group was led by one Shaker al-Abssi, a former inmate of a Syrian jail who for no apparent reason was freed and then turned up in Lebanon.

Fatah al-Islam engaged in violence against the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers in 2007. The group was later crushed by the Lebanese armed forces in Nahr al-Bared, in a standoff in which around 400 people died.

Many analysts, noting Abssi’s unexplained early exit from jail, saw the organization as an element in Syria’s broader campaign to destabilize Lebanon following the end of Syria’s occupation of the country in 2005.

Even in Syria itself, prior to the uprising, the Assad regime also made use of puppet Sunni Islamist groups.

The Jund al-Sham group, for example, was widely considered to be controlled and manipulated by the regime.

One of the regime’s known methods regarding Sunni Islamists who it wishes to make use of has been to first incarcerate them, and then after a suitable period of time to offer them the possibility of freedom in return for action on behalf of the authorities.

All of which brings us back to the present day, and to the bombs in Damascus.

55 people died in the two car bombings at the military intelligence building at Qazzaz.

Another 400 were injured.

Syrian officials at the time tried to blame al-Qaida-linked elements for the attack. They pointed to the Jabhat al-Nusra organization as the likely perpetrator.

Much media coverage subsequently speculated that al-Qaida was entering the rebellion.

This appears to have been the goal of the operation.

If Nawaf Fares is to be believed, the intention of the regime was to cast the rebellion against it as an Islamist insurgency, and thus to chip away at western and international support and sympathy for the rebels.

In pursuit of this goal, Assad appears to have been prepared to deliberately murder a large number of his own civilians – including many who were presumably his supporters.

This should come as no surprise. The Assad regime is by its own admission currently engaged in a battle for survival.

It has throughout its existence made use of the very darkest methods taught to it by its trainers and backers in the intelligence services of the then-communist police states of eastern Europe.

It has never flinched before assassinating and terrorizing its enemies. It now appears that it also regards its own people, and even its own supporters as entirely dispensable and disposable in pursuit of its objectives.

As the regime’s fortunes recede further, it is likely that similar and even more shocking revelations than those detailed by Nawaf Fares will come to light.

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