Category Archives: Lands

The battle for Damascus and the future of the war in Syria

The Institute for the Study of War has produced a 57-page report, “Assad Strikes Damascus.” This is the executive summary:

Damascus is the Syrian regime’s center of gravity. The capital of Syria has long been viewed by the rebel forces as the key to winning the war in Syria, and its loss is unthinkable for Bashar al-Assad. Thus the struggle for Damascus is existential for the regime as well as the opposition. An operational understanding of the battle for Damascus is critical to understanding the imminent trajectory of the war. This report details the course of the conflict as it engulfed Damascus in 2013; laying out the regime’s strategy and describing the political and military factors that shaped its decisions on the battlefield.

As the seat of power for the Assad regime, Damascus has always been heavily militarized and has hosted a high proportion of the Syrian armed forces throughout the war. It became a battleground relatively late in the conflict. In July 2012, rebels advanced into areas of the capital previously thought to be impenetrable. In response, the regime escalated operations in the capital in late 2012 and consolidated forces from other parts of the country. Meanwhile, rebels in Damascus worked to improve their organizational structure, and implemented a shift towards targeted attacks on infrastructure and strategic assets. In addition to redistributing forces, the regime in late 2012 began augmenting its forces with foreign fighters, namely Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi‘a militias, and professionalizing pro-regime militias. This influx of manpower, in addition to increased levels of support from Iran and Russia, has been critical to the regime’s military strategy in 2013.

In early 2013, the Syrian regime set conditions for future operations in Damascus by seizing key terrain to open its own supply lines, cut opposition supply lines, and isolate rebel support zones. In April, the regime also escalated sieges of key neighborhoods. The regime’s use of blockades to restrict the flow of food, medicine, and people into and out of neighborhoods with a rebel presence was an increasingly important component of its military operations throughout 2013. Continue reading →

Facebooktwittermail

‘A chilling warning to others’ in Egypt

In his second letter from Egypt’s Tora Prison, Al Jazeera’s Peter Greste writes: Journalists are never supposed to become the story. Apart from the print reporter’s byline or the broadcaster’s sign-off, we are supposed to remain in the background as witnesses to or agents for the news: never as its subject.

That’s why I find all the attention following our incarceration all very unsettling. This isn’t to suggest I am ungrateful. All of us who were arrested in the interior ministry’s sweep of Al Jazeera’s staff on December 29 are hugely encouraged by and grateful for the overwhelming show of support from across the globe. From the letter signed by 46 of the region’s most respected and influential foreign correspondents calling for our immediate release; to the petition from Australian colleagues; the letter writing and online campaigns and family press conferences – all of it has been both humbling and empowering.

We know we are not alone.

But what is galling is that we are into our fourth week behind bars for what I consider to be some pretty mundane reporting.

I’ve produced work in the past that has involved lots of detailed investigation, considerable risk, and not a small amount of sweat, that I wished the authorities would have been even a little bit offended by. Yet too often it has slipped out with infuriatingly little response.

This assignment to Cairo had been relatively routine – an opportunity to get to know Egyptian politics a little better. But, with only three weeks on the ground, hardly time to do anything other than tread water. So when a squad of plainclothes agents forced their way into my room, I was at first genuinely confused and later even a little annoyed that it wasn’t for some more significant slight.

This is not a trivial point. The fact that we were arrested for what seems to be a set of relatively uncontroversial stories tells us a lot about what counts as “normal” and what is dangerous in post-revolutionary Egypt. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Letter to Obama from an American held in Cairo’s Tora prison

Mohamed-SoltanMohamed Soltan, an American citizen who is a 26-year-old graduate of Ohio State University, moved to Egypt last year. In August he joined a sit-in at Rabaa Square in Cairo to defend what he considered the norms of American-style democracy.

Soltan was shot in the arm when security forces broke up sit-ins at Rabaa and another square, killing nearly a thousand people. “He was recovering from surgery to remove the bullet when the police raided his home and arrested him. His family, which is collecting signatures on a petition calling for his release, has released the following text of a letter Mr. Soltan wrote to President Obama from a cell in Cairo’s Tora Prison on his 26th birthday in November.”

Dear President Obama,

Last week, I underwent a procedure to remove two 13” metal nails that were placed in my left arm to help support and repair the damage sustained from a gunshot wound I suffered at the hands of Egyptian security forces. The bullet that punctured my arm was paid for by our tax dollars. I was forced to undergo this procedure without any anesthesia or sterilization because the Egyptian authorities refused to transfer me to a hospital for proper surgical care.

After the nails penetrated the skin at my elbow from below, and ripped through my shoulder muscle from above. The doctor who performed this procedure is a cellmate. He used pliers and a straight razor in lieu of a scalpel. I laid on a dirty mat as my other cellmates held me down to ensure I did not jolt from the pain and risk permanent loss of feeling and function in that arm. The pain was so excruciating, it felt like my brain could explode at any given point. I was finally given two aspirin pills almost an hour later when the guards found my cellmates screams for help unbearable.

I share these details here because my mind drifted to 2007 as I stared at the ceiling of my cramped cell after surgery. During your first presidential campaign, I was moved by your message. I was so passionate about everything you represented. Finally, “change we can believe in.” I saw you, as many Americans did then, a true civil servant looking to put the disadvantaged first, and to pioneer a new model of governance. I felt I was part of the making of a great chapter in my country’s history. You were someone I wanted to stand behind, someone I wanted to support, so I volunteered and worked for your campaign in Ohio, a crucial swing state. As an O.S.U. student, I went door-to-door, made phone call after phone call, urged people to join the movement that would revolutionize American politics. It was time to go back to a government “for the people, of the people.”

Now as I sit in this crowded cell, I can’t help but ask myself, was I naïve to think you were a departure from the norm? [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

America’s rise as a superpower

In Der Spiegel, Hans Hoyng writes: “Sarajevo, 21st-century version.” This is how political scientist Anne-Marie Slaughter, the director of policy planning under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, refers to what is currently brewing off the Chinese coast, where the territorial claims of several nations overlap.

The analogy to the period prior to the outbreak of World War I is striking. China, “the Germany of (that) time,” as American historian Robert Kagan puts it, is the emergent world power still seeking to define its role within the global community. At the same time, China is staking its claim to natural resources, intimidating its neighbors and developing massive naval power to secure its trade routes.

In taking these steps, China could easily become a rival to another world power, the United States of America, which would assume the role once played by Great Britain in this historical comparison. Just as the United Kingdom did at the time, the United States is now building alliances with its rival’s neighbors. And leaders in Beijing have responded to such attempts to encircle their country with a similar sense of outrage as that displayed by the German Reich.

The current crisis in the East China Sea illustrates once again that there are still lessons to be learned from World War I a century after it began and, upon closer inspection, that politicians on both sides are trying to avoid making the same mistakes. But the current crisis in East Asia diverges from the situation leading up to World War I in one important respect: There is currently no country able to assume the role once played by the United States, which, with its late entry into the war, decided its outcome and eventually outpaced both its winners and losers.

The US’s entry into the war in 1917 marked the beginning of its path to becoming a world power. In fact, according to historian Herfried Münkler, this was precisely the goal of some politicians in Washington. Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo, a son-in-law of President Woodrow Wilson, was already forging plans to replace the pound sterling with the dollar as the foremost international reserve currency.

But his father-in-law, a lawyer and political scientist, and America’s only president to enter politics after serving as the president of a university, had no such prosaic intentions. Wilson, the descendent of Scottish Presbyterians and a staunch idealist, and yet down-to-earth and in many respects, such as his racism, a son of the South, wanted to save the world and end war once and for all.

He failed, of course, with peace lasting only 20 years after World War I. Nevertheless, American politicians today justify military intervention with the same arguments Wilson used to convince the country to put an end to its isolation and intervene in Europe. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

UAE is a dangerous place to express political opinion

Human Rights Watch: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2013 stifled free expression, and subjected dissidents to manifestly unfair trials marred by credible allegations of torture, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2014.

A court sentenced 69 dissidents to prison terms of up to 10 years in July on charges of aiming to overthrow the government, though most of the evidence the court cited in the 243-page judgment suggested that they had only engaged in peaceful political activities. Many of those convicted, and another group of 30 dissidents facing similar charges, said they experienced mistreatment in pretrial detention that in some cases amounted to torture.

“The UAE’s repressive laws and dysfunctional justice system belie the government’s efforts to present the country as moderate and progressive,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The UAE might seem like a safe place to shop, do business, or take a winter holiday but it’s becoming a very dangerous place to express a political opinion.” [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

The fall of Falluja reveals the tragic futility of America’s strategy in the Middle East

Graham E. Fuller writes: When is a war “worth it?” It’s a timeless question that still begs a decisive response.

The debacle of Iraq has now drifted off the scope Americans’ attention — US troops are no longer dying there and new challenges beckon Washington elsewhere. Been there, done that. The American part of the war may be over, and we have grown weary hearing about it, but the Iraqi part of the war still continues. And with the recent and symbolic fall, again, of Falluja to al-Qa’ida and other jihadis we are forcefully reminded of the price that we paid in the American cleansing of Falluja ten years ago — for naught. Falluja, massively damaged, seems back to square one.

What about the Iraqis — was the war worth it for them? The figures are pretty well known by now — upwards of half a million Iraqis died, either in the violence of war or subsequent civil strife. That’s roughly equivalent to 5 million US citizens dying in a war. Add at least one million Iraqis displaced from their homes and villages, many now in exile — equivalent to ten million Americans displaced. Saddam was one of the most brutal dictators the world has seen in modern times, but one wonders–Iraqis must wonder — whether anything Saddam could have done could ever have remotely approached such human and structural devastation as the war. And the psychological damage — constant fear, death, mayhem, ongoing massive insecurity, anarchy and civil conflict –is not yet over.

Still, if you talk to some Iraqi Shi’a, the shift of power from the hands of a Sunni minority under a brutal dictator into the hands of the Shi’ite majority was a long term political godsend for them; they are today “better off” — at least politically, than before the war. But that’s a political abstraction.

Was it “worth it” to individual Shi’ite families who suffered loss of husbands, brothers, wives and children, homes and livelihoods? Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, when asked about the deaths of half a million Iraqi children deprived of medicine under the US sanctions on Saddam, said it was “a hard choice… but it was worth it.” That is the comforting Olympian strategic view, uncomplicated by ground realities for real human beings.

What strategic gains can we tote up for the US alongside Iraqi losses? For the US, virtually nothing gained; indeed, it’s been a serious net loss in geopolitical terms. Few Iraqis are grateful. An Iraq that has always displayed strong Arab nationalist tendencies will not likely now change its colors or learn to love Israel.

Iran is now recognized as the real winner of the Iraq war. The Iraqi internal struggle has spread across into Syria, presenting the US with choices nearly all of which are highly unpalatable. Saudi Arabia has now felt the need to unleash a vicious sectarian conflict that destabilizes the Gulf, the Arabian Peninsula, Lebanon, Syria, even Pakistan. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Iraq’s battle with Al Qaeda in Anbar leaves 140,000 displaced

The Associated Press reports: More than 140,000 Iraqis have fled parts of Anbar province over clashes between security forces and al-Qaida militants, the worst displacement of civilians in years, a United Nations official said Friday.

The spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Peter Kessler, described it as “the largest” displacement witnessed in the country since the sectarian violence of 2006-2008. He added that more than 65,000 people fled the conflict just in the past week alone.

Since late December, members of Iraq’s al-Qaida branch — known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — have taken over parts of Ramadi, the capital of the largely Sunni province of Anbar. They also control the center of the nearby city of Fallujah.

Kessler said that many civilians are trapped and suffer from a lack of supplies. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

The kidnapping of journalists — further evidence of collusion between Assad and al Qaeda?

It would appear that whoever is behind the kidnapping of journalists in Syria doesn’t welcome the press coverage they’ve been getting during the conflict. It’s reasonable to assume that there is some kind of underlying rationale. So given that ISIS is generally believed to be the prime culprit, one has to ask: how does this benefit the al Qaeda group?

After all, for members of al Qaeda in Syria or anywhere else there’s little if any friendly press coverage. Likewise, most of the coverage ISIS gets tends to inflate perceptions of the group’s power, so in a sense all coverage, however grizzly, can be seen to serve the group’s interests.

The overall impact of the spate of kidnappings has been to greatly diminish the number of foreign journalists willing to enter Syria and to amplify the international perception of rebel-controlled Syria as a lawless and hostile environment. Who benefits from both of these factors? The Assad regime. Yet if the regime was believed to have a direct role in the kidnappings, this would seriously undermine the PR campaign that it has been waging with increasing success on the international stage. Much better to outsource the task to a group that has no image to protect.

Press Freedom Now: Syria is currently the most dangerous country for journalists. In fact, all of us at Press Freedom Now have never seen anything like it and have never had so many colleagues go missing before.

For those of us who have worked in Syria, this conflict zone makes previous experiences covering conflict look a bit like walks in the park. At least 30 journalists have been kidnapped in Syria or disappeared since the start of the conflict in 2011.

Early in the Syrian Civil War it appeared that the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the kidnappings of journalists. In recent months however, as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) has risen in prominence in Syria, it has become clear that ISIS is responsible for most kidnappings of journalists.[Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Egypt clashes kill 29 on third anniversary of revolution

BBC News reports: At least 29 people have been killed in clashes in Egypt as the country marks the anniversary of the 2011 uprising which overthrew President Hosni Mubarak, the health ministry says.

Rival demonstrations of supporters and opponents of the military-backed government took place in Cairo.

But police broke up anti-government protests, and arrests were reported in Cairo and Alexandria.

Hundreds have died since July when the army deposed President Mohammed Morsi.

Extra security measures were in place for Saturday.

Egyptian Interior Minister Muhammad Ibrahim had urged Egyptians not to be afraid to go to events marking the anniversary of the uprising.

Thousands of supporters of the military and the government gathered in high-profile locations including Tahrir Square – the focal point of the 18-day 2011 popular revolt.

Facebooktwittermail

A letter from Tora prison, Cairo

Peter Greste, one of Al Jazeera’s journalists currently imprisoned in Egypt, writes: I am nervous as I write this. I am in my cold prison cell after my first official exercise session – four glorious hours in the grass yard behind our block and I don’t want that right to be snatched away.

I’ve been locked in my cell 24 hours a day for the past 10 days, allowed out only for visits to the prosecutor for questioning, so the chance for a walk in the weak winter sunshine is precious.

So too are the books on history, Arabic and fiction that my neighbours have passed to me, and the pad and pen I now write with.

I want to cling to these tiny joys and avoid anything that might move the prison authorities to punitively withdraw them. I want to protect them almost as much as I want my freedom back.

That is why I have sought, until now, to fight my imprisonment quietly from within, to make the authorities understand that this is all a terrible mistake, that I’ve been caught in the middle of a political struggle that is not my own. But after 2 weeks in prison it is now clear that this is a dangerous decision. It validates an attack not just on me and my two colleagues but on freedom of speech across Egypt.

All of a sudden, my books seem rather petty. I had been in Cairo only two weeks before interior ministry agents burst through the door of my hotel room, that of my colleague and producer Mohamed Fahmy, and into the home of Al Jazeera’s second producer Baher Mohamed.

We had been doing exactly as any responsible, professional journalist would – recording and trying to make sense of the unfolding events with all the accuracy, fairness and balance that our imperfect trade demands.

Most of the time, it is not a difficult path to walk. But when the Egyptian government declared the Muslim Brotherhood to be “terrorist organisation”, it knocked the middle ground out of the discourse. When the other side, political or otherwise, is a “terrorist”, there is no neutral way. As George W. Bush loved to point out after 9/11, you are either with the government or with the terrorists. So, even talking to them becomes an act of treason, let alone broadcasting their news however benign. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

A Sisi presidency — what it could mean

Andrew Hammond considers the implications of Defence Minister General Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi becoming Egypt’s next president: For Sisi, it’s not even necessary to run for president. He can easily manipulate and oversee from his position as defence minister, not least with the military’s new powers of non-oversight enshrined in the constitution. To take on the job of president would be to open himself to the gradual erosion of his cult status among fans. It would also run the risk of tainting the reputation of the military institution itself, especially if his presidency came to be seen as a failure (a point that former editor of Al-Ahram newspaper Mohammed Hassanein Heikal has said worries Sisi). For this reason, there is some speculation that Brotherhood leaders would be relieved if Sisi took the plunge. With the military “other” leading the country, they would be able to avoid a serious review of their mistakes, and the group would then remain a powerful anti-modern force, some factions of which, as one former member put it, could succumb to the politics of resistance and obsession with injustice. Public opinion may also slowly turn in their favour.

Sisi may also be blinded to certain factors of his popularity. He has not put forward a vision to Egyptians of how the country can develop economically or politically. His message has simply been an uber-nationalist “No” to Islamist rule as un-Egyptian and a nostalgic call to order. His rhetorical style, with its home-baked weekend soothers – “I am telling you, don’t worry about Egypt”, “the lion doesn’t eat its cubs” – has gone under the radar of serious analysis because Egypt’s fascistic state propaganda machine has packaged it as sublime and above reproach (while notably reducing coverage of his public pronouncements, adding to the aura of saviour-from-beyond). Yet his tone is reminiscent of a mosque imam at Friday prayers.

Once Sisi dons civilian clothes and has to deal with the daily realities of policy and a restive public, people may well come to tire of him rather quickly. If, as is widely expected, he takes these risks, it will be due to a variety of things: vanity, an honest belief that he has a duty to the country, pressure from inside and abroad (Abu Dhabi, Riyadh), and promises of continued funding from the Gulf to ensure four years that can be deemed a success. It would also be naïve to think that, despite the anti-American sentiment that the media has whipped up, Washington won’t be appraised of his decision in advance, possibly even for its approval. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

The re-Judaizing of Israel

Uri Avnery writes: Of all revolutionary movements of the 20th century, Zionism was the most successful and enduring. Communism. Fascism and dozens of others came and went. Zionism endures.

But is Israeli society really Zionist, as it claims loudly and repeatedly?

Zionism was basically a rebellion against the Jewish existence in the Diaspora. In the religious sphere, it was a reformation more profound than that of Martin Luther.

All prominent Jewish Rabbis, both Hasidic as anti-Hasidic, condemned Zionism as a heresy. The People of Israel were united by their absolute obedience to God’s 613 commandments, not by any “national” bonds. God had strictly forbidden any mass return to the Land of Israel, since He had exiled the Jews for their sinful behavior. The Jewish Diaspora was thus decreed by God and had to remain, until He changes His mind.

And here came the Zionists, mostly atheists, and wanted to bring the Jews to the Land of Israel without God’s permission, indeed abolishing God altogether. They built a secular society. They held abysmal contempt for the Diaspora, especially for the Orthodox “ghetto Jews”. Their founding father, Theodor Herzl, held that after the foundation of the Jewish State, no one outside it would be considered a Jew anymore. Other Zionists were not quite so radical, but certainly thought along these lines.

When I was young, many of us went even further. We disclaimed the idea of a Jewish State, and spoke instead of a Hebrew State, connected only loosely with Diaspora Jewry, creating a new Hebrew civilization closely connected with the Arab world around us. An Asian nation, not identified with Europe and the West.

So where are we now?

Israel is re-Judaizing itself at a rapid pace. The Jewish religion is making a huge comeback. Very soon, religious children of various communities will be the majority in Israeli Jewish schools. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

West’s 30-year vendetta with Iran is finally buried in Davos

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes: The Iranian nuclear deal is on. Hassan Rouhani’s charm offensive in Davos has been a tour de force, the moment of rehabilitation for the Islamic Republic. His words were emollient.

“The world hasn’t seen a speech like that from an Iranian leader since the Revolution,” tweeted Ian Bremmer from the Eurasia Group.

Anybody betting on oil futures in the belief that Iran’s nuclear deal with great powers is a negotiating ploy – to gain time – should be careful. There is a very high likelihood that the sanctions against Iran will be lifted in stages, leading to an extra 1.2 barrels a day on the global market just as Libya, Iraq, and the US all crank up output.

“One of the theoretical and practical pillars of my government is constructive engagement with the world. Without international engagement, objectives such as growth, creativity and quality are unattainable,” said Rouhani.

“I strongly and clearly state that nuclear weapons have no place in our security strategy,” he said.

Behind closed doors in Davos, the Iranian leaders made a sweet sales pitch to oil executives. BP said it is eyeing the “potential”. Chevron and ConocoPhillips have been approached, assured by Iran’s leader that there are “no limitations for U.S. companies.” Total’s Christophe de Margerie hopes to restart work at the South Pars field. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Britain’s police state extends its powers

Henry Porter writes: There are two striking images of modern Britain in this week’s news. The first is the story that crime in Britain is at a 32-year low, which confirms evidence in statistical trends that, like most western countries, we are becoming a more orderly and law-abiding society.

The second is provided by the police, which, while suffering a thoroughly deserved collapse in their own reputation, seeks to draw a picture of chaos and misrule that demands ever harsher and more invasive policing techniques. Five years after the financial crash, the police are making the case for deploying water cannon to deal with expected “austerity riots”, when it is blindingly obvious that Britain has passed through a very difficult period without widespread disorder (the riots that began in Tottenham two years ago were mostly a failure of policing, not a response to economic conditions) and, moreover, the economy and employment have both picked up.

But the far more worrying development is the unscrutinised rollout of the police automated numberplate recognition system (ANPR) for tracking vehicles, which, according to Nick Hopkins’ report, currently stores 17bn images in its archive and is set to increase its capacity by 2018 to read and store 50-75 million separate vehicle sightings a day.

This is a very powerful surveillance system and the important thing to remember is that the decision to cover Britain’s motorways and town centres with cameras that track the movements of innocent citizens is that it was never debated by parliament. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

In Egypt as in Syria, al Qaeda seems to serve the interests of secular authoritarianism

BBC News reports: Militants have stepped up their campaign against security forces in Egypt with a series of explosions in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

Six people were killed and some 100 others wounded, with the biggest blast outside Cairo’s police headquarters.

The attacks come on the eve of the third anniversary of the 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.

Meanwhile, seven were reported killed in clashes between security forces and Muslim Brotherhood supporters.

The explosion outside Cairo’s police headquarters left four people dead and wounded at least 76.

Hours later, there were three more blasts elsewhere in the city, killing two people and injuring several more.

Local media report that an al-Qaeda-inspired militant group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Champions of Jerusalem), has said it carried out the attack on the police headquarters.

The group previously claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack on a security building in the northern city of Mansoura in December that killed 16 people and injured more than 100 others.

The authorities blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for that attack – something the group strongly denied – and declared it a terrorist group shortly afterwards. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Syria’s Assad accused of boosting al-Qaeda with secret oil deals

The Telegraph reports: The Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad has funded and co-operated with al-Qaeda in a complex double game even as the terrorists fight Damascus, according to new allegations by Western intelligence agencies, rebels and al-Qaeda defectors.

Jabhat al-Nusra, and the even more extreme Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS), the two al-Qaeda affiliates operating in Syria, have both been financed by selling oil and gas from wells under their control to and through the regime, intelligence sources have told The Daily Telegraph.

Rebels and defectors say the regime also deliberately released militant prisoners to strengthen jihadist ranks at the expense of moderate rebel forces. The aim was to persuade the West that the uprising was sponsored by Islamist militants including al-Qaeda as a way of stopping Western support for it.

The allegations by Western intelligence sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, are in part a public response to demands by Assad that the focus of peace talks due to begin in Switzerland tomorrow be switched from replacing his government to co-operating against al-Qaeda in the “war on terrorism”.

“Assad’s vow to strike terrorism with an iron fist is nothing more than bare-faced hypocrisy,” an intelligence source said. “At the same time as peddling a triumphant narrative about the fight against terrorism, his regime has made deals to serve its own interests and ensure its survival.”

Intelligence gathered by Western secret services suggested the regime began collaborating actively with these groups again in the spring of 2013. When Jabhat al-Nusra seized control of Syria’s most lucrative oil fields in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, it began funding its operations in Syria by selling crude oil, with sums raised in the millions of dollars.

“The regime is paying al-Nusra to protect oil and gas pipelines under al-Nusra’s control in the north and east of the country, and is also allowing the transport of oil to regime-held areas,” the source said. “We are also now starting to see evidence of oil and gas facilities under ISIS control.”

The source accepted that the regime and the al-Qaeda affiliates were still hostile to each other and the relationship was opportunistic, but added that the deals confirmed that “despite Assad’s finger-pointing” his regime was to blame for the rise of al-Qaeda in Syria. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Syria peace talks near collapse before they begin

Reuters reports: Syria’s first peace talks came close to collapsing before they began on Friday, with the opposition refusing to meet President Bashar al-Assad’s delegation and the government threatening to bring its team home.

Still, figures on both sides later seemed to moderate their positions, expressing a willingness to meet their enemies.

The opposition said early on Friday that it would not meet Assad’s delegation unless it first agreed to sign up to a protocol calling for a transitional administration. The government rejected the demand outright and said its negotiators would return home unless serious talks began within a day.

“If no serious work sessions are held by (Saturday), the official Syrian delegation will leave Geneva due to the other side’s lack of seriousness or preparedness,” Syrian state television quoted Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem as saying.

Friday was meant to be the first time in three years of war that Assad’s government and foes would negotiate face to face.

But plans were ditched at the last minute after the opposition said the government delegation must first sign up to a 2012 protocol, known as Geneva 1, that calls for an interim government to oversee a transition to a new political order.

“We have explicitly demanded a written commitment from the regime delegation to accept Geneva 1. Otherwise there will be no direct negotiations,” opposition delegate Haitham al-Maleh told Reuters. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Assad negotiates from a position of strength

Joshua Landis writes: President Bashar al-Assad comes to the negotiating table in Switzerland apparently stronger today than at any time in the last two years. Thus his cavalier tone ahead of the talks, dismissing opposition representatives as a “joke” and brushing off U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s and the opposition’s demand that he relinquish power and accept a “transitional governing body.” Instead, Assad maintains, Syria will hold elections this year, and “I see no reason why I shouldn’t stand.”

Understanding why Assad’s regime survives more than two years after then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it a “dead man walking” is critical for gauging the outcome of the Geneva II talks.

The regime’s resilience is based, first and foremost, on the Syrian army. Without its loyalty, Assad would likely have fallen as quickly as Tunisia’s President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak did in 2011. But while many soldiers and officers did join the rebellion, most did so as individuals; few entire units defected, and no entire divisions did. Structurally, the military held together, and it was able to replenish its ranks through intensive recruitment among the Alawite minority, where many are loyal to the regime and still more live in mortal fear of sectarian retribution at the hands of the Sunni-led armed rebellion. The same factors allowed the military to expand its capabilities through the paramilitary Popular Committees, often called shabiha. And it has also been able to enlist the support in critical battles of units of the Shia Hezbollah militia from neighboring Lebanon, whose leaders recognize that their own military fortunes depend on maintaining the resupply lines that the Assad regime has long provided.

Just as important as the military’s loyalty to the regime have been its superior armaments. Even if rebel fighters, who number well in excess of 100,000 by most estimates, outnumber the Syrian army, in any battle for territory they are often little match for the army’s dramatic technological and organizational advantage. Rebel militias have no answer for the artillery, armor and airpower of the Syrian military. Perhaps even more important, the rebels have no central command. And it is difficult to imagine, today, how the rebels could plausibly overcome these disadvantages.

The fragmentation and radicalization of rebel fighting forces has been the opposition’s greatest weakness. Had a unified political-military command emerged among the rebels in the first year of the uprising, at the height of optimism over the Arab Spring, the United States and Europeans might well have been persuaded to give direct military backing to the uprising. Today, such hopes have been dashed.

Infighting among rival militias battling for control over rebel-held areas has, in recent weeks, cost over 1,000 lives. The prospect of militia chaos combined with widespread human rights abuses, the radicalization of the militias and an estimated 10,000 foreigners fighting on the rebel side have spooked Western leaders, even amid the anguish caused by images depicting gruesome torture and murder in the dungeons of the regime.

Few policymakers talk about “good guys” in Syria anymore; some — most notably former CIA Director Michael Hayden last December — even argue that a rebel victory would be worse than an Assad win. Not even the recent emergence of a larger militia coalition, the Islamic Front, to organize rebel fighting and challenge forces aligned with Al-Qaeda has been able to end rebel chaos.

Foreign involvement in the Syrian civil war has also worked strongly to the advantage of the regime. Iran and Russia have proved to be far more reliable as allies to Assad than the U.S. and Gulf Arab states have been to the rebels. From day one of the revolt, Assad’s top worry has been that the U.S. would invade. He and his generals were convinced that they could survive as long as F-16s did not appear over the Damascus horizon. So far, their assumption has proved to be correct. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail