BBC News reports: US intelligence agencies believe “with varying degrees of confidence” that Syria has used chemical weapons against rebels, the White House has said.

It said the nerve agent sarin had been deployed on a “small scale”, and did not say where or when it had been used.

The White House has warned chemical weapons use would be a “red line” for possible intervention, but says this intelligence does not represent proof.

Republicans in Congress called on Thursday for a strong US response.

The assessment was made in letters to lawmakers on Thursday signed by Miguel Rodriguez, White House director of the office of legislative affairs.

“Our intelligence community does assess, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin,” one of the letters said.

But it added: “Given the stakes involved, and what we have learned from our own recent experiences, intelligence assessments alone are not sufficient – only credible and corroborated facts that provide us with some degree of certainty will guide our decision-making.”

The phrase “varying degrees of confidence” is normally used to reflect differences in opinion within the intelligence community.

The Washington Post adds: In informing Congress Thursday that Syria’s government may have used chemical agents against the population, the Obama administration stated that “no option is off the table” should future evidence confirm the mounting suspicions.

The phrase, evoking America’s current confrontation with Iran and past ones with Iraq, prompts more questions than it offers clarity for how President Obama will navigate a worsening civil war that already has killed more than 70,000 people.

Would Obama send American forces to Syria if a United Nations investigation proves Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has used the nerve agent Sarin in restive towns? And if he would not do so at a time when, in his words, “the tide of war is receding” after more than a dozen years of overseas conflict, would U.S. prestige suffer in the eyes of allies and antagonists alike?

The administration is already behind France, Britain and Israel in asserting that Assad most likely used chemical weapons against his people, and members of Congress from both parties were quick Thursday to seize on the acknowledgment as a “game changer” for U.S. policy. Even public opinion, according to recent polling, suggests that may be the case.

“The administration has confirmed that the Assad regime in Syria has crossed a dangerous, game-changing red line,” House Minority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said in a statement, which called on members to attend a classified briefing Friday morning.

The administration has made clear that it has monitored closely allegations of the Syrian government’s chemical weapons use since December, when reports first surfaced. But Obama has sought to downplay them as much as possible, given the consequences facing the administration if true.

On Thursday, Miguel Rodriguez, Obama’s chief liaison to Congress, made clear in a letter to the Hill that the administration will continue to seek a United Nations investigation to determine definitely whether chemical weapons have been used and to what extent.

Doing so buys the administration some time to decide a course of action, even as congressional Republicans raised concern about delays.

The New York Times reports: As Islamists increasingly fill the ranks of Syrian rebels, President Bashar al-Assad is waging an energized campaign to persuade the United States that it is on the wrong side of the civil war. Some government supporters and officials believe they are already coaxing — or at least frightening — the West into holding back stronger support for the opposition.

Confident they can sell their message, government officials have eased their reluctance to allow foreign reporters into Syria, paraded prisoners they described as extremist fighters and relied unofficially on a Syrian-American businessman to help tap into American fears of groups like Al Qaeda.

“We are partners in fighting terrorism,” Syria’s prime minister, Wael Nader al-Halqi, said.

Omran al-Zoubi, the information minister, said: “It’s a war for civilization, identity and culture. Syria, if you want, is the last real secular state in the Arab world.”

Despite hopes in Damascus, President Obama has not backed off his demand that Mr. Assad step down. The administration has also kept up economic pressure on his government and has increased nonlethal aid to the opposition while calling for a negotiated settlement to the fighting.

But the United States has signaled growing discomfort with the rising influence of radical Islamists on the battlefield, and it remains unwilling to arm the rebels or to consider stepping in more forcefully without conclusive evidence that the Syrian government used chemical weapons, as some Israeli officials assert. [Continue reading…]

Christoph Reuter reports: In peacetime, 40,000 people lived in Zabadani, Muslims and Christians. Only 3,000 remain — out of defiance, fear or because they’re defending the city. Anyone left stays in the basements or on the ground floors. All buildings are abandoned above the first floor. Land was expensive in the valley, so property developed upward. And the fact that many buildings are five stories high has become a life-saving circumstance. “A direct hit from a tank shell destroys about one floor,” says one of the rebels, who as a construction engineer is familiar with such calculations. “Since they almost always attack from above, we just hide out underground for a while.”

The city is being demolished floor by floor. The army shells Zabadani with a certain regularity, in the morning and in the late afternoon for one to two hours. A few people die every week.

Yet over time the city has developed a tough and sophisticated independent existence. More than a year ago, 50 representatives from the big Zabadani families met to elect a 15-person city council. It now organizes food deliveries, the underground hospital, law enforcement, courts and even the nighttime disposal of rubble. Only when the streets are clear can you drive through them in the dark.

‘We Have Files for Everything’

The council has a budget and a Facebook profile where it registers the money, most of which comes from Syrians in exile. The profile also reports what it does with the money, which has to be carried in cash over the mountains. There’s a basement prison where two soldiers and two burglars are sitting, and even an evidence room for the courts. In its door hangs a standard 21-by-30 centimeter paper listing everything that is required and prohibited: No member of the court may physically or verbally abuse people, and no one can make decisions without authorization.

The prison warden and the chairman of the justice committee, the first a farmer and the second an attorney, describe a new system of law under absurd circumstances. “We have files for every proceeding,” says the attorney. “We inventory the stolen goods so that the owners can claim them. We investigated two cases of homicide.” The murder cases occurred when two groups of rebels mistook each other for government troops and fired at each other.

“And we’re planning to get uniforms for the police,” the attorney continues, “and photo IDs!” It’s preliminary, he concedes, adding that right now they are happy simply to survive until the next day. “That’s exactly why we need institutions and rules, not just people. If one of us dies, the next one has to be able to take over without everything collapsing.” [Continue reading…]

Hassan Hassan writes: Fears that the Syrian conflict may spill over the country’s borders are being realised, but in reverse: the Lebanese conflict is coming to Syria.

Ahmed Al Aseer, an influential Lebanese Sunni cleric, declared on Monday that jihad in Syria is now mandatory for all capable Muslims. Sheikh Al Aseer said that the decision was taken after Hizbollah’s involvement in Syria became clear.

“We felt that [Hizbollah] was militarily involved and everyone was denying,” he said in a video statement posted on YouTube on Monday. “But now that has become clear.”

Hizbollah’s initial denial of involvement in Syria appears to have changed to justification, primarily because it has become difficult for the group to continue denying reports as an increasing number of dead fighters are sent back from Syria. Although the party’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, admitted in October that party members were fighting alongside the Assad regime, he said those fighters were acting as individuals and not under his orders.

This escalation should not be played down as part of traditional Lebanese sectarian bickering. Hizbollah’s decision to openly support the Syrian regime is a serious move that merits a closer look.

The obvious question is, why now?

According to accounts, the party’s fighters in Syria are numerous and well-trained. Additionally, the structure of Hizbollah allows it to order the fighters to withdraw if needed.

But why would the party opt to wage war against the people of a neighbouring country that is far larger than Lebanon, offers access to its allies in Iraq and Iran, and most of all, has a vast number of supporters inside Lebanon?

The escalation of Hizbollah’s involvement in Homs follows a series of media reports that suggests the party, in coordination with Tehran, has moved aggressively and openly to back the regime of Bashar Al Assad. According to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai, Nasrallah visited Tehran this week and met with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the commander of the Al Quds Brigades, General Qasim Sulaimani. [Continue reading…]

The Wall Street Journal reports: The Syrian army has used lethal chemical weapons during the country’s civil war, Israel’s top military intelligence analyst said Tuesday, heightening pressure on the White House to intervene more directly against strongman Bashar-al Assad.

“According to our professional assessment, the regime has used deadly chemical weapons against armed rebels on a number of occasions in the past few months,” said Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, who heads the research division of Israel’s intelligence branch.

Israel’s first public allegation of Syrian chemical-weapons use followed disclosures last week that Britain and France believe they have credible evidence that Syria has used chemical weapons in small amounts.

U.S. officials said they were investigating the allegation. But they quickly voiced strong caution about the assessment—which, if borne out, could force the U.S. to make good on its threats to take action if Syria’s government were to use chemical weapons against its people. A senior U.S. defense official played down what he called “low-confidence assessments by foreign governments” and said it would take time to reach a U.S. determination that could be the basis for U.S. action.

That sharp response appeared to convey a U.S. government caught off guard. Gen. Brun delivered his assessment at a security conference in Tel Aviv just as U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was wrapping up two days of meetings with Israel’s civilian and military leaders. His agenda was topped by talks on Iran and on strengthening coordination over the security of Syria’s chemical weapons.

The Guardian reports: More than half the population of Syria is likely to be in need of aid by the end of the year, the UN high commissioner for refugees has warned, while labelling the ever-worsening crisis as the most serious the global body has dealt with.

António Guterres, who has led the UNHCR through the worst of the refugee crises in Afghanistan and Iraq, said the Syrian civil war was more brutal and destructive than both and was already the worst humanitarian disaster since the end of the cold war.

His assessment came as the UN released new data on the numbers of refugees, which revealed that 6.8 million Syrians need aid. That figure is likely to reach at least 10 million, more than half the pre-war population of the country.

Another UN body, Unicef, says half of those in need are children.

“I don’t remember any other crisis where we are having 8,000 per day [fleeing across borders], every day since February,” Guterres said in an interview with the Guardian. “There will very likely be 3.5 million by the end of the year. We will have half the population of Syria in dire need of assistance and this is incomprehensible.” [Continue reading…]

Hassan Hassan writes: Tunisia has recently required Syrians to obtain visas before they travel to Tunis. The reason for this change of policy has not been made public.

But according to Tunisian officials, the reason is related to Tunisian jihadis in Syria. Sources say that Damascus has refused to hand over the bodies of Tunisian fighters who died in battles against the Syrian regime. Damascus wants Tunis, in exchange for handing over the bodies, to reopen diplomatic channels with Syria, including the Syrian embassy there which was shut down by Tunisian authorities in February. Earlier this month, foreign ministry officials in Tunis publicly said they intend to hand over the closed embassy to the Syrian opposition’s National Coalition, clearly to pressure Damascus.

There are of course deeper issues involved. No country has dedicated more media coverage to the issue of jihadis flowing out of their region than Tunisia, where television channels host jihadi returnees almost on a weekly basis. Live on television they engage in intense discussions and interactions with the public. This has given the impression that Tunisians make up a majority of Syria’s foreign fighters.

There have also been media reports claiming that religious clerics from Tunisia had issued a fatwa permitting Muslim women to perform “sex jihad” in Syria. It claims that Muslim fighters in Syria could engage in sexual acts with consenting Muslim women to raise morale.

This fatwa turned out to be bogus; media first attributed it to the celebrity cleric Mohammed Al Arefe from Saudi Arabia, but he denied that. Reports then claimed the clerics who issued the fatwas were anonymous but “they are among those who are influenced by Saudi clerics”.

Yet even after the fatwa was disavowed, people still believed in it. At least 13 Tunisian female teenagers were reported to have travelled to Syria to perform religious duties. One television channel reported that a man divorced his wife after he decided to fight in Syria to enable her to perform her own jihad there.

It is understandable if media outlets loyal to the Syrian regime would try to portray the fight against it as driven by fanaticism and lust. But why would Tunisian media carry such clearly fabricated reports?

As elsewhere in the region, the opposition in Tunisia is increasingly using the Syrian uprising to settle scores at home. Reviewing the media reports that carried the fatwa shows that there is a clear focus on Tunisian Islamists who play a role in radicalising young people.

Aaron Zelin, an expert on jihadi groups at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says the maximum number of foreign fighters to have fought in Syria over the course of the entire conflict is estimated to be 5,500 – but the numbers are probably lower.

Tunisian media, meanwhile, has reported that over 3,500 fighters from Tunisia have gone to Syria, driven by fatwas by Tunisian extremists. Clearly this figure is exaggerated. But the media focus on Tunisian radicals in Syria is meant to undermine the Islamist government at home more than anything else. [Continue reading…]

Rami G Khouri writes: The conflict in Syria has assumed more dangerous dimensions with the latest developments along the Syrian-Lebanese border, where forces with and against both the Syrian government and Hezbollah have engaged in cross-border shelling. This builds on a recent spate of tit-for-tat kidnappings in northeastern Lebanon’s own frontier region that captures all the modern Arab world’s vagaries of nationalism, statehood, identity, sectarianism and citizenship.

The easiest way to describe the events in that region has been to speak of Sunni-Shiite fighting, or antagonisms between pro- and anti-Syrian government elements. The involvement of Hezbollah adds a significant new element to the mix, and also helps to clarify what the fighting in and near Syria is all about. It is much more than “spillover” of the Syrian war into Lebanon. I have previously described the war in Syria as the greatest proxy battle of our age, and that is now clearer than ever as we see how Syria comprises a rich and expansive web of other conflicts playing out on a local, regional and global scale.

The war in Syria is so enduring and vexing precisely because it is such a multilayered conflict, comprising at least six separate battles taking place at the same time:

First, it is a domestic citizen revolt against the Assad family regime that has ruled Syria for 43 years. This aspect of the conflict reflects a widespread spirit of citizen activism for freedom, rights and dignity that continues to define much of the Arab world today. After the nonviolent demonstrations that erupted across the country in spring 2011 elicited a violent military response from the regime, this political conflict quickly became a militarized war. [Continue reading…]

Peter Harling and Sarah Birke write: Despite belated realization of the conflict’s horrendous costs — by the end of the year, aid agencies predict, there will be 3.6 million refugees and 6 million in need inside the country, out of a population of 23 million — outside players show no sign of willingness to agree among themselves to help Syrians find a solution. Much mooted Russian-American negotiations have led nowhere, as Moscow stubbornly continues to back Asad and Washington is unwilling to offer incentives to alter that calculus. Meanwhile, countries united only by their rejection of Asad give priority to their own differing interests and rivalries as they vie to lift their clients above others within the opposition, exacerbating its fissiparous nature.

The conflict’s next step likely will be to engulf — and ultimately destroy — the capital, the seat of power, Syrian identity and what is left of the state, since the bureaucracy that remains operational is based there. Since early in 2013, opposition militants have made gains in the southern plain stretching up from Jordan to Damascus, a pathway to the regime’s nerve center. Meanwhile, armed groups in the capital have pushed further toward salient sites, including the presidential palace. But the rhetoric of a “final push” that opposition commanders and some commentators use, suggesting a decisive battle that will both determine and put an end to the ghastly conflagration, is but a pipe dream harking back to the early months of the uprising, when a quick end might have been possible. The regime has dug in on the heights of the capital, where it is virtually impregnable, preparing itself for war’s inexorable creep to its doorstep.

If the rebel incursion into Aleppo in July 2012 altered the dynamics of the conflict, the battle for Damascus will do so to a greater extent, as the destruction of the city that all have focused on brings down with it the sense of purpose and ultimate goal that continues to animate both sides. The consequences go beyond the predictable. In many other encounters, the regime has escalated its violence in response to opposition gains while the opposition has become more ruthless. Wrecking Damascus may simply increase the nihilism on both sides, or it may introduce a genuine international effort to end the conflict. The regime, unlikely to fall tidily in any foreseeable scenario, may see its cohesiveness partially shaken, and spawn large militias as it breaks up. Erasing the seat of power without vanquishing the enemy would almost certainly cause further fracturing of the opposition as it struggles to define, in this new dynamic, an overarching aim, while militant groups squabble more fiercely over spoils. If the conflict does not yet fit neatly into the definition of a civil war, the concomitant fraying could well trigger a drift toward something reminiscent of neighboring Lebanon’s, which dragged on for 15 long years.

If there is a happy footnote, it is that amid war’s many horrific tolls on country, body and soul, there are still numerous signs of hope in Syrian society. While some commentators warn that the country is turning into Somalia, with its powerful warlords, or Iraq, with its now indelible sectarian tensions, the Syrian society and people continue against all odds to exhibit unique features that are undersold by such comparisons. Civil administrations or local figures pop up to attempt to run local services in areas where the government has withdrawn. A man in Douma makes walking sticks from mortar shells and builds heaters from used rockets. In the grimmest conditions in Aleppo or Idlib, the displaced scrabble to offer hospitality, a shred of dignity in their darkest hour. A schoolteacher runs lessons from a back room. Given a chance, this society may pull through; it might fare better still if the conflict draws swiftly to a close and the aftermath is skillfully handled.

With each day of the conflict — today is day 763 — those chances become slimmer, diminishing Syrians’ sense of national identity and their pride in their society. Their purported “allies” and “friends” are their curse. The US, Russia, Qatar, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey and Hizballah all claim to care when in fact they are defending their own prerogatives. With incremental, indecisive interference from all sides, further escalation is almost inevitable. Syria’s all-out civil war, if it comes to that, will no doubt go down in conventional wisdom as an outburst of communal hatred inevitable within a mixed society. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the product of an international standoff and cannot be rolled back without an international tradeoff. However much Syrians suffer, the war in their country is not in their hands. It is a conflict that disfigures Syrian society more than reflects it. And that is the Syrian heartbreak.

Last week’s announcement by the leader of al Qaida in Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, that AQI and Jabhat al-Nusra have merged, appeared to be a public confirmation of what was already widely believed: that the two groups were one and the same. But the response from the al-Nusra leader, Abu Muhammad Al-Julani, suggests that the alignment between the two groups might not be so exact. Indeed, al-Nursra’s pledge of allegiance to AQI might be due deference to what it regards as vital support. Whatever AQI’s ambitions might be in terms of creating a joint Iraqi-Syrian Islamic state, al-Nusra seems more concerned about emphasizing its Syrian roots.

Matthew Barber provides translations of the statement from AQI and the response from al-Nusra’s leader, al-Julani:
A number of interesting observations can be made about this statement. First, it is amusing that al-Julani would begin his speech—a response to a speech by a fellow jihadi—by quoting a Qur’anic verse about liars. He clearly states that Jabhat al-Nusra had not been informed that the announcement was forthcoming. Though framed with respectful language, the entire statement represents a veiled rebuke to al-Baghdadi.

Al-Julani discloses the real picture of al-Nusra, revealing that the core of al-Nusra are Syrian jihadis who participated with al-Qaida in Iraq “from the beginning” of the Iraq war, only returning to Syria after the uprising began in order to engage in jihad against the Syrian regime by employing all the experience and tools gained through the long period of fighting in Iraq. And in addition to being the offspring of al-Qaida in Iraq, al-Julani affirms that al-Nusra has been supported by them throughout its tenure in Syria–supported both financially and with fighters. He intentionally downplays the numbers of fighters from Iraq, however; while expressing gratitude for their participation, he endeavors to place distance between the Iraqi and Syrian jihadi groups by framing the role of jihadis from al-Qaida in Iraq as minimal. Even when emphasizing a degree of autonomy from al-Qaida in Iraq, he nevertheless ends up indicating a measure of subordination by saying “he put his complete trust in me to produce policies and plans.”

So if al-Nusra was born of al-Qaida in Iraq, includes Iraqi jihadis, has continually received support from al-Qaida, and willingly affirms allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri, what is the rub between al-Julani and al-Baghdadi’s statement? The point of tension seems to center around the declaration of an Islamic state. Though he never denies affiliation with al-Qaida in Iraq, or what he sees as the evolving emergence of an Islamic state in Syria, he seems to have taken offense to the timing and manner of the declaration, and rejects al-Baghdadi’s approach of a single state for Syria and Iraq under a single governing structure. Though he has no problem being under the authority of al-Qaida’s top command, he experiences possible resentment at the suggestion that al-Nusra be subordinate to al-Qaida in Iraq.

Al-Julani therefore rejects al-Baghdadi’s assertion that the two wings will abandon their separate titles and merge into a single unit. He maintains that al-Nusra will continue to use its name and flag. He confirms the declaration of an Islamic state in Syria (saying it is “built” by all parties who participated in the struggle), but he does not link it with that in Iraq: Rather than the “Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham” it is merely “The Islamic State of al-Sham.” Though acknowledging the presence of an Islamic state, he says that declaring statehood is not important, since the state has been coming into being through a process of implementing shari’a to the degree it is possible in the Syrian context. (This process is ongoing, through such projects as the effort to bring shari’a classes to the public.)

These announcements therefore do not represent a “merger of Jabhat al-Nusra with al-Qaida” but the disclosure of their equivalency. While it has long been perceived that ISI and al-Nusra were linked counterparts, this reality is now in the open.

Olly Lambert, whose film “Syria Behind the Lines” featured on PBS’s Frontline this week, recounts the bombing of Al-Bara.

Alex Thomson writes: The government in Syria is brutal, repressive and founded upon the torture and abuse of the Syrian people on an industrial scale. I’ve said it before. I say it again.

Its army has shelled and shot foreign journalists in Homs and Aleppo. At least one freelance reporter is believed to have disappeared in government hands.

However it is the groups fighting to overthrow President Assad who must also account for talking about “freedom”, “good” and “right” on the one hand, and repeatedly attacking, killing and kidnapping journalists on the other.

As I write,there are four more victims – Italian journalists – detained in the rebel-held areas of northern Syria.

Many others have been killed and Syrian journalists working for any media outlet based in Damascus are considered targets, and constantly threatened, kidnapped and killed. We can argue about whether or not such journalists are merely mouthpieces for the regime. But I say you cannot be a la carte about this.

Either you believe journalists should not be killed or attacked for doing their job as non-combatants, or you do not.

Plainly some rebel groups do not. But they cannot then prattle on about “freedom” and “liberating” Syria. Some kind of liberation. Some kind of freedom.

And all this presents troubling issues for the western media attempting to cover this war. The rebels’ attrition against journalists and journalism is an important part of their war. It amounts to strategy in its consistency. Yet all too often because of “security concerns”, the western media simply self-censors this out of existence.

Few people in the UK will be aware the a very prominent British journalist and his team have only recently emerged from the terrifying experience of becoming kidnap victims in rebel hands. That story has still not appeared in any media in the UK because a “news blackout” was declared in order to facilitate their release. Few would – or should – have any qualms with that degree of self-censorship.

However, their organisation – a very major force in the British media – has chosen to say nothing about the issue since. The public are entirely unaware this has happened.

In doing so they – and we by extension – have effectively muzzled ourselves and not told an important part of the Syrian war story – a nasty, dark and highly relevant dimension to the the rebel campaign there. The great Syrian question is all about what kind of freedoms people are fighting for. That’s why this issue matters so much.

Olly Lambert writes: There’s a private bar in London whose members are nearly all war correspondents. The men and women standing at the bar could easily convince you that war reporting is one of the most exhilarating experiences that life has to offer, a gateway to the outer limits of human experience. This, of course, is absolute nonsense, and they all know it. I can tell you that because I’m frequently one of those people drinking there, and I’ve spun that line on more occasions than I care to remember.

I’ve been making documentaries in war zones on and off for the last 10 years, and I can assure you that working in a conflict zone is absolutely the most horrible, lonely and uncomfortable experience you’re ever likely to have.

But that’s easy to forget. Within days or even hours of getting home, the bitter and complex reality of seeing a conflict close-up quickly melts into a series of increasingly honed anecdotes whose veracity I can’t quite guarantee.

The only true and abiding memory I have of the weeks and months spent in places like Helmand province in Afghanistan or a field hospital in Iraq is a vague and intangible sense of my split personality. One part of me becomes the journalist thief, prowling in search of people and stories to turn into a film. And at the same time I’m something quite different but also connected: a profoundly moved and thin-skinned witness to the awful extremes of human behavior. Both sides need the other, but they pull in very different directions.

For five weeks last fall, I embarked on a new project, living on both sides of a sectarian front line in rural Syria to make a documentary for the PBS series “Frontline,” and for Channel 4 in the U.K. I filmed with Sunni rebels on one side and regime loyalists on the other as they descended into an increasingly hateful feud.

Nothing could have prepared me for the imperial-scale level of violence that I witnessed there. It was totally unprecedented in my experience. And it’s only now, reading journals and looking back at footage, that some of it is even becoming real. [Continue reading…]

When it comes to understanding what is happening in Syria, I defer primarily to those who either live there or whose reporting derives from firsthand observation made during extended visits.

The longer the fighting continues, the easier it becomes to look at Syria through the prism of universal truths about war — that it is self-perpetuating; that much of the fighting accomplishes nothing; that violence begets violence; that the willingness to kill others in pursuit of ones goals opens the door to all kinds of atrocity. But as much as Syria might reveal about the nature of war, understanding the nature of war can only provide a limited amount of insight into what is happening in this instance.

While Olly Lambert’s film is deeply depressing in the way it reveals in granular detail why this has become an intractable conflict, it also shows why there remains reason support Assad’s opponents.

Watch the beginning of the film below and then click “continue watching” to watch the rest at the Frontline site.

Lambert is no propagandist. This is truth-telling journalism. And while one can view the two sides in the conflict he portrays as involving some kind of equivalence — each with good reason fears being wiped out by the other — the differences between the two are crucial.

On one side are Sunnis who know their enemy: Syrian government forces who are dropping bombs and firing artillery and who are predominantly Allawites.

On the other side, the Allawites themselves who willingly believe government propaganda and imagine their opponents are all “terrorists.”

Watch Syria Behind the Lines on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

The Washington Post reports: As this remote corner of northeastern Syria fast slides out of government control, many Syrians are bracing for what they fear will be another war, between the relatively moderate fighters who first took up arms against the government and the Islamist extremists who emerged more recently with the muscle and firepower to drive the rebel advance.

The capture last month of the city of Raqqah, Syria’s first provincial capital to fall under opposition control, consolidated the gains of an assortment of mostly Islamist-inclined groups across three northeastern provinces. Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad cling to just a tiny number of scattered bases and could be ejected anytime.

Yet even as the regime continues to hold out, schisms are emerging among rebel groups over ideology, the shape of a future Syrian state and control of the significant resources concentrated in this long-neglected but crucial corner of the country.

“Fighting is unavoidable,” said Abu Mansour, a commander with the rebel Free Syrian Army’s Farouq Brigades, whose men clashed last month with those of the extremist Jabhat al-Nusra movement in the border town of Tal Abiyad, one of several instances in which the tensions have erupted into violence. “If it doesn’t happen today, it will happen tomorrow.” [Continue reading…]

Watch Syria Behind the Lines on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

AFP reports: The head of Syria’s jihadist Al-Nusra Front on Wednesday pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in an audio message, but distanced his group from claims it had merged with Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

“The sons of Al-Nusra Front pledge allegiance to Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri,” Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani said in the recording.

But, he added, “we were not consulted” on an announcement by Al-Qaeda in Iraq chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Tuesday of a merger with Al-Nusra Front.

“We inform you that neither the Al-Nusra command nor its consultative council, nor its general manager were aware of this announcement. It reached them via the media and if the speech is authentic, we were not consulted,” Jawlani said.

He added that the group would not be changing its flag or its “behaviour.”