Category Archives: Syria

Where are the Syrians in Assad’s Syrian Arab Army?

Richard Spencer writes: The video shows the attack on Palmyra, the historic Syrian city reclaimed from Isil for the Assad regime, and as a column of troops heads across the desert behind him a soldier is giving a commentary.

“Despite many casualties, they are moving forward in the advance,” he says.

The oddity is that he is not speaking Arabic, but Persian. The man himself is Afghan, a member of a 10-20,000-strong Afghan army recruited in Iran to fight the war in Syria.

The reconquest of Palmyra was presented to the world as a victory for President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Arab Army.

As Islamic State jihadists fled, regime troops forced their way into the town, known for its celebrated Roman ruins. Everyone from Russian apparatchiks to British conservative politicians congratulated Mr Assad for reclaiming the town for civilisation.

The role of the Russian air force in preparing the way for the ground advance was noted: this was the anti-Isil alliance promised at the start of Russian military intervention in Syria but which in practice seemed slow to make gains.

In fact, it is now clear it was an eccentric multinational force that took Palmyra. Analysis of photographs, social media posts and Iranian, Russian and even Syrian media has shown that the path was led by the Russians, with much of the “grunt” work done by Afghan Shia and Iraqi militiamen under generals from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. [Continue reading…]

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Assad’s fateful choice

David W. Lesch writes: This spring marks the fifth year anniversary of the events that launched a civil war in Syria. Typically, there were some huge miscalculations early on that set the conflict in motion, such as the Syrian opposition’s expectation that the West would militarily intervene to facilitate the overthrow of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. And then there was the West’s mistaken assumption that Assad would be the next domino to fall following the exits of dictators elsewhere in the Arab spring. Expecting this led to calls for Assad to step down, thus backing the West into a corner regarding a negotiated settlement once it became clear the Syrian president wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. From the regime’s perspective, it made war the only choice.

But it is important to remember that the first — and biggest — mistake occurred at the onset, when Assad made the decision to crackdown harshly on the popular protests rather than offer real concessions. Indicative of this was Assad’s speech to the nation on March 30, 2011, his first to address the rising tensions. This was a seminal moment in modern Syrian history. The whole country, supporters and opponents, waited with bated breath to hear what he had to say. Syrians believed this would be the moment when Assad would finally live up to expectations.

From interviews I have conducted with current and former Syrian officials close to Assad and involved in the speech preparation, there were pronounced differences and confusion within the regime inner circle over how to react to the crisis. [Continue reading…]

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Russian gunships replace jets in Syria

Al Jazeera reports: Russian President Vladimir Putin surprised the world by abruptly declaring on March 15 that Russia was withdrawing its forces from Syria in the wake of a partial ceasefire deal between regime forces and certain moderate opposition groups.

For the next few days the global media was treated to impressive footage of Su-25 attack jets, Su-24 bombers and powerful Su-34 fighter bombers steaming out of their Syrian base of operations at Latakia and returning to Russia to a rapturous reception from families of the crews and the public.

Lumbering Antonov transport aircraft flew repeated sorties back and forth between Russia and Latakia at the same time, extracting material and personnel associated with the fighter bomber squadrons.

However, as has become abundantly clear, far from being a true withdrawal or drawdown, more equipment and personnel were brought back to Syria from Russia on the return leg of these transport flights than were taken out.

What has changed is the force mix and capabilities Russia is now deploying to support President Bashar al-Assad’s war effort. The combat-proven Mi-35 Hind helicopter gunship detachment has seen its numbers increased, while the more modern Mi-28 Havoc and state-of-the-art Ka-52 Alligator have joined the fight for the first time. [Continue reading…]

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Syria releases American freelance photographer Kevin Patrick Dawes

The Washington Post reports: The Syrian government has freed an American freelance photographer who was abducted after traveling to the country in 2012, according to two U.S. officials.

Kevin Patrick Dawes, 33, from San Diego, was released following many months of negotiations, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details of Dawes’s release have not yet been made public.

Dawes had been allowed in recent months to call his family and receive care packages, a signal to officials that the Syrian government was moving toward releasing him, officials said. The U.S. State Department had taken the lead on winning Dawes’s release. [Continue reading…]

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U.S., Russia said to team up to draft new Syria constitution

Bloomberg reports: Russia and the U.S are working on drafting a new constitution for Syria, according to three Western and Russian diplomats, in the clearest sign yet of the two powers’ determination to broker a solution to a five-year civil war that has sent a wave of refugees toward Europe.

The joint efforts are at an early stage, and Russia’s current proposals are closer to the Syrian government’s position, said one Western diplomat. The two countries are continuing to exchange ideas, a Russian diplomat said. All three envoys spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are confidential.

The U.S agreed with Russia on a target of August to create a framework for a political transition and a draft constitution for Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry said after talks in the Kremlin on March 24. The United Nations is leading peace talks in Geneva where the government and opposition are negotiating a settlement. [Continue reading…]

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Turkish-backed rebels in Syria make major gains against ISIS

The Washington Post reports: Turkish-backed rebels in northern Syria have been driving Islamic State militants out of vast areas along the frontier with neighboring Turkey, seizing a key border town from the extremist group in their latest gains.

The capture overnight Thursday of Rai, about 40 miles northeast of Aleppo, by groups affiliated with the umbrella Free Syrian Army deprives the Islamic State of one of its last border crossings from Turkey into Syria. Rai had been a key conduit for the group to funnel fighters and weapons.

The takeover — confirmed by the rebel groups and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring organization — represents a major setback for the Islamic State, which depends heavily on smuggling pathways through Turkey. [Continue reading…]

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Distract, deceive, destroy: Putin at war in Syria

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Atlantic Council: A new Atlantic Council report uses open-source data to debunk Russian claims that its military mostly struck Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) targets, and links Russia to attacks on civilian facilities and the use of cluster bombs in Syria. So why haven’t Western governments that have more sophisticated intelligence capabilities employed similar technologies and techniques to counter Russian propaganda?

“Just as we saw an abuse of intelligence under the [George W.] Bush administration to make a case for specific action [in Iraq], I think you are seeing not as large an abuse but not proper use of intelligence right now because if they were to put this stuff out this would push their policy in a direction in which I don’t think they want to go,” said John E. Herbst, Director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center.

Eliot Higgins, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Council’s Future Europe Initiative, said he didn’t think that the US government is using open-source data as much as one would assume. “In any bureaucratic establishment, it is going to take a long time for the wheels to turn and for this to be actually something that they do on a regular basis,” he said.

Herbst and Higgins are co-authors of the Atlantic Council report “Distract, Deceive, Destroy: Putin at War in Syria,” which was launched in Washington on April 5. [Continue reading…]

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Why Vladimir Putin will hardly flinch at Panama paper cut

By Anastasia Nesvetailova, City University London

The world remains gripped by the revelations made in the papers leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. But Moscow has greeted the coverage with what might be characterised as calm indifference.

Aware that president Vladimir Putin would be linked to offshore schemes, the people around him began their PR manoeuvres ahead of time. The week before the papers were released, the Kremlin was forewarning the public about an imminent “information attack aimed at destabilising Russia in light of its success in Syria”.

The reaction of the Russian individuals mentioned in the Panama Papers – at least those who have gone on record so far – has also been calm. Some have denied knowledge of ownership of any offshore accounts. Considering the way offshore structures operate and set up, is not an implausible proposition.

Others queried the authenticity of the documents (which is easy, as not all of the original documents have been presented). Some have admitted an earlier relationship with an offshore business but have said the company in question had been sold or shut down. Again, that’s not an odd claim considering that many offshore shells survive as empty, or fossil corporations after their corporate parents have no further use for them and don’t want to go to the expense of shutting them down.

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Mossack Fonseca serviced Rami Makhlouf, Assad’s cousin and ‘poster boy for corruption’

The Guardian reports: The firm at the centre of the Panama Papers leak serviced a string of companies for a top financier in Bashar al-Assad’s government in the face of international concern about corruption within the Syrian regime.

Documents show Mossack Fonseca’s links to Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of the Syrian president, who was described in US diplomatic cables as the country’s “poster boy for corruption”.

Washington imposed sanctions on Makhlouf in February 2008, saying he was a regime insider who “improperly benefits from and aids the public corruption of Syrian regime officials”. It blacklisted his brother Hafez Makhlouf in 2007.

The documents show, however, that the Panamanian firm continued to work with the Makhloufs, and in January 2011 it rejected the advice of its own compliance team to cut ties with the family as the crisis in Syria began to unfold.

Documents show a Mossack Fonseca compliance officer wrote: “I believe if an individual is found on a sanction list then this is a serious red flag and we should make every effort to disassociate ourselves from them.” [Continue reading…]

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Islamist rebel groups press offensive in northern Syria

The Wall Street Journal reports: A tenuous cease-fire in Syria unraveled further over the past few days, with rebel groups that signed on joining the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in a new offensive against regime forces near the northern city of Aleppo.

Amid the offensive in its fourth day on Monday, Nusra supporters were mourning a top figure in the group and nearly two dozen of his associates killed in airstrikes in northwestern Idlib province on Sunday.

Nusra supporters blamed the airstrike on the U.S., which has previously targeted the group’s fighters in Idlib, its stronghold.

A spokesman for the American-led coalition that is mainly battling Islamic State wouldn’t immediately confirm nor deny the allegation. Russia and the Syrian regime also conduct airstrikes on opponents in the area.

The truce has been imperiled by an escalation of regime airstrikes on rebel-held suburbs of the capital Damascus over the past week. Despite a rapidly rising toll of alleged violations, both sides appear reluctant to call off the agreement which has reduced violence and deaths after all.

“The cessation of hostilities agreement is about to take its last breath and effectively be declared finished,” Riad Hijab, an opposition leader, warned in a letter to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday. Mr. Hijab heads the main opposition delegation to the Geneva peace talks.

Continuing regime restrictions on humanitarian assistance to several besieged rebel-held areas around Damascus are further straining the shaky truce. Residents of one such town, Madaya, said a sick teenager died Monday because of lack of medical care.

Regime airstrikes on a rebel-held community near Damascus on Thursday killed 33 people, almost half of them children, according to a tally by local emergency responders. [Continue reading…]

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New threats rose as U.S. apathy became policy

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Garry Kasparov writes: The 21st century has been marked by two complementary trends in global security: the rise of new and unexpected threats and the return of old ones. Terrorist organizations have adapted modern technology to deadly purpose and paired it with global ambition. Nineteen well-trained individuals killed more Americans on 9/11 than the entire Japanese fleet killed in Pearl Harbor. Our ubiquitous smartphones and social networks turned out to be agnostic tools, serving both good and evil. They are boons for economic empowerment and cultural exchange, but also allow terror movements to recruit internationally, creating a homegrown terror threat that no border wall or refugee ban will prevent.

The old menaces of the 20th century have reappeared in updated forms. Communism as a political ideology is as bankrupt as ever, but the aggressive despotism that enforced it for decades before the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union has returned to the world stage, due largely to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The United States, a global hegemon alternately over-eager or reluctant, has reacted in dramatically inconsistent ways to the new threats while mostly ignoring the resurgence of the old ones.

The checks and balances that frustrate every president domestically do little to prevent the commander-in-chief from wielding the power of life and death all over the world. The overwhelming military might of the United States is inherently agnostic as well. It can be used to attack or to defend, to protect innocent lives or to take them, to remove dictatorships or to support them.

The use of this fearsome power is guided by the American constitution and the founding American values of democracy and freedom. But it is up to the occupant of the White House to follow the Constitution and to live up to those values. The executive has found countless ways to evade checks on his authority, from signing “agreements” instead of treaties, to escalating foreign “police actions” instead of declaring war. American values have been applied selectively as well, as decades of relative unity in containing the Communist threat has given way to a neo-isolationist trend in both major American political parties. Instead of debating how the U.S. should act on the world stage, today’s presidential candidates are arguing about whether or not the U.S. should act at all. The specter of the 2003 Iraq War looms over every potential American action.

Such reflection is commendable, but in the seven years of the Obama administration we have seen that inaction can also have the gravest consequences. Inaction can fracture alliances. Inaction can empower dictators and provoke terrorists and enflame regional conflicts. Inaction can slaughter innocent people and create millions of refugees. We have the horrific proof in Syria, where Barack Obama’s infamous “red line” has been painted over in blood. [Continue reading…]

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‘If we don’t get our country back ourselves, no one will do it for us’

Growing Home ينبتون وطنا : Samer, a displaced Syrian barber, has taken refuge along with his young family in the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan. Despite filling his time with meaningful work, caring for his family and improving his living conditions, the daily distractions cannot diminish his desire to return home.

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Europe begins sending people back across the sea, defying human rights outcry

The Washington Post reports: The European Union began offloading its refugee crisis onto its Turkish neighbors Monday, sending back more than 200 migrants in the first stage of a plan to deport thousands that has drawn condemnation from human rights groups.

The returns — carried out at dawn and under heavy security — were intended to send a powerful message to others considering the journey from Turkey to Greece via a smuggler’s rubber raft: Don’t even bother.

Authorities braced for demonstrations or other forms of resistance from those being sent back only days after crossing the Aegean and arriving on European soil in search of a new life — part of a massive migrant wave that has tested Europe’s resources and highlighted the desperation to the east in war zones such as Syria.

But the expulsions were carried out smoothly and quietly; two ferries packed with migrants and E.U. escorts slipped away from the island of Lesbos and charted an eastbound course toward the rising sun along the blue mountains of the Turkish coast.

A third ferry left the island of Chios, bringing the total sent back to 202 by late Monday — nearly all from Pakistan or Afghanistan. Both islands are popular landing spots for refugee rafts.

Under a deal struck with Turkey last month, all refugees and migrants who arrive on Greek shores aboard smugglers’ rafts from March 20 onward will be sent back.

In return, the European Union has said it will accept one Syrian refugee from Turkey for every Syrian who is returned. Germany said Monday that it had accepted its first several dozen Syrians flown from Turkey under the new program. [Continue reading…]

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Travelling inside ISIS-controlled Syria and Iraq

Jürgen Todenhöfer writes: Abu Qatadah, a German-born Muslim convert, who has brokered our visit to the Islamic State, is almost as wide as he is tall, with a thick, reddish-brown beard. My photographer son Frederic and I load our bags into the bed of the white pickup Qatadah and his driver arrived in. The driver’s head and face are so thoroughly wrapped with a large grey shawl that only his eyes and the contours of his nose are visible. He murmurs a greeting in English in a strikingly rhythmic accent. For security reasons, we can’t use the main roads. The drive to Raqqa takes more than three hours.

Qatadah claims business is booming in Isis. Almost all the shops are open and lots of goods are being sold, above all at the markets. We notice the new construction. “In places that are not being bombed, life goes on as normal,” Qatadah tells us. Then he gives us a short lecture on Isis’s version of sharia.

Christians have to pay jizya, a protection tax. It comes to about $300 (£210) a year for poor people and $600 (£420) for the rich. But then that is the only tax. Christians are among the more prosperous inhabitants of the country. All they have to do is sell a couple of sheep to raise the money to cover the tax. [Continue reading…]

The Daily Beast reports: Two senior intelligence analysts at U.S. Central Command say the military has forced them out of their jobs because of their skeptical reporting on U.S.-backed rebel groups in Syria, three sources with knowledge of their claim told The Daily Beast. It’s the first known instance of possible reprisals against CENTCOM personnel after analysts accused their bosses of manipulating intelligence reports about the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS in order to paint a rosier picture of progress in the war.

One of the analysts alleging reprisals is the top analyst in charge of Syria issues at CENTCOM. He and a colleague doubted rebels’ capabilities and their commitment to U.S. objectives in the region. The analysts have been effectively sidelined from their positions and will no longer be working at CENTCOM, according to two individuals familiar with the dispute, and who spoke on condition of anonymity. [Continue reading…]

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Investigators believe at least 22 suspects are still at large following Brussels and Paris attacks

The Wall Street Journal reports: At least 22 radical Islamists from Europe linked to the terror network behind the Brussels and Paris attacks are suspected to be still at large, putting security services on high alert as they rush to prevent Islamic State from striking again in the region.

Many of the fugitives have been involved in previous Islamic State plots, officials say, and almost all of them have spent months or years fighting in Syria.

Interviews and confidential court documents seen by The Wall Street Journal portray the fugitives as part of an extensive web of young men who developed a deep hatred of the West after embracing radical Islam at underground mosques and clandestine meetings in Molenbeek, a heavily Muslim district in the heart of Brussels. They have since become central to Islamic State’s plans to strike the West, according to investigators, who suspect the Brussels network is behind the movement of battle-hardened operatives from Syria to Europe.

“We see many plots and several cells that we now know are part of the same network,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, president of the Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, a Paris think tank. “They’re already here. The problem is how to find them.”

The 22 men investigators are scrutinizing include those prosecuted in absentia during a major terror trial in Belgium last year, as well as several with links to a foiled plot to kill Belgian police last year. But people familiar with investigations say they believe the reach of the Brussels network extends beyond the group to others from the city who went to Syria and their sympathizers who stayed behind. [Continue reading…]

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The Panama Papers

The Panama Papers is an unprecedented investigation that reveals the offshore links of some of the globe’s most prominent figures.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, together with the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other media partners, spent a year sifting through 11.5 million leaked files to expose the offshore holdings of world political leaders, links to global scandals, and details of the hidden financial dealings of fraudsters, drug traffickers, billionaires, celebrities, sports stars and more. [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports: The Panama Papers reveal:

  • Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens.
  • A $2bn trail leads all the way to Vladimir Putin. The Russian president’s best friend – a cellist called Sergei Roldugin – is at the centre of a scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore. Some of it ends up in a ski resort where in 2013 Putin’s daughter Katerina got married.
  • Among national leaders with offshore wealth are Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt’s former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson.
  • Six members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and dozens of donors to UK political parties have had offshore assets.
  • The families of at least eight current and former members of China’s supreme ruling body, the politburo, have been found to have hidden wealth offshore.
  • Twenty-three individuals who have had sanctions imposed on them for supporting the regimes in North Korea, Zimbabwe, Russia, Iran and Syria have been clients of Mossack Fonseca. Their companies were harboured by the Seychelles, the British Virgin Islands, Panama and other jurisdictions.
  • A key member of Fifa’s powerful ethics committee, which is supposed to be spearheading reform at world football’s scandal-hit governing body, acted as a lawyer for individuals and companies recently charged with bribery and corruption.
  • One leaked memorandum from a partner of Mossack Fonseca said: “Ninety-five per cent of our work coincidentally consists in selling vehicles to avoid taxes.”

[Continue reading…]

Learn more at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Suddeutsche Zeitung, the BBC, and the Guardian.

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Report: The foreign fighters phenomenon in the EU – profiles, threats & policies

International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague reports: Despite the widespread media attention for foreign fighters in Europe, very little is known about the phenomenon itself, something also evidenced by the lack of a single foreign fighter definition across the EU.

In a study commissioned by the Netherlands National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV), ICCT addresses this gap by analysing not only the numbers and characteristics of foreign fighters across the EU, but also how the Union and Member States assess the threat of foreign fighters as well as their policy responses regarding security, preventive and legislative measures. The Report also outlines a series of policy options aimed both at the EU and its Member States.

Findings include:

  • Of a total estimated 3,922 – 4,294 foreign fighters from EU Member States, around 30% have returned to their home countries.
  • A majority of around 2,838 foreign fighters come from just four countries: Belgium, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, with Belgium having the highest per-capita FF contingent.
  • There is no clear-cut profile of a European foreign fighter. Data indicates that a majority originate from metropolitan areas, with many coming from the same neighbourhoods, that an average of 17% are female, and that the percentage of converts among foreign fighters ranges from 6% to 23%.
  • The radicalisation process of foreign fighters is reported to be short and often involves circles of friends radicalizing as a group and deciding to leave jointly for Syria and Iraq.

[Continue reading…]

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Syria cease-fire unravelling as fighting erupts near Aleppo

The Associated Press reports: Syria’s partial cease-fire appeared to be unraveling Saturday as fierce fighting between government forces and opposition fighters, including members of the al-Qaida affiliated Nusra Front, erupted outside the country’s second largest city of Aleppo and other parts in the country’s north.

At least 25 pro-government and 16 opposition fighters died in the clashes south of Aleppo, where the Nusra Front and rebel militias captured a village overlooking a major highway, a Britain-based monitoring group told The Associated Press.

The fighting was the most serious in the area since the cease-fire, engineered by the U.S. and Russia, took effect Feb. 27. The violence in the north, along with heavy government airstrikes that killed more than 30 civilians near Damascus this week, threatened to completely dissolve the truce, which had sharply reduced overall violence across the war-ravaged country.

The rebel advances also risk drawing Russia back into the conflict after it shored up the government’s position through a fierce bombing campaign that wound down nearly three weeks ago. The opposition’s advances threaten to reverse some of the gains made by the government during the Russian campaign. [Continue reading…]

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