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And next, Syria?

In The National The tale of two victories against Syria's worst killers
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More disturbing was the name the rebels chose for the battle to break the siege in Aleppo. The operation was dubbed the "Ibrahim Al Youssef battle", after the militant who gunned down dozens of his colleagues at the Artillery Academy in June 1979, as part of a Muslim Brotherhood insurrection against the rule of Hafez Al Assad. Captain Al Youssef reportedly separated Alawites from Sunnis and killed them. During the offensive in Aleppo, a spokesman for the JFS-led forces said they would do the same to Alawites today.

None of the participant groups, which ranged from moderates to jihadists, objected to the name choice. As it turned out, a non-jihadist group was the source of the name. One of Al Youssef’s sons, Yasser, is a commander with the Zinki, a faction that took part in the operation and was until recently backed by the United States.

Yasser posted a message he said he received from Ahrar Al Sham’s political officer, Mr Al Nahhas, who is often portrayed as a moderate. In the message and separate posts, Mr Al Nahhas glorifies the militant and depicts the operation in Aleppo as revenge for Al Youssef. Referring to Al Youssef, the message posted by Yasser reads: "Today is your day, our day, the day of the father, those who fought as strangers and who were wronged by everyone. Today, we give them back the respect and regard they deserve."

Similarly, a member of a currently US-backed group near Damascus said this about Al Youssef: "My dear sir, my commander, the mission has been completely successfully. What you started in the past is being completed today by your sons."

This was unmistakably a new low for the Syrian rebels. Even Muslim Brotherhood officials have distanced themselves from Youssef, who was a pioneer of the Fighting Vanguard, a militant Brotherhood offshoot.

The sentiments shown towards his legacy also say a lot about the extremism of the government side, especially given the growing presence of foreign Shia militias in Aleppo, a predominantly Sunni city. But it is also clear that extremist rebel forces are seeking to drag more people into their unabashedly sectarian rhetoric, which the opposition should resist if it wants to avoid helping Bashar Al Assad in the same way the Fighting Vanguard helped his father.
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Hassan Hassan isn't often so critical of the rebels and he compares them unfavourably with the PKK here.

There are Shia towns nearby but Aleppo certainly isn't a Shia city, neither has it been a Salafist one. Both could be thought of as alien intrusions and it’s biased to blame the former entirely for the latter. The sectarian and occasionally genocidal rhetoric of parts of the revolt is not new just growing more blatant. It is at least partly a product of this ultra-conservative regional trend. Neighbouring Idlib has become steadily more Salafist. A product of radical preachers funded by Gulf donors for decades. It’s proving a fine nesting spot for AQ.

The Syrian revolt is mainly a provincial and rural affair. The commercial capital Aleppo was slow to rise. There were some protests in the university area but it was Salafi of various strains coming in from the urban slums and countryside that really kicked things off.

It's often overlooked in our press but most of the city’s population (75%) has remained in regime hands. Plainly that part contains a lot of loyalists and sophisticated folk who would rather keep their heads down. They are mostly conventionally lax Sunni Arabs who were not doing too badly in 2012. The sort of stern Wahhabi Sharia much of the revolt in Idlib now favours often isn’t welcome.

Really there are two sieges in Aleppo in place. One side’s offensive has air power the other human ordinance. You could consider Idlib and Aleppo as one strategic area. This counter siege came in from the Northern countryside supplied via Turkey.
 
CrabbedOne said:
Really there are two sieges in Aleppo in place. One side’s offensive has air power the other human ordinance. You could consider Idlib and Aleppo as one strategic area. This counter siege came in from the Northern countryside supplied via Turkey.
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tbh if the rebels ever look like really winning i wouldn't be surprised if the regime found itself suddenly reinforced
 
On Rudaw Turkish FM says US promised that Syrian Kurds would withdraw to the east of Euphrates
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The successful liberation of Manbij on Friday has forced ISIS from a key transit hub which connected its main stronghold in Syria, Raqqa, from the border. ISIS militants remain on the border. The SDF has said it intends to go further on from Manbij to liberate al-Bab, 50 kilometers west of Manbij.
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Onwards to Afrin! I think the PKK's strategic goals are proving more salient here than those of the US let alone Ankara.
 
On Informed Comment Does this Change Everything? Russia’s first strikes on Syria from Iran Airbases

The Iranian revolution always emphasised being non-aligned. Elsewhere I notice they are saying this is temporary. Russians claiming it just a cost saving measure rather than a strategic move that might spook the Saudis and Israelis. There have been previous reports of rather more going on between Iran and Russia than meets the eye but also of tensions.
 
On War On The Rocks WANT TO BUILD A BETTER PROXY IN SYRIA? LESSONS FROM TIBET

Interesting Cold War comparison, the more obvious one is Afghanistan and the Muhj war. That got at least twice as many people killed as Syria, produced the social infrastructure that AQ was founded on and a series of wars in the country that continue to this day.

Proxy warfare is a dangerous game that often trades indirection and low cost involvement for lack of control of outcomes. The CIA's own assessment of its efforts in proxy wars is pretty discouraging. As I recall only Guatemala was regarded as worth the trouble. Ignoring both Libya and Syria while paying more attention to affairs in a very fragile Iraq might have been the smart move here. If it hadn't taken the great prize of Mosul and looted the fleeing, undertrained ISF of heavy kit it's unlikely it would have made much headway in Syria.
 
A report - not read in full yet - Nearly 18 000 killed in Assad prisons since uprising began:

An estimated 17,723 people were killed in custody across Syria between 2011 and 2015, with the real number likely to be even higher.
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The death toll of 17,723 has been compiled by the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, which uses scientific approaches to analyse human rights violations. Amnesty and HRDAG emphasize that the figure is a conservative estimate, given that tens of thousands of people have been forcibly disappeared in detention facilities.
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On TCF In Syrian Proxy War, America Can Keep Its Hands Clean or It Can Get Things Done

Some special pleading on behalf of Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zinki, a rebel group notorious for a recent beheading. Makes the case that they are a nasty actor in a widely nasty war but effective and relatively moderate. This lots keenness on application of law (that'll be Sharia), celebrating victory with the monotheism gesture and nice big Salafi chin beards has them failing my smell test for moderation.

Heller has a point, a lot of rebel groups have flaws. When AQ or IS picks one off they often cite criminality. It's a chaotic environment, most of the effective groups are understandably very keen on order (i.e. authoritarian), prone to enforce it with torture and having unreliable sources of funding or just an eye on the main chance somewhat criminally entrepreneurial like a lot of bandits world over. Of course the Assad clan are the biggest most brutal bandits of all in Syria.

Would we actually want such folk in charge of the Syrian security state? Certainly not, the argument now is such actors are effective in harrying the brutal Assad to talk terms. Gaining leverage against a practically immovable object may be a little quixotic.

I'd not call Langley overly picky in Syria. ISW reports most US backed Aleppo rebels have relationships with AQ that they can't avoid. Here it says the CIA cut off support after a commander joined who had kidnapped Italian aid workers in a joint venture with AQ. I'm not really buying the tale that the head cutter was a new guy and things just got a little out of hand. I think once a group starts publicising their atrocities on the internet it is going to make it awkward for even a not very accountable Langley to back a group. On the other hand such acts may motivate other sponsors.

A recent poll showed a lot of support for bombing IS, not much for a peace agreement that left Bashar in power and barely a quarter of US voters favoured arming Syrian rebels. With this sort of PR it's not surprising.
 
United Nations suspends humanitarian task force amid fighting in Syria

The United Nations has suspended its humanitarian task force inSyria amid frustration over intensified fighting in the country’s civil war.

The decision was announced on Thursday as a haunting photo of a young boy rescued from beneath rubble of his home after a devastating air strike in Aleppo provoked outrage around the world....
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omran-aleppo.jpg
 
hash tag said:
The picture is a horror and thats no mistake but that boy is still alive, unlike hundreds possibly thousands of others.
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There's no possibly about it - we're into tens of thousands of deaths from the air by the regime and supporting scumbags. Around the same who have been killed in the regimes prisons. With many many more still being held hostage in the same prisons - more than the first two groups combined. They've been effectively dissapeared - 60 000+ oppositionists just...gone.
 
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From The Atlantic Council The Islamist Factions’ Judicial System in Idlib
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Security forces have arrested many leaders of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) or civil society activists, under charges of espionage and apostasy. Locals say that the arrested are sentenced for a certain period, or fined with a huge amount of money which can reach $500,000. Such was the case with Abdulla al-Kholi, the commander of Harakat Hazm, a FSA group that the Nusra Front crushed in early 2015. Prisoners who are found innocent are obliged to pay money for lodging and food they received during their detention. There are many documented cases of prisoners dying under torture. In other cases, prisoners are released after paying bribes to jailers, as happened with four leaders from Jabhat Thuwwar Suriya.

The current judicial situation in Idlib is itself worrisome, but the underlying problems are more dangerous. The law has turned into a weapon to settle scores, imposing the rule of military factions, and undermine civil institutions. The situation under Bashar al-Assad’s reign was not much better, the only difference is that extremist groups rely, at least theoretically, on Islam and Shari'a law to justify their arbitrary rule. These groups will continue targeting activists who seek a stable and effective local governance system, along with civilians who defy these groups’ rule, exactly like what the Assad regime did and still does.
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In Idlib we now have a fairly well bedded in example of rule by Salafist rebel factions. It's not on the scale of the regime's big torture gulag but it has a lot of rather similar features.

It looks even more arbitrary than the rule of the Taliban which is seen as something of a model to emulate. The Idlib countryside is pretty Salafist and there's areas of support for this sort of system.

You could add the flight of the minorities, some attempts at forced conversion and growing talk of genocide. Raqqa is one of the few areas of regime support the rebels have ever held. They then lost it to IS. If you want to explain what motivates the rather large section of the Sunni Arab urban population that clings to the regime it's because they see this sloping towards them.
 

So far the Turks backing the rebels against IS hasn't been that successful.East of Aleppo often looks more motivated by the desire to contain the PKK.
 

Believed to be thermite in what are effectively cluster munitions. There was lots of Russian use of incendiary weapons in Chechnya.
 
In The National How Manbij can deliver a post-ISIL success story
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The dilemma for the YPG is that Manbij is a typical Arab city, and the group might not be allowed to rule it in the same way it has in other towns it has liberated.

During the offensive, Kurdish field commanders complained that the campaign dragged on for too long and bled their militia. The US attempt to spare residents the level of destruction by reducing the number of air strikes contributed to the slow pace of the liberation.

Since they led the battle and lost many fighters, the Kurds might expect to rule the city. Turkey and the Syrian opposition have already warned against attempts to dominate. Despite such concerns, the liberation of Manbij is a rare success in the fight against ISIL. The coalition tried to avoid high civilian casualties from the air and the ground forces showed restraint in the way they conducted themselves. But Manbij can be more than that. It can help compensate for the failure to establish a political formula for ISIL-controlled communities.
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The big question with the PKK is as their ambitions move onto largely Arab turf can they integrate the population into their arrangements? We have lots of happy scenes of liberation from IS in Manbij but Mosul folk were also delighted when IS took the city. It was once the lumpen reality of their new rulers became apparent that the urban elite despaired. This is often the way with liberators.

As I recall there's an Arab ruling council that was set up when Manbij rose against the regime that fled IS. I don't recall its ideological make up but the rebellion is often conservative to reactionary and with even fairly secular FSA groups rather keen on implementing Sharia courts. It's not so much a Kurd V Arab thing though that is an aspect. There is both bad blood and alliances between the PKK and some Arab tribes dating back to previous revolts. The PKK people's soviets style of rule isn't that ethnocentric, Turks and Arabs participate often in prominent roles but it often excludes political opposition. It's far from a universally popular form of government with Syrian Kurds. Mixing in patches of Salafist style rule into Rojova would seem likely to be a point of political friction. The PKK's confederal political goals in Syria have some pragmatic merits but remain extremely unpopular with Syrian Arabs.

The Pentagon was claiming most of the fighting in Manbij was done by Arab parts of the SDF. This would be new, the fairly small contingent of Arab forces have tended to be a rear echelon. It also would not be a given that all these Arab rebels are compatible with the local variety. The SDF's Arabs are often regarded as regime aligned traitors and some joined to specifically settle grudges with other rebel groups.

Urban fighting against a dug in enemy coordinated with US air support isn't an easily learnt business. There were rather contradictory reports of the PKK redeploying a lot of experienced troops to take the place and press ganging Kurds in the North to make up for losses. They bleed for Manbij losing hundreds of fighters probably key shock troops from a force that already lacks the man power to match their territorial ambitions. There were murmurs that they expected to rule it their way which would be understandable.
 
In TDS Kurdish source refutes truce deal with regime

PKK-NDF trouble in Hassakeh has usually been a local squabble in which the respective managements had to intervene and order everybody to calm down. Demanding the local NDF be disbanded may just have been going a step to far. I doubt regime sources would be claiming there had been talks if that was not the case. Wether everybody on both sides actually agreed anything is another matter.

The hudna between the PKK and the regime has been valuable to both sides. It breaking down would complicate things for the US just as PKK collisions with US backed rebels have. The Russians don't want a collision with the US either.
 
Syria: YPG launches assault to take all of Hasaka

Soldiers from the Kurdish YPG have launched a major assault to seize the last government-controlled areas of the northeastern Syrian city of Hasaka, after a Russian mediation team failed to mend the rift between the two sides.

The YPG began the offensive after midnight to take the southeastern district of Nashwa, close to where a security compound is located near the governor's office close to the heart of the city, according to YPG sources and residents.

The YPG, or the People's Protection Units, has ties to Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

It had earlier captured Ghwairan, the only major Arab neighbourhood in Hasaka still in government hands.

Monday's offensive comes just hours after Syrian state media said a truce had been reached between Kurdish and government forces to evacuate the wounded from Hasaka.

Kurdish sources said on Sunday that no deal had been finalised.
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On CMEC Bombers over Hasakah: Assad Clashes with the Kurds
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Like much of the Syrian east, Hasakah is tribal country. Its Arab population hails from Bedouin communities that are sometimes recently urbanized or even semi-nomadic, and remain strongly structured by tribal culture and allegiances. According to Haian Dukhan, a PhD candidate working on state-tribe relations at the Centre for Syrian Studies of the University of St. Andrews, who was interviewed online for Syria in Crisis, many of the Arab Bedouin tribes in eastern Syria region support the Syrian government for historical and political reasons. Although some, like factions of the Shammar and the Jaiss, have joined forces with the Kurdish YPG in the Syrian Democratic Forces coalition, and others joined opposition groups or the so-called Islamic State, the Baath Party and the Syrian intelligence services have been able to stand up several local Arab militias. For example, Assad’s main militia umbrella, which is known as the National Defense Forces, includes many members of the Tayy tribe in Qamishli, on the Turkish border, and the Jabbour tribe in Hasakah City.

The Syrian government seems to have played the tribal game quite efficiently during the conflict, drawing on decades of experience and old connections, on the services and resources still available to Damascus, and on the fear among some Arabs of a Kurdish takeover. But the Baathist security apparatus is now substantially weakened in Hasakah, and the government is desperately short on money and resources to pay its allies.
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Reminds me of how things went for the regime in Raqqa; the only Divisional HQ the SAA has ever lost.

Raqqa was a fairly new Divisional HQ in an isolated pretty loyalist area which eventually fell to rebellion as the SAA lost its ability to serve as a guarantor for local tribal interests that had in turn served Damascus well. The rebels then lost it to what often had been a powerful ally IS. IS went on massacre any groups that resisted including pockets of SAA in bases in Raqqa provence. Some rebels would end up in the SDF allied to the Syrian PKK they had previously fought for protection from IS as they were pushed back to Kobane. Rescued by US airpower now the PKK competes for similar power broker positions with the Syrian state. Unfussy Bedu using Salafi-Jihadis they had little ideological sympathy with as muscle in what are essentially criminal enterprises is part of what poisoned the Syrian revolt.
 
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