CrabbedOne
Walking sideways snippily
On NORIA Competing actors, fragmented territories: Iraq and Syria (Nov 2016)
Useful map giving the regional context.
Useful map giving the regional context.
As much about a concentration of manpower as airpower....
Syrian government forces and their allies have spread opposition forces thin in recent days, rebels told Syria Direct, by opening more than a half dozen battlefronts across east Aleppo city.
“The regime certainly didn’t make their advances easily,” Mohammad Adeeb, a spokesman for rebel faction Nour e-Din a-Zinki, told Syria Direct on Sunday. “But, ultimately, they’re putting pressure on all of our fronts, and we’re kept busy with all of the clashes.”
“In my five years of fighting, I’ve never seen such intense bombing as what’s gone on these past five days in Aleppo,” Adeeb added.
The Assad regime’s weekend gains mark the deepest that regime forces have advanced into the opposition stronghold since rebels initially established control over the eastern half of the city in 2012.
A rather sudden collapse but it's been under pressure for a long time. Those IDP numbers are still pretty low....
The army renewed an operation to retake eastern Aleppo nearly two weeks ago, hoping to deal the opposition a potentially devastating blow.
"Yesterday was the worst day we've witnessed since the war started. More than 1,500 families have fled to the regime-controlled west of the city. The bombing is horrific," Ibrahim Abu Leith, Aleppo-based spokesman for the Civil Defence, told Al Jazeera.
The city, which was Syria's biggest before the start of a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, is divided between the government-held west and rebel-held east, where UN officials say at least 250,000 people remain under siege.
Rebels in Aleppo have lost at least 30 percent of the besieged east since Saturday, as frontlines continued to cave in after nearly five months of siege.
Syria's Al-Watan daily, which is close to the government, said the army was advancing quickly.
It said the next stage of the operation would be "to divide the remaining area into security districts that will be easily controlled and to capture them successively".
The advance would then "push the gunmen to turn themselves [in] ... or accept national reconciliation under the terms of the Syrian state".
East Aleppo-based journalist Zouhir al-Shimale told Al Jazeera that there was a "constant collapse" as rebel-held neighbourhoods continue to fall to government forces.
Civilians besieged for months in the east have faced serious food and fuel shortages.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of informants in the country to monitor the war, said that nearly 10,000 civilians had fled east Aleppo overnight on Saturday - at least 6,000 to the Kurdish-controlled northern district of Sheikh Maksoud, with the rest fleeing to government-held areas.
"It is the first exodus of this kind from east Aleppo since 2012," Abdel Rahman said, calling it the "biggest defeat" for the rebels in Aleppo since then.
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The United Nations estimates that there are nearly 8,000 rebel fighters in besieged east Aleppo, 900 of whom are members of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham - the al-Qaeda-affiliated group formerly known as al-Nusra Front.
"Nothing like this has happened in an area of the size and complexity of east Aleppo, and, with multiple major armed factions inside, it seems unlikely any deal will be coordinated easily or smoothly."
By the time the Daraya deal took place in August, the suburb's population - once nearly a quarter of a million - was down to 8,000 people. There were only 800 rebel fighters.
Both the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian backers understand that waging an assault on an urban area the size of east Aleppo will be a long and bloody battle, according to Yezid Sayigh, a senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center. "It took them years to take Daraya," says Sayigh. "East Aleppo is far bigger and far more difficult an area to take."
"They're going to focus on siege tactics to basically engineer a political deal in which the opposition agrees to surrender some of its heavy weapons, while certain categories of fighters are allowed safe passage to other rebel-controlled areas."
With two months to go before US President Barack Obama hands over the reins to President-elect Donald trump - and even then, there is a high likelihood that Trump's Syria policy will play even more into the hands of Assad and Putin than Obama's - Russia and the Assad "aren't pressed for time".
"Why would they take high risks or risk high casualties?" asks Sayigh, if starve-or-surrender policies have already proved successful in places such as Daraya and Moadamiya.
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Well who would rely on the unpredictable Trump?...
Maxim Suchkov writes that while there is cautious optimism about Trump’s position on Syria, Putin is also aware that the US Congress may seek to box in Trump, as Julian Pecquet has reported, so Russia will not be squandering the remaining weeks of the Obama administration.
“Moscow believes it now has the opportunity and time to make critical gains in Syria,” Suchkov writes. “Russian airstrikes in Idlib and Homs provinces as well as the Syrian army offensive in Aleppo seem to be building in this line of reasoning. At the same time, this shouldn’t contradict other Russian moves described previously — with an overall decrease in anti-American rhetoric, more attacks on the Islamic State and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, and prospects for the deterrent built by the Russians in Syria to be a potential bargaining chip with the new administration.
“At the same time,” Suchkov adds, “the military offensives are set to bring more rebel groups to direct talks with the Russian military. According to the Bulletin of the Russian Centre for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in the Syrian Arab Republic on Nov. 19, within the previous 24 hours 'truce agreements were signed with representatives of three inhabited areas of Hama province and two in Latakia province.' Thus, the total number of inhabited areas whose leaders had signed the so-called reconciliation agreements now amounts to 956, while the number of cease-fire application forms signed with leaders of armed groups has reached 69. Finally, another track Moscow is pursuing is consultations with Iran and Turkey on strategic aspects of Syrian statehood, such as the country’s integrity. Both Tehran and Ankara favor the idea of a united Syria — though each for their own interests and with specific visions for it. Nevertheless, it is important for Russia to find itself on the same page with the regional stakeholders on the critical issues before the situation in Syria is transformed into a postwar diplomatic mode.”
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Well Obama's approach is basically one of denial that there is a problem. Engineering some sort of MV between the PKK and Ankara in Syria might well be a test of Trump's much vaunted negotiation skills or just his well worn track record of screwing over collaborators....
Jennifer Cafarella, the Syrian analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, says the challenge for Washington will be establishing limits on both Ankara and the YPG’s ambitions – and more broadly, developing a plan for the future of northern Syria that extends beyond defeating the Islamic State
“Right now, Turkey is imposing the limits on what is possible in northern Syria. The US is trying to acquiesce to Turkish demands without losing the Kurds as an ally, and we’re getting outplayed by both,” she said. “Rather than simply trying to keep pace with the Turks and Kurds as they compete, we need to recognize the influence we do have over both sides and start using it to force them to consider an outcome that is acceptable for all rather than continuing to pursue maximalist goals. We need to lose our ISIS tunnel vision in order for that to be possible, though.”
Trump has spoken positively about both Erdogan and Kurdish forces, but how he plans to reach an accommodation between the rival forces in the region remains a mystery. Without such an agreement, the Syrian war could drag on – and the ensuing political vacuum could give the Islamic State an opportunity to rise again. Bombing the hell out of ISIS, in other words, is the easy part.
Well it's an IS aligned group that has worried both the Jordanians and Israelis for a while....
On Sunday morning, at approximately 8:30 a.m., soldiers from the Golani Brigade’s reconnaissance unit crossed the security fence with Syria to conduct an “ambush operation.” While remaining inside Israeli territory, the soldiers came under attack from Khalid ibn al-Walid Army, formerly known as the Yarmouk Martyr’s Brigade, an army spokesperson said.
The soldiers returned small arms fire, but soon came under attack from mortar shells as well. The incident concluded when the Israel Air Force targeted a truck “that had some sort of machine gun on top of it” and killed the four terrorists who were riding in it.
“It was a short exchange, but it was productive,” IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner concluded.
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Interesting that here reporting the views of an IAF officer TTOI essentially reuses bogus Russian rhetoric on them being in Syria to fight IS. Something that the rebellion focused Russians have done very little of while the war on IS is the main US preoccupation in both Syria and the larger Iraqi theatre. I suspect that's not ignorance but agreed talking points. He's careful to say the IAF isn't collaborating with the Russians but de-conflicting....
According to the senior air force official, since their arrival in Syria some 14 months ago, the Russians have turned the “momentum” of the fighting in favor of Assad and against the Islamic State.
Barring “dramatic changes,” that trajectory will continue, arriving at some sort of equilibrium — “but not a solution” — within the next few months, the senior officer said.
For Israel, which once enjoyed nearly unchallenged air superiority in the region, the arrival of the Russian military and its S-400 missile defense system — one of the most advanced in the world — made the situation in Syria “a challenge,” he said.
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I've pointed out this before....
In a recent interview he gave to The Wall Street Journal, Trump indicated he would accommodate Putin by cutting off aid to the armed Syrian opposition paving the way for Russia, its Syrian client, and Iran to finish off the Syrian opposition in Aleppo and the rest of northwest Syria. According to Trump, in exchange for this change in policy, the United States would receive greater cooperation from Russia and the Assad regime to destroy ISIL in eastern Syria and western Iraq.
Iranian cooperation would be a critical component of such an approach. Iranian supported Shia militias in Syria and Iraq represent a significant portion of the ground forces that are and would be doing the fighting. Iran will have to play a constructive role in restraining these militias from committing sectarian violence. And it will have to acquiesce to a government in Baghdad that is inclusive enough to avoid wholesale Sunni alienation that leads to an ISIL rebirth under another name. It is unclear if Iran is willing to take either of those steps.
It is highly questionable whether Trump’s proposed approach could lead to stability in Syria and Iraq. Instead it would likely cement the dangerous trends that are already occurring in Syria. The armed opposition is increasingly cooperating with extremist organizations in the face of intense attacks on Aleppo, and with the withdrawal of American support, any motivation to moderate would disappear. The combination of Assad, Russia, and Iran have not, until now, had the manpower to take and hold northwest Syria and there is no indication that will change. The end result would be Assad in power in most of the country with an Al-Qaeda affiliated safe haven in northwest Syria that is much more firmly entrenched than it is today.
This decision would also be morally reprehensible giving the Assad regime and its allies carte blanche to continue and expand on the atrocities of the past five years, which have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents. But for all its faults, this approach, at a minimum, represents a coherent strategy. But if the Trump administration chooses to combine this Syria strategy with efforts to unilaterally dismantle the Iran nuclear agreement – the situation goes completely haywire. Our European partners, as well as the Saudis and Israelis, have already signaled that they would prefer the United States did not walk away from the deal. The international consensus that was so critical to economically isolating Iran prior to the nuclear agreement would collapse.
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Another nuanced article from Heller. Rather sympathetic amongst a pretty chaotic picture of disparate rebel factions and divisive external donors.In Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province, residents have established local governance bodies that provide needed services and simultaneously pose a political challenge to the regime of Bashar al-Assad. No overarching authority has replaced the state after it was forced from Idlib. Islamist and jihadist armed groups hold power at the local level, and have developed relatively sophisticated service coordination bodies. Yet ultimate decision-making power has typically sat with donor organizations outside the country. Localism and wartime conditions have also frustrated attempts to unify and rationalize service and governance in Idlib. Syrian rebels wanted Idlib to demonstrate an alternative to Assad’s rule, but their efforts have been stymied by internal rivalries and problematic relationships between local rebel administrators inside Syria and international sponsors abroad. Idlib’s trajectory mirrors the wider dynamics of Syria’s war and fragmented opposition.
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And that's all going on while East Aleppo is still being rolled up which is part of the reason why the Tiger Forces are up there....
Under the Tiger Forces’ Ominous Shadow
As Turkey’s cross-border efforts progressed deeper into Syria territory, the Baathist regime has become more aggressive. On October 21, 2016, the regime threatened Turkey that it would shoot down Turkish aircrafts when Ankara extended its air campaign to target Kurdish YPG militants. A few weeks later, on November 14th, Assad`s forces dropped leaflets over al-Bab warning the locals that the regime would soon initiate an operation to recapture the town.
Notably, as recently as November 17th, Iran’s “semi-official” Fars News Agency reported that Assad’s forces had troop concentrations at the Kuweires Airbase for shifting military operations into al-Bab and adjacent areas. Furthermore, pro-regime outlets also stressed that units from the Tiger Forces equipped with heavy arms were deployed to Aleppo in late October. Furthermore, according to the same sources, al-Hassan was with his troops for operations in northern Aleppo in November 2016. Most probably, these detachments were sent as reinforcements to the initial deployments of the Tiger Forces from Hama to the Kuweires Airbase in late September.
In other words, Assad might have tasked Baathist military elements to reach al-Bab before the Turkey-backed campaign can. In this respect, the regime already hinted its intentions by concentrating the Tiger Forces near the town. Even more importantly, there is a non-negligible possibility that the Kuweires Airbase, and its operations, were under the Tiger Forces’ de facto control when the Albatros aircraft(s) attacked Turkish positions.
Though we don’t know further details about the incident, we might be sure about one thing: The underlying reason of the regime’s insidious aggression revolves around al-Bab.
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As relevant to Syria as anywhere....
The quest for enviable levels of precision has stretched over more than half a century, arriving at the point where we can accurately place weapons within feet of our intended aimpoint, even in bad weather. We have increased standoff distances, allowing accurate weapons delivery to be accomplished without closing to point-blank range. In the process, we have constructed our own straitjacket, insisting in a level of precision effects that we cannot reliably deliver. The political airpower aspect of precision is paradoxical: While it was intended to minimize risk to U.S forces and quickly achieve objectives to end conflict, instead it is neutering our fielded forces, prolonging conflict, and increasing both the political risk and the risk to warfighters who go in harm’s way and yet cannot accomplish the mission. The goal of minimizing unintended effects is both moral and necessary, but the expectation that we can eliminate them is unrealistic. Combat is a nasty, dirty business — a violent manifestation of policy options that cannot be made clean, predictable or nice. If the desired policy is to avoid unnecessary destruction, then avoid the military option as a policy choice. Precision will not allow policymakers to avoid the ruin inherent in war — destruction is the handmaiden of war, the second horseman. No one should long for war, but if a war is to be had, there is a responsibility to act swiftly and decisively to bring about its end and to accept the consequences of that choice rather than trying to avoid them. Airpower is not an easy way out.
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- Abdollahian: Pro-regime forces will “completely liberate Aleppo” soon. Hossein Amir Abdollahian, the international affairs advisor to Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, congratulated Syrian pro-regime forces on their recent advances in Aleppo city’s eastern neighborhoods. Abdollahian claimed that pro-Assad forces are “about to completely liberate Aleppo.” A news source linked to the Syrian government reported that Iranian-backed forces are also readying for operations along the outskirts of southwestern Aleppo city to recapture the strategically important town of Khan Tuman. Iran suffered over 35 casualties during a rebel offensive on the town of Khan Tuman in May. For the latest on the regime’s operations around the city of Aleppo, please see the Institute for the Study of War’s latest Aleppo Campaign Update. (Fars News Agency) (E)
Which seems to be a commonly shared opinion....
The looming fall of Eastern Aleppo City to the regime and its allies poses a major threat to the long-term interests of the U.S. in Syria. Eastern Aleppo City serves as one of the last remaining major hubs of acceptable opposition groups in Northern Syria. The surrender of Eastern Aleppo City will likely drive these groups into deeper partnership with Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, Ahrar al-Sham, and other Salafi-Jihadist Groups in order to preserve their military effectiveness on the battlefield. An ongoing humanitarian crisis also appears poised to further exacerbate as pro-regime forces methodically tighten their siege on the thousands of opposition fighters and tens of thousands of civilians remaining in Eastern Aleppo City, generating grievances that will further bolster the appeal of Salafi-Jihadist Groups. At the same time, the fall of Aleppo City will not mark the end of the Syrian Civil War. Opposition groups will likely wage an increasingly-radicalized insurgency across Northern Syria with continued support from regional backers such as Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. The success of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo City thus stands only to open a new phase of the conflict that bolsters the long-term staying power of Salafi-Jihadist Groups in Syria.
It's always been a largely rural and provincial rebellion. This sort of analysis tends to miss that the big urban centres of Useful Syria are what matters. After East Aleppo and the Damascus countryside is cleared Assad is in position to hold most of that. That will be no small task given his manpower shortage....
Morale-crushing as that moment would undoubtedly be for the rebels, it’s unclear how much it would change militarily at the countrywide level. To see why, first recall that Syria’s rebels number around 150,000, according to the analyst Charles Lister’s book, The Syrian Jihad. To put that in context, the total number of fighters in eastern Aleppo was estimated by the UN last month at 8,000, or about 5% of the total. A quick glance at a map shows that the other 142,000 fighters are geographically spread throughout the country, holding almost all of Idlib Province as well as sizeable chunks of the provinces of Aleppo, Quneitra, and Daraa, with smaller enclaves in the environs of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Latakia. Indeed, as Lister documented in a recent 40-page report on Syria’s rebels, as of September 2016 there were more than 80 CIA-vetted rebel brigades still actively fighting the regime, in coordination with Turkey- and Jordan-based command centers, across Aleppo, Damascus, Deraa, Hama, Homs, Idlib, Latakia, Qalamoun, and Quneitra Provinces. Of the 80, only 13 (or 16%) operated exclusively in Aleppo Province.
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What we have between the PKK and the regime is a fragile non-aggression pact that has frayed at times. You might call it a hudna. Traditionally an agreement made between enemies who have not actually buried the hatchet. It's how the Crusader Kingdom survived for best part of a century. Here the rebels represent a common enemy dangerous both to the Baath and the revolutionary PKK. We can see it in mutually beneficial action in both East Aleppo and al Bab at the moment....
In an article published by the Washington Institute in July, he wrote: “From Sheikh Maqsoud, the YPG fired on the rebels defending the Castello Road. The YPG also attacked the Bani Zaid district, to the west of Sheikh Maqsoud, forcing the rebels to retreat to avoid being caught between the Syrian army and the Kurdish forces.”
“Whereas the YPG might have remained neutral in this battle, the group clearly indicated its preference through its actions, contributing to its overall strategy of co-operating with Russia in order to connect the Kurdish enclaves of Afrin and Kobane.”
But according to Alexander Clarkson, a lecturer in international studies at King's College London, any co-operation may be more through convenience than shared goals.
"The regime-YPG relationship is not stable. There isn't any particular sentiment tying the two together," he told MEE.
Sheikh Maqsoud journalist Mousa believed the apparent co-operation was unlikely to last. “Even if they are friends, they are enemies at the same time.”
ISW itching for a crack at the Russkis expensive toys....
Putin’s establishment of A2/AD zones across Europe and the Middle East make U.S. engagement with Russian forces more difficult and expensive, but far from impossible. The S-300 and S-400 air defense systems are mobile, have been deployed in numbers so as to create redundancies in Russia’s air defense network, and are supported by a number of short-range air defense systems to cover close engagements.[32] U.S. forces are nevertheless capable of penetrating the exclusion zones created by these systems. A successful defeat of a Russian air defense unit would require first jamming and partially disabling the system, followed by a ‘hard kill’ strike from a stealth aircraft once the system has been damaged.[33] The deployment and use of these U.S. capabilities would be expensive and time-consuming. It would require extensive planning and sufficient political will to oversee these and follow-on operations. It is well within the capacity of the American military to accomplish these tasks, however. Putin is counting on the deterrent capabilities of Russia’s air defense systems to preclude U.S. action and trusting that Washington will acquiesce to his policies rather than undertake these complicated strikes.
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Assad being Assad getting into a scrap with Ankara no matter what arrangements the Russians have made is not unlikely....
Taking over Aleppo would represent an important step for the Syrian regime, virtually ending the international community’s attempts to engage Assad in real negotiations. But it would not bring an end to the fighting; rather, it would mark the start of the next phase in the conflict. In this new phase, the fragile understanding that has avoided open confrontation between the Syrian regime and Turkey would be challenged by Turkish activism and by a regime emboldened by its victory in Aleppo. This might bring the regime to cooperate more closely with the Kurdish forces (with whom it already has strong links) and with neighbouring Iraq, which, like Syria, is threatened by Turkish adventurism. A quick fall of Aleppo would allow the regime to free some resources that could be used to exploit any potential opportunity arising from the Syrian Democratic Forces’ advance towards Raqqa. As the regime is still struggling with severe manpower shortage, any chance to “free-ride” on other parties’ efforts would surely be appreciated.