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And next, Syria?

CrabbedOne said:

One problem in Syria is the unbending Assad. Another that Bashar's authority is undermined by a new generation of warlords with perverse incentive to keep fighting. It would be wrong to see the regime as being as fragmented as the rebels but Assad even if finally interested in compromise may have difficulty delivering.
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Did a double take on that, thought it was a Vodafone logo. 21st century proxies taken to their logical commercial conclusion. Sponsors seeking exciting opportunities to engage with new global audiences.
 
Patteran said:
Did a double take on that, thought it was a Vodafone logo. 21st century proxies taken to their logical commercial conclusion. Sponsors seeking exciting opportunities to engage with new global audiences.
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What's happening within the regime side with has been described as "Privatisation".

It used to be SAA senior officers who got the licences to steal when not lazing around their Divisional HQ's admiring portraits of their Assad Clan chums who got them their nice jobs. Now a local "businessman" just creates a new armed venture sometimes with contacts to the SAA or HA. SAA kit often gets mysteriously transferred to the new NDF mob and they suddenly get first dibs on looting. Lots of new checkpoints to get ripped off at as organisations almost literally throw a rent seeking chains across the road. Hordes of mostly Sunni IDP's fleeing R+6 bombing and thieving rebels provide a rich new exploitable resource paying through the nose for food and accommodation. The odd thick neck Russian covered in gold jewelry and private security is sighted scouting "investment opportunities" like they are in SW1. Portraits of Putin and Nasrallah are nearly as ubiquitous as Assad idolatry. HA's logo is everywhere even on Russian Little Green Men. The IRGC are ordering everybody about in bad Arabic and buying up all the best real estate at rock bottom prices while stoating around like they own the place.

Meanwhile in innovation hub rebel Idlib has loads of blow-ins as well as locals setting up their own (heavily armed) firms. There's a rich ecology of boutique startups exploring all manner of Salafist models. The minorities have mostly fled but the remaining local Druze get to try a whole new religious lifestyle. Recent "moderate" arrivals from East Aleppo admire the zeal but do worry about being "disappeared" into what does rather look like a gulag. There are rival Sharia court systems where a little personal connection or donation goes a long way. You can park your car, or the one you stole, anywhere as even the local AQ hired cops are afraid of being shot by an angry warlord's posse. Everything finally depends on a rich flow of foreign venture capital from the GCC and Turkey who also have quite a lot of sway on policy. An upside is a flat rate tax, 0%, as if it was higher the often marginalised Idlibis would lynch the new management. Some say the boom years are over as less new territory is seized and therefore little loot to export to Turkey. Still there is always work in construction as every time they rebuild anything it gets bombed flat by a passing jet. There's a shortage of able technocrats and even former state officials (not all were shot) can find a nice little earner providing public services. Labour mobility is improving with lots of new opportunities opening up in Euphrates Shield as window dressing for the TSK carving a hunk out of Syria.

And what some NGOs are saying is this chaotic ecology of robby actors makes Syria almost impossible to reconstruct as that will just be another area of opportunity for well armed rent seeking.
 

Ah yes, Foggy Bottom says bomb Assad to starve IS. These are the same people who decided a while back a complete collapse of the Syrian state was not very desirable. It's also a formula for making Assad even more dependent on Iranian cash flow.

If we start bombing everybody who trades with IS we really won't be short of targets. Even the Iraq Pesh and Hashd do a little business with the Caliphate.

In Iraq in retreat IS torched the oil infrastructure. The real IS cash cow was always taxing Mosul even before they took the place completely over in 2014.
 

The soft bigotry of low expectations, innit.

HA will probably be painting them yellow and hiring them out within a week.
 

That's Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Egyptian theologian based in Doha. Tough on Rafida, tough on the causes of Rafida. He called Bashar Assad "more infidel than Christians and Jews".

I recall Saudi clerics during the first phase of the Iraq war using the phrase "lower than dogs and Jews" when preaching for Jihad against Iraq Shia; much catchier. It worked, the KSA was AQI's main source of human ordinance for their savage campaign of mass casualty truck bombings against soft Shia targets. Wealthy young Saudis would even pay for the privilege of driving the petrol tankers into crowded markets on their happy way to 70 virgins.
 
On Defend Democracy Qatar and Terror Finance
Part II: Private Funders of al-Qaeda in Syria
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President-elect Trump has called out the Gulf states for “not carrying their weight,” and he promised on the campaign trail to “decimate Al Qaeda.”224 But achieving this goal will be impossible without choking off the flow of funding to al-Qaeda’s most powerful branch. The new administration should bring to an end the unsustainable dynamic in which Qatar is identified as a permissive jurisdiction for terror finance without tangible consequences. Instead, the White House should encourage legislation empowering the president to impose relevant penalties for terror finance negligence, such as the bipartisan STORM Act of 2016 (Stop Terrorist Operational Resources and Money).225 The U.S. could further boost its leverage by shifting some personnel and equipment out of Qatar and building up an alternative Combined Air and Space Operations Center elsewhere, at least until Doha establishes a more persuasive track record of implementing these reforms. The U.S. should also step up the pace of designations against Qatar-based terrorist facilitators and be prepared to publicly push for the extradition of key individuals if Qatari authorities fail to take appropriate action. We now have an opportunity to change a longstanding and troubling dynamic with an irresponsible U.S. ally. If Doha will not act, it is up to the U.S. to change Qatar’s calculus on terror finance.
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The Brits could stop buying all that gas off Qatar and constantly toadying for arms contracts as well.
 
On Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi's blog Liwa Al-Jabal: A New Loyalist Militia Unity Initiative In Suwayda'
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However, it is important to note that unity initiatives and problems of divisions are not confined to the insurgency: they can also be found among militias on the regime side in Syria, even as it would be an exaggeration to portray them as wholly equivalent to the disunity and divisions in the insurgency and opposition. A case-in-point is the primarily Druze province of Suwayda'. The region is also known as Jabal al-Arab/Jabal al-Druze (Mountain of the Arabs/Mountain of the Druze), and a large number of militia factions have emerged. Broadly speaking, they can be divided into two categories of orientation. On the one hand, there are factions that are clearly regime loyalist, showing affinities with Assad and the wider war effort. On the other hand, there are also more 'third-way' militias whose goal is not to overthrow the regime structure in Suwayda' but rather to reform it (e.g. reducing corruption), while focusing more on local defence of the province from external attack (whether by the rebels or the Islamic State) and pushing against conscription efforts into the Syrian army.
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Always sharp, he describes the Baath regime as dictatorial but able to exploit divisions.

As I've said before it's brutal but not North Korea. Manipulating but not destroying local power brokers that essential seek reform but not regime destruction. The Baath are in some way an inheritor of French colonial methods. For that matter the Romans would have recognised it. The red line is Assad clan dominance.

Notes IS and the PKK administrations aren't engaged in this play of factions and aim at ruling more totally. The former far more than the latter I'd say though IS rely on tribal allies. AQ in rebel Idlib often influencing through groups like Ahar al Sham and heading towards some sort of Taliban state may not be aiming at such absolutism at least not any time soon.

This tendency to localisation is very Syrian as the country has been a interweaved patchwork of kinship and sectarian relations with low social capital. Of course it's in the Assad clan's interest to find a middle way between cohesion and the ability to coerce by division. They are quite skilful at this herding of cats. The SAA coup proofed Divisional structure set up in the 60s after a scare is a good example. It made for a very fragmented revolt that often only really cohered around Salafi ideas.
 
Speaking of localisation.

On Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi's blog Black Syrians: The Case Of The Yarmouk Basin
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The first photo is part of a photo series on the beheading of an alleged sorcerer. The second photo is part of the most recent photo series put out by Jaysh Khalid bin al-Waleed on 17 January, featuring the execution of a mufsid (sower of corruption). This execution apparently took place in the village of Jamla, with accusations that the mufsid was involved in selling drugs.

On first impression, it might be tempting to think that the black man is a foreigner sent to the area from the north of Syria by the Islamic State. In fact, he is a local to the Yarmouk Basin, part of a population of black Syrians resident in the area. A friend and ex-Jaysh Khalid bin al-Waleed fighter who lives in Jamla told me, "We have many of them [the blacks]." In the Yarmouk Basin, the most usual convention is to define clans and extended families by the Arabic term bayt (literally, 'house'). Thus, in the Yarmouk Basin village of Abidin, perhaps the two largest clans are Bayt al-Masri and Bayt al-Ghabaiti. The bayt that encompasses most of the black population of the Yarmouk Basin is known as Bayt al-Suda. Indeed, the name of al-Suda (Arabic spelling: السودى)- likely derived from their black complexion- is also defined as a village/area in which they live.
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Never know what you'll find out at a sorcerer beheading.

Points out that while Arabs are as racially prejudiced as most peoples the very sectarian IS makes a virtue of being a colour blind rainbow nation. I'd read there is a pecking order in the group with Iraqis and Tunisians at the top, Russian speaking "Chechens" as a stormtrooper elite, but some Arab prejudice demeaning to South Asians who in the Gulf often fill the role that African slaves once did.
 
Details on the Kuznetsov deployment...

The embarked fixed wing assets were:

279th OKIAP: Su-33K x 8 (Red 62,66,67,71,76,78,84,88)

100th OKIAP: MiG-29KR x 2 (Blue 47,49) MiG-29KUBR x 1 (Blue 52)

The two jets that went in the drink due to fouled cross deck pendants were Su-33 Red 88 and MiG-29 Blue 49.

All Fulcrum ops have now stopped and the Flankers are only operating from land.

Solyanka rations will be halved until morale improves.
 

The gas pump in Latakia as some US wonks call it. That's nearly as impressive as Portavogie harbour. There are plans for expansion.
 

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Question 5: In the course of the fight against the so-called Islamic State, would you seek coordination with players like Turkey, Kurds, and the United States?

Erdogan supports ISIS and al-Nusra on daily basis

President Assad: First of all, if you want to be very transparent, ISIS was created under the supervision of the United States, whether in Iraq in 2006; before it was ISIS, it was IS, Islamic State, it was in Iraq only, restricted to Iraq. Then when the conflict started in Syria, it became ISIS, of Syria and Iraq, and later Turkey sponsored this State, because they used to use the Syrian oil fields in order to export and to get money and to recruit more fighters, and Turkey was directly involved in the smuggling of oil, with the involvement and complicity of Erdogan himself with ISIS. So, we cannot expect to have genuine fight against ISIS by Turkey or the United States, and the recent, more stark example is the attack on Palmyra a few weeks ago, when they could retake Palmyra under the supervision of the Americans, under the surveillance of the American drones; they came through the desert and they occupied Palmyra. Today, we are talking, and ISIS has been attacking Deir Ezzor in the eastern part of Syria, and the Americans did nothing to stop ISIS. This is where the so-called international alliance against terrorism has been working for more than one year and a half now, and they achieved nothing, because they are not serious. For Turkey, Erdogan is Muslim Brotherhood, he’s instinctively and innately sympathetic and linked and close and adhered to the ISIS and to Al Qaeda because they have the same ideology, he cannot be away from them. He tries to do some maneuvers, to show that he’s against those terrorists, ISIS and al-Nusra, but actually on daily basis he supports those organizations, and without his support, they cannot survive.
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Notice IS=AQ=MB, a similar position to the Trump administration.

Assad welcomes Trump in this interview but is very leery about the Whitehouse trickster's true intent.

Later he's very clear that he does not see the US as effectively combatting IS just wrecking Syria infrastructure and like Turkey in the snip above essentially aiding IS. This is a common view of the US relationship to IS in Iraq and Iran. It's only due to Russia's entry that IS has lost territory he says.

While his depiction of the emergence of IS out of our Iraqi adventure is accurate Syrian intelligence was at times rather helpful to Iraqi insurgents, including AQI fighting what they saw as a US occupation that might attack Syria next as Bush's rhetoric suggested. Assad like Erdogan also sometimes saw IS in Syria as a tactical asset best left to degrade more dangerous enemies and occasionally assisted. As is the case with other powers in the region it's only when IS attacks them directly it's seen as a threat and not always the most pressing.

In fact Russian and regime actions against IS have been a side show to their efforts to crush the far more threatening elements of the revolt in the NW. This does include radical Salafi-Jihadis but it's them that expelled IS from the NW not the R+6. It's really the PKK that has treated IS as a deadly enemy and that's only because the group nearly drove them out of Syria and a tactical alliance with US airpower allowed them to reclaim and expand their turf for Apoism. Even the PKK often seem more fixated on Turkey as the source of all evil.

Assad is often not far from Trump's stump rhetoric of IS being created by Obama. I suspect Trump really won't find this a comfortable heckle as POTUS. Bashar comes across as a man who accurately sees the Americans as never being useful allies in his struggle with "terrorism" i.e. anyone who disputes his clan's grip on all of Syria. He clearly values the Russians greatly in his hasbara but he's appears far closer to the Iranian position on the Great Satan than the Russian i.e. wanting interfering imperialists playing at world policemen to butt out rather than joining hands in the GWOT while dipping Uncle Sam's pockets. He ends talking of a Wahhabi pollution and the need to rebuild minds while rattling his begging bowl for reconstruction funding; doubt that will play well in the KSA.
 

...
Anas al-Omar said that the residents coming to the camp from Iraq are exploited by those he described as “human traffickers” – smugglers who “suck refugees’ blood to get them to safety.”

According to one smuggler, the journey from al-Raqqa to Aleppo’s northern countryside can cost around 5,000 US dollars. In addition, residents risk being targeted by Islamic State forces and Syrian Democratic Forces when they pass through areas under their control.

At the end of our conversation with Salem, who lives in the camp with his family, he said that he was determined to cross into Turkey despite the increased border checks by the “Gendarmerie” (Turkish border guards). He said, “Life in the camp is unbearable. There is no education here, no medical care… We will enter Turkey even if it costs us our lives.”
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Clearly he's yet to meet the NDF or SAA but by then there may be nothing left to steal.
 
On Al Monitor Talk of Kurdish autonomy still makes Syrians squirm
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A retired Syrian general who requested anonymity told Al-Monitor, “The Kurds made a mistake. They should not have entered into such a relationship with the United States. In 2004, after the tension at Qamishli, we submitted a report to [President] Bashar al-Assad on the Kurds. We said we had to restore the rights of these people. After reading this report, Assad went to Qamishli and met with the Kurds. Some improvements were made in the status of Kurds who did not have citizenship. Yes, Kurds must be given their rights, but they should not abuse the opening up of the regime. They went too far by linking up with the Americans. The Syrian state cannot ever agree to an option of federation or autonomy, which will end up dividing the country.”
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Another sign of the Syrian state's attitude to the US. The PKK's treacherous alliance with the Americans looms larger than fears of IS.
 
On Politico U.S. spies fear allies will stop sharing intel under Russia-friendly Trump
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In July 2007, Thomas Sanderson, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, found himself face-to-face with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus. This was back when the Arab leader was seen by some Westerners as a potential reformer, and well before he became the central figure in a bloody civil war that has drawn in Russia and Iran.

Sanderson asked Assad why his government stopped its earlier cooperation with U.S. intelligence agencies, despite having become a key partner in the hunt for Al-Qaeda fighters following the 9/11 attacks. Assad claimed his government was upset because the George W. Bush administration had leaked word of the U.S.-Syrian intelligence cooperation to the press, apparently to help gain legitimacy for the invasion of Iraq. The White House leaks made Syria seem like an American proxy, and turned it into a target for the jihadists, Assad said, according to Sanderson’s recollection.

Assad may have been bluffing about his true motives. According to the Bush administration, Syria was a less-than-helpful partner, barely even pretending to crack down on militants trying to reach Iraq to fight U.S. troops, and Sanderson noted that the U.S. said it had ended the partnership for that reason. Still, the exchange underscored the extreme sensitivities involved in U.S. intelligence sharing with foreign countries and the damage that can come about when one side decides it can no longer trust the other.

It’s a lesson Trump must quickly learn, Sanderson said.
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How embarrassing.
 

...
A PAX RUSSIA COMPARABLE TO CHECHNYA
The current Syrian ceasefire also fits in the "tactical, not strategic" category, allowing the regime to consolidate its territorial gains and further divide the rebels. In that sense, it may be too early to attempt serious peace negotiations in Astana. More likely, Russia will try to use the meeting to present the rebels with a stark choice: assimilation or destruction. Those who choose the first option would be integrated into the Assad regime's political system and have the opportunity to profit from the money and power it has accumulated during the war. Those who continue to resist will be destroyed unceremoniously, in a replica of the method Russia used in Chechnya.

TRUMP'S HARD CHOICE
Officially, Astana is designed to complement rather than replace the Geneva process. In the end, however, the parties may have to favor one process over the other depending on who holds the most leverage on the battlefield. Under these circumstances, does the United States have an interest in attending the Astana conference? To be sure, the Trump administration is just taking office, the next Geneva conference will start soon, and the official status of Washington's invitation remains unclear, so U.S. officials have cause to skip the meeting in theory. Yet the empty-chair approach is rarely effective, and both the ceasefire and the Astana conference were the subjects of a unanimously approved UN Security Council resolution, so boycotting the meeting may do more harm than good.

The question, then, is what role should the United States play at Astana? The choices are not good. But failure to act could be perceived as acquiescence to Russia's plan, and a signal that the Trump administration will further reduce the U.S. role in the Middle East.
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Resistance is futile.

No SNC invite, the empty suits in exile that feature prominently in the Geneva process. The Russians instead have gone to the players on the ground including Mohammed Alloush of the powerful Salafist group Jaish al Islam. One of the Turks favoured Salafi-Jihadi-lite players Ahar al Sham predictably refused to attend. Lister has always seen Ahar as a pivotal player and the Russians recently had them on a shortlist of those worth talking to. I really doubt JaI or Ahar reconcilable with any transition involving Assad but that's interesting. Some other rebels may turn up. Gulfies, Lebanon, Iraq and China coming. Informal invite to Trump Team but I've read elsewhere the Iranians are really not happy with that. PKK excluded by the Turks.

This is a far more promising mix than previous talks in my opinion. At some point the PKK will have to be on board as even with the TSK nibbling at Rojava's arse they are and probably will remain a big player in Syria. Actually were having the Septics involved makes most sense is with the PKK. The US is an important backer of the PKK in Syria. If Trump was smart he'd pursue this track and try to leaver the Turks into general talks about Kurdish questions. DC has far less clout with the rebels than Turkey and with Trump probably not even much interest beyond bombing the shit out of their AQ chums.

Balanche see this as more of a tactical move by the Russian than a strategic one. No peace is expected just a shaping of the human terrain as the R+6 consolidates. He also sees it as intended by the Russians to be complementary to the continued flapping of gums in Geneva. T

I'd say the Russians have always run entirely separate lines of diplomatic action with regional players. This is sort of a logical extension of that very smart policy.
 
On Reuters Syrian army nears Turkey-backed rebels in new advance
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The army and its allies captured the villages of Sora, Moran, Surja al-Saghira and Surja al-Kabira, located about 16km (10 miles) southwest of al-Bab and roughly the same distance east of Aleppo.

Rebels supported by Turkish jets, armour and special forces are attempting to capture al-Bab from Islamic State after reaching its northern outskirts a month ago.
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On TDS Syrian rebels call on Russia to help defend cease-fire
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The Syrian opposition says the government and Iranian-backed militias are continuing military offensives in several areas in Syria, including in Wadi Barada near the capital, regardless of the cease-fire.

The opposition has been disappointed so far by what it says is Moscow's inability to fulfil its role as guarantor of the deal and put pressure on the Iranian-backed militias saying this threatened to wreck the cease-fire deal brokered in December.

"Russia wants to move from a direct party in the fighting to a guarantor and neutral one and this point is being obstructed by the Syrian regime that wants it to fail and Iran that is fighting this with its sectarian militias in Syria," Alloush said.
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An Alloush finds a real Russian area of weakness to press on. Kerry should have been questioning the Kremlin's ability to control its allies for a year.
 
In The National Why Ahrar Al Sham will soon rip itself into pieces
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Disintegration of viable rivals is a familiar pattern for Al Qaeda, and it is a mistake to think recent hostilities are simply a series of miscalculations. After the failure of the merger that JFS sought with like-minded groups, Abu Mariyyah Al Qahtani, a member of JFS’s Shura Council, also warned of factions similar to the Islamic Army in Iraq during the anti-American insurgency. He refers to the regionally-backed Islamist faction that resisted Al Qaeda in Iraq’s dominance and later cooperated with the government, with parallels to Islamist allies in the Syrian case.

The second reason why the development in Idlib is important is because it signals the near death of Ahrar Al Sham. The group’s strength was long inflated by observers, with little attention given to the large amount of financial, logistical and political support it received from Turkey and Qatar. Its inability to organise properly were on display several times over the past two years, especially after the Russian air campaign in northern Syria in 2015.

Its exaggerated strength and organisational capacity became even clearer after the clashes with Jund Al Aqsa in Hama in October, then in Aleppo last month. Despite the rage of its top leadership, commanders and the rank and file, the group could not get JFS to reverse its decision to absorb a group widely suspected to be a front for ISIL.

Also, aside from widely distributed media statements, the group has had negligible effect on the ground since August, when it helped break the siege around Aleppo for a brief period. The group also fractured after 16 local factions formed a separate organisation last month.

As Ahrar Al Sham shows weakness, its stance towards JFS has also led to a growing popular perception that the group has been part of the problem.

The fact that its refusal to join other groups to participate in the Astana talks came a day after JFS "returned the favour" and stormed its headquarters in Idlib was embarrassing and disappointing to its supporters.

Ahrar Al Sham as a major organisation is on the ropes. Its brand can still be salvaged if Turkey manages to utilise it in a different way than it did the conflict.

Its current policy of having one foot within the mainstream opposition and another in Al Qaeda is no longer tenable. As JFS and mainstream rebels drift further apart, Ahrar Al Sham’s attempt to keep a foot in each camp will further rip it apart.
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Could lead to a much larger AQ but maybe one divorced from the remaining rebels that don't merge with it.

Of course Ahar's demise has been predicted before and it just grew stronger.
 
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