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And next, Syria?

On From Chechnya To Syria Interview & Letter from Ajnad al-Kavkaz Amir Abdul Hakim Shishani

Interesting interview Chechen Beard ended up in Syria as he could not get back home. The struggle against Russia (a "bloodthirsty empire") and its "puppets" continues in Idlib. He notes that when the much larger Georgia and even the Ukraine are get steamrollered by Russia without much help from the outside world Chechens can only look to their own devices. His group Ajnad al-Kavkaz has AQ links.
 

Interesting perspective.

Perhaps Damascus would rather have the PKK take Raqqa than the Turks. Course Damascus is about the only customer that the PKK can pipe Rojava's oil out too which provides leverage. And the PKK might well do a deal over Raqqa and Deir with Damascus at some point.
 
From Reuters Syrian army advances against Islamic State near Aleppo: monitor
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On Sunday, the army took the town of Tadef, just south of al-Bab after Islamic State withdrew from it, state television reported. Earlier this month, a senior Russian official said Tadef marked an agreed dividing line between the Syrian army and the Turkey-backed forces.

The eastwards advance south of Tadef has extended Syrian army control across 14 villages and brought it within 25km (15 miles) of Lake Assad, the stretch of the Euphrates above the Tabqa dam.

Also on Sunday, the Syrian army and its allies made a new advance against Islamic State around Palmyra, coming to within a few kilometers of the ancient desert city that the jihadists captured in December.
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Blocking the main road South.
 
In The National What Daabul’s death says about jihadism in Syria
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Before he moved to Homs, Maj Gen Daabul was in charge of "the branch of death", a reference to the notorious branch 215. The branch is now notorious as the site of mass death and torture of thousands of prisoners as shown by more than 50,000 photographs released by a government defector identified as Caesar. During his work in the "branch of death", he also oversaw death squads in the Damascus suburbs and led the vicious campaign to expel the rebels from Daraya. So, his demise is good news for many in Syria and beyond.

Also, his death is not an isolated incident. An official at the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia said the operation was an example of a trend.

"Terrorist attacks that target specific security, military and government officials are increasing in a noticeable way," read a statement posted on the Russian airbase’s official Arabic page. "The attack in Homs was executed professionally and with full knowledge on the part of the assailants of the details of the building they attacked."

Last week, the same military mission also announced the killing of four Russian personnel by a roadside bomb near Palmyra, in Homs. Curiously, it highlighted that the road was "continuously monitored by friendly ground forces" – a tacit finger-pointing to the pro-government forces there.

The sophisticated method of the attack is reminiscent of Al Qaeda’s early attacks against the regime. Al Qaeda initially focused on targeting what its leader in Syria called the pillars of the regime, namely officials and security and army compounds. Attacks included the storming of the army headquarters in central Damascus in September 2012. Subsequently, the group operated as other insurgent groups focusing on fighting to expel the regime and seize areas.

The group might revert to the old tactic as the regime expands its territory. While it focused on battling the regime on the front lines, the group seems to have improved the tactic significantly.
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Shifting to the tactics of insurgency more familiar in Iraq.
 
On ARANews US general says Kurdish-led SDF forces need heavy weapons to destroy ISIS in Raqqa
Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, who recently visited the Raqqa frontline said that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces need more than the AK-47s weapons –that will be issued after 20 days of training– in the fight against ISIS.

“Anti-tank weapons systems to address the vehicle-born IEDs. Certainly mortars would be something of help,” Votel said. “Things that they would need of a force that’s going to conduct an assault,” he said on Sunday.

The weapons would be flown into a dirt airstrip built for the U.S. by a Syrian engineer, who lost his family to ISIS, that is long enough to handle large cargo planes from the United States, CBS News reported.

Rony, a defector of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), said that the US until now has failed to equip its ally.

“We asked for heavy weapons. We got nothing. We asked for everything. All we got was ammunition and small arms,” he said.
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Giving the PKK TOWs would be a redline for the Turks and there may still be US legal issues to be dodged around.

An alternative is US ground fire support as supplied increasingly in Mosul.

This comes to mind:
 
On POMEPS Syria’s International Politics: A Conversation Chris Phillips
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“I don’t think you’ll see much change from the Saudis, rather than just trying to back the non-jihadist groups in a non-Muslim Brotherhood groups,” said Phillips. “Turkey, on the other hand, you do see a full 180— and it’s been quite recent. It’s almost too late and sort of getting a little bit negligent on the threat posed by jihadists, even after ISIS capture Mosul. Turkey is very reluctant to join the United States coalition against ISIS— and only after it starts getting targeted at home by ISIS attacks does it begin to switch and turn on ISIS.”

“Now, most recently in 2016, it actually recognized that the threat coming from Syria— both jihadism and forms of Kurdish nationalism— as great and the threat to assets are only recently we’ve seen Turkey actively drop the policy of going after Assad. But that took five years, and arguably it was quite clear that this current policy wasn’t working for about 2013 really.”

“The purely theoretical approach doesn’t explain that you do need to look at those internal factors. I wouldn’t sort of put my thoughts on looking at the system side of things,” said Phillips. “I wouldn’t lump myself so clearly in a sort of a ‘hard systemic realist camp’ because I think that actually the internal dynamics interact with those systems of system level.”
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Obama's policy in Syria pretty much fell apart in 2013 as well. It had been evident well before that it was misconceived. The US always should have been seeking deescalation but instead was instrumental in pushing regional powers to act. Turkey's mistake was a more emotive one. Erdogan was reluctant to topple his chum Assad initially but then enraged by him. The Saudis and Jordanians were also reluctant initially fearing domestic disturbances themselves. They get drawn in by kinship networks and refugee flows but there's no US urging them not to fan the flames.

Suggests that with a US then hanging back regional powers saw Syria as an opportunity and that just led to escalation.

Of course this is equally true on the R+6 side. With the Iranians treating Syria as a stimulating revolutionary cause and the Russians final grabbing it as a geopolitical opportunity. The really dumb thing on the Coalition side was failing to see the opportunity we were creating for enemies as Assad weakened. That would include a reviving IS. The smug expectation of passivity.
 
On Lawfare Putin in Syria, 2017
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In fact, at this stage, to Putin, Assad is no longer as useful as he was during the early days of the Russian intervention in Syria, and Putin doesn’t seem to be personally attached to him. Assad does not appear destined to be the Syrian version of the Chechen leader and longtime Putin’s ally, Ramzan Kadirov. The latter fought in the trenches and has blood on his hands, quite literally, while Assad sits in his palace letting the people around him do all the dirty work, while he keeps washing his hands of any culpability. A man whose mind and worldview have been shaped by his experiences in the KGB will not hold both men in equal regard. To Putin, Kadirov has become a reliable ally because he doesn’t bother pretend to be what he is not and he accepts the role that Putin has assigned to him. Assad, on the other hand, will always seem to Putin like a weasel with delusions of grandeur, a pitiful and untrustworthy creature that needs to be put on a leash, one that will keep getting tighter and shorter until the moment comes for some final neck-snapping.

Until then, however, the weasel has his uses, so Assad’s occasional off-script statements and moves will be tolerated. And Putin will wait to see how the Trump administration’s plans in Syria take shape and what change the elections in France and Germany will put on the table.
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A lot of commentators overstate Russia's level of control in Syria. The Assads were always frustrating allies for the Kremlin even when menaced by the IDF and more dependent than Bashar is now. The Iranians have their own plans clearly closer to Assad's way of thinking. But differing in always having Israel in their sights. The main rub with Russia as well. But Russia needs the Jihadi cannon fodder Iran supplies to supplement the mushy SAA and NDF. While it's the Iranians that keep Assad solvent.

Russia will never be rid of the Assads but may well be looking for a "Kadirov" to emerge from amongst the Ahar al Sham side of the rebels. Now effectively Turkish proxies. Not a replacement for Bashar but a warlord policing a Turkish zone of influence in the North. Because unlike its patient allies the Kremlin does not care for this war running on for decades. It's gently knocking wedges into Turkey's association with NATO. The PKK question provides useful leverage. While the distracted Americans pursue IS.
 
On SST East of Aleppo - TTG

All one big happy SAA-PKK party according to this.

Well what you've got is a large Turkish zone of control in Northern Syria staring in their faces. Neither the regime or PKK are happy about it. There was a little collaboration in the face of this incursion. The Iranians did attack it by drone killing a couple of Turkish soldiers. IS gave the Turks and their rebel helpers a bloody nose and withdrew. The most salient fact is the Russians provided close air support for the Turks and so were very clearly complicit in creating it.

I'd say expect this to get wider not deeper. It's a limited TSK commitment of a couple of brigades with relatively short supply lines. Taking al Bab itself was much trickier than expected and it's now a dead end. A TSK push to Raqqa via al Bab always seemed unlikely.

This looks to be the Kremlin's model for a settlement in Syria. A pragmatic carve up into zones of control surrounding a Iranian occupies Useful Syria under the warlord Assad. It doesn't look to me like Assad agrees with this at all. What that SAA thrust to Al Bab was was a demonstration of independence and a containing of any threat to East Aleppo. The PKK which cozied up eagerly to it's old mentors in Moscow got dumped in favour of winkling the Turks out of NATO. It now has a Turkish menace sniffing at its rear in Manbij and Afrin. That may push the PKK closer to the R+6 anyway.
 

I'd give that three years as trouble boils up around liberated Raqqa.

Thread with Sowell losing the bap over the MSM's Kurd fetish. This does matter as policy makers are often more swayed by the media outlets than analysis with any depth of the sort he produces. Actually started over a particularly dewey piece on the currently disappointingly dysfunctional KRG. A subject of constant ill informed puff pieces. This finally doesn't do the any favours to Kurds as they really need help confronting their internal problems and relationships with their neighbours.
 
On War On The Rocks DE-CONFLICTING TURKISH, KURDISH, AND AMERICAN AIMS IN SYRIA
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These proposals are bold and will, without question, elicit a negative Turkish response. Ankara could argue that it is winning its war against the PKK and that it won’t stop until it removes the Syrian Kurdish threat from its border. Iran and the regime would also play spoiler. However, the aforementioned options are modeled on Turkey’s own approach to the PKK issue. Between 2012 and 2015, the broad brushstrokes of Turkey’s peace talks with the PKK revolved around the group disarming and withdrawing from Turkey in return for greater control given to local governmental institutions. The Turkish government also envisioned Kurdish political support for a new Constitution. The proposal I laid out in my CFR paper adopted this as a model, with greater details on border enforcement and a specific U.S. role modeled loosely on the Good Friday accord, (the multi party and government arrangement that helped to end the Irish Republican Army led insurgency).

The Turkish government modeled its own Kurdish initiative on elements of Good Friday, so the plan shouldn’t come a surprise to Ankara. It was, at one point, their plan to address the so-called “Kurdish issue,” including broad discussions about local decision-making – discussions anathema to most Turkish politicians before the rise to power of the AKP. The United States need not reinvent the wheel. Ankara has created the pathway the resolve the PKK issue. The United States has an interest in seeing it through, both to solidify its gains in Syria and to contribute to primary goal of U.S. policy vis-à-vis Turkey: stability and cordial relations with a NATO ally.
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Stein's been advocating for this for some time. Obama should really have started in on it when it was decided to partner with the PKK in 2014.
 
On ISW Turkey Prepares Offensive Against Syrian Democratic Forces in Manbij
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Turkish leaders met on February 27 and likely made the decision to proceed with operations against Manbij rather than wait on coalition support for an offensive against ISIS in Ar-Raqqa City.
  • Erdogan called unscheduled meetings with Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik and Turkish Chief of the General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar in Istanbul on February 27.
  • Turkish Presidential Advisor Ilnur Cevik claimed on February 27 that Turkey plans to end its military operations in Syria after establishing a fifty-mile “buffer zone” in Manbij.
  • Turkey has continued to deploy additional armored vehicles to Northern Aleppo Province in recent weeks. These reinforcements could be deployed against Manbij as well as the isolated Kurdish Afrin Canton in Western Aleppo Province.
Further escalation between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds would severely jeopardize – and likely halt indefinitely - the campaign against ISIS in Ar-Raqqa City.
  • The U.S. has relied extensively upon the YPG as the main component of the SDF – the preferred coalition partner on the ground against ISIS in Northern Syria.
  • Open fighting between Turkey and the SDF would allow ISIS to retain its hold on Ar-Raqqa City and potentially secure new gains across Northern Syria.
  • The U.S. must exercise all of its sources of leverage over Turkey – including its military presence in Syria as well as bilateral military-to-military assistance, humanitarian support, and economic investment – in order to prevent a Turkish offensive against the SDF.
  • The U.S. should also consider slowing down or halting further SDF advances in order to avoid fueling a wider conflict between Arabs and Kurds in Northern Syria. The U.S. must not sacrifice long-term stability for a quick victory against ISIS in Ar-Raqqa City.
  • The U.S. must ultimately build an alternative partner force of Syrian Sunni Arabs that is both willing to fight Salafi-jihadi groups and is independent from the political project of the PYD. The U.S. cannot rely upon the Turkish-backed opposition force due to its inclusion of Salafi-jihadi groups, including Ahrar al-Sham, that serve as a vector for al Qaeda in Syria.
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To sum that up, the US anti-IS strategy in Syria appears to be a bit buggered.

If you dismantle the SDF, as ISW seem to be contemplating, you'd have a fairly small Arab force of less than 15K fighters. Some of the groups have been IS or AQ allies in the past. Some are genuine old PKK/Kurdish allies and will be treated as enemies by the Turks. It's a formation that's been rather reliant on the PKK doing most of the fighting. It's unlikely to hold together against IS if significantly weakened. Fragmented rebel groups and tribes are easy prey for IS.

The local Raqqa tribes only abandoned their loyalty to the regime because of its weakness in this isolated place. That allowed the rebels and Jahbat al Nursra to take Raqqa. During IS's attempt to reintegrate JaN Raqqa fell to them. Some SDF groups actually had close links to both JaN and IS before opting to hide behind the PKK. Some Raqqa area tribes have since effectively allied with IS for their own safety. If you are going to reject local auxiliaries because of Salafi-Jihadi and Apoist taint you've severely limited your options. IS are liable to persist in Syria as an insurgency and the US isn't going to occupy the place so it's going to have to accept some less than optimal and sometimes incompatible auxiliaries. The thing is to stop them fighting each other.

US attempts to stand up independent anti-IS forces in Syria have been an abject failure. You have to work with what is available on the ground. The Turks ruling part of Syria with Ahar al Sham as there proxy appears to be a reality. Jordan and the Southern Front have a similar pact in the South. The R+6 dominates Useful Syria. The greater objection to working with the Turks on Raqqa may be regime and PKK hostility. The PKK having a working hudna with the regime has always been an asset.

The PKK are not going to go away in NE Syria and neither are the Turks. The US needs to prioritise working on Turkish-Kurdish relations and the Ankara-PKK peace process in particular.

The US should be a little loyal to people that fought IS for it even if they are a off reservation. It should work to resolve their problems not simply treat them as disposable cannon fodder. The big mistake with the Iraqi Sahwa was standing them up without broader Iraqi buy in, failing to stick with them and never resolving Baghdad's understandable distrust of what were often former Baathist and radical Salafist insurgents. As a result Baghdad dismantled the movement and IS then systematically killed or coopted its leaders. Likewise it shouldn't discount an imperfect NATO ally's obvious decades old terrorist problems.

In these things there sometimes isn't an extraction strategy. You have to commit. Disloyalty has a price.
 
On FP U.S.-Backed Fighters in Syria Worry More About Turkey Than ISIS
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American commanders here estimate about 12,000 to 15,000 troops are needed to take the Islamic State stronghold, with somewhere between 50 to 80 percent of that force being Arab. The ethnic makeup of the force is critical, as Raqqa is an Arab city and the U.S. is trying to allay Turkish concerns over supporting a Kurdish group that Ankara considers to be affiliated with the PKK terrorist group that has waged a bloody campaign in Turkey for decades.
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Sounds like a real low estimate.
 
On HDN ‘Rojava peshmargas’ in Syria offensive on Barzani’s agenda in Turkey visit
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Rojava Peshmerga’ on Syria agenda

A key topic of discussion between Barzani and the Turkish leaders will be about the ongoing military operations against ISIL; the ongoing offensive in Iraq’s Mosul and the planned military operations in Syria.

A plan to include Syrian Kurdish fighters, who are described as the “Rojava peshmargas” by Ankara and were earlier trained by Barzani’s Iraqi Kurdish peshmarga forces for operations in Syria, is on the agendas of the two sides, a Turkish official, who asked to remain anonymous, told Hürriyet Daily News. Some of these forces have been trained by the Turkish Armed Forces at the Bashiqa Camp in northern Iraq and they were described as “friendly elements” by Ankara. In 2014, the Syrian peshmargas, who were trained in northern Iraq, fought against ISIL with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Kobane, the official said.
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The PKK has been somewhat hostile to working with these Syrian KDP associated fighters. There's no love lost with KDP dominated Irbil and PKK HQ up in Qandil. It's not inconceivable these Pesh end up as part of Euphrates Shield.
 
On Bloomberg Russia Tries to Salvage Syria Peace Bid Amid Iran Dispute
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‘Difficult Position’

The conflict in Syria since 2011 has killed at least 300,000 people, sent millions more fleeing to neighboring countries and Europe, and allowed Islamic State to seize a swath of territory from which to wage a campaign of global terror. While new U.S. President Donald Trump has called for an alliance with Russia to fight the jihadists, he’s also branded Iran as the “number one terrorist” threat even as the Kremlin insists on including Iranian-backed and Assad forces in the anti-terrorist campaign in Syria.

“Russia is in a very difficult position, it’s being torn between its traditional partners, Assad and Iran, and its potential partners in the fight against Islamic State -- Turkey and the U.S.,” said Alexander Shumilin, head of the Middle East Conflicts Center at the Institute for U.S. and Canada Studies, a government-run research group in Moscow.
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Russia's plan to carve up Syria into zones of influence not going down well with its allies.
 
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