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And next, Syria?

On Al Monitor Is Assad shifting strategy on Israel?
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The juxtaposition of this killing with the aerial strike in the depths of Syria might be a sign that Israel has become less careful and cautious than usual. Perhaps Israel is now taking more risks in its dangerous dance with the other parties involved in Lebanon. Israel took no responsibility for Sayed’s elimination. However, on that same day, a change of authority took place in Israel’s Northern Command, and some of the top brass who attended referred to the incident obliquely. Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot and outgoing Deputy Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi both said that Israel would continue to thwart terror cells and prevent the transfer of strategic weapons to Hezbollah.

The real question is: What causes Israel to act so freely, and what encouraged its leaders to brag in public following the March 17 incident? One possible answer may be the coalition crisis that is threatening to dismantle the Benjamin Netanyahu government. Another factor may be the ongoing investigations against the prime minister. A flare-up in the north could serve to overshadow these events and put them in the correct perspective. Liberman, who loves his job as defense minister and thus wants to lengthen the current government’s life expectancy, is playing a dangerous game here. The nerves of all the players in the complex tug of war on the northern border are already frayed. Any escalation could get out of control very quickly and lead to a true inferno.

Perhaps that is why Eizenkot announced March 19 that “in a future war, there will be a clear address: the state of Lebanon.” Such an announcement completely dovetails with my last article in Al-Monitor, and constitutes a clear warning: Hezbollah and Lebanon are no longer two separate entities. From now on, they are one and the same.
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With Bibi desperately flailing as scandals engulf him it wouldn't be the first time a war would be useful in Israeli politics. Suggests the normally cowardly when it comes to confronting the Israelis Bashar also may be getting cocky. Guesses the first IAF strike was on a shipment of Scuds destined for HA. Points out it's unusual for the Israelis to admit to strikes in Syria while here the far right nutjob Liberman was basically boasting. HA and Iran have been making increasing belligerent noises concerning Israel. Has the Russians doing a delicate dance between it's R+6 partners and the Israelis.
 

Hint of exasperation here. Well it's the will of the American people. Obama's civilian casualty averse air war actually killed quite a lot of them but Trump promised something far bloodier and has the Pentagon on a longer leash if Mattis is on a leash at all. Definite uptick in civilian casualties with possibly over 400 dead this week in Coalition strikes. Mostly in Mosul, that's what happens in urban battles. IS does tend to kill large numbers of civilians itself which could be said to add some justification. Makes a bit of a joke of raging at the Russians over Aleppo though. Oddly little reporting of this in comparison.

I'd note that piece on the tribes of Raqqa above makes clear how damaging to local support for anti-IS measures occasionally poorly targeted bombing has been. This was something the US military spent some years finding out in Iraq and led to a more painstaking approach that finally worked when locals were coopted successfully to fight AQI.
 

Part of a very CENTCOM critical Airwars thread. SOHR is the bunch that MI6 were meant to be running according to some. British Deep State gunning for Trumpski regime? Somehow I think not.
 
On Reuters Russia underplayed losses in recapture of Syria's Palmyra
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Most of the dead were not regular Russian soldiers but Russian civilians working as private military contractors under the orders of Russian commanders. Moscow has not officially acknowledged the presence of the contractors in Syria.

One of the 18 men killed was Yuri Sokalsky, a 52-year-old from the Russian Black Sea resort of Gelendzhik who, according to a person close to him, signed up to go to Syria in January with a group of private contractors.

In one of his last phone calls home, the person close to him said, he expressed surprise at the large numbers of Russian contractors being despatched to Syria, and relayed what he had been told about the intensity of the combat.

"Out of every 100 people, 50 are coming back in caskets,"

the person recalled Sokalsky as saying. The person asked not to be identified, fearing repercussions for revealing information that is sensitive for the Russian authorities.
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52 is getting a bit long in the tooth for this sort of thing. I imagine running away across open desert in full kit is hard on the knees.

Gelendzhik has some pretty exotic history related to the Russian connections across the region:
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Before Russia secured the coast by the Treaty of Adrianople (1829), a brisk slave trade had been carried on between the mountaineers and the Ottoman Empire. Since the Circassian beauties were usually traded for gold and other commodities before being taken to Turkish seraglios, the market place became known as "Gelendzhik" (from "gelincik"), literally, "little bride" in Turkish Language. In 1831, one of the first forts of the Black Sea Coastal Line was set up at Gelendzhik.[citation needed] At the outbreak of the Crimean War the fort had to be blown up and abandoned, but it was resettled by the Cossacks in 1864, at the conclusion of the Russian-Circassian War, and became known as the stanitsa of Gelendzhiksaya. Town status was granted to Gelendzhik in 1915.[citation needed]
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On Reuters Russia must limit Iranian power in Syria: Israeli intelligence director
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"As we speak, relations between Iran and Syria are getting tighter," said Chagai Tzuriel, the top civil servant in Israel's Intelligence Ministry, who spent 27 years in Mossad, including as station chief in Washington.

"Iran is in the process of putting together agreements, including economic agreements, with Syria to strengthen its hold, its ports and naval bases there," he said in a rare interview. "There is a need for Russia and other powers to work to avoid the threat that Iran ends up with military, air and naval bases in Syria."

Israel has long warned about the threat from Iran, especially its perceived desire to acquire nuclear weapons, but now sees a rising territorial squeeze, with Tehran's influence reaching in an arc from Lebanon in the north to Gaza in the south, where it has links to Islamist groups.

Iran maintains it wants a nuclear capability only for domestic energy and scientific research purposes, and has so far largely stuck to the terms of the nuclear deal agreed with the United States and other world powers in 2015.

Tzuriel said the conflict in Syria, now in its seventh year, had created a number of imbalances in the region - whether between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, Iran and Turkey, Kurds and Arabs, Turkey and Syria, Russia and the United States - that needed to be kept contained and shifted back into equilibrium.

A lot of the responsibility for that rests with Russia, which has become the biggest player in the region and is capable of exerting the most influence, he said.

"When it comes to Iran, the United States, Russia and other powers need to understand that (growing Iranian influence in Syria) is going to be a constant source of friction," said Tzuriel, adding that it could reduce Moscow's own influence in the region and set back the gains it has made in Syria.

"Russia has a vested interest in keeping that threat contained."
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And a pony! How does Russia control Iran in Syria when its strategy is reliant on their man power? This is a crock the Russians have been selling the Israelis and the latter are starting to realise it.
 
In TDS US helicopters, special ops take part in Syria rebel airlift
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The air drop of Syrian Democratic Forces near the town of Tabqa in northern Syria was the first time the coalition had carried out such a mission, Colonel Joseph Scrocca, a spokesman, told reporters.

He said that about 75 to 80 percent of the forces air dropped were members of the Syrian Arab Coalition group and the remainder were from another part of the SDF, some of whom were Kurdish fighters.

The operation aims both to capture the strategic Tabqa area across the Euphrates River from the SDF's other holdings and to curb Syrian government advances in that direction, the U.S.-backed alliance of militias said in a statement on a social media feed.
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On ISW Russia Moves to Supplant U.S. Role

Russia still has a pretty tiny footprint in MENA compared to the US but is expanding with Syria being at the centre of it all. It's a revival of USSR policies. It's really led by a lot of careful diplomacy not at all a simple muscling in. Facing a bellicose US administration that appears to be both all wind and averse to such subtlety the Russians have quite a window.
 
On From Chechnya To Syria Nohchicho’s Interview with Muslim Shishani
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Why have the rebel groups not managed to hold east Aleppo?

Again the reason is our disunity and a lack of a united strategy and tactics. When the enemy is serious and strong one needs to split up and attack from various sides against his weak spots. That’s what even predators do when they meet a strong victim. When they split up they first drive the prey into a trap and then finish it. But with us it is the opposite, the enemy first sets out his traps for us and then lures us there.

We rush to this bait in droves, each trying to get ahead of the other, and the result, as we see, is obvious. And if we are preparing military operations, we announce this in advance to the whole world as if we are going to fight against Indians, who have only tomahawks and arrows. The enemy, who has everything it wants, can easily arrange to meet us.

When everyone rushed to liberate Aleppo, we gathered all our forces and decided to ease the situation by starting operations in Latakia. For this we had everything prepared, but we needed ammunition, and no assistance came to us. But we could not find anyone to help us, even though we turned to everyone who could have supported us in this. Later, we came to the aid of those who were working in the direction of Hama and alhamdulillah, with the help of Allah we managed to capture a vast territory, and we moved on, but then a fitna started. Ahrar al Sham and Jund al-Aksa, as you probably already know, started to fight among themselves, and the enemy took advantage of this moment and took back all the territories that it had previously lost.

What is the current situation with the civilians in Aleppo? With those who were evacuated from the town and those who stayed behind.

Thank God, everyone was evacuated from Aleppo and they are slowing coming to and building their lives. Help is also coming, from Turkey and other places.

How would you comment on operation Euphrates Shield, and in general about the role of Turkey in recent events?

I think that Turkey has gotten disappointed with those jamaats in Syria that it previously assisted and which it counted on, and having understood that they can’t change the situation there, they’ve decided that they’re going to defend their interests themselves. And that was good for anyone apart from the residents of Aleppo, since as a result many groups left Aleppo and went to help the Turks.

How would you assess the truce between the Assadis and the rebels, which was concluded via Russia and Turkey?

During the assault on Aleppo the enemy suffered heavy losses and used up most of its forces and resources. For that reason, it needs time to recover. Otherwise, they would never have made any concessions.
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What he's describing in planning to attack Latakia rather than charging to to relieve Aleppo is very like how IS has fought. When weakened in one place aggressively attack elsewhere where your enemy is not concentrated. It's much as Mao recommended. Notice also his understanding of the attrition to limited resources of the R+6 leading to easier terms during the fall of East Aleppo.
 
On Ottomans and Zionists Israel and Russia Head For a Crash
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n the Israeli side, Russia’s involvement in Syria directly impacts Israel and makes closer relations a necessity. For the Israeli government, Russia’s heavy presence in Syria has been a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that Israel has been able to repeatedly strike Iranian arms convoys destined for Hizballah without Russian interference despite flying hundreds of sorties through Russian-controlled territory, since Jerusalem and Moscow have worked out a deal preserving Israel’s ability to strike these targets and have coordinated to a near-perfect level. Were Israel trying to operate in Iranian-controlled territory rather than Russian, things would be far messier. The fact that Russia purposely turns a blind eye to Israeli strikes on these weapons shipments – despite the extraordinary fact that Israel is oftentimes blowing up weapons that Russia itself has supplied to Iran – also limits the fallout, as it makes it difficult for Iran to retaliate against Israel in response. The curse, however, is that in having to rely on Russia’s good graces, the Israeli military is operating at the mercy of a larger power and must also limit itself to the parameters of what it has agreed upon with Moscow, rather than being able to target Iranian fighters in Syria to whatever larger extent it wishes. Russia’s ownership of the Syrian civil war provides Israel with a greater degree of freedom but also a greater degree of restriction.

While the relationship has remained on track up until now, it has been destined to unravel from the day that Russia entered Syria, and indeed the first loose threads are now beginning to show. No matter how good the coordination mechanism between the two sides, the fundamental conflict at the heart of Israeli-Russian views on Syria is that Israel’s redline is the establishment of a permanent Iranian presence in Syria and Russia’s redline is the elimination of a permanent Iranian presence in Syria. At the outset of the Syrian civil war, Israeli government and military opinion was split as to whether it would be better for Bashar al-Assad to remain in power or better for him to be toppled. That debate has decisively shifted toward the latter as Assad has solidified his rule over western Syria with a serious assist from Iran, leading not only to a more robust Hizballah presence in Syria but Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps soldiers as well. As the Israeli defense and intelligence establishment came to a near-consensus on the dangers of Assad’s continued tenure given his ever larger reliance on Iran and his further cementing as an Iranian proxy, Russia made it clear that it will not abandon Assad and that its own core interest in Syria is keeping him – and the Iranian influence that is bound up with him as a necessary byproduct – right where he is. Israel cannot abide Assad staying and Russia cannot abide him going.
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The Israeli position on the Syrian war was much like theirs in the Iran-Iraq war: wanting both sides to loose. A weakened Assad in thrall to Iran or a likely even more hostile Salafi Emirate next door were both bad outcomes. Now it seems the former is the case a a tilt against Assad and his allies can be expected.
 
Will the United States Be a Victim of Its Own Success in Syria?
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This approach is fraught with risk, and very soon it will be up to President Trump to determine the extent to which he wants to increase the investment of the United States on the ground in eastern Syria, and with which partners. Secretary Tillerson’s remarks and the March 9 Senate testimony of U.S. Central Command Commander Gen. Joseph Votel, who is tasked with overseeing military operations in Syria, indicate that conventional U.S. forces may be needed for a stabilization mission in Syria, which is indicative of the scale of the challenge that is staring the United States in the face in eastern Syria.

ISIS is already preparing for this scenario and is ready to wage a rural insurgency combined with urban raids and terrorist attacks to undermine any security and governance authority that would be established by American forces and local partners. There is a real risk for the Trump administration that a stabilization mission in eastern Syria could devolve into a quagmire if ISIS, or the al-Assad government and its allies in western Syria, choose to wage an active insurgency against American and local partner forces. Achieving the military support of key regional partners such as Turkey, Gulf Arab states, Iraq and Jordan would be optimal; however, there are obstacles to getting these partners to participate in an open-ended American-led military mandate after ISIS.
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Basically predicting an open ended US ground commitment of a Brigade or so in Eastern Syria.

Turkey not willing to cooperate with PKK. Regime under resourced and reliant on Iran. Would outrage regional allies if turf handed back to R+6. Gulfies busy elsewhere. Jordan with it's border security others with the daft war in Yemen. Iraqis probably unacceptable in Eastern Syria and having their own infestation. Assumes an independent non-SDF Sunni Arab tribal force will arise in current IS areas.

I'd note the US did something similar in Iraq with numbers creeping up and being massaged down by rotating in temporary forces, Coalition partners SF, using lots of contractors. The Pentagon plays similar numbers games in Afghanistan with force numbers being about double what is freely admitted too. Given the inadequacy of US partners in Syria I can see this being a slippery slope. Not least because the Turks will need to deterred from attacking the PKK in Syria as will tribal actors the Turks will back.

In Iraq the US ground presence is somewhat constrained by political opposition from parts of the Baghdad government and widespread paranoid suspicions that the US is actually behind IS. Once IS is reduced to a insurgent actor lacking overt turf in urban centres it is not clear much more than a US training presence in Iraq will be tolerated. Though looking at the report upthread on Raqqa area tribes hostility to a US presence appears strong. The US is seen as not just backing the PKK but effectively an R+6 partner and hasn't been forgiven for toppling Saddam.
 

Syrian Dad's Army, the interviewee enlisted voluntarily at 57 and says that's not uncommon. Symptom of man power shortages.
 
On MEE How Iran justifies its costly Syria intervention at home
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'Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon'

The fact of the matter is that Iran’s Syria involvement has much less to do with nipping terrorism in the bud than maintaining its “strategic depth” in the region in general and towards Israel in particular.

Such an objective would hardly be plausible without keeping Syria in the “axis of resistance” and thereby preserving uninterrupted supply lines and channels of communication with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Tehran’s arch-proxy in the Middle East. For the Islamic Republic, this is a seminal part of its “asymmetric deterrence” against external aggression.

But the problem with the “strategic depth” or Hezbollah-related explanation is that it is not as popular and acceptable to Iranian public opinion as “counter-terrorism” is. More specifically, it does not go down well with those parts of the society that have secular and nationalistic rather than religious and communitarian leanings.

Notably, one of the key slogans of demonstrators during the post-2009 election protests in Tehran was “neither Gaza, nor Lebanon, I give my life for Iran”.

In point of fact, to rationalise their Syria war effort, Iranian leaders are resorting to what is usually described as “securitisation” in political science, namely the use of “extraordinary” measures - such as costly military intervention in a foreign country - in the name of homeland security, measures that otherwise do not belong in the sphere of “ordinary” politics.
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Actually when you look at their attempts to appeal to a broad public rather than a large religiously conservative base rather similar to how our leaders justify our interventions. Terrorism, fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here etc. That said plenty of Iranians are eager to go fight there but the motivation tends to be a pious defence of shrines.

This war to prop up Assad has never been very popular in Iran and has got less popular over time according to all the polling I've seen. Not that that would make the regime turn their back on Syria. They view Israel as too big a threat and affront Allah to ever do that.
 
On Syria Deeply Russian Public Perception Pressuring Putin to Wrap Up Syria Operation
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The Russian public doesn’t pay much attention to the war in Syria. In a survey by VTSIOM polling agency, only 18 percent of respondents said they regularly followed the war, while the majority of respondents said they did not fully understand the nature of the conflict. Only 27 percent said they felt that the situation was improving.

What’s more, some fear that Russia might soon become the target of radical Islamists. “Because of its military operation in Syria, Russia is becoming one of the main enemies of Islamist terrorism; that’s why the military operation needs to finish,” prominent foreign policy scholar Alexey Arbatov said in an interview published on the website of the social liberal party YABLOKO.
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My bold, I've yet to met a Russian much interested in Syria.

Putin wanting to wind things up in Syria by the 2018 Russian elections may well be true if rather unlikely to actually happen. Bratersky here thinks Putin replacing Assad would be as easy as flying him and his kin out to exile in Moscow which suggests he really hasn't been paying attention to Syria either.
 
On Atlantic Council The Effects of Suspending American Aid to Moderate Syrian Opposition Groups
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Fears of Rising Extremism

Others cautioned that this decision could threaten the future of opposition groups. According to a prominent military commander in the countryside of Latakia who works with groups of the Free Army and preferred to remain anonymous, stopping the provision of aid could push fighters towards other, more extremist, groups, in search of a way to guarantee their livelihoods. He explained that some jihadist groups offer their fighters financial support, since they control oil wells and border crossings and have their own resources, while most moderate groups do not possess such resources.

This leader said that the war – whether against Assad regime forces, or against ISIS – differs from how it was in the past. Now, it is a large battle, which requires huge quantities of ammunition, as well as material and logistical support. If current conditions continue, we will not be able to convince fighters to keep fighting without guaranteeing their livelihoods, he added.
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Somewhat mixed opinions from rebels here. It really depends if they have developed alternative means of economic support. Some have as US aid wasn't viewed as reliable. Though groups that were too extreme for the US to back will have already tackled this problem. For a lot of rebels being a fighter is a livelihood not a vocation they likely will follow the money.

Sponsorship from foreigners nearly always carries political complications that may not always be welcome. The Turks are unlikely to back a rebel group that is PKK friendly for instance but the US will. The Turks were comfortable with a big tent of political Islam the Saudis often were not. Private Gulf donors who have long backed parts of the Taliban have other expectations. This does involve pretences with for instance rebel groups sometimes being reported to have adopted Salafi ways entirely insincerely. Groups had to look relatively moderate and get along with other supported groups for the CIA to back them. Tactical alliances with AQ were tolerated but only to a certain extent. There are all sorts of kinship links and conflicts that can change the perception of a group and rebel groups often are not uniform ideologically or criminally being a shifting amalgamation of local gangs. Competition over resources such as smuggling routes, hydro-carbons or farmland would likely follow changes in sponsorship.
 
On Syrian Observer Russian Media Attacks Assad for Failure to Defend Damascus
The Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper has sharply attacked the incompetence of Syrian government forces, repeatedly stressing that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, without Russia and Iranian and Lebanese militias, would be powerless to stop the broad assault of Syrian opposition forces on the capital Damascus.

The newspaper published an article translated into Arabic by the Kremlin-backed website Russia Today on Thursday. The newspaper, which enjoys a large readership inside Russia, acknowledged the severe attack by opposition forces which began on Sunday, March 19, 2017, and continues today.

The newspaper indicated that the opposition forces in their attack used tunnels that had been previously dug and were able to plant massive explosives, detonated near regime forces sites, in addition to using car bombs throughout their offensive.

The newspaper backed claims by opposition media and repeatedly challenged the regime line which said that the forces of the “Republican Guard held on to their positions despite the heavy losses they suffered.” This comes as a contradiction by the Russians of the regime, which has denied the extent of the heavy losses suffered by its forces throughout the ongoing battles in Damascus on the Jobar and Abbasid fronts.

The newspaper directly attacked the regime intelligence agencies and their officers and forces, saying: “It is not understood what the reconnaissance and military intelligence units were doing and why a large number of armed groups with their equipment were able to advance to the capital. Why did it turn out there were tunnels in Damascus prepared previously by the militants — and, apparently, large tunnels?”

The newspaper defended the Russian military experts who are supporting the regime forces, addressing accusations and reproaches toward the regime forces, indicating that idleness pervaded the ranks of these forces, saying: “The facts supplied make it hard to blame the Russian military experts, some of whom have confirmed the lack of desire of the Syrians [regime forces] to mobilize quickly, always accompanied by the word ‘tomorrow,’ which it is impossible to overcome, making carrying out full reconnaissance to uncover the tunnels a fantasy.”
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I assume that's a Russian military leak that the Kremlin decided to release more widely.
 
On Atlantic Council How Russia Beat Turkey in Syria
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The sequence of events clearly demonstrates how Russia is working at cross-purposes with Ankara in Syria, and how Russia and the YPG have a mutually beneficial relationship in countering Turkey in Syria. Turkey still has means to put pressure on Russia in Syria. Ankara is training rebels in Turkey to join its proxies in northern Aleppo. Turkey could simply send these to other areas in Idlib or down to Hama to attack regime positions. However, the events between November 2015 and February 2017 clearly shows that Russia has escalation dominance in Syria vis-a-vis Turkey. Moreover, the YPG in Afrin—well armed and now with overt Russian assistance—could move south to take the Reyhanli / Bab al-Hawa border crossing. Russia could easily justify such action as necessary to defeat Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, which has a strong presence in Idlib. To stop them, Ankara would have to risk targeting Russian soldiers, risking a broader clash, wherein Turkey is the weaker of the two parties.

Yet, for Turkey, Russia remains a valuable tool to try and put pressure on the United States. Ankara rejects US support for the SDF, as it also empowers the YPG along the northeastern border. Turkey has sought to use Moscow to signal to the United States that it has options, beyond the US-Turkish alliance and, by extension, Turkish reliance on NATO for its security. The events in Syria clearly contradict this. Russia is not an ally of Turkey. Instead, Russia is using all the means at its disposal to shape the opposition to serves its end goals of a negotiated settlement on its own terms—goals at odds with Turkish interests. Turkey has few options to alter this dynamic, especially since the United States is pushing ahead with its preferred partner in northeastern Syria, the SDF. Turkey has even fewer options to stop the trajectory of these two larger powers.
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All this reflects Ankara simply being far more worried about the PKK as a domestic threat than Assad or Salafi-Jihadis. The Kremlin also uses Israeli fears of HA to keep the IDF in a box by promising to limit Iran's influence. Russia has yanked the US about using real but less well founded fears of Salafi-Jihadis using Syria as a base for international attacks as a similar lever. And all the time they've hammered away at the less radical opposition far more than Salafi-Jihadis as Iran's power rises in Syria and courted the PKK. The jujitsu of keeping enemies off balance while tightly focused on keeping Assad in power.
 
On Oryx Blog Another One Bites the Dust: Major arms depot falls to Islamic State
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A propaganda video released by the Islamic State, showing its fighters on the offensive in Deir ez-Zor, was the only footage released of the capture of the depot. The video, على أبواب الملاحم - 'At the Doors of Epics [Battles]', details the Islamic State's efforts towards splitting the regime-held territory in two, which they succeeded in doing so in February 2017. This means that the airbase and Brigade 137 are now completely isolated, further complicating efforts to supply both pockets and drastically increasing the vulnerability of the airbase. Despite the growing threat, it remains unlikely that the Islamic State will be able to capture either pocket. The capture of significant quantities of ammunition, including up to three million rounds of small arms rounds will surely allow the Islamic State to prolong its fight for survival.
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Not the first time IS's enemies have stocked its arsenal.
 
On IRIN Trapped: How northwestern Syria became a cage for hundreds of thousands of civilians
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Nevertheless, the regime setbacks illustrate the limitations of al-Assad’s exhausted army in northern Syria, where it faces some 6,000 square kilometres of opposition-controlled territory in and around Idlib Province, including parts of the Hama, Latakia, and Aleppo provinces. Unlike other rebel-held areas, this wider Idlib region is impossible for the Syrian army to conquer through a war of siege and attrition, since the insurgency receives constant support from across the Turkish border.

Al-Assad recognised as much in an interview with the Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda in October of last year, saying: “You cannot cut [off Turkish supplies], because Idlib is adjacent to Turkey; it’s right on the Syrian-Turkish borders. So you cannot cut; you have to clean. You have to keep cleaning this area and to push the terrorists to Turkey to go back to where they come from, or to kill them. There’s no other option.”

That seems to be the gist of the Syrian government’s strategy: Clean, push, and kill to keep the insurgency at bay, taking what it can and leaving the rest for later, in the hopes that Turkey will one day decide to cut off support for the rebels.

Yet if the renewed rebel offensive in Hama is any clue, Ankara and its allies remain determined to push back, doggedly feeding arms into northern Syria in order to pin down al-Assad’s army, prevent him from winning the war, and increase their own leverage in talks with his Russian allies. Worst of all, as many as two million Syrian civilians may be trapped in the area where these relentless forces collide.
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Lund on rebel Idlib. It's very hard to suppress an insurrection with secure rear basing as both the Russians and we've found in Afghanistan. And the Turks are overt and active in their support for the rebels with thanks to the PKK having strong motivations to maintain rebel forces.

It's not there yet but given Assad's lack of manpower and limited Russian ambitions Idlib perhaps is developing into something akin to the open air Correctional Facility of Gaza as policed on the ground by Hamas. State forces parsimoniously withdrawn but controlling the airspace. It's still a free fire zone. Assad ready to "mow the grass" i.e. degrade any emerging threat with massive force.
 
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