And next, Syria?

[CrabbedOne]

Proposes the US:

• Creates a series of "safe zones" in Syria
• This to include the US endorsing a permanent Turkish presence
  
• Guaranteeing a permanently divided Rojova with two Apoist statelets
  
• Giving the PKK heavy weapons on a promise to hand them back after Raqqa
• While offering bribes in the form of aid to ensure that
• Putting in US troops to eventually serve as peacekeepers
• And then waiting until Assad falls at some unspecified date in the future and reuniting Syria

Sowell really unimpressed.

I'm a bit afraid that something along these lines is what happens by default if Trump focuses on Syria. Bashar is 51 and might well still be in power in 2030. It's likely the PKK and Turks will still be going at each other at that date. Turkey actually can't leave as its rebels cannot stand up to the PKK or even what is left of IS. There is going to be an Eastern Rojova that's firmly in the R+6 orbit and a Western one that the US may have influence in but this may also gravitate to Damascus as without a repaired relationship with Turkey Assad is really the only viable commercial partner for their bulk hydro-carbons and the regime now controls a GLOC to the comrades in Afrin.

As for reunifying a soft partitioned Syria consider the autonomous KRG set up in the 90s began with a intra-Kurdish civil war and it never really reintegrated into Iraq. It never even unified its rival party militias. It's viable mainly because Barzani reconciled with the Turks. He'd have been wiser to also build a better balancing relationship with Baghdad and not endlessly bang on about an unlikely independence. Lately it has suffered like authoritarian Rojava from the domination of a single party if to a lesser extent. Heavy US support to the KDP has only made this worse. The KRG is far from perfect but it is a genuinely US friendly Central Asian Stan. Too little attention has been paid to Irbil's fraying legitimacy as it was mainly valued as a partner against IS. It needs pushing in better directions and so does Rojava which may prove far less stable than the KRG.

This may be a transitional arrangement as IS is likely to linger on as an insurgent actor but the US has to focus on the mess it's partly created in NE Syria in the struggle against IS not simply declare victory and drift away once Raqqa has fallen. That means being almost as worried the war in SE Turkey as the Turks are. Seeing broader Turkish-Kurdish relations as being key to regional stability in a way Palestinian-Israeli squabbles simply are not anymore.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Well it may have a low chance of being sustainable looking at the level of local tribal opposition but that won't stop it from happening. Some of the same tribes have been fuming under PKK rule North of Raqqa for some time.

 

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In TDS Syrian army captures ISIS village near Aleppo

BEIRUT: The Syrian army captured the small town of Deir Hafer east of Aleppo from ISIS on Wednesday, a Syrian military source said, part of its operations to drive back the exremist group and consolidate its control in that area.

It was the site of an important ISIS headquarters and contained a command and control center, an arms manufacturing site, field hospitals and highly engineered fortifications, the source said.

The army surrounded and besieged it days ago as part of its campaign to recapture the areas to the east of Aleppo, including an important water supply facility for the city that it took earlier this month, and a military airbase.
...

 

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[coley]

What's the big deal? SAMs I could understand.

 

[CrabbedOne]

What's the big deal? SAMs I could understand.

It does rather illustrate why handing out SAMs in large numbers was asking for a wave of terrorist attacks on civil aviation. It's actually very rare for AQ or IS to get hold of TOWs. I don't think Ahar al Sham were ever supplied with them directly.

However a lot has changed in Idlib with quite a lot of rebel infighting and realignment. The HTS coalition formed headed by AQ and includes at least one group that had been supplied with TOWs a while ago. Ahar al Sham split with part of the group joining HTS and it also incorporated several "moderate" rebel groups who were seeking protection from HTS so you might regard Ahar as having changed substantially. There's also been reports of HTS raiding other groups arsenals. Some TOWs turning up in these new coalitions is inevitable.

In any case the TOWs had frequently been used in AQ or Ahar offensives with vetted groups providing fire support so it makes little difference to the fighting on the ground. It would be a violation of US law for Langley to hand weapons to a designated terrorist group. It's embarrassing especially as there are more and more US boots on the ground in Syria but you'd have to assume from the start some CIA supplied weapons will end up in radical hands. It's a calculated risk giving weapons to fighters who are mostly pretty anti-Western.

But it's not such a big disaster after all IS is armed with an awful lot of former ISF weapons including artillery and armoured vehicles mostly supplied by the Pentagon. They would never have been able to take Raqqa without them. The SAA also keeps losing enormous dumps of kit to them.

 

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Declare victory and stay; very Old Skool.

 

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Sputnik and Breitbart: a marriage made in Heavan .

 

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...
Until now both the Syrian government and the opposition oppose any form of federalism in northern Syria.

A non-paper from the office of UN Syria Special Envoy Steffan de Mistura called for “local self-administration” areas in Syria.

However, the KNC earlier criticized de Mistura’s proposal, suggesting it ignored Kurdish rights in Syria.

However, Salih said the problem is not with the UN, but with the Syrian opposition.

“Unfortunately, we only find a bare list of catchwords here, whereas it stays entirely open, what ‘local self-administration’ is intended to mean, for instance,” said Kamiran Hajo, Chairman of the Committee for External Affairs at the Kurdish National Council in Syria.

“Finding a solution for the ‘Kurdish question’, however, is definitely of high significance,” Hajo told ARA News. “This issue, though, is in no way considered in the non-paper; the interests of up to 15 per cent of the Syrian people are being categorically ignored.”

“Due to the outlined reasons, the Kurdish National Council in Syria cannot identify with de Mistura’s non-paper. Furthermore, we want to point out that we expect an explicit commitment to the Kurdish issue’s relevance for a peace settlement by both the Syrian opposition – our associates – and the UN,” Hajo stated.

The Kurdish National Council has explicitly called for the creation of a federal Kurdistan region in Syria, while the rival Democratic Union Party (PYD) has called for a non-ethnic federal region in Northern Syria.

On Tuesday, U.S Coalition Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, ground forces commander, said the US-led coalition has no plan to create a Kurdish state.

“It’s not my mission to create a Kurdish federal state, and we’re not liberating Raqqa for any one party. Actually what we see with the Syrian Democratic Forces is although they may be largely Kurdish led, they are over half non-Kurd,” Lieutenant General Townsend said.

“So, I don’t see a Kurdish state. I see a multi-cultural, multi-party, multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian Syrian region being liberated from ISIS,” he said.

And a pony.

 

[CrabbedOne]

...
Abu Qatada’s intervention

On February 16, Abu Qatada al-Filastini, al-Maqdisi’s fellow jihadi scholar in Jordan, announced on Telegram that he had successfully intervened in the dispute between al-Maqdisi and al-Shami. The two had agreed to end the mutual recriminations. Al-Maqdisi’s daily criticism of Tahrir al-Sham would not ease up, but he did cease to engage in ad hominem attacks.

Abu Qatada’s peacemaking role was in keeping with his reputation as the relatively more moderate jihadi ideologue. Yet even he had been critical of Tahrir al-Sham, arguing that recent developments gave cause for concern. In a mid-February essay he expressed disappointment with Abu Jabir al-Shaykh’s first public statement as Tahrir al-Sham’s leader. Abu Jabir “was not clear” about what he stood for. Rather “his words were chosen in such a way as not to anger anyone or oppose anyone,” and this was worrying. “The speech he gave only increases the fearful in fear.”

By early March, however, Abu Qatada had changed his tone. In a rather self-critical fatwa posted to Telegram, he resigned himself to the fact that a new generation of jihadi leaders, one less ideologically rigid and less closed off to the larger Islamic community, was in the ascendant. “The jihadi current has long vacillated between partial openness and isolation,” he wrote, and the former tendency was beginning to make inroads—“the idea of the ideological group” was giving way to “a project of the Islamic community.” In his view, this had to be welcomed, though it meant the jihadi current was going to “splinter” further. “Believe me,” he said, “there are going to be more changes within the current.”

More than a name change

All this would suggest that Tahrir al-Sham is not just a new sign on an old al-Qaida building. Rather the new group is indicative of yet another tension in the jihadi movement that is only now coming to the surface. When al-Qaida in Iraq restyled itself the Islamic State of Iraq in 2006, few were those who saw this to be more than a simple name change. But as is well known now, that was not the case. The Islamic State of Iraq marked the start of a new project not really guided by al-Qaida. Something similar appears to be afoot today in Syria, only in “diluted” form.

 

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...
There, they practiced firing the huge SPG-9 rocket launcher, the rapid-firing AGS-17 grenade launcher, and the RPG-7, another grenade launcher familiar to anyone who has watched war movies or seen footage from Syria or Afghanistan. Dougherty says many of the munitions were visibly corroded, and they set those aside.

The wind gusts from the northwest were fierce on the expansive plains in central Bulgaria that day, buffeting the trees on the side of the military range. The ridged mountains a few kilometers away framed the rusted hulks of armored personnel carriers and trucks used for target practice.

Dougherty, the senior man in the team, took video from the side, holding his cell phone camera steady as Navy veteran Norwillo, a tall man who towered over the others, carried an anti-personnel rocket-propelled grenade, a long cylinder shaped like a giant pencil, and loaded it into the grenade launcher that Parker held on his shoulder.

Having trained for days, Dougherty knew what would happen now: Norwillo would slide the grenade rocket all the way into the tube, where it would click into place, and then walk off to the side so he’d be clear of the line of fire. Parker would make sure everyone was clear from the backblast that would come from the rear of the weapon, and then he would pull the trigger. The rocket-propelled grenade would launch with a blast, soar away, and explode in the distance.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, the warhead exploded while it was in the launcher, before it even clicked into place.

Dougherty said suddenly there was just “a kind of white” before his senses came back.

He was slammed against a concrete wall by the force of the blast, and then the air pressure sucked him violently the other way against the ground. He looked down and saw that he was covered in blood. He didn’t know it then, but his blood was mixed with the blood and brains of Norwillo, who was killed instantly. Dougherty saw Parker staring at his missing hand and shouting, “My hand!”
...

On a $600/day contract.

 

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[CrabbedOne]

Which is what the Iranians have been saying for years.

 

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On ARANEWS Syrian Ahrar al-Sham members on trial in Germany for terrorism

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The two Syrians, one 25, the other 22-year-old, were arrested one year ago and lived in an asylum seeker shelter. Both have escaped to Germany and one of them is in a wheelchair after he was injured in the Syrian conflict, the German b24 reports.
According to German prosecutors, the defendants took part in combat campaigns against the Syrian government and other groups between August 2013 and April 2014. The men were said to have carried weapons.

The 25-year-old also accompanied troop transports, distributed food, performed guard services and attended injured.

According to the prosecutor both men acted with knowledge and the aims of Ahrar al-Sham, which is not officially designated as a terrorist organization in Germany.
...

Interesting the Krauts are now prosecuting disabled former rebels that they've let in as refugees. Not clear from the b24 report what for exactly. Ahar often associates with AQ and has been linked to war crimes in the past but then you could say the same about a lot of rebel groups.

 

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On Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi's Blog The 313 Battalion: A Syrian 'Islamic Resistance' Formation

...

A member of the 313 Battalion with "Rafidhi 313" insignia on his arm. The term Rafidhi is derogatory for a Shi'i, though it has been used by Shi'a in the sense of 'reclaiming' the term with pride, One should compare with the way some black people use the word nigger.
...

I had not noticed the ironic use of Rafidhi in insignia before.

That looks like a H&K G3 he's carrying which sometimes pops up with Iranian backed groups. Group's IRGC linked.

 

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On ISW Syria Situation Report: March 17 - 30, 2017

...The U.S. also transferred at least 500 SDF fighters to the southern bank of the Euphrates River via helicopter to cut the Aleppo - Ar-Raqqa Highway. The operation - which will likely provoke a negative response from Turkey - began on the same day as a two-day ministerial conference of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in Washington D.C.
...

I'd missed that coincidence. The Turks would see that as a twist of the knife.

 

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On Reuters Syrian rebels seize swathes of south as Islamic State retreats

...
Salamah said Islamic State had pulled hundreds of fighters from the areas where his group, working with four others, had made its advances, suggesting they had been redeployed to help defend Raqqa and Deir al-Zor province to the east.

The advances have taken place in a swathe of sparsely populated territory stretching from the town of Bir Qassab, some 50 km (30 miles) southeast of Damascus, all the way to the borders with Iraq and Jordan, a desert area known as the Badia.

"In the event of the fall of Raqqa and Mosul, where would they go? They would be coming here. So we decided to work and kick them out of this area before they would come to us," Salameh told Reuters in a phone interview.

The rebels have also seized control of the eastern slopes of the Qalamoun mountains to the northwest of Bir Qassab, where Islamic State's presence had disappeared as it moved its forces further north, he said.

The rebels say their campaign in the area had been gradually escalated over the last five months.

Said Seif, an official in another FSA faction, the Shahid Ahmad al-Abdo group, said 250 square km (96 square miles) had been captured in the Badia alone.

Salameh said at least 117 of his fighters had been killed in ferocious fighting over the last few months in what he said were relentless assaults and ambushes by the militants.

His group first fought Islamic State when it took over parts of Deir al-Zor province at the height of its expansion in 2014. His fighters regrouped in areas near the Jordanian border, where their base was hit in a Russian air strike last year.

My bold, interesting Deir connection.

 

[CrabbedOne]

The Twitter skills of the late charismatic leader of sternly Salafi Jaish al Islam.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Long roundtable discussion on TCF Four Perspectives on Syria, Round II

...
For the Assad regime, leaving those rebels to their own devices in a single rural province now seems like an obvious option, although it still leaves open the question of how those remaining factions will respond. It’s possible that the infighting will devolve into a struggle among warlords for power over the remaining slivers of territory held by the opposition in the northwest, but it is also likely to include a shift toward insurgency and terrorism as we have witnessed in recurrent cycles in Iraq. These groups may never again threaten the territorial hold of the regime over useful Syria, but they will almost certainly continue to trouble, harass, and kill the regime. And we have already seen signs of a shift in terms of urban terrorism, and I imagine Syria will see more of that in this next phase.
...

Pretty much how I'd see it. Idlib as Assad's parsimonious Gaza like solution to contain the squabbling remains of the Northern revolt.

This is a corker:

...
Aron: The Syrian government’s public messaging on this point has been quite something. When Economy Minister Adib Mayaleh was interviewed on al-Mayadeen in February, he said no European nations will be allowed to invest in Syria’s reconstruction unless they publicly apologize to the Syrian government, then apologize to their peoples, and then change their own leaders in an election. I think maybe he overestimates the level of Western interest in shoveling money into one of the most broken economies on earth.

On the other hand, the EU does seem to be trying to reposition itself to get a slice of reconstruction work. I’m sure there’s some long-term profit and influence at stake, maybe more for some countries than for others. Around the time of the retaking of East Aleppo, the EU announced that reconstruction funds will be contingent on political transition. This, I think, is delusional. If you couldn’t move Assad out by taking away half the country and killing tens of thousands of Syrian soldiers, then withholding reconstruction funds isn’t going to do the trick.
...

Actually much like the position the Iraqi Baath remnants took after IS steamrollered over them in 2014 and various Gulf parties tried to organise a fight back.

Heller points out that some are doubting the decision to cut off diplomatic relations with the regime and bet the farm on the rebels engineering a transition was at all wise. A lot of Europeans no more want Syrian refugees washing up on their shores than Trump does and that rising tide provides a political incentives to bury the hatchet and help rebuild Syria. This would be easier if the regime made some face saving concessions but you can go whistle on that one.

And as for IS... It's probably immortal. Folk will probably live with quirky PKK rule but it's unsustainable in the longer term. There's some consensus though that this witches brew of future problems is the least worst choice left.

...
Soon after ISIS took the entirety of eastern Deir al-Zour province, a local dispute between ISIS foot soldiers and members of a half-subdued clan called the Shaeitat escalated into a mini-rebellion. ISIS put it down with terrifying, ruthless force, apparently killing hundreds of Shaeitat men and burying them in shallow desert graves—people still occasionally find Shaeitat bones. And when ISIS did it, it cited a Quranic verse—“and, with them, scatter those behind them”—that refers to the Prophet Muhammad’s terrible, demonstrative retribution against the oath-breaking Bani Qureidha tribe in old Arabia. ISIS made an example of the Shaeitat that scattered all those who might come after them, just like Muhammad did with the Bani Qureidha.

Even if ISIS loses more territory, it will just re-infiltrate these communities and wage a campaign of silencer and sticky-bomb assassinations against perceived collaborators and alternative centers of Sunni Arab authority. And when insurgency returns, ISIS will be all that’s left. It will have reduced everything else to scattered nothing.
...

I don't think IS is as well rooted in Syria as in its Iraqi homeland but you do have remember they are at the end of Round#2 in Iraq and this is a grinding process of attrition for them. The panel neglect the far more insidiously spread AQ in Syria or whatever the fast evolving Salafi-Jihadi currents are morphing into next. What's clear to me is the causes of Sunni Arab discontent along the Euphrates will be likely be many.

 

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On Politico The Syrian Rebel Who Built an Islamic Paradise

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The failure of Zahran Alloush to consolidate power in the Eastern Ghouta and to present a united front against Assad was more a failure of governance than of military strategy. Like other local rebel leaders, Alloush depended on supplies to pass through an elaborate network of tunnels connecting the Eastern Ghouta to the outside world. Ultimately, his skills as an orator, his command of scripture, and even his military power would matter little if he could not master the complexities of the enclave’s siege economy. This was precisely what he failed to do. Starved of resources by the Assad regime and unable to exert unrivaled authority over the smuggling network, Alloush’s ambitions bogged down in petty disputes over religious doctrine, prestige, and money, crippling his leadership already months before his death in a missile strike.

The story of the rise and fall of Zahran Alloush demonstrates the ability of a charismatic and well-funded demagogue to muster an embittered community against a despised dictator, but it also shows how quick the Islamists were to adopt the same violent, autocratic abuses of power that had inspired their rebellion in the first place. Based on interviews with rebel commanders, religious leaders, and civilian activists in the Eastern Ghouta, this account explains how a once-impenetrable stronghold of the Syrian opposition has slowly succumbed to the stranglehold of a brutal regime—and how its fate hinged on the life of one man.
...

Quite a tale.

 

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On MEI Increasing Role of Iran’s Basij Force in Syria War

...
On December 7, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appointed Brigadier General Gholamhossein Ghaib-Parvar as the new commander of the Basij Force - replacing Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi. The new appointment perhaps had two reasons: First, Khamenei had expressed concern about “enemies” using soft power tools to change Iranians’ beliefs, ideals, political views and lifestyle. He tasked the new Basij chief to “create and organize” institutions within the Basij to counter “enemy infiltration.” Since then, the Basij has stepped up its crackdown on political and social activists in Iran. Second, Ghaib-Parvar’s appointment, which Khamenei made upon a request by I.R.G.C.’s Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, was probably also part of the I.R.G.C.’s effort to increase the deployment of “volunteer” militia forces to fight in Syria. On December 6, Daud Gudrazi, the head of the Student Basij Organization, said 50 Iranian student volunteers had been killed in the Syrian conflict since November. And on November 24, Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, the Iranian chief of staff of the armed forces, said Basij could dispatch hundreds of thousands of fighters to Syria if supreme leader permitted.
...

 

[CrabbedOne]

In The Nation How the Syrian Civil War Has Transformed Hezbollah

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According to Imad Salamey, a political-science professor at Lebanese American University, Hezbollah has increasingly used the Syrian war to bolster its influence in Lebanon’s sectarian political system, playing on Christian fears to build a new alliance. Central to this alliance is opposition to the Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon and active marginalization of refugees.

“This is an old game played with new tools,” Salamey says, referring to Christian fears, dating back to before the 1975–90 civil war, of declining political influence resulting from shifting Lebanese demographics. “It was done in the past with Palestinian [refugees], and now the context of the Syrian civil war brings out fears of Sunni demographic dominance,” Salamey continues. He is referring to the fact that Syrian refugees, overwhelmingly Sunni and mostly sympathetic to the Syrian rebel cause, now make up more than a quarter of Lebanon’s population.
As a result, Salamey says, both Hezbollah and the Christian parties are determined not to allow Syrian refugees to reach even the precarious level of security or permanence approaching that of Palestinians. “They view these refugees as a demographic threat, despite the reality that they are vulnerable,” he says.

As hard-line Christian politicians call for expulsion, it appears that Hezbollah is looking for ways to push Syrians back across the border. In the town of Arsal, home to 50,000 refugees and the center of ongoing Hezbollah and LAF military cooperation, Abu Hussein says his party’s goal is to force refugees across the Syrian border into the Qalamoun Mountains.

“There will be a solution when we reach a deal with the Syrian regime to ship them over [the border],” he says, adding that town residents have so far prevented the forced displacement. “They are Sunni, and the Sunnis in Arsal may take it personally and see it as a sectarian issue.”
...

Which does explain the demographic imperatives behind HA's talk of border "safe zones" in Syria.

Europeans often don't realise the real refugee crisis is in MENA. They just get a few ripples from it and oh the groaning about being swamped by dusky folk. In contrast brave little Lebanon taking in this huge number of refugees deserves credit but there are time limits to their hospitality. They remember the great influx of mostly Sunni Palestinian refugees who unlike the Syrians where mostly housed in permanent camps. That was one of the causes of their own bitter civil war and the camps remain a source of radical Salafi activity. It's a contrast to Turkey with its admirably tidy state created refugee camps and plans to allow grateful Syrian's to take Turkish citizenship. That's not without strains either; the demographic change often worries Kurdish parties.

 

[teqniq]

Again

Syria: Medical staff and patients killed in an attack on MSF-supported hospital

A hospital in northern Syria supported by international medical organisation Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been hit in an aerial attack.

At around 6 pm on March 25, Latamneh hospital in northern Hama governorate was targeted by a bomb dropped by a helicopter, which hit the entrance of the building. Information collected by the hospital medical staff suggests that chemical weapons were used....

 

[CrabbedOne]

Goes on to say more US troops needed. The Marines lost over a hundred guys in Fallujah#2. It was a mixed success AQI mostly just dispersed elsewhere; principally to Mosul. The Marines in Anbar eventually developed working relationships with local tribes.

This plan to take the much smaller Raqqa appears to have similar but much bigger flaws than Abadi's hasty Mosul op.

In Raqqa they're relying on a group of militias with relatively little experience in large urban assaults. Arab forces were meant to front that assault but seem to have been inadequate. Veteran Kurdish fighters ended up doing most of the fighting and taking high casualties. At Manbij the YPG appeared to have insufficient reserves and were press ganging youth to hold its rear areas. If US and Russian troops had not got in the way the TSK would have attacked Manbij.

The SDF are liable to attack in the rear East of the Euphrates by the TSK and their proxies. I would not trust some of the SDF Arabs not to change sides. The PKK's politically very unpopular with Raqqa locals but as with Manbij intends to administer the place via proxies.

There's a slippery slope here to throwing in a couple of USMC brigades for some time. The locals also detest the Americans but I can see that being the Elastoplast when this goes to shit.

 

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On WSJ Syria’s Civil War Produces a Clear Winner: Hezbollah

...
Hezbollah has helped the Assad regime survive partly by propping up its undisciplined military, which is plagued by corruption and defections. In Syrian villages retaken from rebel control, Hezbollah fighters have been seen holding Syrian soldiers by the wrist or collar and forcing them to return appliances or furniture looted from homes.

Syrian civilians say Hezbollah fighters sometimes openly disrespect Syrian troops on battlefronts, a stark change from its previous deference. Cars with blacked-out windows and Lebanese license plates screech up to Syrian checkpoints, the Hezbollah commanders inside refusing to get off their phones during identification checks or to answer questions posed by their Syrian allies.

When Russia and Syria wanted to put priority on retaking Islamic State’s capital of Raqqa last year, Hezbollah, along with Iran, insisted the focus instead be dislodging rebels from Aleppo to force them to the negotiating table, according to Mr. Exum and a Hezbollah official.

The strategy worked. The rebels evacuated Aleppo and agreed to participate in Russian-sponsored political negotiations now taking place in locations outside Syria.
...

My bold, it occurs to me if that's true the Russian intervention in Syria may have started out with some serious misconceptions. The Russians failing to understand what's going on in a country they should know well also happened during the Muhj war. There's a bit of a history of great intelligence collection and terrible analysis as Russian leaders often are looking directly at raw intelligence and failing to synthesise it properly.

Putin did start out talking up their intervention in Syria as a brief war on IS and has persisted in that despite focussing on the regime's main rebel enemies and AQ. You'd have a poor understanding of Syria or be obsessed with competing with the Americans to risk doing differently. An early attempt on Raqqa could have lost Assad the war for Useful Syria. Even the grab for IS held Palmyra was questionable as it pulled resources away from the defence of Aleppo and Damascus but that might be a legacy of an earlier plan.

The Iranians also seem to have considered a different plan involving shrinking the regime lines of defence. On their side they were gambling on an escalation of their ground involvement to compensate for the attrition of the SAA and the unknown of working with Russian airpower.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi's blog Quwat Muqatili al-Asha'ir: Tribal Auxiliary Forces of the Military Intelligence

...
The existence of Quwat Muqatili al-Asha'ir raises broader analytical points. Contrary to the long-standing assumption that the regime's interest has only been in western Syria (also called "useful" Syria), militias under the command of persons from places like Raqqa province with recruits from wider eastern Syria do point to a regime interest in reclaiming those areas, which constitute important economic holdings anyway. It seems likely that there will be attempts to bolster the likes of Quwat Muqatili al-Asha'ir and Fawj Maghawir al-Badiya as regime pushes towards the east intensify. The Russians seem to have been particularly keen from the outset to promote these groups, whose affiliations are to intelligence agencies. Indeed, the Russians have bestowed awards on both Turki Albu Hamad and his brother Ahmad Albu Hamad, just as they bestowed an award on Suleiman al-Shwakh. Turki Albu Hamad in particular seems to have tight and friendly relations with the Russians.

In short, expect Quwat Muqatili al-Asha'ir and similar groups to come to greater prominence once the regime's campaigns for Raqqa province, Deir az-Zor province and the remaining areas of the Homs desert are at the forefront of operations.

Assad has always said he wants to reconquer all of Syria and the regime has clung onto Deir it's just a matter of priorities. The hydro-carbons in the East are a big factor. Assad's barely able to keep the lights on and the water pumping.

 

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On War IS Boring Russia Bombed Its Own Allies in Syria

...
n the case of Qamahana, the local NDF was established, recruited, armed and trained by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran and the Syrian Republican Guards. In 2015 and 2016, the SAA’s 4th Division, commanded by Maher Al Assad, occupied the area. However, the militia in Qamahana is renown for providing its own supplies — by way of looting, robberies and hijacking — and answering only to its own warlords.

Even the officers of notorious security services of the Al Assad regime tend to avoid entering the area controlled by the Qamahana NDF.

In the light of rapid crumbling of various of regime positions in northern Hama during the first days of the March offensive, it’s possible that some Russian air strikes intentionally targeted NDF units that Moscow has decided have grown too independent.

Up to 70 casualties on the regime side.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Bond villain minion onesie comparison:

 

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