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And next, Syria?

On Bloomberg If Trump Wants to Fight Iran, He'll Soon Get the Chance in Syria
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America’s stance has already shifted under Trump. He ordered missile strikes on Syrian army positions last month, as punishment for a chemical attack he blamed on Assad; in a similar situation, his predecessor Barack Obama decided against military action. Still, defeating Islamic State has remained the overwhelming U.S. priority.

That’s a short-sighted view of the Middle East, a region that’s already witnessed “the most dramatic collapse of American power since World War II” on Obama’s watch, according to James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Iraq.

America “gravitates toward fighting ISIS and claiming that’s the center of everything, which is easy to do and wins universal applause,” but doesn’t constitute a “long-term strategy,” he said. “In 2017, ISIS is not a threat to regional stability. The threat now is Iran.”

In the Persian Gulf and Israel this month, Trump heard a similar message.

But to policy makers in Russia, it’s the U.S. and its allies who are destabilizing Syria, and their anti-Iranian rhetoric lacks realism.

“Does anyone think Iran is going to leave this region and Syria?” Russian Middle East envoy Mikhail Bogdanov said in an interview. “As if you could wave a magic wand and Iran would disappear?”
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My bold, both of these opinions are correct to some extent. Iran is winning the larger game while the US has been haring after tactical victories and overly fixated on fairly minor terrorist threats. Uncle Sam's traditional regional allies do have a far more accurate threat calculus. Unfortunately apart from the Jordanians and Israelis they are also idiots. And the Iraqis are both the best ally we have to fight IS and more aligned with Iran than us.

The Persians are a weak power but well led. They are strategically well positioned across the region and utterly committed to holding their gains in the Levant. Syria is a western provence on the way to Jerusalem for them not just a nest of terrorists to be stamped on. They are not going to back down and it's too late reverse their gains in Syria. The Iranians have finessed Russia into sponsoring their consolidation of power in Syria. Russia has no alternative and sees them as integral part of a new regional security architecture. The US has insufficient motivations to seek a war with Russia and should be cautious about stumbling into a more direct conflict with Iran. Unlike the Russians the Iranians don't even contemplate real collaboration with the US. They want the Great Satan gone from the wider Middle East.
 
On IRIN News The complex battle for control in eastern Syria
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The southern front: Southern Syria and the al-Tanf airstrike

The border crossings at al-Bukamal, southeast of Deir Ezzor, and at al-Tanf, east of Damascus, are a major concern of al-Assad’s government. Al-Bukamal remains in IS hands, but the jihadis lost al-Tanf to US- and Jordanian-backed fighters in March 2016. Since then, al-Tanf has been used by the US-led anti-IS coalition to train and equip Syrian rebels to take on the jihadis. Recently, the al-Tanf rebels began to grab villages and outposts in the southeastern deserts, while also launching raids in the direction of al-Bukamal, amid reports of US air drops. Should the al-Tanf rebels succeed in taking al-Bukamal while the SDF holds crossings further north, US-backed groups would be in control of the entire Syrian-Iraqi border.

To al-Assad and his allies, this is a serious concern. The government’s loss of its last Jordanian and Iraqi border crossings in 2015 has severely damaged trade with neighbouring countries and deprived Syrian companies of overland access to markets in the Gulf, Iran, and Egypt. It has also hurt Lebanese, Iraqi, and Jordanian traders who depend on transit through Syria. Re-establishing a solid land route between Damascus and Baghdad – and by extension between Beirut and Tehran – would also be of major military and logistical importance. Conversely, some US policymakers seem to want to prevent this, as a way of reducing Iranian influence in Syria and Lebanon.*
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Lund, point about the increased isolation of Damascus with the loss of Iraqi border crossings is obvious but worth making. Baghdad like Beirut is the capital of a friendly states and both are much needed trading partners. He's not seeing any real change to the anti-IS focus of US operations here.
 
On MEE US-backed Syria militia threatens Iraqi Shia forces moving on border
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Speaking to the Kurdistan24 news site, Talal Silo said that the SDF would not allow the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMUs), also known as Hashd al-Shaabi, to come into their areas.

“If Hashd forces attempt to enter our areas, our forces [SDF] will fight them,” he said.

The SDF is a US-backed coalition of Kurdish-Arab forces, largely dominated by the pro-Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and its political wing the Democratic Union Party (PYD).

Although direct conflict has been rare, the SDF is officially opposed to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and some PMUs have entered into Syria to fight for Assad.

However, Silo's comments indicate the SDF would prevent the PMUs from using the section of the Syrian-Iraqi border they control as a means of deploying forces in Syria.

Silo's warning contrasts starkly with earlier comments made by the PYD representative in Iraqi Kurdistan, Gharib Hesso, who indicated that the PYD would be interested in allying with the PMUs in order to build a new "corridor" in Iraq to Baghdad in order to circumvent an embargo placed on YPG-controlled territory in northern Syria.
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This announcement is very much what the Pentagon would want to hear it will also play well with some tribal figures in the Deir region who really hate the Iraqi Shia.

Follows mass Yazidi defections to the Iraqi Hashd in Sinjar from both PKK and KDP Kurdish militias. That will have rattled the PKK leadership up in Qandil.

The PKK have a knack for sneaky diplomacy. I would take Silo's words a little skeptically. Hesso's right facing a hostile Turkey/KRG it is going to need relationships with its neighbours to survive as Rojava can't rely on Uncle Sam's salt forever. It would be wise to play to the expectations of both US and Iran.
 
On TDB Gulf Arab dispute rattles Trump’s anti-Iran axis
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The bickering among the Sunni states erupted after Trump attended a recent summit of Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia, where he denounced Shiite Iran’s “destablizing interventions” in Arab lands, where Tehran is locked in a tussle with Riyadh for influence.

The spat shows no sign of abating, raising the prospect of a long breach between Doha and its closest allies that could have repercussions around the Middle East.

Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani arrived in Kuwait Wednesday for talks with his counterpart Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah that are expected to address the rift. Kuwait, a past mediator between Gulf states, has offered to help ease tensions.
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Not a great start for Trump's anti-Iranian Arab-NATO. Long a Saudi pipe dream.

Qatar has been quite naughty in Syria. Backing rather inconsistently all sorts of bad actors not just the MB. Been described scathingly as a "vanity project" by US officials. Though on the other hand the UAE doesn't approve of a lot of the Beards the Saudis ended up cultivating in Yemen. The Saudis have also dithered on this. The latest administration pragmatically embracing Islamists but only as tactical assets abroad.
 
On CMEC Borderline Conflict
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From the U.S. reaction to events around Tanf, it appears that Washington wants to be in on any eventual offensive against the Islamic State in Deir Ezzor, but also that it would like to keep an eye on Iran’s actions in southeastern Syria. Both objectives are related. The U.S. is training young men from Deir Ezzor in Tanf to use in future operations against the Islamic State. This suggests that it seeks to expand its sway along the Syrian-Iraqi border, which is unacceptable to Iran. No wonder. The standoff in southeastern Syria only really makes sense if we assume that Washington also intends to hinder Iranian moves and gain leverage that potentially allows it to shape a political endgame in the Syrian conflict.

That is why Russia seems so uneasy with the situation in Tanf. On May 31 Russian aircraft bombed U.S.-backed rebels advancing on the positions of pro-Iran militias at the Zaza checkpoint, northwest of Tanf on the Damascus-Baghdad highway, amid reports that a military column flying Russian flags had arrived in the city of Der‘a. It could also explain why Moscow appears to be near agreement with Iran to station Russian aircraft at an Iranian airbase in Hamadan province. If this were to happen, it would not only allow Russian aircraft to operate in eastern Syria, it would also send a strong message that Russia and Iran (as well as Iraq) are in agreement in their refusal to allow outside, particularly U.S., involvement in defining a political solution in Syria.

Until now, the Trump administration’s statements about wanting to diminish Iran’s role in Syria have been general. Events in the southeast are adding substance to that commitment. However, given Iran’s multiple alliances, the odds are against the U.S. Perhaps the greatest paradox, one nobody in Washington will mention, is that in the greater game between Iran and the U.S., the Americans do not want the Islamic State in Deir Ezzor to be defeated by anyone but themselves—certainly not by Tehran’s allies.
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The US does not appear to have a plan for dealing with Iran here. It's just reacting as the Iranians play a deeper game. The Russians also seem to be passengers wary of direct conflict even by proxy with a US they'd rather engage with diplomatically. The Islamic Republic has played this sort of game with the US before successfully and has very concrete objectives.
 
From Chatham House Local Community Resistance to Extremist Groups in Syria: Lessons from Atarib

Interesting paper on the author's home town West of Aleppo and its resistance to IS and AQ.

From the conclusion:
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In the context of the wider conflict against ISIS in Syria, the risk of driving support for the group by default has resonance for progress of the US-led coalition’s current alliance with the SDF. The Kurdish-led, multi-ethnic SDF is perceived as a hostile force not just by many Arabs, but also by Kurds who oppose the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) affiliated with it. ISIS’s territorial losses at the hands of the SDF have effectively become de facto Kurdish gains, and local communities have in many cases come to regard the alliance’s offensives against ISIS as a pretext for the SDF to take advantage of US support to expand Kurdish control into Arab-majority areas.77

Thus, increased tension between Arabs and Kurds has fuelled a cycle of mistrust and fear of the SDF alliance, and the US-led coalition and its allies have come to be regarded by many communities as another ‘bad actor’ in the conflict. These negative perceptions have hampered the anti-ISIS campaign, driving some locals closer to ISIS and rendering others indifferent. As one interviewee in an ISIS-controlled area put it:

We hate Daesh and their actions, but we know what to expect from them. The fear of what might happen if Assad or the Kurds take over our areas is our main concern now. I wouldn’t really be surprised to see more people fighting with Daesh against them.78​

In the absence of one national popular army in Syria, it is critical that the West’s policymakers and military strategists should avoid the mistake of engaging local armed groups as regional or national forces in opposition to ISIS without the full commitment of existing local actors in affected areas.79 As part of this, local residents’ needs and concerns must as a priority be taken into account – with an understanding that these may vary from community to community – in order to gain trust and win support for the campaign to defeat ISIS at local level. Equally critically, the root causes of the tensions and grievances between Syria’s Arab and Kurdish communities must be tackled, with the goal of building a genuine alliance based on shared values and equal rights. Linked to this, there is an urgent need to facilitate a dialogue between the FSA and the SDF in order to coordinate their efforts and avoid seeding future conflicts that will once again end up benefiting radical groups.

Where gains have been made against ISIS, the lack of a clear strategy to rehabilitate and reintegrate former ISIS members and supporters in their communities is in effect empowering other radical groups – as was seen to a degree in the case of Atarib – by driving former ISIS supporters towards ideologically similar groups, or strengthening ISIS numbers elsewhere. Fighting ISIS should therefore be coupled with locally sensitive reconciliation and follow-up processes to provide the group’s members who refrain from fighting with a chance to leave the group without fear of reprisal – a deal that is usually offered to those who defect from the Syrian regime. Public communication channels – including traditional broadcast and print media, social media and local mosques – should be used to convey clear information to ISIS members about where to go and what to do should they choose to leave the group. Clear protection guarantees should also be made, with the backing of local leaders and notables, with enforceable penalties for violating them. The process should not, however, preclude the criminal prosecution of former ISIS fighters via local courts where there is sufficient evidence to do so. Additionally, there should be a mechanism for dealing with ISIS prisoners who are captured in combat, as well as enforcement mechanisms to prevent former ISIS members from joining other radical groups such as al-Nusra.
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This is an interesting point. In Manbij there had been a fairly successful rebel mixed military council. It fled when Manbij fell to IS. These people now appear to be mostly aligned with the Turks. Manbij is now run by a PKK military council that's clearly very Apoist. If there's not real reconciliation with relatively moderate local rebels what of radical Salafi?

What it says on Syria:
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Despite these undoubted failings in following through the local reintegration process in Atarib, the city’s experience none the less stands as a clear example of an effort to acknowledge and address the issue of reintegrating ISIS members fully within a local community. Elsewhere in Syria, by contrast, current anti-ISIS coalitions – both local and international – have been driving local communities out of conflict areas, and only a small number of those displaced have been able to return after fighting has ended, either for security reasons or because they are otherwise prevented from doing so. Evidence has been reported, for instance, of systematic abuses including the deliberate displacement of thousands of civilians and the razing of entire villages in areas under the control of the Kurdish Autonomous Administration in Syria, often in retaliation for residents’ perceived sympathies with, or ties to, members of ISIS or other armed groups.62 There have also been increasing instances reported of communities in various areas preventing people who have fled ISIS-controlled areas from resettling locally, ostensibly because of fears that the displaced groups may in reality introduce ISIS ‘sleeper cells’ to these areas.
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These reports may be exaggerated but ever IS adversary has done this to some extent. IS does leave behind sleeper cells. It does filter back to cause havoc. IS as Mao did expects a city to be lost and taken many times before it submits.

Before this piece I've read very little on Syria about attempts at the reintegration of IS supporters back into society. There are big ideological and practical problems with this. However reactionary Salafi are part of the furniture in these parts and even thuggish Baathist regimes realised they had to reach some sort of accommodation with them.

While IS supporters often have been driven out reconciliation has happened patchily in Iraq. In some places IS support ran quite high at times especially among the youth and poor. Perhaps as high as 30%. After all they are often local boys who made bad choices for various reasons. Some are devout Salafi. Some are opportunists. Some where effectively conscripted. Rentable Arabs switching side in conflicts is something of a cultural cliche. For instance in Tikrit IS supporters were allowed to return to the area but not the city. There have been blood money arrangements to prevent tribal blood feuds breaking out after IS. There's an effort to stage trials around Mosul and sentence or release large numbers of suspected IS fighters. The Iraqi justice system is overloaded and prone to torture confessions out of suspects but there is a recognition this must be done. The Iraqis have been through all this before and may have slowly learnt a few lessons.
 
On ISW Syria Situation Report: May 19 - June 1, 2017
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NATO leaders agreed to formally join the Anti-ISIS Coalition in Iraq and Syria during the NATO Summit in Brussels on May 25. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated that the agreement sends a “strong signal” of “commitment to fight global terrorism” but stressed that the bloc will not “engage in combat operations” against ISIS. NATO will instead expand its "airspace management" and aerial refueling mission for coalition aircraft as well as the deployment of special forces teams to train local partner forces. NATO will also establish a "terrorism intelligence cell" to improve information-sharing on foreign fighters. The decision likely aimed to meet the priorities of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly questioned the value of the alliance while stressing the need to expand its counter-terrorism capabilities. The measure remains largely symbolic.
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Not what NATO is for but Trump must be pandered too.
 
On Oryx Blog Back and Forth: How the Islamic State retook Tadmur
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This brings us back to the actual offensive, where the attack would, in true Islamic State fashion, commence with the use of VBIEDs (the Islamic State's morbid equivalent of an airstrike). This type of suicide vehicle is not only effective in its destructive power, but even more so as a psychological weapon. This had its intended effect, and regime forces stationed Northeast of Tadmur were routed en masse in the resulting chaos. The Islamic State forces that followed mounted an offensive from this position and despite reports of heavy shelling and airstrikes continued to push closer to Tadmur itself. Most of the troops that fled appear not to have regrouped at Tadmur but instead fled directly to 'Fortress T4' itself, an indication of the poor state of the regime's military in this region. During the conquest for the city weaknesses in the Syrian and Russian air forces were apparent, diminishing the regime's chances of holding onto the city. Largely reliant on iron bombs and hindered by poor coordination, little impact was made by airstrikes in the early stages of the battle, contrasting with battles such as the conquest for Kobanê, where effective use of airpower prevented the Islamic State from capturing the city in a turning point in the war. Later heavy Russian air strikes would apparently temporarily halt the Islamic State's advance on Tadmur forcing them to regroup, but these efforts would prove to be too little too late. The ease with which the Islamic State can move through the open desert undetected remains a serious problem for the regime, and the loss of Tadmur could directly be attributed to this fact.
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Long detailed account of IS's recapture of Palmyra back in March.

Also mentions Coalition air apparently participating in the defence of the regime held T4 airbase. CENTCOM did let slip as much in a Tweet that was subsequently deleted.
 
On Syria Deeply Why Iran-Backed Forces in Iraq and Syria Can’t Link Up Yet
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In effect, the U.S. has created a buffer-zone between the Iraqi and Syrian borders, in a move that some claim is part of Washington’s effort to carve out an area of influence in southern Syria.

This leaves pro-government forces with only the southeastern route from Palmyra toward border areas roughly 100 km northeast of Tanf, where Iranian-backed groups could link up with PMF forces traversing down the frontier toward areas in Iraq’s western Anbar province. However, this push will likely take time and effort, especially since ISIS still has forces deployed across the vast desert territory separating pro-government forces and the Iraqi border.

“The viability of linking up across the border, it’s still somewhat off,” Aymenn Tamimi, a research fellow at the Middle East Forum, a U.S.-based think-tank, told Syria Deeply. “A real linkup would require much more substantial gains for the regime and its allies pushing east.”
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In The Saturday Paper Terror spokesman Abu Sulayman al-Muhajir on a new Islamic state
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“I was the first to mediate between JN [al-Nusra Front] and ISIS [Daesh] to stop the bloodshed,” Abu Sulayman told me. “It was very intense at the time. He [Baghdadi] was organising meetings with various people of influence to win them over to his side. I was one of them.”

Abu Sulayman met with Baghdadi half-a-dozen times, spending 24 hours with him on one of those occasions. He provided the following startling assessment of the Daesh caliph:

“Baghdadi has the brain the size of a peanut. A serious airhead, an idiot. I seriously had my bubble burst when I met him for the first time. I expected someone much deeper. He is not a sophisticated thinker. He’s a blustering buffoon. I’d describe him as having [US president] Bush’s intellect and Trump’s temperament. He was always ranting about the most childish issues. ‘Bring Julani to me now,’ he’d say. ‘How dare he not come and see me face to face?’ Very childish. And a horrible liar.”

Abu Sulayman also asserted: “Baghdadi is not ISIS,” claiming his title of caliph is “just a name” and that “other people are running the show”. When I asked whether these “other people” were Saddam-era Baathists, he replied: “Not Baathists. Others in the organisation.”

Much of Baghdadi’s legitimacy and credibility is built on his attainment of a PhD in Islamic studies. When I offered this as a counter to Abu Sulayman’s unflattering assertion about the leader’s intelligence, he replied: “His PhD is from Iraq. It’s like getting a medical degree from Russia. He can recite the Koran. But that is the most basic science in Islam. You can teach that to a seven-year-old.”

Elsewhere, Baghdadi has been described as a “terrorist mastermind”. He has been compared to the Great Khan of the Mongols, Genghis Khan, who ruled over the largest contiguous empire on earth at the time of his death.

“Baghdadi has no strategic long game,” Abu Sulayman countered. “He made up the whole caliphate ‘strategy’ as a way to get back at Julani and Zawahiri [al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri]. There’s never a strategy behind a kneejerk reaction.”

Unsurprisingly, Abu Sulayman welcomes the demise of Daesh. He described the group as a “bunch of criminal thugs acting in the name of Islam”, and believes their lust for indiscriminate acts of violence fails to serve the interests of what he calls “the cause”, the goal of establishing a legitimate Islamic nation in what is still, at least for now, Syria.

“The Islamic ummah at large needs to work together to establish the foundations of what will be an extremely complex system,” Abu Sulayman said. “A caliphate is not necessarily the ultimate goal now. Sovereignty is the objective. Being able to independently rule our lands by our belief system, without serving the interests of another state. We don’t want to be a satellite state. Is that too much to ask?”
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Most senior Australian in AQ. Also insists AQ is essentially no more in Syria.
 
On FP If Trump Wants a Fight in the Middle East, Iran Will Give Him One
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Indeed, in the battle for control of the Middle East, the IRGC’s militant clients have been the great equalizer. While Iran’s neighbors have poured billions of dollars into conventional weaponry, Iran has invested in comparatively cheap proxy forces that have proven effective in numerous theaters. They have prevented Iraq from becoming an American puppet, saved Syria from being dominated by American- and Saudi-backed Sunni extremists, and redirected the attention and resources of Saudi Arabia and the UAE away from Syria by igniting war in Yemen. Iran’s influence in each of those countries has grown as a result, as has its influence in the region.

Foreign clients enable Iran to keep its adversaries at arm’s length, but they put Iran at risk of escalation with its regional adversaries and the United States. The conflict has so far remained beyond Iran’s borders, but the risk of miscalculation always lurks in the background. For now, Iraq is Iran’s main point of leverage with the United States. While Tehran and Washington are nominally on the same side in support of the government of Iraq, Iranian-backed groups routinely threaten to target U.S. forces. Should the United States intervene more heavily against Assad in Syria or the Houthis in Yemen, those groups might be given the green light from Tehran to renew such attacks. That’s one way the conflict could spiral out of control. Iran doesn’t want a fight with the United States — the IRGC can contend with adversaries by proxy, but it would have much less success in a direct war with the U.S. military — but if the situation spirals out of control in Iraq, a military escalation might be the result.

The ability to influence events outside its borders through proxy groups is both the central factor of Iran’s alienation and its most vital strategic asset. Solving that paradox would require a shift in the Islamic Republic’s overarching political and ideological agenda. But so long as anti-Americanism remains the prevailing tenet of the Iranian regime’s aspirations, and so long as those aspirations are promoted through foreign military adventures, Iranians will not know the peace and stability they so richly deserve.
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Asserts Iran controls more troops in Syria than Assad. That's probably wrong but if you frame it terms of units that can usefully be deployed in offensives beyond their home turf could be correct.

The point in the snip that IRGC's development of militias and the grassroots networks that come with them makes it very tricky to confront but that these are also a foreign entanglement that may drag Iran into an escalatory spiral with the US is a good one. Perhaps an even bigger danger in Iraq than Syria.
 
CrabbedOne said:
In The Nation In Tartous, Syria, Women Wear Black, Youth Are in Hiding, and Bitterness Grows
A Gutman piece.

As the revolt recedes it's plausible discontent with Assad amongst those who opposed the rebels will grow. An awful lot of young conscripts are dead or maimed their lives often wasted by a callous officer core. The regime always was shitty and now it's also poor and pitifully reliant on Iran. The IRGC is going round buying up real estate. HA is a permanent presence.
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This is a rehash of the ballsology they were pushing years ago about an imminent move by the Alawite community to throw Assad under the bus ....sometime after Putin throws him under the bus...mebbe after Hezbollah throws him under the bus...A recycled piece of propaganda that was nonsense the first time it was hawked around to the gullible .

Absolutely fucking risible stuff . The attacks on the Alawite community aren't the work of sectarian jihadists either..oh no...it's actually " the regime " carrying out false flag operations . :facepalm::facepalm:

Qatar however most definitely just got thrown under the bus .
 
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Knotted said:
I don't share Yassin al-Haj Saleh's politics of promoting a moderate Islamist - liberal alliance, but even putting that aside his theory about neo-imperialism (which is how he characterises the regime) seems to simply repeat the problems with what he calls the anti-imperialist left. Translating class into sect and even race (first world Assadist elites against third world "black Syrians"!!) and the struggle against the regime is translated into a struggle against Islamophobia. Simplifying the conflict, polarising the conflict. This is ideological crust on the same tired explanation of the Syrian conflict as a conflict between sects, except one sect is now imperial and one sect is now black. Despotic regimes and revolutions to overthrow them are not uncharted territory, what we're being offered here is not a new theory to explain something new but a certain gloss to justify a certain political position.

Besides the problem he is identifying here is not anti-imperialism. (There is only one group that takes a consistent view on this and that's the Sparts with their "military defence" of ISIS which is the only consistent anti-imperialist force.) There is indeed an array of old Stalinists, assorted conspiracy theorists, counter-jihadis and outright fascists who support the regime and they are tapping into a certain alternative RT viewing political fashion. I'm not sure if anti-imperialism or old Stalinist allegiances explain this phenomenon beyond a few lingering sects. Not now in 2017, 26 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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Or indeed anyone with half a brain who thinks a bunch of Saudi sponsored head hacking loons overrunning Syria would be a bit shit . He's talking bollocks . His characterisation of anyone on the anti imperialist left who doesn't support " the revolution " as a racist islamophobe is nothing more than Pavlovian button pushing trying to elicit a response of white western identity politics inspired guilt .
The soviet union indeed collapsed but western imperialism most definitely didn't . The collapse of the soviet union didn't mean anti imperialist leftists should all of a sudden be down with western imperialist regime change projects . And that we can happily ignore the Syrian struggle to defend their own country's sovereignty from attack by a host of foreign interests . The US , Britain and France are the imperialist actors at play here . No amount of twisted logic can convolute the actual imperialist position being the Syrian government in this instance .
 
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teqniq said:
The Astana 'deal' is a joke. The rebel representatives walked out of the meeting.
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Representatives of the ones currently killing each other all over the place because their respective foreign backers..the gulf sheikhs...are paying them to ?

What's not a joke is sufficient Syrian forces have now been freed up to go after daesh big style . The Syrian army has now driven them completely out of eastern Allepo province and is rolling them up the whole way up the desert towards Dez . Were a city of tens of thousands of people have been besieged by dash for years now and are in urgent need of relief . without the other jihadists attacking them on multiple fronts that goal may well now be accomplished . Beggars belief that's pissing some people off .
 
Casually Red said:
This is a rehash of the ballsology they were pushing years ago about an imminent move by the Alawite community to throw Assad under the bus ....sometime after Putin throws him under the bus...mebbe after Hezbollah throws him under the bus...A recycled piece of propaganda that was nonsense the first time it was hawked around to the gullible .

Absolutely fucking risible stuff . The attacks on the Alawite community aren't the work of sectarian jihadists either..oh no...it's actually " the regime " carrying out false flag operations . :facepalm::facepalm:

Qatar however most definitely just got thrown under the bus .
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Well it is Gutman. I doubt Assad will be going anywhere or change much whatever the discontent he faces from folk who opposed the revolt.
 
Pickman's model said:
yeh. but what would this discontent do? if a bloody great civil / proxy war hasn't unseated him then it's frankly tricky to believe a bit of post-war discontent is going to eject him.
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It's a fantasy . Penned by the usual anonymous sources . Even claiming there's no sectarian animosity against Syrian minorities from the jihadist groups and the murderous car bomb attacks on Alawite communities in Latakia are the work of " the regime " and not the rebels . that's despite thousands of jihadis pouring over the Turkish border a few years ago into Latakia, slaughtering Christian and Alawis by the bucketload and carting hundreds of the women and kids off as sex slaves and the like, never to be seen again .

2013 Latakia offensive - Wikipedia

2014 Latakia offensive - Wikipedia



It's utter bollocks pretty much . The Alawites of Latakia know exactly what it is they're fighting against .
 
On IRIN The battle for Raqqa begins
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Compounding Turkey’s frustration, a PKK-linked militant group known as the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, or TAK, released a statement just as the Raqqa operation was announced in which it promised more attacks inside Turkey, including against tourist installations. Ostensibly an independent PKK offshoot, the TAK is often accused of serving as a cut-out to ensure plausible deniability for PKK bombings in Turkish cities.

A TAK bombing or assassination could easily provoke Turkish retaliation against Kurdish positions in Syria, Iraq, or both, and some form of Turkish riposte to the Raqqa operation may well come anyway.

The taking of Raqqa also feeds into longer-term rivalries over eastern Syria, an area that contains valuable oil wells and farmlands along the Euphrates and which controls road access to Iraq and beyond. President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian goverment and his Iranian and Russian allies recently launched a multi-pronged eastern offensive, hoping to forestall advances by US-backed groups like the SDF and small Sunni Arab rebel factions in the south of the country. While the Syrian government is hardly in a position to retake Raqqa militarily if blocked by the US Air Force, it may still put pressure on the SDF-ruled areas and look to exert its influence through local supporters.

As the noose tightens around Raqqa and IS, only one thing is really clear: The swirling chaos of the Syrian war won’t be over anytime soon.
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Raqqa's really not as significant as the far bigger battle for Mosul and its surroundings. Note the PKK apparently arranging some deterrence via TAK as the assault on Raqqa begins. The Turks are a wild card here.
 
On Rudaw Raqqa or Deir Ezzor: Where will Islamic States' last stand be?
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US warplanes bombed pro-regime forces as they established positions near al-Tanf, one of the “deconfliction zones” in Syria, on two separate occasions: June 6 and May 18. While Russia joined Syria in condemning the May 18 attack it reportedly tried to discourage those forces from establishing positions in that area just before the attack.

Supporting continued and drawn out regime and militia engagements against various factions across Syria is not in Russia's interests. It wants to bring the conflict to an end through political negotiations now that the regime has the upper hand, following its victory in Aleppo last December, and is no longer at risk of being toppled, as it was shortly before Moscow intervened. ISIS is excluded from all negotiated ceasefires as well as any potential resolution to the conflict and its elimination is something both Moscow and Washington recognize is essential.

The SDF are unlikely to endure more heavy casualties to capture Deir Ezzor, in addition to Raqqa, if they are expected to hand it back to Damascus the day after they do all the dirty work of removing ISIS. Consequently, ISIS's last stand in Syria might be in Deir Ezzor against regime and Shiite militia forces backed by Russian air power with American assent.

Working with Russia to neutralize the ISIS threat and pressure Damascus to curtail the cross border linking-up of Iranian-backed paramilitary elements will therefore likely prove the most feasible long-term goal for the Americans to pursue in eastern Syria.
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There is a big flaw with this idea. If you are working with the Russians you are essentially relying on the IRGC's offensive ground assets to handle the Deir area. That probably isn't compatible with blocking Iranian and regime lines of communication with their Iraqi allies. That said the SDF has a very limited amount of suitable manpower. IS probably will make some sort of stand in Raqqa and that will reduce SDF capabilities. PKK strategic objectives probably do point to making some sort of security compromise with Damascus over Deir. Neither are going to be are welcomed some tribes up there if anything they hate the IRGC's Iraqis more than the PKK.

As with Mosul there's very little evidence of Phase IV&V civil affairs planning from either the R+6 or Coalition. IS are not as deeply rooted in Syria as they are in Iraq but there's even bigger governance problems in Syria.
 
From The Henry Jackson Society Senior Islamic State Cleric Turki al-Binali Killed in an Airstrike
...
Al-Binali was killed in Mayadeen, a town in the Deir Ezzor Province, downriver from Raqqa city, IS’s Syrian “capital”. IS has transferred significant resources from Raqqa to Mayadeen in recent months. Deir Ezzor borders Iraq’s Anbar Province, and IS administers this cross-border zone as Wilayat al-Furat. It is here that the organization will make its final stand as a state, and where the rural hinterland will provide IS shelter when it finally relinquishes its hold on the urban areas. The U.S.-backed offensive against Raqqa commenced on 5 June and is deeply troubled because of the partners the U.S. has chosen, a sub-component of the larger problem that the U.S. has focused so intently on defeating IS it has neglected to specify what it plans to put in IS’s place, a contest for regional order that the actors in and around Syria are already engaged in. This short-sightedness threatens to undo even the counter-terrorism gains of the U.S.-led campaign and, with the convergence of the competing projects of the external powers in Deir Ezzor, IS might once again find itself able to survive in the space it has carved out for itself as everyone’s enemy and nobody’s priority.
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Not clear how important he was.
 
On War On The Rocks THE TROUBLE WITH TANF: TACTICS DRIVING STRATEGY IN SYRIA
...
For now, Moscow can’t bring enough pressure to bear on Tehran, lest it risk its broader efforts to shore up the regime’s war effort. Iran is a key enabler of this effort. The Trump administration has convinced itself that going after Iran could, in turn, put pressure on Moscow. This, however, overlooks the fact that both sides, in the short term, have tools to counter-escalate against U.S. interests, and have mutual interest in doing so.

Around Tanf, the strikes have reinforced a 55-kilometer no-go-zone in the Syrian desert. The Assad-linked groups, however, have counter-escalated and taken territory north of the zone out to the Iraq border. The immediate outcome is that the Tanf garrison is now surrounded by hostile forces. The U.S. forces in the area would have to fight through regime positions to get to al Bukamal, further risking escalation.

What now? Is the United States prepared to protect these forces in perpetuity? Will the U.S. provide air cover for forces that clash directly with regime allied assets outside of the 55-kilometer zone? Did the previous three strikes prompt a counter-escalatory act that undermined U.S. interests? Sadly, the answer to the last question is yes. Today, the United States must now mull using more military force, or abandon a garrison under pressure from Iranian backed groups. This, of course, would undercut U.S. leverage and could strengthen arguments for more U.S. military action to restore credibility or to gain leverage.
...
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Read elsewhere even if the IRGC hadn't put its jihadis in the way the Jordanian/US backed rebels here are remain far to few to take the border town of al Bukamal which is the stated objective here. This has been a persistent problem with this T&E effort. The incentive structure isn't there for locals to fight IS. They saw what happened to the Iraqi Sahwa once US support was withdrawn.

The US could get into a wider conflict to root out Iranian influence but things are too far gone in Iraq and the Russians need the Iranians in Syria. Stein also points out the US is exhausting its Special Forces and does not have infinite air capacity to fight both IS and IRGC backed militias.
 
a lot of people following this thread have probably seen about this already, but I thought I'd do a quick post just in case. I know the anti al-Qaeda (HTS) & anti-regime protests in Maarat al-Numan in Idlib have been mentioned on here before. I lost track so am not sure if this recent thing is continuing the long running protests that were still going through last year at least or maybe it's a revival of them. Anyway, the protesters were out again on 9th June so the grievances haven't gone away and their willingness to march against the HTS gang hasn't either.

It might be connected to the FSA 13th 'division' as the earlier protests were partly about the suppression and murder of FSA fighters in the town, and I have seen a claim of their involvement. According to the Syria Freedom blog they got dispersed with gunfire, and obviously in spite of hundreds of these marches/rallies they haven't dislodged the al-Qaeda presence, but I suppose it's a reminder or glimpse of something that is often obscured by the militarisation and how that has played out and the proxifying (if that's a word) of the conflict.

19055526_1677297302299662_7195317145382090185_o.jpg


DCDyT4BXkAAfUm-.jpg

from JAN_violations twitter here I'm assuming it's from Maarat al-Numan as its posted in a batch of other stuff from there.



Syria Freedom blog post with more videos and photos + plus twitter posts with a couple of photos with translations here and here
 
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