Syria under Bashir Assad (closed end 2014)

[davidbfpo]

Patrick Cockburn, of The Independent, is known to have a different viewpoint on what is happening and his article starts with:

If the United States and its allies want to combat the Islamic State jihadists (IS, formerly known as Isis) successfully, they should arrange a ceasefire between the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the non-IS Syrian opposition. Neither the Syrian army nor the “moderate” Syrian rebels are strong enough to stop IS if they are fighting on two fronts at the same time, going by the outcome of recent battles.



A truce between the two main enemies of IS in Syria would be just that, and would not be part of a broader political solution to the Syrian crisis which is not feasible at this stage because mutual hatred is too great.

Link:http://i100.independent.co.uk/articl...is--l19FZ6G1Hg

[CrowBat]

Yeah, it's 'obvious' that the idea of making friends with a regime that's responsible for provoking a multi-enthnic and inter-religious civil war, wholesale slaughter of 400.000 Syrians, deployment of chemical weapons against civilians and destruction of most of major Syrian cities, making 10 million of - supposedly - its own population into refugees...

...but especially for importing Daesh and helping it grow so it can present itself as 'fighting extremist Islamists and thus a preferred friend of the West'...

...is simply 'brilliant'.

The next on that menu would be making friends with Khamenei's clique in Tehran: then provide air support for their- and Assadist hordes so these can clean up the entire mess in Iraq, Jordan, Israel, then Saudi Arabia and whatever else might find itself in the way... Ah, ups: Israel is 'friends', sorry.

Whatever: call it a 'speculation' if you like, but it's obvious that such an enterprise would be much easier to organize but finding out what insurgents are 'good ones' in Syria, then training and arming them, and guiding them through a war and politics. Not to talk about finding out what party in Iraq might be acceptable to cooperate with.... Doh, that's all too complex. Instead, make friends with two regimes that are excelling at squashing peaceful protesters that demand such nonsense like human rights, dignity and pluralism: who to hell cares about the latter factors? Nobody. On the contrary, organizing such an alliance would remove all the problems caused by corrupt and bigot regimes in the GCC, and foremost it could be completed within as little as one year (which in turn would remove the need for something as absurd as demands for GCC regimes to stop being as oppressive as those in Damascus and Tehran, but also finally cut off the financing they're providing for extremists all around the world). Simply fantastic.

And then the Middle East will be pacified - 'once and forever'.

[CrowBat]

While the fans of the Assadist regime can't stop bragging about all possible air strikes on the Daesh, there is simply no evidence of these.

Instead, all one gets to hear are reports about strikes on civilians - and, if at all, then moderate insurgents in the Talbiseh-Rastan pocket.

Here one of related reports:
Nearly 50 dead in Syrian airstrikes on Homs province.

Anybody curious to make friends with such characters? Perhaps some want to check who is actually fighting the Daesh in Syria, before coming to such ideas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwSnyQYy5SE

[CrowBat]

Here is something like a summary of US air strikes on targets in Syria, flown the last night - as reported from the locals, and sorted out per province:

* Raqqa
- 7 strikes in total on targets inside the city were recorded during the night
- three locations in Tel Abyad area, north of this city, were hit
- the governor palace in Raqqa was completely destroyed during the night; this area was hit again early this morning, causing a huge fire
- Tabqa AB was hit five times
- Base 93 was hit three times - by Tomahawks

* Idlib
- JAN HQ in Idlib (no specific place mentioned)
- JAN HQ at Khirbet Ghazala (where the CO Mohammed Brigade, Abdu Ismail Mohammed was KIA)
- Activists are reporting that the strikes in this Province have hit the Ahrar ash-Sham HQ too, but 'only killed civilians'.

* Dayr az-Zawr
- no specific targets mentioned yet, but given 'several air strikes' were reportedly flown there, and all by night, it's clear these were undertaken by the US: SyAAF is not known to have flown a single nocturnal air strike in three years of war.

I purposedly write 'US air strikes' here, because it seems the US are alone in striking targets inside Syria: UK has promised to join, but didn't do so yet. Except for fighter-bombers, Rear Adm John Kirby has mentioned involvement of 'bombers and Tomahawk missiles'. Jordan is the only Arab nation to officially acknowledge involvement of its air force so far, but what the official website of the General Command of the Armed Forces of Jordan (in Arabic) says, seems to indicate RJAF flying strikes against targets inside Iraq.

Furthermore, locals are reporting rather weak presence of the Daesh in most of targeted areas: seems that majority of extremists went slaughtering Kurds in the Kobane pocket...

[CrowBat]

More news on US strikes on the Daesh in Syria: majority of these seem to have targeted a large convoy of extremists moving in direction of Kobane and Tel Abyad. Supposedly, most of this was obliterated. The YPG then launched a counterattack and mopped up.

Another Kurdish force - which seems to have entered Syria from Iraq - is moving from Ras al-Ayn on Mabroukah, and should have captured the latter town. YPG is claiming that this offensive is to go westwards, in direction of Tel Abyad.

With other words: except for targeting the Daesh and Ahrar ash-Sham, the US is presently supporting a pincer-attack by the YPG which should help ease the pressure upon Kobane pocket.

*************

Separately from this, the Israelis have shot down a SyAAF Su-24MK2 this morning.

According to the IDF, the Sukhoi penetrated the airspace over Israeli-occupied Golan Heights at around 08.57hrs local time, and crossed into the Israeli-controlled airspace by about 800 metres at an altitude 'between 10,000 and 14,000ft'. 'From the moment that the decision was made until impact, 1 minute and 20 seconds passed'.

The photo below should be showing the crew that ejected. Video below was taken at Khan Shih, which is half-way between Damascus and Qunaitra: while insurgents claim they've shot down the plane in question, I would say this is the Su-24MK2 shot down by the Israelis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7YM8hwwwco

The IDF confirmed that the crew ejected successfully.

This is a loss that will be felt by the SyAAF: although originally in posession of only 21 aircraft, No. 819 Squadron (their only Su-24-unit) flew up to 30% of all strikes recorded over Syria since July 2012.

[Dayuhan]

It seems inevitable that intractable problems will generate utterly unrealistic "solutions" from onlookers, but this conflict seems to be doing more than its share. This has to be right up there near the top:

If the United States and its allies want to combat the Islamic State jihadists (IS, formerly known as Isis) successfully, they should arrange a ceasefire between the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the non-IS Syrian opposition.

If we're going to presume omnipotence, why not just "arrange for" the ISIS guys to shoot themselves and/or each other, and have done with it?

Obviously Assad has no interest in a truce with "the non-ISIS opposition". His interest lies in annihilating the non-ISIS opposition, so he can pitch himself as the only alternative to ISIS. Why would Assad go ahead with a truce and focus on ISIS when he knows perfectly well that as soon as ISIS is out of the picture he'll be the next target? Makes no sense. Assad seems perfectly happy to have ISIS in the picture, as well he might be: as long as they're around, he's no longer the least attractive alternative.

The proposal is every bit as unrealistic on the other side. "The non-ISIS opposition” is anything but cohesive and unitary: you're talking about hundreds of divergent and deeply conflicted factions, from relative moderates to full blown Islamist loonies like al-Nusra, which is among the most obvious demonstrations that "non-ISIS" does not necessarily mean "moderate". Even the thought of trying to get all or even most of them to agree to or observe a truce is far beyond the bounds of absurdity.

So we propose to “arrange a truce” between those who haven’t the capacity to agree on a truce (or anything else) and those who have no reason whatsoever to want a truce, and we expect this to happen… why? Because we decided that it should be? Again, if we were omnipotent we’d have easier ways of solving the problem.

Another prevailing utterly unrealistic proposal goes back to the old “find the good guys and make them win” mantra, also known as “arm and fund the moderates, and guide them through war and politics”. The obvious questions about whether a proxy war is really an advisable strategy, whether a suitable proxy exists, and (most of all) what we propose to do when our proxy doesn’t win are generally not answered, or even acknowledged: it’s just assumed that there have to be good guys, that they will surely win if we support them, that they will of course willingly submit to our “guidance”, and that of course they would never ever dream of applying our money and resources to any purpose not approved by us.

Given the number of times we’ve been burned in that particular fire you’d think we’d know better than to stick our faces back into it… but I guess we’re slow learners.

And then of course there’s the old reliable proposal that America should “demand” that the GCC regimes stop being oppressive and do as we say, as if they give a rat’s ass about our demands, and as if they need to.

All of these “proposals” have one thing in common: they assume capacities that do not in fact exist. That makes them quite useless for any practical purpose, though they do provide us with a way to make an unrealistic suggestion and then accuse others of incompetence for not following it. Why anyone would want to do that is something I’ve not quite figured out. Different strokes, I guess…

[CrowBat]

Sigh, more of usual speculation and guessing...

In all of your regurgitation, there is only thing that's making me curious, Dayuhan: you're all the time emphasising how disunited the insurgents are.

Provided you are able to at least once answer a question: who has ever told you that 'Assadists' are 'unified'?

Assad is meanwhile an Iranian puppet, upheld for the purpose of representing Iranian interests in Damascus and holding together a bunch consisting of different militias.

On the battlefield - and that's all that matters in Syria presently - his regime is supposedly represented through the 'Syrian Arab Army'. Where is this Syrian Arab Army, please? Can you mention me but a single brigade, not to talk about any division of the former Syrian Arab Army that is still existing?

Yes, there is a Ministry of Defence and the usual chain of command, but officers of these have representative roles only: their main duty is to listen to IRGC-QF officers and follow their orders. Technically, the 'Syrian military' (including intelligence services) is under the control of IRGC-QF officers: much of it is actually run by various families that are siding with Assad in interest of their own survival. Result is a mafia-like organization, not a 'military': even somebody with Soleimani's authority has experienced all sorts of problems in attempting to exercise battlefield control of all the diverse forces. His staff has launched seven different offensives through 2013 and in early 2014, and couldn't complete even one of these because of 'disruption' by various of cliques - which often withdrew their forces from the battlefield in disagreement with him. And since Soleimani was sent back to Iraq, the cooperation between different cliques only worsened - which is why we haven't seen any of glorious large-scale offensives being undertaken since months.

The air force is receiving orders from the Ba'ath Party HQ, not from the MOD or down the usual chain of command: the Ba'ath Party is primarily consisting of Sunnis and maintaining its own militia which, at least according to Iranians, has proven more combat effective than any other elements of regime's military. Should it then be surprising the SyAAF proved most-effective in providing CAS when doing so in support of BPM units - which include several former Special Forces regiments? None of BPM-members I managed to contact so far would say he's fighting 'for Assad': 'for Syria', 'defence of my family' etc., but not for Assad. And, they dislike Iranian presence and influence too. So, they're one 'clique' there.

Air Defence Force was disbanded already before the war, and integrated into the SyAAF: majority of its former units were disbanded and their personnel integrated into the NDF.

Theoretically, the core of what is left of the Army would be the Republican Guards Division. This is meanwhile down to only two 'special' brigades, plus air defence assets (most of those operating 'high-tech' systems, like SA-17s and SA-21s) and few artillery regiments equipped with MLRS' and SSMs. One of 'special' brigades has a sole duty of keeping Alawites under control: during the fall of Tabqa, the regime flew out all of its favourites, but left behind hundreds of soldiers to get slaughtered by the Daesh. This caused renewed unrest and some public protest even within supposed 'core support base', which were squashed only through mass-arresting of anybody who expressed critique. And that's the next point of conflict here: loyal Alawites vs. disloyal Alawites (and where one should keep in mind that Alawites are traditionally disunited, and held 'together' only by sheer violence and brutality of the Assadist regime).

Out of RGD's former three mechanized brigades only one remains existent: the 104th (that is: its remnants after three years of war) was sent to save Dayr az-Zawr. The equipment of the other two is now manned by Hezbollah and Iraqis, under command of IRGC-QF officers, of course.

The 4th AD was broken down into detachments that were put in command of countless detachments from various Army units already back in 2011 (in order to prevent defection). All of these were - together with all that's left of the Army - reorganized by the IRGC-QF into the NDF. The NDF is operated in form of about 100+ battalions, sometimes bunched together into makeshift brigades and even divisions for specific tasks, but majority of these are 'territorial' by nature: capable only of limited defensive operations within the area where their members are living. There are ex-intelligence, ex-Army, ex-Shabiha, ex-air defence, and then 'other' battalions, each of them run by their own clique and with its own level/degree of loyalty to the regime. Nobody knows to what side would which of them turn should Assad fall.

Except for the BPM, the other two most effective 'military forces loyal to the regime' are the militia of the Syrian Nationalist Party's (SSNP, which has Nazi-like ideology) and the Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA was established already back in the late 1960s, and is meanwhile largely recruited from the West Bank). In essence, the regime's military can barely survive without them (and the BPM): they're involved in every single 'successful' offensive operation of the regime since this spring. The SSNP and the PLA are fighting 'on regime's side', but not for Assad either.

Now try to arrange a 'truce' between these forces and the insurgents: even when Iranians were arranging truces with specific of insurgent held pockets around Damascus and Homs earlier this year, they first had to remove specific regime units from the given area in order to negotiate. Whenever they didn't there were renewed atrocities, looting, raping and all of that sort. Just like on the insurgent side, there are 'commanders' that are disobeying any corresponding orders - if for no other reasons then because they know they have too much blood on their hands and are afraid of retaliation (whether by their own or the 'other' side). And that's 'just for the start'...

And for those shedding crocodile tears over non-cooperation with the Assadist regime... Bashar and Iranians can only thank to Obama, but not complain about him. It's not only that this intervention comes much too late, that Obama has left them three years to save the regime from the collapse, and grow the Daesh for their own purposes. The Daesh's advance on Mosul came just about when the IRGC was about to go bankrupt because of US sanctions - by pure accident, I guess? Thanks to Daesh's advance, they're now free to finance themselves through Iraqi purchases of Iranian arms and ammo, Russian arms and ammo and wholesale raise of Shi'a militias in Iraq.

But 'no', I guess you'll say: that's taking things into context. We're discussing Syria, so who cares about Iraq here.

OK, then let's go back to Syria: this intervention in Syria is coming just about when the Daesh was preparing a major assault on Dayr az-Zawr. Thanks to this intervention, the extremists are never going to launch that attack - and thus Bashar is never going to find himself facing such fierce critique from within 'own' ranks, like after the fall of Tabqa.

On the contrary: withdrawal of major FSyA, SF and SRF contingents for 're-training and re-equipment' in Jordan and KSA is opening major gaps in insurgent frontlines. US attacks on the JAN are likely to open additional gaps in these frontlines, which other insurgent groups can't close on their own: for this, they lack troops, armament and supplies - and they are already lacking troops, armament and supplies to fight both, the Daesh and the regime at the same time. And the US is doing nothing from curbing ever fiercer air strikes by the SyAAF against FSyA, SF, SRF and the IF.

What do you think: attacks on the JAN and the Ahrar are improving position of the FSyA and the IF? On the contrary: given how disillusioned by the USA (and the West) majority of insurgents became after three years of waiting for them, it's no surprise they're all very sceptic about results of this intervention. Indeed, should it turn out the US air power is continuously killing civilians while missing various of Ahrar's and JAN's HQ, it is going to be not the least surprising if insurgents turn against the USA too: such actions are therefore an ill-advised va banque game.

So, where is actually the problem? USA are already 'cooperating' with the regime in Damascus, though indirectly. Run the way it is, the US-led action in Syria is saving that regime. I have said it already, and I'll repeat it: sooner or later, Bashar is going to decorate Obama for his achievements in saving his regime. Khamenei, Vahid & Co are then going to stand in line right behind Bashar...