Originally Posted by
CrowBat
Sorry but this sounds as if you've missed only some three years of Civil War in Syria?
...and the latest spate of regime's successes too?
You've mentioned three topics here:
1.) The Islamic Front (IF) was established already back in late 2012, with Saudi backing and to counter Qatari supported JAN, i.e. to stop the flow of defections of 'Islamists' (i.e. those Syrian insurgents that were religious) from the FSyA to the JAN. Majority of the IF consists of 'moderately religious' people, but its top leadership is sectarian. Means: Alawis are unlikely to have it good under their rule.
2.) The IF is neither winning nor gaining territory. On the contrary: lately they have lost several major battles.
For example: they've lost much of northern Aleppo Province to the regime's offensive from Sheikh Najjar Industrial City in direction of Nubol and az-Zahra. Organized and run by the IRGC, and with help of a full IRGC-brigade, supported by a battalion each of the Ba'ath Party Militia and Hezbollah ('special forces'), plus NDF tanks and artillery, this operation punched through insurgent defences which were weak following JAN's withdrawal from that area. This withdrawal was caused by US air strikes on local JAN HQ and large-scale defection of (primarily foreign) combatants to the Daesh.
Another 'Islamist' (actually: 'Salafist') insurgent group, Ahrar ash-Sham (and another one recently hit by US strikes), then attempted to distract the regime through a counterattack against the regime's supply corridor for Aleppo, south of that city. This corridor is stretching from Palmyra all the way up to Aleppo, and goes in between areas held by insurgents (western side) and the Daesh (eastern side). Ahrar temporarily captured as-Safira (famous as location of most of Syrian defence industry), but then lost it in a vicious regime (read: IRGC) counterattack.
Overall, the situation on this frontline is now something like 'stalled', but regime 'won' the last round: if nothing else, due to capture of Hindarat, north of Aleppo, it is overlooking the last few roads connecting insurgents inside Aleppo with Turkey. Plus, it is still in control of its corridor.
Another example, this time from south-eastern Damascus: following the latest chemical attack by the regime - which mauled five battalions of the JAN in Adra, in late August - the IRGC launched a major offensive on the IF and the JAN in that town, and overrun them. Then the IRGC launched another offensive on besieged Jobar (meanwhile rather resembling the Moon-scape), and overrun this place too (just yesterday).
This means that now the IF in Eastern Ghouta is completely besieged - and this ahead of the coming winter.
The fighting in Moarek area... even this is no 'win': it's actually an aftermath of a failed IF-JAN offensive in direction of Hama. Earlier this year, this nearly reached the Hama AB (north of that city), but meanwhile the JAN fell back, Ahrar followed in fashion (guess why?), and the IF lacked forces to maintain frontlines. Because of this, the insurgents fell back towards north, i.e. in direction of Moarek (scene of a 4-months long regime's offensive, earlier this year, which was not only stopped cold, but extremely costly in terms of casualties - for Damascus, but for Tehran too).
The difference is: it is in this area that the IF can lean back upon support from Harakat Hazm, i.e. the hard-core of the former FSyA, and one of only 3-4 groups of Syrian insurgents really supported by the US... actually: they are supported by Saudis with US consent. Harakat has its 'A-team' of TOW-shooters in the area, and they've claimed about 30 kills in Moarek area, the last month or so.
Finally, the only area where insurgents managed to seriously advance in this year is southern Syria. Here the Southern Front - which has nothing to do with the IF and is rather similar to the Harakat (though not as happily supported by the US/Saudis) - managed to liberate most of Qunaitra Province. They did so in cooperation with the JAN, which is the reason Washington dislikes the SF so much.
Further south-east, the SF managed to vastly expand the area under its control aside of a very narrow, regime-controlled corridor connecting Damascus with whatever was left of regime's garrison inside Dera'a. Should they manage to completely seal that corridor, the regime there would be in extremely serious trouble, and actually the insurgents could then stop thinking about an advance in direction of Ghouta.
3.) Now to the next topic you mentioned:
The IF is the largest insurgent group in Syria (most conservative estimate: about 50,000 combatants), and the best armed (including not only at least two 'companies' of armour, plenty of artillery, but also two operational SA-8 systems), but they cannot win this war on their own.
Anyway, they are against the Daesh, and there is no way they might ever merge with them, or even with the JAN. Otherwise, they would have done so already long ago.
Following its large-scale withdrawal in late June (in reaction to Daesh's advance into Iraq), the IRGC-QF is now back in force in Syria, operating a number of new brigades there. That's the reason why the regime 'suddenly' became capable of capturing Jobar and of advancing north of Aleppo.
Presently, I do not see the way how should insurgents - whether Harakat, Southern Front, Syrian Revolutionary Front and the Tawhid Brigade (four groups de-facto making the FSyA; conservative estimate: about 45,000 combatants), or the IF, and whether either on their own or all united and fighting together - 'defeat' the IRGC-led regime forces in Syria. They are not only too few (primarily because they can't arm and support more fighters), but also not well-enough armed.
This is unlikely to change any time soon - and even less likely to happen if Washington continues its short-sighted policy of blindly ignoring the Syrian regime.
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