Syria under Bashir Assad: crumbling now?

[tequila]

From Nir Rosen, LRB - Among the Alawites

Syria’s Alawite heartland is defined by its funerals. In Qirdaha in the mountainous Latakia province, hometown of the Assad dynasty, I watched as two police motorcycles drove up the hill, pictures of Bashar mounted on their windshields. An ambulance followed, carrying the body of a dead lieutenant colonel from state security. As the convoy passed, the men around me let off bursts of automatic fire. My local guides were embarrassed that I had seen this display, and claimed it was the first time it had happened. ‘He is a martyr, so it is considered a wedding.’ Schoolchildren and teachers lining the route threw rice and flower petals. ‘There is no god but God and the martyr is the beloved of God!’ they chanted. Hundreds of mourners in black walked up through the village streets to the local shrine. ‘Welcome, oh martyr,’ they shouted. ‘We want no one but Assad!’

...

In the coastal province of Tartus and other parts of the Alawite heartland, countless new loyalist checkpoints have been set up, manned by the Syrian Army or by paramilitary members of popular committees in a mix of civilian clothes and military gear. The countryside has armed itself. In May I visited the mountain town of Sheikh Badr in Tartus province. Forty-three townsmen in the security forces had been killed; seven others had been captured or were missing. While I was in the mayor’s office he received news that a wounded soldier had just been brought in. Sheikh Badr’s first martyr was killed in Daraa in April 2011, one month into the uprising. Its most recent, a colonel killed in Damascus, was buried two days before I visited.

...

Alawites aren’t wrong to feel that for all the fury of its repression, the state is at a loss to know how to protect them. It is this feeling, above all, that has led to the growth of the increasingly powerful independent loyalist militias who act with impunity and often embarrass the regime. The militias have been responsible for several massacres in Homs and Hama, but Bashar is in no position to bear down on his most diehard supporters. An engineer in Homs, an Alawite who had joined the opposition, told me that the first time he saw loyalist gangs in action was in March 2011. ‘It was random and nobody organised them,’ he said. ‘They only had clubs. But by July they were organised. Now they work on their own account … The most dangerous thing in a civil war is the people who live off it and depend on it financially. I saw this in Lebanon. In Homs it’s open civil war.’

The war has broken down into true civil war now, and one gets the feeling that there is no way this ends. Even if Bashar stepped down and the army disbanded itself, the fighting would continue, and perhaps even intensify as the Sunni town and local warlords fought amongst each other, opening a window for the Salafis and jihadists.

A true national tragedy for the people of Syria.

For the U.S., it's likely best to stay out of there - but what about Syria's chem/bio arsenal, not to mention its vast stock of weaponry, including handheld antiair missiles? Every nonstate actor in the region will be salivating to get at the Assads' stocks once state authority truly breaks down.

[davidbfpo]

This report examines the presence of jihadist groups within Syria, explains where various Syrian rebel groups and foreign elements operating in Syria fall along the spectrum of religious ideology, and considers their aggregate effect upon the Islamification of the Syrian opposition.

The Syrian conflict began as a secular revolt against autocracy. Yet as the conflict protracts, a radical Islamist dynamic has emerged within the opposition. There is a small but growing jihadist presence inside Syria, and this presence within the opposition galvanizes Assad’s support base and complicates U.S. involvement in the conflict.

Link:http://www.understandingwar.org/report/jihad-syria

[davidbfpo]

Syria, you know, I was ambassador to Syria for three fun-filled years. .. Bashar is like his father except worse—less flexible, more doctrinaire, less agile and aware that he doesn’t have his father’s support. So I think this is—it’s going to be a fight to the finish....nowhere, I am afraid, could it be more bitter than in Syria, where we’re already seeing the signs of sectarian divisions, tensions and hatreds surface, even with Bashar still in the palace. You know, again, the past isn’t past in Syria.

Link:http://carnegieendowment.org/files/0...t_crocker1.pdf

[Fuchs]

A staffer at a private bank from Lattakia told me in 2010 that when his brother knocked down a pedestrian in a car accident on a Damascus street he fled the capital for a month while his family attempted to sort out the issue. His family paid money to the family of the deceased. The state was not involved in this as#pect of governance and the brother faced no legal judgment for his crime. Law and justice are realms so weak, corrupt and disin#genuous in the state system that Syrians have rejected them in serious matters; they are forced to govern themselves; they can place no trust in the state.

Actually, this is not so terribly alien to Germans.

The German law books have 15 paragraphs about crimes that will only be prosecuted if the victim demands it.
A further 12 paragraphs are about crimes that are basically the same, but a state attorney can still go after them if (s)he sees a public interest in doing so.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antragsdelikt

Germans (and people in Germany) are not obliged to report crimes (except the planning of certain crimes) in general (exception; police etc).

We would of course report such a homicide and police would go after the brother until it's believed that it really was an accident, but our legal situation does not demand that anyone reports the crime.

[davidbfpo]

An odd article on accommodation, culture and insurgency. What I found noteworthy was the location:

Jibata al-Khashab, located on the Syrian border with the occupied Golan, has been under the control of FSA battalions for the past two months.

I don't recall the FSA being near the Golan.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/rita-fr...-syrian-border

[JMA]

Originally Posted by davidbfpo

Link:http://carnegieendowment.org/files/0...t_crocker1.pdf

Same holds with Syria as it did with Libya... arm the opposition at your peril.

.

[davidbfpo]

An intrepid reporter Ghaith Abdul-Ahad has written this article:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...rs-joining-war

Interesting to note the differences between the Jihadists and the Syrians, although that does not explain the Jihadist's attrition rate completly.

He also has a PBS documentary, this was on the PBS website, but didn't load in the UK and I accessed it via:http://www.enduringamerica.com/home/...-frontlin.html

There is a second historical documentary, which is good round-up too.

[davidbfpo]

Via Twitter a Swedish report on the Syrian Jihadist movement:http://www.ui.se/upl/files/76917.pdf

[davidbfpo]

A good, comprehensive analysis:

Turkey’s cooperation with the Gulf states, reportedly establishing a secret shared command centre in southern Turkey to coordinate rebel attacks, may be designed to contain the influence of others and control which groups get arms. But Turkey’s recent regional resurgence in the Middle East is at risk of drowning in the Syrian quagmire.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/christo...-syria-problem

[davidbfpo]

A different angle to the war in Syria, an account by an ITN reporter on meeting snipers and other fighters on the government's side in Homs - with additional commentary set in Damascus:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...s-in-Homs.html

I assume there was a TV film report, but nothing on ITN's website appears to match.

[Wyatt]

This week on Al Arabiya there has been some releases of documents claiming that the pilots of the turkish jet were executed and that several damascus car bombs were set off by the regime. There has been almost no discussion of this on other media outlets.

I have always considered Al arabiya the saudi counterpart to Al jazeera however with something of this magnitude, and its lack of concurrent coverage, it raises to question of false news.

I know that it has been criticized as the advocate of saudi foreign policy, but al jazeera has faced the same re qatar. Is al arabiya a credible foreign source?

[Surferbeetle]

Al Arabiya News English, http://english.alarabiya.net

Al Arabiya, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Arabiya

Iraqi Perceptions of the War, SWJ, http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=2791

Jordan Rises as Internet Hub While King Curbs Expression, By Stephanie Baker - Oct 1, 2012 2:01 PM MT, Bloomberg Markets Magazine, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-1...xpression.html

Before there was an Arab Spring, there was a quiet revolution of sorts brewing in Jordan.

The country experienced a tech boom that gained speed as young Arabs toppled regimes from Egypt to Tunisia and millions were driven online for the first time. Jordan now hosts about three-quarters of all Arabic content on the Internet, according to the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Can it last? Doubts grew in September when the Jordanian parliament passed a law curtailing freedom of expression on the Internet and giving the government broad powers to block websites it deems inappropriate.

On a scale of 1 (most free) to 7 (least free), Jordan scores 5.5, or “not free,” according to the Freedom in the World 2011 report published by Washington-based Freedom House.

[Tukhachevskii]

Tentative Jihad: Syria’s Fundamentalist Opposition

[Rex Brynen]

Originally Posted by Wyatt

This week on Al Arabiya there has been some releases of documents claiming that the pilots of the turkish jet were executed and that several damascus car bombs were set off by the regime. There has been almost no discussion of this on other media outlets.

I have always considered Al arabiya the saudi counterpart to Al jazeera however with something of this magnitude, and its lack of concurrent coverage, it raises to question of false news.

I know that it has been criticized as the advocate of saudi foreign policy, but al jazeera has faced the same re qatar. Is al arabiya a credible foreign source?

So far the documents look fake to me.

[Wyatt]

Thats a shame since I was hoping to use Al-Arabiya english as an saudi perspective alternative view to qatari al-jazeera.

[Paul Smyth]

Hi,
sorry for the late reply, I've just seen your comment.

Yes, there are other ways to enforce a NFZ beyond dealing with an aircraft as it breaches the Zone. However, it would be wrong to see that as an option in Syria which simply removes the difficulties I outlined. Pse consider:

1. It takes more than a bomb crater to close a runway and it can be repaired (hence development of the JP233 in the Cold War). Closing all SAF MOBs would require signif & repeated effort. Ramp space & Risk?

2. A punitive approach would open up allied aircraft to ambush.

3. ROE. Yes, offensive action might be limited to that which is taken against a breaching aircraft. That may be a strong political constraint. The NFZ isn't happening in a vacuum.

4. Helos are a problem even if detected inside a NFZ. What if a Helo is being used for Casevac? Again, ROE can be a real constraint (e.g. as in the Balkans).

5. The major problems with the suggestion of a list of penalty targets are the risks associated with attacking them (if beyond the NFZ) and the very real consideration of campaign escalation. E.g. would allies be happy to attack a C2 node or Regime asset elsewhere in Syria because of a helo infringement? These are genuine legal and political issues that 'lateral thinking' might ignore.

Lastly, as an ex-mud-mover I'd say my 'historical paradigm of how to take aircraft out of the equation' would be to attack airfields....!

Paul

[carl]

Here is a video of a Syrian gov helo (MI-8/17?) going down and exploding in midair.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2...ver-idlib?lite

The photographer zooms out and in several times and when he zooms out it appears the helo is coming down from a fairly high altitude, high enough that it seems improbable that ground guns got him. From my civilian point of view it seems more likely that a missile got him.

Does anybody know if those missiles that went walk about from Libya have made it to the Syrian opposition?

(Regardless, we are going to have trouble with those missing Libyan SA-24s in the years to come.)

[TheCurmudgeon]

Do those missiles leave a vapor trail. Noticed from the video when he pulled back to wide angle you could almost see where the smoke from the failing helicopter started and I did not notice any other smoke angling up towards that area.

Also did not see any tracer fire following it down from a crew served weapon (like a DShKM) ... so maybe it was just mechanical failure?????

[carl]

They leave a trail while the motor is burning but the motor only burns for so long. Once it burns out, I don't know. It appears the video was shot from behind the helo, so maybe it was hit by a missile whose motor had burned out and it was hit outside the frame since it would have kept moving forward while moving down. Then again, maybe not. We will probably never know.

It appears that the helo was massively leaking fuel before it blew up. I think that is what it is trailing as it goes down.

[Ray]

A staffer at a private bank from Lattakia told me in 2010 that when his brother knocked down a pedestrian in a car accident on a Damascus street he fled the capital for a month while his family attempted to sort out the issue. His family paid money to the family of the deceased. The state was not involved in this as#pect of governance and the brother faced no legal judgment for his crime. Law and justice are realms so weak, corrupt and disin#genuous in the state system that Syrians have rejected them in serious matters; they are forced to govern themselves; they can place no trust in the state.

The banker must have forgotten to mention that Sharia rules.

Pay money and all is well.

Same as the CIA chap in Pakistan. Money paid and all is forgiven!