The Syria Analysis Thread

Niccolo and Donkey Sunday 7 Oct 2012

SteamshipTime President Camacho Roland Angocachi

Turkish parliament approves military intervention in Syria

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The Turkish parliament on Thursday approved a government proposal to use military force against Syria “when necessary” in response to Wednesday’s cross-border bombardment that killed five civilians.

In an emergency meeting of parliament convened on Thursday morning, the Grand National Assembly voted 320-129 in favor of a bill calling for “a one-year-long permission to make the necessary arrangements for sending the Turkish Armed Forces” into Syria in light of the “negative impact of the ongoing crisis in Syria on our national security, as well as on regional stability and security.”

Turkey’s deputy prime minister Besir Atalay explained that the bill is not a declaration of war but is intended as a deterrent against its neighbor.

Atalay also told AFP that Damascus apologized and accepted responsibility for Wednesday’s shelling that killed five civilians on Turkish soil.

“The Syrian side has admitted what it did and apologized,” Atalay told reporters.

“Statements and declarations did not seem to do the work anymore, so Turkey feels compelled to act militarily, even if in a limited manner,” Dr. Nimrod Goren, chairman of MITVIM, The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies told the Times of Israel.

While the bill does not constitute a declaration of war, it would “enable the government freedom in deciding if, when and how to react to possible further escalation. It also aims to serve as a sign of deterrence to Syria, and to show to the Turkish public that the government is reacting harshly to the situation,” Goren said.

Parliamentary approval of the measure will not necessarily translate into immediate military response, Professor Brent Sasley of University of Texas at Arlington told the Times of Israel.

“The bottom line is that there is no public support… and no political will for what would be an uncertain operation with unforeseeable consequences,” he said. ”Turkey is worried more about a series of domestic issues and constructing a new foreign policy for the region. A war with Syria would throw all of this into further confusion and make existing problems worse.”

The Turkish Constitution mandates in Article 92 that the Turkish Grand National Assembly approve any declaration of war or mobilization of armed forces.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) holds a 326-seat majority in the 550-member Grand National Assembly, voted largely in favor of the motion. The largest opposition party, the 135-seat Republican People’s Party (CHP), said it would vote against military intervention in Syria. The 51-seat Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) also opposed the bill, Hurriyet Daily News reported .

Despite the fact that prime ministerial aide İbrahim Kalın tweeted that Turkey has no interest in war with Syria, Erdoğan signed the government motion calling for military intervention in Syria.

Niccolo and Donkey Sunday 7 Oct 2012

President Camacho SteamshipTime SweetLeftFoot Roland Angocachi

What Will Ankara Do?

It is unlikely that Turkey will allow NATO missiles to be stationed in its southern districts to enforce a humanitarian corridor in northern Syria. Over the course of the past few years, the Turkish army has re-engaged the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) forces in the region. After a short hiatus between 1999 and 2004, sections of the PKK restarted its war, pushing out of its redoubts in small guerrilla bands to strike at guard posts and to conduct acts of urban terror (including a 2007 bombing in Ankara). Loss of its bases in Iraq and to some extent in Syria and divides among the PKK leadership prevented the kind of frontal assaults that had wracked the 1990s. Over seven hundred people have been killed this year alone, with the Turkish army in operations over the course of September in the mountainous border region that links it to Iraq and Iran.

The reason for the intensified battle between the PKK and the Turkish military lies in a strategic decision by Syria's Assad. This summer, he handed over much of northern Syria, which is demographically Kurdish, to the PKK and its Syrian front, the Party of the Democratic Union. These new base areas allowed the PKK to regroup and begin a major assault on the town of Semdinli (the Turks accuse Assad's regime of giving the PKK heavy armaments, including rocket launchers and heavy caliber machine guns).

As this armed conflict stepped up in September, the Turkish judiciary convicted 324 senior army officials for a plot to overthrow Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2003. Among those convicted were Ibrahim Firtina (Air Force head), Ozden Ornek (Navy chief) and Engin Alan (who had helped capture and transport PKK head Abdullah Ocalan from Kenya). The new military leadership is aligned with the Erdogan government and is nonplussed by these verdicts.

During these court proceedings and as the Turkish army seemed tied down by the PKK, the Free Syrian Army moved its base in Turkey's Hatay province into Syria. The tone of the FSA was that it was now ready to take the fight to the Assad regime on its own soil. The Turkish government's signal can be read in many ways: either they accept the FSA's view that it must intensify its campaign inside Syria, or that the Turkish government is trying to find a way to extricate itself from its forward policy.

Turkish foreign policy under the Erdogan-Davutoglu regime oscillates between the politics of "zero problems with neighbors" and a neo-Ottoman big power ( buyuk devlet ) politics. It was the latter that moved Erdogan-Davutoglu to take a strong position against the Assad regime, and as the Kurdish problem has raised its head, it is the former to which they seem to have returned. The mortar attack of October 3 and the Turkish retaliation change the situation somewhat.

Neither Saudi Arabia nor Turkey has been a willing partner in the Contact Group. Both have missed meetings, and both have been reluctant to adopt the four principles laid out by Morsi. Nonetheless, all four countries have good reasons to be in the Group. Turkey buys a third of its oil from Iran and proposes to double its current $15 billion trade with that country despite the US and European sanctions. The PKK offensive and the tension on the Syrian-Turkey border heighten the fears that Turkey will not be able to insulate its own problems from the vortex of Syria. Saudi Arabia, as I reported earlier, had insinuated a deal with the Iranians for the former to back off from Syria if the latter close down its support for the demonstrations in eastern Saudi Arabia.

This is why it is Qatar once more that has made noises about an Arab intervention in Syria (this is unlikely to materialize since Qatar's military is largely staffed by Pakistanis and it would rely upon a reluctant Egypt to provide the bodies for the actual force). Iran is desperate for a ceasefire in Syria. When the Contact Group seemed on life support in New York, Iran's President Ahmadinejad suggested that he was forming a new Group to deal with the Syrian problem. This is unlikely to materialize. Egypt is still keen on the Group, and it requires Iran in it since Tehran is the only regional capital with credibility with Assad (apart from Baghdad).

Did the Contact Group die at Akcakale? Will NATO emerge from its huddle and provide the "no-fly zone" that al-Najjar asks for, which is tantamount to a NATO intervention into the Syrian conflict?

Team Zissou Sunday 7 Oct 2012

My impression is that the Turks turned on a dime against Bashar. I'd like to know why.

The Qataris are a deeply corrupt people, btw. I don't know why they decided to have a dog in this fight either.

Niccolo and Donkey Sunday 14 Oct 2012

Syria: who's backing who?

Syrian government
Russia has retained its historical role as the key weapons supplier to Bashar al-Assad 's regime over the past 18 months. It is believed to have sent at least three shipments of heavy ammunition to the jointly run port of Tartous in northern Syria . Other Russian supplies are thought to have been flown in.

In late September, Russian envoys around the world were summoned to Moscow for an annual gathering. One ambassador present said the unexpected presence of Soviet hardliners, including Yevgeny Primakok, meant no imminent change in Russia's support, or let-up in weapons supplies.

Moscow has refurbished Syrian attack helicopters, but has been unable to deliver some of them after interference from western Europe.

Iran is widely thought to have sent at least two shipments of weapons and sent several flights carrying arms into Damascus airport. Iran's neighbour, Iraq, a foe of the Assad family until six months before the uprising, is understood to be supplying oil to keep the Syrian military moving, but not weapons.

Secular, or moderate, groups

Saudi Arabia was initially enthusiastic about supplying the so-called moderates, but has backed away partly as a result of US pressure, which stems from the increasingly splintered nature of the uprising, and because of its own disenchantment with the Syrian National Council, which is perceived to have done little with the largesse thrown its way earlier this year.

The moderates received two large cross-border supplies of weapons in May and June, but have had to scrimp and save ever since. They received a shipment of ammunition in mid-September and are believed to have been given more in recent days. Turkish intelligence still prefers to deal with the moderates.

Syrian Islamist groups

The prime beneficiaries of cash and weapons from Qatar are increasingly the best armed and most organised of the myriad opposition units trying to oust the Assad regime. But they are increasingly at loggerheads with other elements of the opposition, especially those who brand themselves as moderate or secular nationalists.

The Farouq Brigade, a fighting force that emerged from Homs, is the best armed in the country, thanks in part to the supply of weapons it has received through Lebanese MP Orkab Sakr, who is aligned to Lebanese opposition leader, Saad Hariri, and worked on behalf of the Saudis until recently.

The Liwa al-Tawheed Brigade, one of the first into Aleppo city in late July, has also received Saudi help, but has recently looked more towards Qatar.

Syria's Muslim Brotherhood movement is also backing several Islamist groups.

Foreign jihadists

With the exception of those arriving from Iraq, the foreigners are almost all turning up without weapons or ammunition. Many of those who have travelled to Syria since July have extensive experience from fighting US and government forces during the Iraq insurgency.

They are increasingly being deployed to frontline areas in Aleppo and linking up with hardline elements among the Syrian Islamists. There is evidence of some of the new arrivals joining forces with the main Salafist jihadist group, Jabhat al-Nusraf. There is speculation that the time for the foreigners to start conducting their own operations is near.

Military Council

The group of senior military defectors who have largely remained in exile in Turkey has received little in the way of weapons from any foreign patron. They have, however, been the main contact point for western intelligence agencies, including the CIA and Turkish intelligence, who have supplied communications equipment and tactical advice.

They have received cash from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which they are then allocating to regional councils to buy weapons from arms traders.

The council is struggling to establish a chain of command and control within the Free Syrian Army, which is heavily fragmented and unable to function as a standing military in all but a few areas. As a result, council leaders have crossed into northern Syria to establish bases. They have no shortage of funds, but resentment over the limited role they have played so far means they are struggling to win the respect of the units and villages they are visiting.

Niccolo and Donkey Friday 19 Oct 2012

Angocachi Roland President Camacho SteamshipTime SweetLeftFoot

Turkey calls on major powers to intervene in Syria

Davutoglu said Turkey was not seeking military confrontation with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. But the international community must send a "stark warning", via the UN security council, that some of Damascus's actions constituted a "war crime", he said. Turkey wanted the immediate creation of a transitional government, leading to democratic elections. If Assad wanted to avoid facing war crimes charges in The Hague, he should stop killing his own people.

While Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, has called for Assad to step down, Davutoglu said it was ultimately a matter for the Syrian people.

"It is not our business, it is for them to decide. But after such a criminal act, such oppression and aggression, more than 30,000 people have been killed, we don't know how many are lost, millions are IDPs, and maybe more than 500,000 are refugees, how can such a person [Assad] who is responsible for these statistics continue to run a country?"

Niccolo and Donkey Wednesday 31 Oct 2012

TREMENDOUS AND INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT!!!!

Roland President Camacho SteamshipTime Angocachi SweetLeftFoot

Rebels and Kurds clash in Aleppo

A new front in the battle for Syria is threatening to open up after a wave of killings and kidnappings shattered the wary co-existence between rebels and Kurds in Aleppo, the country’s biggest city.

The spate of deadly violence between two groups that had previously shared a tacit peace pact is a sign of the fragmentation of Syria’s society and the armed opposition’s difficulties in unifying the struggle against President Bashar al-Assad.

Fresh clashes between rebels and armed Kurdish units broke out on Tuesday in northern Syria, activists said, underscoring the gravity of the first serious fighting between the two factions since the 19-month-old uprising began.

“Clashes are spreading in wide stretches north of Aleppo and might get out of control and destroy the entire Syrian revolution,” said Hussein Jummo, a Kurdish political activist. “Everybody is scared, the situation could be catastrophic.”

Despite their history of opposition to the regime, Syria’s approximately 2m Kurds have generally sought to stay on the sidelines of the civil war , mistrustful of the Arab rebels who they see as too close to Turkey. Turkey has its own Kurdish minority and is fighting a decades-old war with the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), a militant group with close links to the Syrian Democratic Union party (PYD).

Many Arab opponents of Mr Assad believe in turn that the PYD connives with the Syrian regime.

The two groups had nevertheless until last week lived alongside each other without much violence, each operating in their own checkpoint-ringed enclaves in northern Syria.
All that changed on Friday, when clashes erupted after fighters from the rebel Free Syrian Army entered the Kurdish-controlled Achrafiyeh district of Aleppo as part of a broader – and largely unsuccessful – push to grab more territory in the crucial battleground city.

Accounts of what happened differ, but most agree the fighting erupted after a demonstration by Kurds against the FSA’s presence in the district, which Kurdish activists say had invited shelling from the regime. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 30 people were killed in the ensuing violence, most of them rebels.

Activists say the FSA also stopped and arrested Kurdish civilians on the highway linking Aleppo to the Kurdish stronghold of Afrin. Ali Bello, a commander with Ahrar al Suriya, one of the rebel brigades involved in the clashes, said the Kurdish forces had arrested FSA members.

President Camacho Wednesday 31 Oct 2012

These two blurbs jumped out from the preceding links as a change from the usual press releases we've been hearing...

US-controlled Iraq is being allowed to ship oil to Assad, while the US is now pressuring the Saudis to tone down their support of the rebels? Is this evidence of fissures within the American foreign policy establishment, or is this an about-face that Obama's administration has taken towards the uprising?

Maybe it was all an elaborate plot to lure in foreign jihadis to Syria and then cut off the supply spigot as soon as they were all conveniently trapped in one kill zone... but given their past record, I have trouble giving the State Dept that much credit.

SweetLeftFoot Thursday 1 Nov 2012

President Camacho said: ↑

These two blurbs jumped out from the preceding links as a change from the usual press releases we've been hearing...

US-controlled Iraq is being allowed to ship oil to Assad, while the US is now pressuring the Saudis to tone down their support of the rebels? Is this evidence of fissures within the American foreign policy establishment, or is this an about-face that Obama's administration has taken towards the uprising?

Maybe it was all an elaborate plot to lure in foreign jihadis to Syria and then cut off the supply spigot as soon as they were all conveniently trapped in one kill zone... but given their past record, I have trouble giving the State Dept that much credit.

The idea is to keep the fighting going as long as possible to keep Iran distracted and being drained of blood and especially treasure.

Cadavre Exquis Thursday 1 Nov 2012

More interesting developments:

Washington pushes new Syria opposition

WASHINGTON: Syrian opposition leaders of all stripes will convene in Qatar next week to form a new leadership body to subsume the Syrian National Council, which is widely viewed as ineffective, consumed by infighting and little respected on the ground.

The US State Department has been heavily involved in crafting the new council as part of its effort oust the Syrian President, Bashar Assad, and build a more viable and unified opposition.

The opposition umbrella group the Syrian National Council "can no be longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition," the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said.

In September Mrs Clinton, met a group of Syrian activists who were flown to New York for a high-level meeting that has not been reported until now.

The opposition must must resist efforts by "extremists" to hijack the revolution, Mrs Clinton said, on a visit to Croatia.

"There are disturbing reports of extremists going into Syria attempting to take over what has been a legitimate revolution against an oppressive regime for their own purposes," she warned.

Mrs Clinton said the new opposition leadership must include "a representation of those who are on the front lines, fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom".

"This cannot be an opposition represented by people who have many good attributes but have, in many instances, not been inside Syria for 20, 30 or 40 years," she said, referring to the Paris-based Syrian National Council.

During the third and final presidential debate, the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, criticised President Barack Obama's Syria policy as a failure to show "leadership" in laying the groundwork for the post-Assad era and called for "a form of council that can take the lead in Syria".

In fact, over the past few months, according to US officials and Syrian opposition figures, the State Department has worked to broaden its contacts inside the country, meeting military commanders and representatives of local governance councils in a bid to bypass the fractious Syrian National Council.
Many in the council are accordingly frustrated with the level of support from Washington.

"The Obama administration is trying to systematically undermine the SNC. It's very unfortunate," one council leader said.

But US officials are equally frustrated with a council they say has failed to attract broad support, particularly from the Alawite and Kurdish minorities. The new council is an attempt to change that dynamic.

Dozens of Syrian leaders will meet in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Saturday, and hope to announce the new council as the legitimate representative of all the major Syrian opposition factions on Wednesday, the day after the US presidential election.

The Obama administration sees the new council as a potential interim government that could negotiate with the international community and later perhaps also the Syrian regime. The SNC will have a minority stake in the new body, but some opposition leaders are still sceptical that the effort will succeed.

The Qatar meeting will include dozens of opposition leaders from inside Syria, including from the provincial revolutionary councils, the local "co-ordination committees" of activists, and select people from the newly established local administrative councils.

US officials and opposition leaders are calling the initiative the "Riad Seif plan", named after the former Syrian parliamentarian and dissident who was imprisoned after he signed the Damascus Declaration on respect for Syrians' human rights in 2005. He was released in 2011 and finally allowed to leave Syria in June.
Mr Seif is central to the formation of the new council and is seen as a figure with broad credibility with both the internal and external Syrian opposition.

Team Zissou Thursday 1 Nov 2012

Angocachi niccolo and donkey President Camacho

Sounds like a bunch of Trotskyite socialists. And the US State Department obviously has too much time on their hands. They should fire two-thirds of the employees.

The Syria Analysis Thread

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