The Syria Analysis Thread

Niccolo and Donkey Thursday 17 Jan 2013

Angocachi Theo President Camacho SteamshipTime SweetLeftFoot Roland

Syrian rebels accuse jihadist groups of trying to hijack revolution

A schism is developing in northern Syria between jihadists and Free Syrian Army units, which threatens to pitch both groups against each other and open a new phase in the Syrian civil war.

Rebel commanders who fight under the Free Syrian Army banner say they have become increasingly angered by the behaviour of jihadist groups, especially the al-Qaida -aligned Jabhat al-Nusra, who they say aim to hijack the goals of the revolution.

The rising tensions are palpable in the countryside near Aleppo, which has become a stronghold for the well-armed and highly motivated jihadists, many of whom espouse the Bin Laden worldview and see Syria as a theatre in which to conduct a global jihad.

Syrian rebel groups, on the other hand, maintain that their goals are nationalistic and not aimed at imposing Islamic fundamentalism on the society if and when the Assad regime falls.
Fighting between the well-armed jihadists and the regular units who accepted their help from late last summer would mark a dramatic escalation in the conflict that has claimed in excess of 60,000 lives. However, commanders in the north say such an outcome now appears unavoidable.

"We will fight them on day two after Assad falls," one senior commander told the Guardian. "Until then we will no longer work with them."

In recent weeks Liwa al-Tawheed and other militias who form part of the overall Free Syrian Army brand have started conducting their own operations without inviting al-Nusra to join them.

A raid on an infantry school north of Aleppo in mid-December was one such occasion, as are ongoing attacks against Battalion 80 on the outskirts of the city's international airport and a military base to the east, known as Querres.

"They are not happy with us," the rebel commander said. "But they had been hoarding all their weapons anyway."

Angocachi Friday 18 Jan 2013

Former Assad regime members accuse Syria's decades old Islamist opposition of not supporting their coup

This is a common line these days regarding the Arab Spring countries. Secularist news media try to portray the Egyptian uprising as originally areligious and leftist, though the Ikhwanis and Qutbis there have been the bulk and head of the opposition since these Westernized college faggots were two or three generations from being a sperm and they proved this by winning the election... which the secularists then went on to whine about, "We want democracy... Ikhwan won?? We want more democracy!"

Iraq had/has the same problem. Former Saddam regime members & Sunni Arab mafia vs Al Qaeda & Ansar Al Sunnah.

The FSA was happy to have Al Nusra when they were fighting and dying, taking cities and military bases for them. But now that the Salafi presence has detered NATO and the GCC from bombing Assad, the FSA is promising to clean up the Jihadists the minute their fight with their old boss is finished... as if Syria is Kosovo or Bosnia and NATO agents can shoo the Salafis away when they're done with them.

Niccolo and Donkey Saturday 19 Jan 2013

Angocachi President Camacho Roland SteamshipTime SweetLeftFoot

Syria: A jihadi paradise

If you want to know what's really going in Syria, look no further than Hezbollah secretary-general Sheikh Nasrallah. He does tell it like it is .

Then there's what Ammar al-Musawi, Hezbollah's number 3 - as in their de facto foreign minister - told my Italian colleaguem Ugo Tramballi. The most probable post-Assad scenario, if there is one, will be "not a unitary state, but a series of emirates near the Turkish border, and somebody proclaiming an Islamic state". Hezbollah's intelligence - the best available on Syria - is adamant: "one third of the combatants in the opposition are religious extremists, and two-thirds of the weapons are under their control." The bottom line - this is a Western proxy war, with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) acting as a "vanguard" for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Not surprisingly, that motley crew branded as the "Syrian opposition" rejected Assad en bloc. For the Muslim Brotherhood - the self-styled power in waiting - he is a "war criminal" who should go on trial. For Georges Sabra, the vice-president of that American-Qatari concoction, the National Coalition, Assad's words were a "declaration of war against the Syrian people".

Predictably, the US State Department - not yet under John Kerry - said Assad was "detached from reality". London said it was all hypocrisy and immediately launched yet another "secret" two-day conference this week at Wilton Park in West Sussex mingling coalition members with the usual gaggle of "experts", academics, GCC officials and "multilateral agencies". The spectacularly pathetic UK Foreign Secretary William Hague twitted - for the umpteenth time - that "Assad's departure from power is inevitable".

Facts on the ground though spell that Assad is not going anywhere anytime soon.

As for British claims that "the international community can provide support to a future transitional authority", that doesn't cut much slack among war-weary informed Syrians - who know this civil war has been funded, supplied and amply coordinated by the West, as in the NATO component of the NATOGCC compound.

They smell a - Western - rat in the obsessive characterization of everything in Syria as a sectarian war, as they see how loads of influent Sunnis have remained loyal to the government.

They smell a - Western - rat when they look back and see this whole thing started just as the US$10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline (crucially bypassing NATO member Turkey) had a chance to be implemented. This would represent a major economic boost to an independent Syria, an absolute no-no as far as Western interests are concerned.

The Obama 2.0 administration - and Israel - would be more than comfortable with the MB in power in Syria, following the Egyptian modus operandi . The Brotherhood promotes the idea of a "civil state"; one just has to check the few "liberated areas" across Syria to detect rebel civility inbuilt in hardcore Sharia law and assorted beheadings.

Yet what the NATOGCC compound and Israel really want is a Yemeni model for Syria; a military dictatorship without the dictator. What they're getting instead, for the foreseeable future, is Jihadi Paradise.

Off with their heads
Almost a year ago, al-Qaeda number one Ayman al-Zawahiri called on every Sunni hardcore faithful from Iraq and Jordan to Lebanon, Turkey and beyond to take a trip to Syria and merrily crush Assad.

So they've kept coming, including - just like in Afghanistan - Chechens and Uyghurs and Southeast Asians, joining everything from the FSA to Jabhat al-Nusra, the number one killing militia, now with over 5,000 jihadis.

A report published this week by the London-based counterterrorism outfit Quilliam Foundation confirms Al-Nusra's role. The lead author of the report, Noman Benotman, happens to be a former Libyan jihadi very cosy with al-Zawahiri and the late "Geronimo", aka Osama bin Laden.

Al-Nusra is in fact the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the terrorist brand of late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, also known as Islamic State of Iraq after Zarqawi was incinerated by a US missile in 2006. Even the State Department knows that AQI emir Abu Du'a runs both AQI and al-Nusra, whose own emir is Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani.

It's AQI that facilitates the back-and-forth of Iraqi commanders - with plenty of fighting experience on the ground against the Americans - to sensitive areas in Syria, while the Syrians, Iraqis and Jordanians at al-Nusra also work the phones to extract funding from Gulf sources. Al-Nusra wants - what else - an Islamic State not only in Syria but all over the Levant. Favorite tactic: car and truck suicide bombings as well as remote-controlled car bombs. For the moment, they keep a tense collaboration/competition regime with the FSA.

What happens next? The new Syrian National Coalition is a joke. Those GCC bastions of democracy are now totally spooked by the jihadi tsunami. Russia drew the red line and NATO won't dare to bomb; Russians and Americans are now discussing details. And sooner or later Ankara will see the writing on the wall - and revert to a policy of at least minimizing trouble with the neighbors.
Assad saw The Big Picture - clearly, thus his "confident" speech. It's now Assad against the jihadis. Unless, or until, the new CIA under Terminator John Brennan drones itself into the (shadow war) picture with a vengeance.

Angocachi Saturday 19 Jan 2013

BINGO

Now that victory for the Syrian insurgency is practically OBL's ghost comes to Damascus, NATO & the GCC are backing away.

Stubby Saturday 19 Jan 2013

Sources of news/video on Syria

https://www.youtube.com/user/syriatube19

This is one of series of channels called syriatube, which have video from the regime side. Interviews with SAA officers, videos from outposts, bits of combat, and lots of footage of dead rebels, some of which was filmed by the rebels.

https://twitter.com/SyrianSmurf

There are a few twitters like this, owned by either FSA/muja fighters, their family, or interested parties. They'll often have stories about particular battles or operations, with lots of links to frontline footage, which is scattered around dozens of youtube channels. This one I posted isn't the best, but I don't remember the names of better ones.

Accurate or not, accounts like this: http://pietervanostaeyen.wordpress....taftanaz-airport-the-role-of-jabhat-an-nusra/ are out there, and twitter is a good way to find them. This particular account of the battle for the Taftanaz helicopter base (one of the largest in Syria, taken by rebels last week) is just one example.

You can find satellite images of the base in google maps

Theo Sunday 20 Jan 2013

Are the Americans that dumb and don't realize that they are playing in the hand of the islamists? Or is it part of a bigger game to actually spread islamism?

Team Zissou Sunday 20 Jan 2013

Probably a combination of stupidity and indifference to Middle Eastern Christianity. George Bush reportedly didn't know there were 'Sunni' and 'Shia' and Maronites, Melkites and Orthodox just aren't even on the radar.

Angocachi Sunday 27 Jan 2013

Russia says Assad's chances fading

Prime Minister Medvedev says Syrian president's chances of keeping power are getting "smaller and smaller" as war rages.

Russia's prime minister has said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had made a "grave," and possibly "fatal" mistake by delaying political reforms and not speaking to members of the country's oppositon sooner.

"[Assad] should have done everything much faster, attracting part of the moderate opposition, which was ready to sit at the table with him, to his side," Dmitry Medvedev said according to the transcript of an interview with CNN

released by his office on Sunday.

"This was his grave mistake, and possibly a fatal one," Medvedev said.

Medvedev’s comments are some of the harshest from Syria’s most important ally during the last two years of a civil war that began as an uprising against Assad’s rule.

Medvedev also said that Assad is losing his grip on power as the war, which has already cost more than 60,000 lives, continues.

"I think that with every day, every week and every month the chances of his preservation are getting smaller and smaller," Medvedev was quoted as saying.

"But I repeat, again, this must be decided by the Syrian people. Not Russia, not the United States, not any other country.”

In the remarks, made to the US-based TV network on the sidelines of the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Medvedev also placed equal blame for the escalation of the civil war on "the leadership of the country and

the irreconcilable opposition".

'A terrible price'

While inside Syria, rebels told Al Jazeera they stormed the train station in al-Kadam neighbourhood of Damscus taking weapons and injuring a number of army soldiers.

They reported fierce clashes with Syrian army troops in the area, including bombardment from government fighter planes.

While in the northern Idlib province, rebels say they have made gains capturing a government checkpoint seizing tanks, ammunition and armored vehicles

Sunday’s fighting came as United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos arrived in Syria ahead of a UN aid conference in Kuwait which aims to raise $1.5 billion for millions of people made homeless, hungry and vulnerable

by the 22-month-old conflict.

On Wednesday, Amos said Syrians were "paying a terrible price" for the failure of world powers to resolve the conflict, pointing to 650,000 refugees who have fled the country and the millions affected inside Syria.

"Four million people need help, two million are internally displaced and 400,000 out of 500,000 Palestinian refugees have been affected," she told the Davos forum in Switzerland.

The United Nations and aid groups inside Syria, including the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, could not keep pace with the rising number of people in need, she said.

"We must find ways to reach more people, especially in the areas we are still unable to get to, and where there is ongoing fighting," she said.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/01/2013127162214699107.html

If Moscow thinks he's losing, he's losing.

Angocachi Sunday 27 Jan 2013

Assad Begins Militarizing Alawaite Civilians into National Militia

If you want to know what the prelude to a genuinely bloody butcher shop of a civil war looks like, it’s every area turning into a battlefield between hostile militias. Qatar and Turkey have already done it for the Sunnis of Syria. Now Iran is about to do it for the Alawites. And that means the killing has just begun.

Yes the “official word” from anonymous sources in Turkey and Saudi Arabia (both backers of the Sunni rebels) is that Assad is about to run away or has already run away. And for all we know, maybe he’s broadcasting from a phone booth in downtown Tehran, but this is a religious war and both populations have too much invested in this to stop .

President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has put together a new paramilitary force of men and women, some trained by key ally Iran, to fight what is now becoming a guerrilla war, a watchdog said Monday.
The force, dubbed the National Defence Army, gathers together existing popular committees of pro-regime civilian fighters under a new, better-trained and armed hierarchy, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The popular committees were originally formed to protect pro-regime neighbourhoods from rebels.
“The (regular) army is not trained to fight a guerrilla war, so the regime has resorted to creating the National Defence Army,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
Most of the new fighters are members or supporters of the ruling Baath party, said Abdel Rahman. “They include men and women, and members of all the sects.”
Hezbollah and the usual militias so far have not proven to be a match for the rebels, but that may change. Even if it doesn’t, the conflict will get bloodier and the stage is now set for a national militia whose members can survive the fall of Damascus and retreat with the government or stay behind and carry out acts of terrorism. That means even if Assad flies away next Thursday, Syria will go on being bloody for some time afterward.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreen...ing-alawaite-civilians-into-national-militia/
Preparing to defend the Alawite heartland once the Sunni interior has fallen to Al Nusra and the FSA.

Angocachi Sunday 27 Jan 2013

Assad’s mother fled Syria, US ambassador confirms

Anisa Makhlouf reportedly reunites with her daughter, Bushra Assad, in the United Arab Emirates

“Members of the regime, little by little, are flaking off,” said Robert Ford, who is still officially the US ambassador to Syria, even though relations between the two countries have been in a hiatus.

“They themselves know they are losing,” he told CNN.

Makhlouf, the widow of former president Bashar Assad, is considered a powerful figure in Syria, despite her advanced aged — she was born in 1934 — and the scarcity of her public appearances.

According to recent reports, Makhlouf joined her daughter, Bashar Assad’s eldest sister, Bushra, in the UAE .

Bushra Assad escaped Syria with her five children in July 2012, after her husband, Bashar’s close confidant Assef Shawkat , was killed in a bombing in Damascus that also claimed the lives of Syria’s defense minister and a top general.

According to Ford, the Assad regime is crumbling bit by bit.

“You can see little by little the inner core is weakening,” he said. “But again, it’s a gradual process.”

When the UN envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, met with Assad in December , Ford said, it was clear that the war was closing in on the embattled president.

“He told us that you could hear artillery outside the president’s office,” he said. “The fighting is getting that close now to the inner circle itself. And so you can imagine what that does to their own spirits, their own morale.”

Assad has grown increasingly entrenched in the 22 months since the start of a popular uprising that has called for his ouster and claimed the lives of over 60,000 Syrians, according to UN figures .
According to a recent report in the Saudi daily al-Watan, the Syrian president has moved with his family and a select cadre of associates to a warship off Syria’s coast, where he is being guarded by Russian naval forces.

Russia has remained the regime’s staunchest ally, vetoing international intervention at the UN Security Council.

Intelligence sources told the paper that Assad’s fear of opposition advances in the capital was among the reasons for his retreat to sea, which would allow for quick evacuation to Moscow if need be.
Assad now travels by helicopter to mainland Syria for official meetings in his presidential palace in Damascus, having lost faith in his security detail, the report said.

But despite the mounting pressure on Assad, on Thursday the French foreign minister told reporters that the regime’s fall was not imminent — a stark admission by France, one of the most ardent supporters of the Syrian rebels.

“The solution that we hoped for — that is to say, Bashar’s fall, the rise of the opposition to power — there are no recent signs that are as positive as that,” Laurent Fabius said.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/assads-mother-fled-syria-us-ambassador-confirms/

The Syria Analysis Thread

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