The Syria Analysis Thread

10 posts

Stubby
Yes that seems a likely possibility, to whatever extent an outside state is able to project power inside Syria, although I don't subscribe to your logic about what that means. The character of the groups forming the IF remain, all in defiance of one another, until proven otherwise. I don't want to unnecessarily repeat myself, but you know that I believe the breadth of the groups fighting ISIS (including ones from outside the IF), the apparent Islamic character of some, the position of JN and Zawahiri, the rumblings of this conflict coming for months, all make the claim that this is a 'simple' offensive by Saudi Arabia to foil so called genuine Islamism unconvincing, all though I concede your arguments had far more merit than I originally appreciated. I apologize for my outrageous insults.
Stubby
Thank you for acknowledging that Saudi Arabia is not sending Royal Army equipment to Syria.
SweetLeftFoot
Stubby

From http://eaworldview.com/2014/01/syri...-shishani-amir-jaish-al-muhajireen-wal-ansar/


Kavkaz Center, a Russian-language pro-jihad site based in Chechnya, has published a long interview with Salahuddin Shishani, the new Amir of Jaish al-Muhajireen wal Ansar (“Army of Emigrants and Helpers”). The interview was given to the Russian language jihadi site Sham News.
Salahuddin replaced Umar al-Shishani as leader of Jaish al-Muhajireen wal Ansar (JMA) in November, after Umar formally swore allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. A faction of JMA, including Salahuddin, refused to pledge an oath to al-Baghdadi because they had already sworn allegiance to Dokku Umarov, the Amir of the North Caucasus-based Imarat Kavkaz (“Caucasus Emirate”), considered a terror group by Russia.

Salahuddin was previously the leader of a faction within JMA.
We have translated the interview below, which helps shed some light onto the attitudes and perspectives of the Chechen leader of a predominantly North Caucasian faction that has remained relatively independent with respect to other jihadist groups in Syria.
Key points to note are:

  • Jaish al-Muhajireen wal Ansar are remaining independent in the infighting.
  • JMA has helped some ISIS fighters injured in the conflict.
  • JMA has operated alongside Jabhat al-Nusra though it is not formally part of that group — another Chechen faction, led by Seyfullakh Shishani, has sworn formal allegiance to Jabhat al-Nusra leader al-Jolani.
  • JMA is responsible for securing certain parts of Aleppo on behalf of Jabhat al-Nusra.

QUESTION:
For more than 2 years, events in Syria have attracted considerable interest from both Muslims and infidels worldwide. The global media puts them on the front page, as Jihad in Sham (Syria — Ed) causes all Western politicians fear and concern. Recent developments related to internal strife in the ranks of the anti-Assad forces has cheered the infidels and greatly saddened believing Muslims.
Statements by some leaders of military jamaats involved in the conflict are already known, and also by those who eschew fitnah and seek reconciliation of the warring parties. I would like Muslims to know the position of Jaish al-Muhajireen wal Ansar and its relation to this difficult situation. And, of course, many people are asking questions: “How did it start? And who is to blame?”
SALAHUDDIN:
The more you try to figure out “how did it start, who’s to blame?”, the more you get confused. And until all sides go to the same Sharia Court, it’s hard to figure out the truth. But we know that it doesn’t happen in such fitnas that one side is totally in the right, and the other totally in the wrong. And it doesn’t matter how it got started, that’s not important, what is important is that this fitna had been brewing for a long time.
Regarding our position, that’s clear. We won’t fight on either side. Because this bloodshed is very dubious and raises a lot of questions. And I am afraid that a victory or defeat in this war today can turn into a defeat in the Afterlife. We didn’t come to the Blessed Land of Sham to die at the hands of Muslims or to shed Muslim blood.
This conflict caught us at a moment when our main forces had been transferred to Hama, where we had planned an action. In response to these events, we had to revise our plans.
I must note, our brothers from Jabhat al-Nusra received us in a most hospitable and cordial manner. I mean with various representatives of Ahram ash-Sham, Liwa al-Tawhid, Jabhat al-Nusra and others with whom we discussed the developing situation.
QUESTION:
With whom exactly, may I ask?
SALAHUDDIN:
There was Abu Turki, Amir Haleb (Aleppo) from Liwa al-Tawhid, and also Sheikh Tawhik, the military Amir of Liwa al-Tawhid. And several times I met with Sheikh Abu Umeir, the amir of one of the brigades of Ahrar ash-Sham. That is a very well-respected Mujahid, a veteran of the jihad in Afghanistan, who personally knows many of the famous Islamic leaders. There were also representatives from various groups of the Free Syrian Army.
Q:
And did you voice our position regarding the conflict, and our view?
SALAHUDDIN:
Yes. We said that we had come to Sham with a clear aim and goal — to fight with those who are oppressing the Muslims — the Alawites, the Shias, the Assadites, and other infidels. And that we strongly avoid any fitna between the Mujahideen.
Not only avoid, but if it arises, we try to make peace between the warring sides and to support any steps that are taken towards making peace.
Any Mujahid from any side who asks us for asylum will get it, inshallah. And afterward he is free to return to his unit or to any other one that he chooses.
We are ready to help anyone wounded in these hostilities and to give them treatment, inshallah. Today our doctors treated 11 wounded Mujahideen from ISIS. Several were seriously wounded….
Those who got left out in the surrounding area, we will try to bring them back under our protection.
Together with the forces from Jabhat al-Nusra, we returned several tens of Mujahideen from ISIS from the outskirts around Hama, with a guarantee of safety. 30 remained with Jabhat al-Nusra. 10 of them wanted to come with us These are mostly Mujahideen from Europe.
Q:
Unfortunately, it is often the case that however much you don’t want to get involved, the situation draws you into the maelstrom…
SALAHUDDIN:
I don’t know. Every situation is a test from Allah. Several of our brothers recalled the words of Allah in the Quran: And We have made some of you [people] as trial for others – will you have patience? And ever is your Lord, Seeing.
Inshallah, we will not exceed that which we want or which seems to us to be. All important, related decisions we decide up ahead with Islamic scholars, and inshallah, we will continue to do so in the future.
But one thing we do not doubt. We will declare war and fight with anyone who takes even one woman into captivity, whether she comes from the Muhajireen or the Ansars. Whoever tries to kidnap women and children will severely regret it.
And those who try to oppress local Ansars and their families should not doubt that they will feel the full wrath of our Mujahideen. Inshallah, we shall not leave a single evil deed unpunished, whoever is responsible.
Q:
But there were ongoing rumors that three women from the Muhajireen were kidnapped after their men were killed?
SALAHUDDIN:
They were just rumors, and nothing came of them. And I suspect that the rumors were put out intentionally.
There’s another situation where we won’t leave things to chance. If our property is stolen then we will demand it back, and if it is not returned, we will fight with them. And we have a basis for that.
(Salahuddin quotes from the Quran)
Incidentally, like I already said, one of our most important tasks today is the strengthening of the front at strategic important directions near Aleppo, in those areas where our brigade is responsible.
Q:
There is another typical question that journalists ask. What’s your prediction?
SALAHUDDIN:
I don’t have any prediction to give. But today or tomorrow there should be a general majlis (“parliament”) session for all those involved in the conflict. All the leaders of the groups, as far as I know, have given their agreement for this.
Inshallah, we will make du’a and hope that Allah gives us sense and helps us make the right solution and the guide us on the right path.
Longface
Longface
This Viral Photo Purporting to Show an Orphaned Syrian Boy Isn't What You Think It is

Saudi Arabian photographer Abdel Aziz Al-Atibi was shocked to find that the picture he took of his nephew Ibrahim on January 3 in Saudi Arabia was picked up on social media networks and reported as being a picture of a Syrian child found sleeping near the graves of his parents.

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Al-Atibi tells Beirut.com that he took the photo, which was staged with fake graves, as part of a conceptual project. "I'm a photographer and I try to talk about the suffering that is happening in society, it's my hobby and my exaggeration is intended to deliver my idea," he says. When he originally Instagrammed the photo, he wrote: "some kids might feel that their dead parents' bodies are more affectionate to them than the people they're living with."

Shortly after hearing the news about his work's use, the 24-year-old uploaded some behind-the-scenes shots in an attempt to put an end to its connection with children suffering in Syria.

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"I've previously talked about domestic violence and my nephew (the boy in the picture) was the main subject of that picture as well. It's absurd how people can easily be manipulated without going back to the source and the facts," Al-Atibi says.

And for the people who objected the use of the tombs to build a picture around, the photographer says that being a Muslim, as he is, means that the graves and the dead are symbols that garner respect.
Longface
Key anti-Assad rebel leader acknowledges al Qaida past, potentially complicating U.S. aid in Syria

BEIRUT — A top official of a major Syrian rebel group acknowledged Friday that he considers himself a member of al Qaida, an admission that undercuts Western hopes that the new Islamic Front would prove to be an acceptable counter to the rising influence of other al Qaida affiliates in Syria.
Abu Khaled al Suri, who is a top figure in the rebel group Ahrar al Sham, made the statement in an Internet posting in which he argued that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, another radical rebel group, was not al Qaida’s representative in Syria and was not doing the work of al Qaida’s founder, Osama bin Laden, its current leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, or al Qaida’s late leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who was killed by an American missile in 2006.
Ahrar al Sham is one of the most militarily effective groups fighting to topple the regime of President Bashar Assad and is one of the largest groups aligned with the Islamic Front, a coalition of rebel groups that announced its formation in September as a counter to the U.S.-backed Supreme Military Council. Ahrar al Sham’s leader, Hassan Aboud, is the political chief of the Islamic Front.
Some analysts of jihadi organizations said al Suri’s admission makes it likely the United States will move to designate Ahrar al Sham a foreign terrorist organization.
“Suri’s prominence in Ahrar al Sham and his public statement praising Zarqawi and Zawahiri will make it very difficult for the U.S. administration not to designate Ahrar,” said Will McCants, the director of the Brookings Institution’s Project on U.S.-Islamic World Relations and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University. “If Ahrar is designated, it will be hard for (aid groups) to move humanitarian aid through the country since they control large swathes of it. The designation will also put the U.S. at odds with Qatar, Ahrar’s main state sponsor.”
Ahrar al Sham’s conservative philosophy has been well known, but its ties to al Qaida had been unclear until Friday’s statement, which al Suri made through Twitter.
In that statement, al Suri said that ISIS, whose outposts in northern and eastern Syria have been attacked by other rebel groups for the past two weeks, had committed crimes against fellow rebels and Muslims in its attempt to use the Syrian rebellion to form its own radical Islamist state.
The statement cited al Suri’s close relationship with bin Laden and Zawahiri, and said that despite ISIS’ claims to be an al Qaida franchise, bin Laden, Zawahiri and Zarqawi could not be held responsible for ISIS’ crimes or behavior. ISIS has used brutal measures, including beheadings, to enforce its harsh interpretation of Islam in the areas of Syria it dominates, a blood thirst that had earned it the enmity of many Syrians.
Zawahiri had designated al Suri to mediate disputes between ISIS and other rebel groups, including the Nusra Front, another al Qaida affiliate battling in Syria.
Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution’s center in Doha, Qatar, called the denunciation of ISIS especially strong because it came from a powerful jihadi voice.
“Abu Khaled’s intriguing history has been known for some time now, but his statement against ISIS was clear and wholly condemnatory,” he said. “A statement by Zawahiri, presumably speaking out against ISIS, must now surely be in the works.”
Lister added that al Suri’s profession of friendship with bin Laden, Zawahiri and Zarqawi, three of the West’s most despised figures, undercuts Ahrar al Sham’s previous claims that it was not affiliated with al Qaida, despite its close working relationship with the Nusra Front, which has long claimed an al Qaida relationship. He noted that Aboud, Ahrar al Sham’s leader, has been interviewed frequently by Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite television network.
“Ahrar al Sham undoubtedly intends to play some role in a potentially post-Assad Syria,” Lister said.
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Angocachi
Longface

Wonderful!

This is so very reminscient of the Red takeover of China. I seriously recommend reading Mao: A Life to anybody who wants to see the insanely intricate but genius way that politics works within an insurgency.
This guy just proved himself a Zawahiri agent by botching America's latest and perhaps last hope of getting a competent proxy in Syria. Every American intelligence agent pressing against The White House and Congress in favor of backing Assad against the Sunni Jihadists rather than ousting him for Israel and the GCC will have solid ammunition.

I'm happy to see this, the IF was on the verge of becoming real Sahwa.
Longface
Syrian opposition votes to attend peace talks
Longface
Fighting 'extremism' in Syria is a losing battle
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Moderation, just like extremism, is sometimes in the eye of the beholder . Last month the British and US governments suspended deliveries of "non-lethal aid" – vehicles, communication devices, intelligence assistance – to its preferred group of moderate Syrian rebels, the Free Syrian Army. That was because the FSA was as dead as a dodo and our aid had been confiscated by a newer coalition of rebel groups called the Islamist Front .
This month the same Islamist Front, together with Syria's home-grown al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra – and with the presumed acquiescence or encouragement of Turkey and other Nato countries – helpfully led attacks on the most ruthless al-Qaida group in northern Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis). At least 50 Isis members, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, were summarily executed; some of their families have been kidnapped and brutalised. Meet the new moderates.
Our confused approach to Syria is simply the internationalisation of a familiar problem – our definition of extremism and how to beat it. One result of the London terror attacks in 2005 was a mushrooming of well-meaning, generously endowed initiatives designed to combat extremism. Most went beyond traditional anti-terror techniques to focus on the alleged causes of terrorism, and how to rescue young men on the pathway to radicalisation. More Malcolm Gladwell than Andy McNab; the point was to tip, nudge and channel young men at risk of indoctrination towards more benign alternatives. Then there were all those attempts to "turn" Islamist militants or English Defence League activists. Occasionally came news of a coup – after delicate negotiations a firebrand had jumped ship, leading to a new career in anti-extremism and a round of media congratulation. Like a former drug addict playing the awareness circuit, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson), with the help of his new friends at the "deradicalisation" thinktank the Quilliam Foundation, is now said to be carving out a new role teaching tolerance to children.
This is nice work if you can get it. But just how helpful is it to label the average EDL supporter or conservative Muslim as a dangerous extremist? To put it another way: do we have a problem with specific acts of violence or intimidation, or with radicalisation per se? If our problem is radicalisation itself, we're in serious trouble. No liberal, democratic state should be in the business of steering people away from radical or fundamentalist beliefs – as long as their plans don't congeal into plans to perpetrate terrorism.
Then there's the question of strategy. Attempts to counter Islamist extremism often take the form of puffing up the importance of allegedly moderate counterweights whose leaders may be corrupt or not representative of anyone but themselves. The UK government's much-criticised preventing violent extremism strategy spent large sums of public money footing the bill for tours by peaceable-sounding Islamic scholars. This was grossly patronising to believers: it is not up to us to tell Muslims how to be Muslim. Neither was it clear what the money was supposed to achieve. A friend of mine who teaches in an inner-city London school scored £5,000 from the Prevent programme because it was there for the taking: with no idea how to spend it she made a comic documentary about jihad and took the whole class to see the Chris Morris satire Four Lions .
If this kind of woolly subsidy existed anywhere else in the public sector it would have been hammered with endless demands for evidence-based assessment of its output – because there is little or no evidence it works. No matter: institutional anti-extremism is better dug in than ever, an enormous intellectual gravy train of research centres and thinktanks for the feeble minded.
But ill-conceived anti-extremism initiatives are not only expensive window-dressing. By dividing the world into goodies and baddies, their effect is to make our preferred moderates look like lackeys or spies, which only fuels resentment and an extremist backlash. Prevent, for example, was hampered by the widespread belief that it was being used as a front for intelligence gathering. The fundamental flaw with technocratic, managerial anti-extremism lies in its misunderstanding of cause and effect – it is dissatisfaction with a shallow, compromised, inauthentic middle ground that itself gives rise to extremism at the margins. By throwing our weight behind handpicked moderates, we're only fanning the flames of further extremism.
The folly of our approach to Syria's rebellion stems from the same root. It confuses our professed mission in the region – to bring freedom and democracy to Syrians – with our grim determination to use proxies to advance our interests. Our new friends in the Islamic Front are mostly conservative Salafi Muslims. There's nothing wrong with that, and they're far from international terrorists: last spring I spent time with one of their battalions in Aleppo and they protected me with their lives. On the other hand they're carrying weapons and they're no angels; they're not averse to a little torture, and some of them seethe with hatred of Syria's minorities.
Wisely they claim to be their own men, but their brigades won't be able to do without foreign support – and the Isis extremists are already making headway by claiming, with some justification, that their attackers are hostage to shady foreign interests. Despite the initial euphoria among Syrian activists and their international allies, the outcome of these punishing battles in northern Syria between our goodies and the extremist baddies is deeply uncertain – and may soon backfire on the cause of anti-extremism.

Modern Islamist terrorism is a posture and a provocation. It thrives on chaos and vacuum but often burns itself out quickly if left alone – few young men want to live the life of a medieval puritan for very long. The best way to beat it is to change the subject – to treat people as free citizens susceptible to a political argument, and not as members of sectional ethnic or sectarian groups whose allegiances are easily bought. By intervening in a panicky way to find allies and claims to representation, institutional anti-extremism tends to aggravate the very problem it sets itself to solve. At this rate of attrition our next Syrian allies are likely to be the al-Qaida groups that don't want to pick a fight with us – whose only quarrel is with our extremist enemies over there.