| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Why Assad Is Uninterested in Defeating Islamic State
There have been dozens of cases since 2014 in which Assad’s troops and IS
have apparently been coordinating attacks on rebel groups
The West’s Dilemma
Why Assad Is Uninterested in Defeating Islamic State
By Christoph Reuter SPIEGEL ONLINE 12/08/2015 05:00 PM
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-helps-assad-gain-legitimacy-in-west-a-1066211.html
In the fight against Islamic State, the West is considering cooperating with
the Syrian army. There’s a hitch though: Assad’s troops aren’t just too weak
to defeat IS — they also have no interest in doing so.
Sunday, Nov. 29, was market day in Ariha, a small city located in the
northwestern Syrian province of Idlib. In May, various rebel groups had
taken control of the town, which is legendary for its deep-red cherries.
Ariha is located far from the front, and even further away from areas under
the control of Islamic State (IS). But the Russian air force bombed it
anyway.
The people shopping at the market didn’t stand a chance. Just seconds after
the roar of the approaching Russian Sukhoi fighter jet first became audible,
the first bombs struck. They killed passersby, vegetable sellers and entire
families. “I saw torn up bodies flying around and children calling for their
parents,” said a civil defense rescuer hours after the attack.
One day prior, just before 10 a.m., it was the turn of Safarana, a small
city northeast of Homs. A first barrel bomb, dropped out of a Syrian regime
helicopter, killed a man and a young girl and injured more than a dozen
others. The victims had hardly been delivered to the clinic when two more
barrel bombs exploded in front of the hospital, operated by Doctors without
Borders, killing patients and paramedics who were caring for those who had
just arrived.
Such attacks are nothing new in Syria. Jets from both Syria and Russia
continue unhindered to bomb markets, hospitals, bakeries and pretty much any
other place where people gather in the provinces that are under rebel
control. Two years ago, Russia voted in favor of United Nations Resolution
2139, which was supposed to bring an end to attacks on Syrian civilians. But
that hasn’t prevented Russia from flying hundreds of exactly those kinds of
bombing raids itself since the end of September. And that, in turn, hasn’t
prevented France from talking to Russia about the possibility of conducting
coordinated air strikes and joining together in the fight against Islamic
State.
Just three weeks after the terror attacks in Paris, Europe has prepared
itself for entry into this war against Islamic State. But it is a war that
unites many radically divergent elements — and one for which there is no
strategy. French jets, joined recently by British warplanes, are now flying
sorties against IS in Syria. And Germany will soon join them. German Tornado
jets, equipped with high-resolution imaging technology, are to help identify
targets while A-310 aircraft will refuel warplanes in the air. In addition,
a German frigate is to provide protection to a French aircraft carrier in
the Mediterranean.
Partnership with the Dictator
But beyond Germany’s limited contribution to the air war, Berlin and Paris
are discussing a vastly more sensitive and extremely uncertain engagement on
the ground. Meanwhile, the French government — which had long been a vocal
opponent of Syrian President Bashar Assad — recently introduced the idea of
a possible partnership with the dictator and his troops in a joint alliance
to fight IS.
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen recently said somewhat
awkwardly of Syria: “There are parts of the troops, that one could very
well — like in the Iraq example, where the training of local troops was
very successful — emulate here too.” Her spokesperson quickly made it clear
that such a concept doesn’t apply to troops under Assad’s command. But the
idea of cooperating with Assad is one under discussion: Islamic State terror
in Europe would seem to have partially rehabilitated the dictator.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even proposed that fighting between
the Syrian opposition and regime troops could be “discontinued, for a
start.” Steinmeier’s words reveal his frustration at the fact that the two
sides are engaging each other in a war of attrition instead of joining
forces against IS. But the reality on the ground refuses to conform to his
aspirations.
Indeed, it is increasingly difficult to identify such a potential partner
for Europe on the Syrian battlegrounds. Assad’s official army is now just
one of many fighting forces on the side of the regime — and is also
suffering from poor morale and a lack of soldiers. For many young Syrians
from areas under government control, forced conscription has become the most
significant motivator for embarking on the refugee trail to Europe.
This is also one reason why Russia’s initial strategy for Syria is not
finding success. Moscow had been hoping that massive air strikes would force
rebel fighters in opposition-held areas to abandon the fight. That would
then pave the way for Assad’s ground forces to advance and take back those
regions. But in October, when Assad’s tank units rolled into those areas
that Russian jets had previously bombed, they didn’t get very far. Instead
of fleeing, rebels there had dug in instead.
Syrian Fighting Force?
Using TOW anti-tank missiles supplied by the US, in addition to Russian
anti-tank weapons that had been captured or acquired from corrupt officers,
the rebels struck some 20 tanks before the others turned back. The army’s
ground offensive south of Aleppo likewise quickly ground to a halt.
Meanwhile, rebels near Hama were able to finally take control of a
long-contested city.
Assad’s army isn’t just vulnerable, it also isn’t strictly a Syrian force
anymore. For the last two years, the forces on his side have increasingly
been made up of foreigners, including Revolutionary Guards from Iran,
members of Iraqi militias and Hezbollah units from Lebanon. They are joined
at the front by Shiite Afghans from the Hazara people, up to 2 million of
whom live in Iran, mostly as illegal immigrants. They are forcibly
conscripted in Iranian prisons and sent to Syria — according to internal
Iranian estimates, there are between 10,000 and 20,000 of them fighting in
the country. The situation leads to absurd scenes: In the southern Syrian
town of Daraa, rebels began desperately searching for Persian interpreters
after an offensive of 2,500 Afghans suddenly began approaching.
It is the first international Shiite jihad in history, one which has been
compensating for the demographic inferiority of Assad’s troops since 2012.
The alliance has prevented Assad’s defeat, but it hasn’t been enough for
victory either. Furthermore, the orders are no longer coming exclusively
from the Syrian officer corps. Iranian officers control their own troops in
addition to the Afghan units, and they plan offensives that also involve
Syrian soldiers. Hezbollah commanders coordinate small elite units under
their control. Iraqis give orders to Iraqi and Pakistani militia groups. And
the Russians don’t let anyone tell them what to do.
The odd alliances aren’t just limited to the Shiite fighters. Anti-Assad
rebels were recently surprised to see American Humvees — a vehicle that
quickly became a symbol of IS attacks after the Islamists captured hundreds
of them in Iraq in summer 2014 — rolling towards them from
government-controlled territory. “We thought only IS had captured Humvees,
but the Shiite militias fighting alongside Assad use them too,” said Osama
Abu Zaid, a local legal advisor to various groups belonging to the Free
Syrian Army (FSA).
Elsewhere, attacks by Assad supporters and by Islamic State have likewise
taken place with astonishing temporal and geographic proximity to each
other. Near the northern Syrian city of Tal Rifaat in early November, for
example, an IS suicide attacker detonated his car bomb at an FSA base,
though without causing much damage. Just half an hour later, two witnesses
say, Russian jets attacked the same base for the first time.
Unsurprising Cooperation
Was it a coincidence? Likely not. There have been dozens of cases since 2014
in which Assad’s troops and IS have apparently been coordinating attacks on
rebel groups, with the air force bombing them from above and IS firing at
them from the ground. In early June, the US State Department announced that
the regime wasn’t just avoiding IS positions, but was actively reinforcing
them.
Such cooperation isn’t surprising. The rebels — in all their variety, from
nationalists to radical Islamists — represent the greatest danger to both
Assad and IS. And if the two sides want to survive in the long term, the
Syrian dictator and the jihadists are useful to each other. From Assad’s
perspective, if the rebels were to be vanquished, the world would no longer
see an alternative to the Syrian dictator. But the rebels are also primarily
Sunni, as are two-thirds of the Syrian populace — meaning that, from the IS
perspective, once the rebels were defeated, the populace would be faced
either with submission and exile, or they would join IS.
In short, a Syria free of rebels would put both Assad and Islamic State in
powerful positions, though not powerful enough to defeat the other. Still,
such a situation would be vastly preferable to the alternatives: Being
toppled from power (Assad), or being destroyed (IS).
Relative to those two camps, the Syrian opposition in the West is hardly
being paid attention to anymore. That is in part a function of their
confusing structure: There are dozens of larger rebel groups and hundreds of
smaller units, mostly at a local level. They cooperate, but alliances often
crumble due to the ideological differences of their foreign supporters.
British Prime Minister David Cameron presented numbers last week indicating
the existence of some 70,000 moderate rebels. In addition, he said, there
were two large Islamist groups: Ahrar al-Sham in the north, with 15,000
fighters; and Jaish al-Islam north of Damascus, with 12,500 militiamen –
and the al-Qaida-allied group Nusra Front, with its 6,000 to 10,000 men.
Cameron had hardly finished reciting the numbers before questions were
raised as to whether the 70,000 he cited were prepared to partner with the
West in the battle against Islamic State. They have, though, been fighting
against Islamic State since January 2014 — but have primarily focused their
fight on Assad.
Significant Moral Question
Sending ground troops into such a situation, or even lending legitimacy to
the Russian-Syrian offensive, would unwittingly transform Europe into
Assad’s vassals. Beyond that, the dictator would have to be given troop
reinforcements so that he could halfway successfully advance against the
enemy.
Even if one were to ignore all of the military problems, there is also a
significant moral question: Would the West really want to go into battle
with a regime that has used, aside from nuclear weapons, pretty much every
weapon imaginable against its own populace in an effort to cling to power?
And once Islamic State is defeated and driven away, what should happen with
the cities — such as Raqqa, Deir el-Zour, al-Bab, Manbij and Abu Kamal –
that they now hold? All those cities had been take over by local rebels long
before Islamic State moved in. Who should such areas be given to?
Certainly not to Assad. That would merely turn the clock back on this war by
three years. Rebel groups would once again try to throw out Assad’s
troops — and ultimately Islamic State would strike again.
Making matters even more complicated is the fact that IS, the declared
enemy-number-one of international efforts, is receding from the focus of two
major foreign actors in Syria. Ever since Turkey shot down the Russian jet,
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Vladimir Putin have been
engaged in a proxy war in the Aleppo province, a conflict which has seen
Kurdish IS-opponents exchanging fire with Sunni IS-opponents in recent days.
Furthermore, Russian jets have stepped up their bombing campaign against
Syrian settlements along the border with Turkey while the Turkish secret
service is sending weapons and ammunition into the fight against the Kurds.
Both presidents have fragile egos, and Syria has emerged as the perfect
playing field for them to get Kurdish YPG units and rebel groups — both of
which had thus far focused their efforts on Islamic State — to fight
against each other.
And Islamic State? The jihadists had been facing significant pressure in
recent months from ongoing air strikes launched by the US-led coalition. Not
because it had lost ground, but because it had been unable to continue its
advance. The group’s exploitative economy and its propaganda image both make
a steady stream of victories necessary. The “caliphate” is facing financial
difficulties and is also having trouble recruiting more foreign fighters. An
expansion of allied air strikes could likely increase the pressure, while
cooperation with Assad would put Islamic State in a perfect strategic
position.
But for as long as Islamic State’s enemies are busy fighting each other, the
Islamists can carry on as before. Like last Wednesday, when the jihadists
took over the small city of Kafra north of Aleppo — not long after it had
been bombed by Russian jets.
Source: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=69234
