Re: West Asia News and Discussions
Posted: 03 Mar 2014 13:35
MK ji, please write more about this when you have time. Thanks.
Consortium of Indian Defence Websites
https://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/
Philip wrote:Singha,well put.Agni,Most informative.
From the above ,it appears that there can be no reconciliation between the hard line Sunni and Shiite factions and that eventually they will sort it out on the battlefield,which is why the Saudis are/have obtained N-weapons from the Pakis for their Chinese procured ballistic missiles.This also explains why their chief bum-chum,the US,is doing everything to prevent the Iranians from getting their hands on an N-weapon,because of the intense business ties between the Saudi royalty and the US mega-capitalists like the Bush family,also alleged business partners with the Bin Laden family.These US entities would lose trillions if the Iranians even defeated the Saudis.The fighting capability of the Iranians is well known,after the savage years of the Iran-Iraq War.The fighting spirit of the Gulf monarchies is also well known after saddam's invasion off Kuwait!
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Saudi Arabia identified the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group along with al Qaeda and others Friday, warning those who join them or support them they could face five to 30 years in prison.A Saudi Interior Ministry statement said King Abdullah approved the findings of a committee entrusted with identifying extremist groups referred to in a royal decree earlier last month. The decree punishes those who fight in conflicts outside the kingdom or join extremist groups or support them.The king's decree followed the kingdom enacting a sweeping new counterterrorism law that targets virtually any criticism of the government.Friday's statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, identified the other terrorist groups named as al Qaeda's branches in Yemen and Iraq, the Syrian al-Nusra Front, Saudi Hezbollah and Yemen's Shiite Hawthis.. It said the law would apply to all the groups and organizations identified by the United Nations Security Council or international bodies as terrorists or violent groups. It said the law also would be applied to any Saudi citizen or a foreigner residing in the kingdom for propagating atheism or pledging allegiance to anyone other than the kingdom's leadersThe counterterrorism law bans meetings of the groups inside or outside of the kingdom and covers comments made online or to media outlets.The unprecedented and harsh prison terms seem aimed at stemming the flow of Saudi fighters going to Syria, Yemen or Iraq. The Syrian civil war is believed to have drawn hundreds of young Saudis, worrying some in the kingdom that fighters could return radicalized and turn their weapons on the monarchy.
Influential Saudi clerics who follow the kingdom's ultraconservative religious Wahhabi doctrine encouraged youths to fight in the war and view it as a struggle between Syria's Sunni majority and President Bashar Assad's Alawite, Shiite-backed minority.Saudi officials and some clerics have spoken out against young Saudis joining the war. However, the Saudi government backs some rebel opposition groups in Syria with weapons and aid.
The new law is also believed to reflect pressure from the U.S., which wants to see Assad's overthrow but is alarmed by the rising influence of hard-line foreign jihadists -- many of them linked to al Qaeda -- among the rebels. U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to fly to Saudi Arabia and meet King Abdullah this month.Meanwhile in Qatar, outspoken Egyptian cleric Youssef el-Qaradawi did not deliver his usual sermon on Friday. The reasons for his absence were not made immediately public. His past sermons, in which he publicly criticized the UAE and other Gulf countries for their support of Egypt's new government in its crackdown on the Brotherhood, led to outrage among Qatar's neighbors who saw the comments as an attack on their sovereignty.
In an exclusive interview with FRANCE 24, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of supporting global “terrorism” and seeking to destabilise Iraq.
“I accuse them of inciting and encouraging the terrorist movements. I accuse them of supporting them politically and in the media, of supporting them with money and by buying weapons for them,” Maliki told FRANCE 24’s Marc Perelman. “I accuse them of leading an open war against the Iraqi government.”
Maliki went on to say that not only did Saudi Arabia support terrorism in countries such as Iraq and Syria, but around the world.
The prime minister said, however, that Iraq did not intend to retaliate against Saudi Arabia and Qatar, citing concern over the region’s stability.
“We don’t wish widen the arena of confrontation,” Maliki said. “But, we’re telling those countries, be aware, be careful, because the support of terrorism will turn against you.”
Maliki also discussed Iraq’s security situation during the interview, as well as the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections in April and the impact of neighbouring Syria’s nearly three-year crisis.
Saudi Arabia: On Friday, the Kingdom issued a royal decree that designates the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. The royal decree also criminalized membership plus supporting and sympathizing with the terrorists "through speech or writing." The Saudi terrorism list includes the Kingdom's branch of the Shiite movement Hizballah and Syria-based militant groups the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the al-Qaida linked al-Nusrah Front. The royal decree gives a 15-day ultimatum for Saudi fighters in Syria to return home. Abdel Latif al-Sheikh, head of the Saudi religious police, said the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizballah, ISIS and al-Nusrah Front were blacklisted in Saudi Arabia because "they were ruled from outside to serve political purposes. They are groups that fight moderate Muslims and are causing troubles around the world. This is what we consider against Islamic principles and has given a negative impression about Muslims in the West," Sheikh said.
Comment: The background to the decree is King Abdallah's announcement on 3 February of tougher penalties for activities deemed as terrorism. Saudi Arabia already has banned the Brotherhood. Under a previous decree, Saudi citizens fighting abroad face up to 20 years in jail. Similar punishments will be applied to "extremist religious and ideological groups, or those classified as terrorist groups, domestically, regionally and internationally," according to the state news agency. Several commentators pointed out that this aligns Saudi Arabian policy toward the Muslim Brotherhood with that of Egypt. It indicates an increased concern about the security threat to the Arab kingdoms because of the number of Saudis and Gulf Arabs who have joined the Islamist groups in Syria and who would bring terrorist tactics, techniques and practices into the kingdoms on their return. Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar to protest its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain consider a threat to their national security.
I have some noob questions.Saudi Arabia has threatened to blockade its neighbouring Gulf State Qatar by land and sea unless it cuts ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, closes Al Jazeera, and expels local branches of two prestigious U.S. think tanks, the Brookings Doha Center and the Rand Qatar Policy Institute.
The threats against the television station Al Jazeera, Brookings Institute and the Rand Corporation, were made by the Saudi Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal in a foreign minister's meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh last week, according to a source who was present. Bin Faisal said only these acts would be sufficient if Qatar wanted to avoid "being punished."
...........
The Saudi royal family were enraged and threatened, in equal measure, by the role Al Jazeera played in the first years of the Arab Spring , which saw fellow potentates deposed in popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt . They are now equally upset at the sympathetic coverage the Doha-based television station gives to the opposition, secular and Islamist, in Egypt.
As Syria war enters fourth year, regime eyes victory
(AFP) – 18 minutes ago
Beirut — As Syria's conflict enters its fourth year, ravaging the country and creating a massive humanitarian crisis, President Bashar al-Assad's regime is on the offensive to regain territory from a divided opposition.
Diplomatic efforts by Russia and the United States are all but on hold with the two powers now divided over the crisis in Ukraine, while the fighting continues on the ground in Syria.
"Without Western intervention, the war will continue for many years more and such an intervention is very unlikely while (US President Barack) Obama is in the White House," said Thomas Pierret, a Syria specialist at the University of Edinburgh.
"Things could change after 2016," after elections to choose Obama's successor, he said.
For now, neither side seems to have the means to win decisively a conflict that has cost more than 140,000 lives and displaced nearly half Syria's population, many of them now refugees.
The conflict began in March 2011, with peaceful anti-government protests that were brutally repressed.
The opposition took up arms and the insurrection developed into a full-blown war by February 2012 with the regime's bombardment of central Homs.
After watching its territory shrink, the regime launched a counter-offensive in the spring of 2013, shored up by Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite fighters trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
It was bolstered by having avoided threatened Western military action in the wake of a deadly chemical weapons attack in August 2013 that activists blamed on the government.
And its strategy now has become to protect "useful Syria": the coast, the major towns of the north and south and key roads.
The opposition now controls more territory than the regime, but the regime controls the more densely populated regions of the country.
It is advancing on three fronts, south of the capital Damascus, in the strategic Qalamun region near the Lebanese border, and in the city of Aleppo in the country's north.
Near the capital, it has negotiated limited ceasefires with neighbourhoods under army sieges, where populations have suffered from dwindling food and medical supplies.
In Qalamun, after a string of victories last year it has encircled Yabrud, the last rebel stronghold in the region.
And in Aleppo, it has retained its grip on the western side of the city, while advancing around the outskirts of the rebel-held east as well as securing and reopening the nearby airport.
- 'No good scenarios' -
At the same time, the opposition is more divided than ever, fighting both the regime and its former ally, the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Both moderate and Islamist rebels, and even Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate Al-Nusra Front, are engaged in the bloody battle against ISIL that began in January and shows no sign of waning.
Despite its recent advances, experts say the regime lacks the manpower to retake all its lost territory.
Experts believe the opposition numbers around 100-150,000 fighters, among them between 10-20,000 foreign fighters.
There are an estimated 2,000 rebel battalions, with the Islamic Front coalition the most important.
The army numbers some 300,000, half of them conscripts, and can also count on the support of thousands of pro-regime militiamen.
But the regime has suffered heavy losses: 50,000 of its fighters have died in the past three years, the Observatory says.
"Neither side is winning," said Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told AFP.
"Assad could, perhaps, retain the majority of the territory and apply a scorched earth policy to the areas beyond his control, but he'll never be able to restore all of the country under his regime," he added.
Perthes, the author of "Syria under Bashar," the disintegration of the country "is not a possibility, but a reality, and if the war ended tomorrow, it would take more than a decade for the country to recover."
Geographer Fabrice Balanche, whose work focuses on Syria, said a division of the country seemed possible.
He predicts "a de-facto partition between the Kurdish region in the north-east, a rebel region in the north and a zone in regime hands in the centre, in the absence of victory by one side or another."
"There are no good scenarios for Syria. Assad will regain control slowly, but at what a price," he said.
"The return of the regime will be accompanied by repression that will encourage hundreds of thousands to stay away," he added.
"And I would be astonished if Syria receives the money that flowed to Lebanon in 2006 (after a conflict with Israel), and the country doesn't have oil like Iraq."
Copyright © 2014 AFP. All rights reserved.
Associated Press in Damascus
theguardian.com, Sunday 16 March 2014
Yabroud, Syria
The fall of Yabroud would deal a signifcant blow to rebels since the initiative passed to the government in spring of 2013. Photograph: Sana/Reuters
Syria claims its military has seized a key town on the Lebanese border that was the target of a months-long offensive. Activists said fighting was continuing but the government was in control of much of Yabroud.
Yabroud was a key supply line for rebels into neighbouring Lebanon and overlooked an important cross-country highway. Its fall, coming as the Syrian conflict enters its fourth year, would be a significant blow to rebels since the initiative passed to the government in the spring of 2013.
It is the last major rebel-held town in the mountainous Qalamoun region, where President Bashar al-Assad's forces have been waging an offensive for months to try to cut rebel supply lines across the porous border into eastern Lebanon. Its fall would come a week after the Syrian army seized the village of Zara, which also served as a conduit for rebels from northern Lebanon into central Syria.
Syria's state news agency, Sana, reported that military forces seized Yabroud early on Sunday and were combing the city to remove booby-traps and bombs and hunt down rebel holdouts.
Kasem Alzein, a Syrian pro-rebel doctor who lives in the nearby border town of Arsal, said military forces entered the eastern part of Yabroud and that rebels fled to the nearby town of Flita. He said a small hardcore group of fighters said they would fight to the death in the city.
"They don't want to surrender," he said, adding that supplies were cut off and weapons promised to rebels never arrived.
"Qusair will repeat itself," Alzein said, referring to the strategic rebel-held town on the Syrian border that fell to pro-Assad forces last summer. As in the Qalamoun offensive, Lebanese Hezbollah militants played a key role backing government troops.
Gunfire could be heard on footage broadcast live by the Lebanon-based TV station al-Mayadeen, which also showed troops walking through empty streets.
Meanwhile, a flare-up of violence in the northern Lebanese city of Tripolihas left 12 people dead in recent days, Lebanon's state-run news agency said. NNA said the latest fatality was a soldier who was killed on Sunday when attackers fired on his armoured vehicle with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms. His death brings the death toll to 12 since clashes erupted Thursday, the NNA said.
The clashes pit Sunni gunmen from Bab Tabbaneh who back Syria's Sunni-majority rebels against rivals from nearby Jabal Mohsen, dominated by the Alawite sect, Assad's faith.
Sunni gunmen have also attacked Lebanese soldiers, accusing them of loyalty to rival sectarian factions in Lebanon.
This is not just a victory for Assad but also a significant defeat of the Anglo American camp.Philip wrote:As the Syrian conflict enters its 4th year,with the opposition in chaos and their sponsors fighting between themselves,the Assad regime scores a major victory.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/m ... er-yabroud
Syria claims to have captured rebel stronghold on Lebanese border
Fall of Yabroud, a key rebel supply line into Lebanon, would be latest success for President Assad as conflict enters fourth year
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/m ... er-yabroudAssociated Press in Damascus
theguardian.com, Sunday 16 March 2014
Yabroud, Syria
The fall of Yabroud would deal a signifcant blow to rebels since the initiative passed to the government in spring of 2013. Photograph: Sana/Reuters
Syria claims its military has seized a key town on the Lebanese border that was the target of a months-long offensive. Activists said fighting was continuing but the government was in control of much of Yabroud.
Yabroud was a key supply line for rebels into neighbouring Lebanon and overlooked an important cross-country highway. Its fall, coming as the Syrian conflict enters its fourth year, would be a significant blow to rebels since the initiative passed to the government in the spring of 2013.
It is the last major rebel-held town in the mountainous Qalamoun region, where President Bashar al-Assad's forces have been waging an offensive for months to try to cut rebel supply lines across the porous border into eastern Lebanon. Its fall would come a week after the Syrian army seized the village of Zara, which also served as a conduit for rebels from northern Lebanon into central Syria.
Syria's state news agency, Sana, reported that military forces seized Yabroud early on Sunday and were combing the city to remove booby-traps and bombs and hunt down rebel holdouts.
Kasem Alzein, a Syrian pro-rebel doctor who lives in the nearby border town of Arsal, said military forces entered the eastern part of Yabroud and that rebels fled to the nearby town of Flita. He said a small hardcore group of fighters said they would fight to the death in the city.
"They don't want to surrender," he said, adding that supplies were cut off and weapons promised to rebels never arrived.
"Qusair will repeat itself," Alzein said, referring to the strategic rebel-held town on the Syrian border that fell to pro-Assad forces last summer. As in the Qalamoun offensive, Lebanese Hezbollah militants played a key role backing government troops.
Gunfire could be heard on footage broadcast live by the Lebanon-based TV station al-Mayadeen, which also showed troops walking through empty streets.
Meanwhile, a flare-up of violence in the northern Lebanese city of Tripolihas left 12 people dead in recent days, Lebanon's state-run news agency said. NNA said the latest fatality was a soldier who was killed on Sunday when attackers fired on his armoured vehicle with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms. His death brings the death toll to 12 since clashes erupted Thursday, the NNA said.
The clashes pit Sunni gunmen from Bab Tabbaneh who back Syria's Sunni-majority rebels against rivals from nearby Jabal Mohsen, dominated by the Alawite sect, Assad's faith.
Sunni gunmen have also attacked Lebanese soldiers, accusing them of loyalty to rival sectarian factions in Lebanon.
n 2004, photos depicting soldiers abusing Abu Ghraib detainees became public, shocking the national conscience. Photograph: AP
Four former Iraqi detainees who say they were tortured at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison should be allowed to pursue their claims against the US military contractor in charge of interrogating them, an attorney told a federal appeals court Tuesday.
Baher Azmy urged a three-judge panel of the fourth US circuit court of appeals to reinstate his clients’ lawsuit against CACI Premier Technology Inc. The company’s lawyer, J William Koegel Jr, argued that a district court judge correctly dismissed the lawsuit in June. The appeals court typically takes several weeks, or even months, to rule.
The plaintiffs say CACI employees conspired to have soldiers torture them to make them more compliant during interrogation. The former detainees say they were subjected to electrical shocks, sexual violence and forced nudity.
In 2004, photos depicting soldiers abusing Abu Ghraib detainees became public, shocking the national conscience and producing “universal condemnation among US political and military leaders,” the plaintiffs said in court papers.
However, US District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee in Alexandria, Virginia, ruled last year that he lacked jurisdiction to consider the former detainees’ civil claims because the alleged abuse occurred in a foreign country. His dismissal of the lawsuit on that basis prevented a hearing on the merits of the case.
Azmy told the appeals court that under supreme court precedent, the jurisdictional barrier can be lifted if the claims sufficiently “touch and concern” US territory. He said that is clearly the case here, not only because the prison was under US control but also because many of the activities furthering the alleged conspiracy occurred domestically.
“We allege the corporate defendant was approached by military and civilian whistleblowers and ignored those complaints,” Azmy said.
Koegel said the “relevant conduct” was the alleged abuse itself – and that all occurred in Iraq and therefore outside the reach of US courts.
Judge Barbara Milano Keenan asked if it mattered whether northern Virginia-based CACI followed the dictates of the contract, which was signed in the US.
“Why isn’t that the jurisdictional hook?” she asked Koegel.
He said the “performance of the contract” is what matters, and that occurred in Iraq.
Israel’s 2014 military budget includes at least 10 billion shekels devoted to preparations for war with Iran, Haaretz newspaper reports. Top Jerusalem officials recently said that Israel may strike Tehran’s nuclear sites even without US help.
The Tel Aviv daily cited three parliamentarians who had been present at joint committee meetings at the Knesset earlier this year, where figures of 10 to 12 billion shekels (US$2.89 billion to $3.47 billion) were touted by senior Israel Defense Forces officials. The sum is being spent on preparing for an air strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, even if it does not take place. It constitutes about one-fifth of the total military budget – about the same amount that was spent last year.
The parliamentarians said they questioned the decision to maintain funding in view of Tehran’s softening relations with the West, only to be told by army commanders that Israel’s political leaders ordered them to continue regardless.
While the world’s leading powers have eased sanctions on Iran in exchange for its curtailing of its nuclear enrichment program – and have been negotiating in Vienna this week – Israel has remained steadfast in its belief that Tehran is attempting to develop its own nuclear weapons, and is using the talks to buy themselves time and economic relief.
On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon criticized the US for wishful thinking during its attempts to find a diplomatic solution.
"Weakness certainly does not pay in the world," Yaalon told students at Tel Aviv University.
"No one can replace the US as the world's policeman. I hope the US will come to its senses."![]()
Yaalon, who represents Prime Minister Netanyahu’s center-right Likud party, further reiterated his superior’s claims that Israel needed to act preemptively.
"If we wished others would do the work for us, it wouldn't be done soon, and therefore in this matter, we have to behave as if we can only rely on ourselves," said Yaalon.
Netanyahu has also persisted with the line he held during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s abrasive presidency, despite the tentative ‘charm offensive’ that Iran has undertaken since the relatively moderate Hassan Rouhani replaced Ahmadinejad less than a year ago.
“Letting the worst terrorist regime on the planet get atomic bombs would endanger everyone, and it certainly would endanger Israel since Iran openly calls for our destruction,” Netanyahu said in a speech this month.
Tehran insists that it has no plans to manufacture nuclear arms, and even Israel’s own intelligence agency now believes that there has been a “strategic change” in Iran's nuclear stance since last year, according to an earlier Haaretz report.
Nonetheless, the latest talks in Vienna – where Iran has faced the US, China, Russia, Great Britain, France, and Germany – have not produced a concrete outcome.
Adding to the long-established issues of access to existing facilities and the extent of Iran’s enrichment and stockpiling of plutonium – a key ingredient in nuclear devices – is a yet-to-be-finished nuclear reactor at Arak.
Western negotiators say the facility in its current form could be used for plutonium enrichment and should be modified, while Tehran insists its uses will be chiefly medical.
The two sides have set themselves a July 20 deadline, by which a definitive agreement has to be produced on the country’s nuclear program. But for Israel’s leaders, each month without concrete action is one month closer to Tehran possessing its own nuclear weapons – meaning that vast expenditures to ready for a strike are as necessary as ever.
Thousands of foreign fighters are thought to have travelled to Syria since the beginning of the civil war in 2011, with many of them crossing Syria’s porous border with Turkey. Turkish authorities have recently sought to exert more control over its border as extremist groups have grown in strength.
As Isis and other jihadist groups have come under greater pressure from other rebels, many foreign fighters have fled Syria and returned to their country of origin. Senior security officials have said that around 250 British “extremist tourists” have returned home, and are now suspected of wanting to carry out attacks here. Scotland Yard revealed earlier this year that Syria-related terrorism arrests are soaring with 16 so far this year, compared with 24 for all of 2013.
ISTANBUL: Turkey's armed forces shot down a Syrian plane on Sunday after it crossed into Turkish airspace in a border region where Syrian rebels have been battling President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
"A Syrian plane violated our airspace," Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told an election rally of his supporters in northwest Turkey.
"Our F-16s took off and hit this plane. Why? Because if you violate my airspace, our slap after this will be hard," Edrogan.
The rebels have been fighting for control of the Kasab crossing, the border region, since Friday, when they launched an offensive which Syrian authorities say was backed by Turkey's military.
Syria said Turkish air defences shot down the jet while it was attacking rebel forces inside Syrian territory, calling the move a "blatant aggression".
State television quoted a military source as saying the pilot managed to eject from the plane. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said initial reports from the area said the plane came down on the Syrian side of the border.
Al Manar, the television station of Assad's Lebanese ally Hezbollah, said two rockets had been fired from Turkish territory at the Syrian jet.
According to the statement issued by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), Turkish radars detected two Syrian MIG-23s approaching Turkish airspace at 13:00 p.m. local time yesterday and warned the pilots not to get closer to the Turkish border four times. One of the jets changed its route and returned to Syria, but the other flew into Turkish airspace for nearly 1.5 kms, the TSK said. The pilot was able to eject, it added as the jet was downed in Syrian territory.
It stated that the MIG-23 entered Turkish airspace at 13:13 p.m. and was shot down just a minute later, in line with the rules of engagement. It was shot down by a Turkish F-16 jet that was already on a patrol mission in the region, along with another Turkish jet.
Turkey changed its rules of engagement in the aftermath of the downing of a Turkish jet by Syria in June 2012 and announced it would take “every measure” against any Syrian military vehicle approaching Turkish borders, either by air or sea.
Assad is already counting on soldiers still at school to fill the gaps left by 30,000 casualties
There are intriguing hints that the conflict is changing. There are mini-ceasefires nowe
We were driving down the main road from Homs – fast, of course, as the Syrian war now requires – when, just outside the Damascus suburb of Harasta, a government soldier asked for a ride into town.
I have always stopped for hitch-hiking soldiers, especially in time of war – Egyptian soldiers, Lebanese soldiers, Israeli soldiers, Algerian soldiers, you name it – because they’re usually poor, often exhausted, occasionally frightened. And they always want to talk.
But this time, our guest was silent. We drove past acre after acre, mile after mile of suburban ruins, greater than I have seen before outside the capital. And then the soldier said to my driver: “I am one of four brothers, all in the army. The other three have been killed. I am the only one left.” One out of four. I checked that I had heard him correctly. My driver repeated it. What does that tell you about casualties in Bashar al-Assad’s army?
We dropped the soldier off near the old Ottoman Hejaz railway station and carried on round Umayyad Square to the dark interior of the Sheraton Hotel. The moment I walked up to reception to tell them I was back, a huge explosion echoed across the empty marble lobby. An incoming mortar round from the rebels around Damascus. It crashed into the square, where three policemen lay in pieces. The suddenness and speed of this war quickly wears you down.
An interview – long sought-after – swiftly becomes an obligation of annoyance at the end of a day in which you watch a MiG jet bomber as it races north to drop its ordnance on the Syrian army’s next rebel target at Rankoos, along the road from the town of Yabroud. Assad’s soldiers – with a plentiful legion of Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon – recaptured the town from their opponents last week.
But I meet a very old friend who knows pretty well just how the war fares. The government army has now lost more than 30,000 soldiers in three years – that’s more than a fifth of the total casualties of the conflict, most of whom are civilians if you believe those who oppose Assad. But the government in Damascus now calculates that the next three years of military conscription will raise a new generation of 20,000 extra soldiers.
There is something Douglas Haig-like about such calculations – adding up your reinforcements by counting soldiers who are still at school. But, in one sense, this is a war unlike any other.
There are intriguing hints that the conflict is changing. There are dozens of mini-ceasefires now, between the remains of the defectors of the fractured Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their former comrades in the government forces.
That’s one reason why the battle for Yabroud last week did not claim quite as many lives as Assad’s men would have us believe. When the army and Hezbollah captured Qusayr in the previous big battle along the Lebanese border, the rebels in Qusayr fled to Yabroud.
So when the government surrounded Yabroud, they were able to call up the rebels on their own mobile phones and talk to them – by name. Release the 13 Christian nuns held hostage there, the insurgents were told, and clear out of Yabroud ... and we’ll briefly hold our fire.
The Islamist defenders of Yabroud apparently executed several fighters who wanted to leave – but leave the defenders did, to live and fight again in the next battle-to-be at Rankoos. But the army won, and it is this increasingly formidable force – let us, of course, remember that the West claims war criminals are among them – that is the one institution in Syria upon which Assad must rely.
He knows it, too. When he visited the wreckage of Baba Amr in Homs, soldiers surrounded the President with the usual cries of self-sacrifice in the cause of Assad. But Assad himself immediately walked over to the state television crew and ordered them to cut the sequence from the evening news. This was the army’s victory, not his.
Only a few months ago, the Free Syrian Army was trying to find an accommodation with the regime, sending middle men to Damascus to talk to representatives of the President. But the government abandoned such contacts when the FSA decided to grab at the American offer of more arms at Geneva – a conference at which US diplomats expressed their displeasure not at the enthusiasm of Assad’s opponents for more weapons, but for their insistence on flying to Switzerland business class – all at the expense of the American taxpayer.
Among the Islamists opposed to Assad, there is now considerable debate – almost to the point of hostility – about their future activities. A new al-Qa’ida faction wants its people to leave Syria and go to fight in Yemen, which is far closer to Saudi Arabia and its oil fields and holy Muslim cities. This, it says, is far more relevant than squandering resources in the wilds of Syria and Iraq.
At the same time, new power relationships are congealing around Syria. President Rouhani has visited Iran’s old friend Oman, and Qatar is just – slightly – beginning to allow its suspicion and contempt for Saudi Arabia to outweigh its enthusiasm for the war against Assad. If it’s true that it paid $60m for the release of those nuns – clearing them out of the way of the Syrian government bombardment at Yabroud – then the Emir of Qatar was doing Assad a favour.
And not without reason. The Americans have abandoned the Syrian war as a lost cause. The US will leave the Gulf. They may well close most of their huge airbases in Qatar, leaving the Emir grimly exposed to the territorial greed of his Arab Gulf brothers. Who else to guard him – and Oman and the other small Gulf states – other than that former policeman of the Gulf, namely Iran?
With a Russian-Iranian-Qatari guarantee of “fair” elections in Syria – please hold your breath, readers – who better to rebuild Assad’s rubbled country than Iran and Russia, backed by Qatar’s wealth? Why, they could even invite the workers of Crimea to give them a hand…
Putin beware! The latest offering of Obamery
As a student of linguistic garbage, I marvelled at last week’s Obamery. The world concentrated on his interview with a tin-pot San Diego channel – President Obama uses small-town media to avoid giving massive and boring interviews to The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN and other crippled giants of American journalism.
So it was that we learnt, via Obama-speak, that “we are not going to be getting into a military excursion [sic] in Ukraine.” But it was not this Chamberlain-like determination which caught my eye. It was Obama’s follow-up threat to Vladimir Putin – totally ignored by the press or, when it was recorded at all, reported without comment – that fascinated me.
“What we are going to do,” quoth Obama, “is mobilise all our diplomatic resources to make sure that we’ve got a strong international correlation that sends a clear message.”
Gadzooks! Achtung! All those mobilised correlations packed with clear-cut messages crashing down upon Russia! Surely the walls of the Kremlin will now come tumbling down.
A prominent Saudi cleric and a Chechen military commander in a unit of the Al Nusrah Front for the People in the Levant, al Qaeda's official branch in Syria, celebrated together after recent heavy fighting against Syrian government forces in a mountainous area in the coastal province of Latakia. The leader of Ahrar al Sham is also seen in the video.Muslim al Shishani, a Chechen jihadist and Al Nusrah military commander, is seen in a video with Dr. Abdallah Muhammad al Muhaysini, an al Qaeda-linked Saudi cleric, after the Al Nusrah Front overran a Syrian military position in the eastern province. The video was posted on YouTube on March 26. In the video, hundreds of jihadists are shown walking around the captured outpost as fires, presumably caused by the the fighting, are still burning. A tank and a pickup truck with a machine gun mounted in the bed are seen in the background. Gunfire is heard, but it sounds celebratory. The Al Nusrah Front has allied with Ahrar al Sham and a Salafist group known as Ansar al Sham, in an offensive to take control of areas in Latakia. The jihadist groups have seized a coastal village, "the Armenian Christian village of Kasab," and a border crossing with Turkey, according to Reuters. Muhaysini, the Saudi cleric who moved to Syria in 2013 and has more than 240,000 followers on Twitter, has publicly supported the position of the Al Nusrah Front and the Islamic Front in their dispute with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham. When he launched an initiative in January to reconcile the groups by creating a sharia court to settle disputes, Muhaysini cited al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri. In February, after the ISIS rejected his plan, Muhaysini called on ISIS fighters and leaders to defect and join the Al Nusrah Front and the Islamic Front. [See LWJ reports, Popular Saudi cleric endorses Islamic Front, calls for cooperation with al Qaeda; Saudi cleric's reconciliation initiative for jihadists draws wide support, then a rejection; and Pro-al Qaeda Saudi cleric calls on ISIS members to defect.]Muslim "served in the air defense division of the Soviet army in Moldova" before the collapse of the Soviet Union, MEMRI reported. Afterwards he joined the jihad in Chechnya and fought alongside Ibn Khattab, a Saudi who led al Qaeda's International Islamic Brigade in Chechnya before he was assassinated by Russian forces in 2002."He worked with many leading figures in the Chechen-Arab units, including Abu Jafar and Ibn Khattab's successor Abu al Walid, and was eventually promoted to the position of field commander," according to MEMRI. He was captured by Russian forces in 2003 and released after two-and-a-half years in detention.