By Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi

I have previously documented muhajireen battalions here and here. Below are two more groupings.

Saraya ash-Sham

Logo of Saraya ash-Sham, whose main emblem resembles the flag of Iraqi insurgent group Jamaat Ansar al-Islam (pro-Caliphate and with deployment in Syria). The motto reads: “We shed tears and spill blood.”

Translating to “brigades/squadrons of ash-Sham” and operationally advertising itself since at least the autumn of last year, this group- in origin a merger of several small brigades- has been primarily active in the Homs area (including from within Homs city), and like the Lebanese-founded Jamaat Jund ash-Sham, it contains a mixture of native Syrians and foreign fighters: though according to a media activist for this group whom I interviewed, the “majority” of the group’s fighters are Syrians. To the extent that there are foreign fighters in this grouping, they are most likely Lebanese and other Levantines. To date, no muhajireen martyrdom notices have been publicly announced.

Ideologically, like most muhajireen and part-muhajireen battalions, Saraya ash-Sham espouses the establishment of a Caliphate, and officially took an anti-fitna stance on the al-Qa’ida-Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS) dispute (as the media activist put it to me, “We are all brothers”), declaring support for Sheikh Muheisseni’s “Ummah Initiative” back in January. Indicative of the official anti-fitna stance as well is the fact that when Sheikh Abu Khalid al-Suri of Ahrar ash-Sham was killed in February, Saraya ash-Sham did not blame anyone in particular for the killing, but simply eulogised him. The group also coordinated with ISIS, Ahfad al-Rasul and other groups in fending off an attempted regime advance on the village of Aydun in Hama countryside, near an Alawite village called Khanifis.

With the regime’s clearance of the city of Homs and other key localities in the vicinity, it should be noted that Saraya ash-Sham, like Jamaat Jund ash-Sham (which was driven out of Krak des Chevaliers by the Syrian army and National Defence Forces) has largely ceased to be a meaningful entity in terms of operations.

Saraya ash-Sham fighters training in the Homs countryside.

Saraya ash-Sham fighters prepare to hit a regime forces base in Homs area.

Saraya ash-Sham fighters with special arm patches and headbands.

Despite the official anti-fitna stance of Saraya ash-Sham’s position on other groups, in practice Saraya ash-Sham, like Harakat Sham al-Islam, is closer to Jabhat al-Nusra than ISIS. This is a media graphic released in February of this year dedicated to fallen Saraya ash-Sham commander Abu Zubayr al-Homsi. Note the Jabhat al-Nusra logo on the top-right corner. In an accompanying message, Abu Mujahid ash-Shami- an official in Saraya ash-Sham- said the martyrdom notification was dedicated to “Jabhat al-Nusra in particular.” It appears there may be some personnel overlap between Saraya ash-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra.

Saraya ash-Sham graphic dedicated to slain field commander Sayyid Suleiman, who established his own brigade as part of Saraya ash-Sham in al-Khalidiya, Homs.

A Saraya ash-Sham graphic echoing the ISIS messaging motif of the looming conquest of Jerusalem. The text accompanying this graphic read as follows: “We fight in Homs al-Adiya and our eyes are on al-Quds al-Abiya.”

As above: “We fight in Homs and our eyes are on al-Quds.”

Saraya ash-Sham fighters in a training camp. From October 2013.

125 mm al-Quds artillery cannon operated by Saraya ash-Sham. From October 2013.

Saraya ash-Sham fighters praying. October 2013.

In November 2013, two more battalions joined Saraya ash-Sham: the Junud Allah brigade in Hama countryside, and the Usud ash-Sham brigade in Homs.

Saraya ash-Sham statement in January of this year supporting the Ummah Initiative.

ISIS- Gaza contingent

Just as ISIS has a special contingent for Libyan fighters- namely, the Katiba al-Bittar al-Libi, which previously played a pivotal role in the defence of ISIS’ southern Hasakah stronghold of al-Markadah from the attacks of Jabhat al-Nusra and other rebels and is now pushing deep into Deir az-Zor province, losing a number of fighters in the process- so ISIS also has a special contingent dedicated to fighters from Gaza.

This should come as no surprise. After all, images of support from Gaza for ISIS have been in evidence for nearly a year now, and when it came to the infighting between ISIS and other groups in Syria that broke out this year, the two main Gaza-Sinai jihadi groups- Jamaat Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis and Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen- came down firmly on the side of ISIS. The Gazan contingent in turn reflects the division among the Palestinians outside Syria regarding the Syrian civil war: namely, that while there is no evidence Hamas has an organized presence in Syria to support the rebels and its insistence on neutrality is to be believed (much to the chagrin of the Islamic Front), Palestinian Salafi circles have been active in assisting the rebels.

A supporter of ISIS inscribes the group’s name on the beach in Gaza. Photo from September last year.

In Syria, the Gazan contingent of fighters that has emerged takes the name of the “Sheikh Abu al-Nur al-Maqdisi Brigade,” named after the founder and leader of the Salafi Jund Ansar Allah group in Gaza- Abdel Latif Moussa- who was killed in clashes with Hamas in 2009.

Training for the Sheikh Abu al-Nur al-Maqdisi brigade (photo released in April 2014): “Mujahideen of Gaza in the Islamic State’s Camps in ash-Sham.” Accompanying slogans on Twitter include “Coming, oh Jews,” reflecting the ambitions for the conquest of the whole Israel-Palestine area as part of ash-Sham.

As above.

Gazan contingent handling raw meat. As with the Katiba al-Bittar al-Libi, standard ‘daily life of a mujahid’ messaging.

The Gazan contingent handles a gazelle for slaughter.

“From the mujahideen of Gaza in the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham: the Sheikh Abu al-Nur al-Maqdisi Brigade.”

It should be noted that undoubtedly with influence from Gaza, this pro-ISIS trend is catching on somewhat in the West Bank, which recently saw three teenagers kidnapped near Hebron by a group taking its name after ISIS, though the Israeli government is officially blaming Hamas as part of a propaganda line whereby there is a reluctance to acknowledge there is a more radical trend than Hamas emerging within the Palestinian population. Perhaps the emergence of this trend should not be surprising when one considers the widespread Palestinian support for Saddam Hussein as champion of their cause. Now, with the rise of ISIS and its extensive conquests and promises to liberate Jerusalem, it seems many Palestinians will be inclined to see ISIS as their new Saddam-style saviour figure.

ISIS graphic on social media to remind Palestinians and the Ummah that ISIS has not forgotten al-Quds (Jerusalem).

ISIS billboard in Hasakah province from March 2014: “We fight in Iraq and ash-Sham and our eyes are on the Holy House [Bayt al-Maqdis].”

“Oh Quds, don’t cry…” Palestinian graphic in support of ISIS.

The main area to watch in terms of Palestinian support for ISIS is the Gaza-Sinai area, where pro-ISIS jihadis have been building their networks for some time. While the Hamas security apparatus is still resilient, as Jonathan Spyer, I would not be surprised if active pro-ISIS jihadis, assuming ISIS’ overall status and holdings are not diminished, attempt to take over Gaza within the next 5-10 years and proclaim an emirate of Gaza aligned with ISIS. 

Stephen Boeshaar worked throughout the Arab World for many years and is fluent in Syrian Arabic. After serving with the Peace Corps in Morocco in the 1960s, he ran English language instruction programs in Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, and Syria, and worked with Fulbright in Egypt developing university curriculum. Later, Steve directed the American Language Center in Damascus for 20 years, until the Syrian uprising finally compelled him to leave with his family in 2012. He currently lives in Florida and is working on a collection of “Syrian Profiles,” stories of the many lives he encountered along his path. The following is an excerpt. Steve hopes to complete the book later this year. He can be contacted at stephenboeshaar@gmail.com

Bilal

Bilal is now in his mid fifties and, like many aging men in Syria, his waistline has gradually expanded with maturity and prosperity. I had known him for more than 30 years and I watched this ballooning in his weight over time with some degree of alarm. He really needed to take better care of himself; that was my personal (and unspoken) opinion. On one of my visits to his home, he eagerly motioned me over as he lovingly unwrapped some old, wrinkled snapshots taken in his younger days, back in the 1970s. Most people in the West have no inkling how slavishly well-to-do classes of the third world have tended to adopt and mirror our own goofy fashions and fads. When we grew our hair long, hippie-style… well, so did the rest of the world. Thus, modern day Syria, for example, is currently awash in hip-hop music and tattoos.

Anyway, it was funny to see the brownish photos of Bilal sporting a Beatles-style mop top and dressed in garish disco attire; but what was the most striking was how amazingly fit and svelte he looked in those bell bottoms. He had been as skinny as a rail. He used to go to the gym too, and there were photos of him flexing like a young Schwarzenegger. What a contrast with his current well-fed portliness.

Bilal was the son of a prosperous shop owner and his family had always lived in a pretty nice fourth-floor apartment in an upscale neighborhood in central Damascus. However, it would be an error to imagine that he had had an easy life, by any means. Bilal spent two years in a technical institute after finishing high school but finding work in 1970s-era Damascus was a tall order. For one thing, the Syrian economy was overwhelmingly socialist in those times. Syria maintained its long love affair with the USSR during its Communist era and that special relationship has continued on to this day with contemporary Russia. In those quaint times of total central planning, Syria was probably the closest thing to a truly Communist system—outside of the Soviet bloc itself. Any Syrian who actually had a job worked for the state. For years, Bilal struggled to negotiate an opening into that vast, monolithic bureaucracy but it was no easy task. What you really needed was not education or job skills but “wasta,” which meant a connection to some big shot with influence who could find you a niche in the anthill.

For a long while, Bilal’s quest was futile. For a couple of years in the early 80s, he was reduced to driving a taxi in an effort to make some cash—certainly one of the most difficult and frustrating means of making a living imaginable. Most taxi drivers in Damascus do not own the cars they drive; instead, they must pay rent to the proprietor, buy gas and cover repairs on the vehicle. After shelling out for all the expenses, they struggle to eke out a meager living from whatever daily pittance they can grind out over a lengthy work day—10 to 12 hours or more. Foreigners in Damascus will find a cab ride to be one of the world’s best bargains. You can travel all the way across town for a couple of bucks. It is dirt cheap, even now in these days of high inflation. Great for the passenger but the flip side is, of course, how can any working stiff in Syria conceivably make a living from these fares, which are ferociously controlled at rock-bottom rates by the municipality? Bilal learned those lessons the hard way, back in the days when a taxi ride might cost you no more than 10 cents. The poor guy spent two hard years killing himself for peanuts.

Like most young Syrian men, Bilal had been drafted into the nation’s gargantuan military when he turned 18. It had been one of the largest armed forces in the Middle East for 40 years. Ironically, it hadn’t fought a real war since 1973, when it was severely beaten by the Israelis. Some claimed it was not a real army at all, but merely a device for maintaining the regime’s control over the country and for furthering its regional interests—as when it was used to occupy Lebanon during the 1980s and 1990s. Syrian military service was brutal and demeaning. The army did not even provide food or clothing—which had to be paid for by the recruits’ families. Bilal’s father was relatively well off and was able to pay enough to ensure him an easy posting in Latakia, up on the Syrian coast.

It was a direct consequence of his army service that Bilal finally hit pay dirt in his quest to find a post within the mysteriously opaque civil service. During his stint in the north, he managed to develop a useful contact, an Alawite military officer who seemed to look upon him favorably. According to Bilal, he spent more than 10 years cultivating the favors of this powerful warlord, through a long and persistent campaign of services, gifts, cajolery and flattery. It was like raising an exotic plant, one that you had to fertilize and water with utmost care. In the end, the suck-up efforts paid off and Bilal was duly rewarded with a position in the Syrian Customs Authority. This appointment was a genuine stroke of fortune, even if a customs officer was only a poorly-paid cog in the machine in Damascus. Sooner or later, however, the employee might well be permitted the golden opportunity to work on one of the Syrian borders. A border posting was the Holy Grail in the customs universe. Bilal endured an achingly long penance at the desk job in the central office; he had no choice but to watch, uncomplaining, as less qualified but more favored men moved ahead of him. After two or three years of agonizing patience, Bilal was at long last granted a six-month stint on the Syrian-Lebanese border. His ship had come in.

Syria has busy borders with Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. Consider the fact that tens of thousands of vehicles pass through those border posts every day—including large numbers of trucks and commercial carriers—and each one of these is a potential gold mine. Many of the truckers are carrying illegal or quasi-legal goods, making them ideal targets for shakedowns. The fact is, legal or illegal, the merchants and drivers who pass through these check points are expected to pay a bribe to be allowed to proceed. These payoffs are by no means an anomaly in the trade system; they ARE the system. It is the everyday grease that allows commerce to function all over the Middle East (and most of the rest of the third world as well). The customs agents are the lucky stiffs in the middle who regulate this seamy traffic. Regular travelers, whether ordinary Syrians or foreign tourists, are unlikely to even notice anything afoot—unless they get caught actually attempting to conceal items such as major appliances or weapons, for example.

Taxi men and bus drivers typically engage in petty smuggling of items like cigarettes or booze. They may have to cough up a nominal sum (or a couple of packs of smokes) but it is the big trucks where the real money is to be made. According to Bilal, the art of the trade is to hit up the drivers for a reasonable amount, without getting greedy. Everyone knows the going rates, more or less, and a timely payment will guarantee a cursory inspection of your vehicle, followed by a friendly wave through. The startling truth is that the system ensures that hardly a single solitary shipment ever gets opened and inspected. You can run just about anything through those borders, up to and including WMDs, if you play your cards right.

Bilal had struck pay-dirt. His fortunes (and his income) soared dramatically in those heady days when he was out at one of the border posts. Periodically, he got assigned to the crossings with Iraq and Jordan. But, sadly, he pouted, never the Turkish border, which was reputed to be the busiest and most lucrative. After years of desperate penury, Bilal and his family were suddenly living high on the hog. Another man might have saved some of this largess for a rainy day, another might have invested; but Bilal would always spend it freely—mostly on the stuff of the good life. He and his wife promptly bought themselves an expensive apartment and a new car. Later on, he got additional cars and small apartments for his two grown sons. Suddenly nouveax-riche, Bilal’s family saturated the house with costly, overstuffed furnishings and took to wearing expensive designer clothes and jewelry.

When we would meet, they would eagerly show us their latest purchases, apprising us in great detail how much they had paid. On those occasions when we stopped by Bilal’s house or went out for a meal with his family, we were struck by the degree to which the conversations invariably focused on material goods. The talk was always about cars, the price of real estate and the latest acquisitions for the home. Despite this slavish devotion to consumerism and material things, we never really felt irritated or offended by the litany of fiscal details. We understood, finally, that he and his family were not simply boasting or being smug, these material things constituted their only true passion in life. Without the cars, the clothes and the jewelry, what on earth would they have had to talk about?

Bilal’s overweight and the general state of his health became more of an issue after he hit 50. Despite its financial rewards, the customs job was pure murder. He had to put in crazy shifts, with long travel times to distant border crossings; sometimes he would not sleep for 24 hours. He often worked long nights. The job at the borders was highly stressful; shaking people down was profitable—but it was hard work. Moreover, the periods spent on the borders were short and unpredictable, mainly because of the intense pressures from within the bureaucratic corps. After all, every single officer in the customs service was busy jockeying for one of those plum assignments. When he was forced to return to Damascus for desk duty, Bilal’s income would plummet to near zero and he would again have to plot and spend his time and treasure maneuvering and cajoling, kissing up to the powerful functionaries who controlled the assignment rosters. He could never relax—and it showed.

Bilal, that young man who had once been so fit and athletic, had taken to smoking heavily early on in his customs career. He never exercised or watched what he ate. Frankly, he did not look well and his face showed an unhealthy pallor. It was just the way he was: working like a dog, living for the moment, buying stuff he didn’t really need, spending what he made while he had it. I guess he never thought about the future much.

As the first signs of the coming unrest appeared in Syria in 2011, we received some awful news. Bilal was in the hospital. Apparently, he had suffered a stroke and he had severe bleeding in his cerebral cortex. When we went to see him, he was still in a coma and he looked absolutely terrible. I think everyone assumed it was the end game, but, unexpectedly, Bilal rallied to recover… to some extent. The problem was that he had clearly lost some essential brain functions. He was now no longer able to care for himself; his long-suffering wife, who had struggled so long to raise their two boys, now had a new child to attend to, one who would never grow up. Bilal had killed himself at that job. He had never failed to protect and support his family, but now, work was out of the question. No more distant borders for him—no more windfalls; he had reached the end of his long and exhausting road.

We still sometimes visit Bilal; he does not talk but he smiles and follows our conversations with alertness. He is only a shadow of himself now but at least he is much thinner and the long years of strain and pallor have been erased from his face. Syria may now be at war, but Bilal has found his peace.

Joshua Landis, Robert Ford (former US Ambassador to Syria), and Hadi Al Bahra (Syrian opposition) each gave unique perspectives on Syria policy in a recent event with the Wilson Center, moderated by Aaron David Miller.

Dr. Landis outlined three possible policy options for Syria (in the absence of putting troops on the ground of a foreign interventionist force), none of which offer much optimism for restored stability or comprehensive peace: 1) Supporting a rebel win in Syria that would entail the need for rebels to conquer almost all of Syria’s major cities in street-by-street battles (since rebel-held cities are currently very few), resulting in tremendous instability, added destruction, and greater refugee crises; 2) Allowing security and counter-terrorism concerns to influence the choice to sit back and allow Assad to retake most of the country, which may limit jihadist gains but will allow the regime’s policies of torture, mass killings, and human rights abuses to continue unabated; 3) De facto partition that would involve shoring up support for the opposition—enough support to take certain key areas and enforce partition by pressuring the regime into a ceasefire & territorial concessions, but not enough to conquer the entire country—followed by a major project to introduce a moderate oppositional government in the rebel partition that could combat jihadism.

At present, the international players are not satisfied with allowing either side to win, which is why the conflict will remain at a “low boil” in which the opposition is kept on life support but will remain largely ineffective, while the Syrian people are sacrificed on the altar of great power politics.

The audio of the event can be accessed on the Wilson Center’s website, here:

What’s To Become of Syria? U.S. Policy, the Opposition and the Regime

Ford begins speaking at 11:35, Landis begins at 17:30

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Take a look at this interesting infographic underscoring the complexity of alliances and competitions within the Syria conflict (thanks to Pieter Van Ostaeyen for circulating it, from an article by Think Progress):

Why The Middle East Is Now A Giant Warzone, In One Terrifying Chart

What started as a crackdown against democratic protests three years ago, has become a region-wide conflict that now has Iraq descending back into chaos. The countries of the region — along with the United States and various non-state actors — all have a hand in creating this moment, as money, fighters, weapons, and a desire to control the Middle East have come together to produce an extremely volatile and terrifying situation.

What has made the Syrian conflict so difficult to respond to has been the fact that the situation has refused to be tied down as just a civil war. In addition to the top-line fighting between the Syrian government and rebels who’d like to oust Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, there’s also a proxy war ongoing between Sunni-majority states in the Gulf and Shiite-majority Iran and its allies. There’s also struggles for dominance among the rebels, who fight each other almost as frequently as the Assad government these days. Add in disagreements between the countries united against Assad over just which of the Syrian rebels to finance, and the reason a simple solution for the conflict hasn’t been developed becomes more understandable.

And standing out among all of this now is the attempts of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) — also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) — to establish its own state within the region. ISIS managed to takeover the city of Fallujah in January, hold it against Iraqi army efforts to dislodge it, and in the last few days take over both the major cities of Mosul and Tikrit. …

See also an updated map on the current situation in Syria from Thomas van Linge, also posted by Pieter:

…As well as another detailed map by Thomas on ISIS in Iraq:

The Future of ISIS in Iraq and the Sectarian Response – by Joshua Landis

ISIS purportedly conducting a mass execution of captured Shiite Iraqi army soldiers

A Washington policy analyst asked me what chances I gave to the possibility that Prime Minister Maliki will try to divide Sunnis and isolate ISIS by teaming up with moderate Sunnis. He raised the possibility of Maliki creating a government of national unity with greater power sharing.

My answer:

1. I doubt ISIS will get a foothold in Baghdad. Already, Shiite mobilization in the face of the ISIS advances are fierce and panicky.  I think Shiite religious mobilization now taking place in Iraq will mean very bad things for Sunnis in general. ISIS has picked a fight it can’t win and unleashed the inner Shi’a in their adversary. And it’s not as though Maliki, like Assad, lacks powerful friends with a serious stake in the outcome of the battle.

Rather than Maliki teaming up with “moderate” Sunnis, such as the US did in arming the tribes and cultivating the Sahwa, Iraq’s Prime Minister is likely to respond by using religion as his prime mobilizer. Of course, he will not abandon “Iraq” or nationalism, just as Assad has not.  But just as Sistani has used the sanctity of Shiite shrines as his primary “national” motivator, Maliki is likely to follow suit. He will largely define the nation in sectarian terms. That is what ISIS has done, as well. Sunnis have scared the pants off of Shiites. The photos of mass shootings of Shiite young men dooms a non-sectarian response, I would imagine. What is more, the gathering storm of sectarian mobilization has already reached furious levels in the entire region. The demonization of Shiites as “rejectors” and “Majous” or pagans who are considered both non-Muslim and non-Arab, has spread to such an extent that it has taken on a life of its own. The counter demonization of Sunnis, within the Shiite world, as terrorists, takfiris, and Wahhabi inspired agents is well entrenched.

2. I would not be shocked to see significant ethnic cleansing of Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad should ISIS attack and give the Iraqi Army a run for its money. After all, the Iraqi army is large, has helicopters, sophisticated intelligence capabilities, tanks, artillery and all the rest. They were caught napping and without esprit de corps, much as the Syrian army was. But capable officers will emerge who will strip down the “power-sharing” fat that the US built and rebuild it based on loyalty to Maliki and Shiism, if most of that has not been done already. This is what happened in Syria, when we saw the Syrian Army unravel at the base during the first year of the Sunni uprising. The Syrian military was quickly rebuilt along sectarian and regional lines to make it much stronger and more loyal, with locally recruited Iranian style National Defense Forces modeled on the Islamic Guard. If Sunnis choose to form such local militias and ally with the Shiite regime, so much the better. If they do not and choose to lay low until they figure out whether ISIS can win in their regions, the Shiites will go it alone and assume all Sunnis are a fifth column. That is how the Turks dealt with the Christians during WWI and the war with the Greeks. The 20% Christians in Anatolia of 1914 were cleansed. Jews in Palestine dealt with Muslims in a manner not altogether dissimilar. It didn’t turn out well for Christians in Anatolia or Muslims in Palestine.

3. We are not witnessing power-sharing or the emergence of a particularly destructive brand of religious nationalism in the region. We are witnessing the breakdown of the territorial nationalism that was implied by the borders drawn by Europeans at the end of WWI. The new nationalism, largely defined by religious affiliation, is apparent in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Palestine is a bit of an exception with the new coalition government, but not much of one.

My advice to Obama would be to lay low. This sectarian-nationalist process has been boiling up for a more than a century. It should be seen as part of the breakdown of the Ottoman order and emergence of nationalism. I compare what is going on in the Levant today to Central Europe during WWII. In Central Europe, the great powers drew national borders after WWI, carving up the lands of the defeated empires without rearranging the peoples to fit them. Thus Poland was only 64% Polish before WWII. Czechoslovakia was made up of close to 25% minorities. WWII was the “great sorting out.” (Read: http://qifanabki.com/2013/12/18/landis-ethnicity/ ) Over the war years, the peoples of central Europe were rearranged according to the WWI borders. By the end of WWII, Poland and Czechoslovakia had been reduced to their core Polish and Czechoslovak peoples. They got rid of their unwanted (Jews) or guilty (think the 12 million Germans of central Europe) minorities, along with many others. It was a nasty and brutal nation-building process.

Of course, in the Middle East, the emergence of national identities is bedeviled by competing religious identities, which seem to be stronger than both “Arabism” or “Iraqism.”

I doubt we will see high degrees of Shiite-Sunni cooperation in the coming months. If the U.S. sticks its long oar into this mess, the U.S. will end up with a broken oar. It seems possible that within the next two years, ISIS will largely be destroyed by the concerted action of both Iraqi and Syrian forces with help from Iran and possibly the U.S.  Sunni Arabs will not be pacified so long as they receive scant justice and minimal political representation in both Syria and Iraq, but ISIS cannot represent their needs. It is an expression of sectarianism run amok.

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Syria – by Fabrice Balanche

Abstract

Bashar al-Assad is clearly on the path to victory by way of continuing gains since Qusayr in June 2013. From the spring of 2013, the Syrian army, helped by Hezbollah, has been retaking territories: the southern suburbs of Damascus, the Qalamoun, and most recently, the center of Homs. The Syrian regime is not only massively supported by Iran and Russia (something the insurgency lacks), but Assad also applies a highly effective strategy of counterinsurgency. The rise of Islamists against him provided the ideology that Bashar al-Assad needed, i.e. the fight against Islamist terrorists supported from abroad. By demonstrating his resoluteness, Bashar al-Assad wants to reassure his supporters and win over the silent majority. The latter no longer seek the return of peace, but are falling into line behind the force that can ensure their security and is most likely to win.

Several rapid and symbolic victories, such as the reclamation of Bab Amer in March 2012, provided material that the government could instrumentalize in propagandist argumentation, as they sought to convey to the population that the rebels were responsible for the death and destruction.

The al-Assad regime is now supported by a new civil and military elite, who have been promoted over the course of events, as less competent officers have been eliminated. The regime also benefits from strong Iranian logistical support in counterinsurgency. The military regime’s strategy is clear: to first concentrate the army’s efforts on the usable parts of Syria and on border control, and to then follow by resuming the effort to reclaim disputed territories, once securing greater support from the population for the cause of the regime. The chaos in areas held by the insurgency, with the attendant lack of civil administration (which is also partially due to the regime’s air raids), promotes the attractiveness of government-controlled areas (where the greatest majority of the 7 million internally displaced people are residing), which in turn bolsters the counterinsurgency.

Download the entire article (in French) from Syria Comment, or visit Fabrice’s Academia.edu page.