Syria Summary - Consolidating
The West - Marching East
By
Moon Of Alabama
July
23, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- There
were no major changes in the situation in Syria
since our
last post.
Several smaller steps have further consolidated
the position of the government of Syria and its
allies while the positions of its enemies
continue to deteriorate.
Source:
Fabrice Balanche/WINEP
-
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In the north-west Idleb governate and the city
of Idleb saw new infighting between Ahrar
al-Sham and al-Qaeda in Syria under its current
moniker Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Ahrar,
historically also an al-Qaeda offspring, was
supported by Qatar and Turkey while al-Qaeda in
Syria (aka Jabhat al Nusra aka HTS) was said to
have support from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Rudiments of local CIA paid Free Syrian Army
gangs are intermixed with these. Their
primary task
was to collect supplies from the CIA in Turkey
and to distribute those to
their friends
in al-Qaeda and Ahrar al-Sham.
The spat between Qatar and Saudi Arabia mostly
ended their interest in their proxies in Syria.
The Trump administration
decided to end
the
CIA support program
for its FSA proxies in the north-west (but not
for others elsewhere). This was a significant
change of the situation for each group.
After losing their paymasters the local FSA
gangs melted away. Ahrar held on to the border
crossings with Turkey and collected "taxes" for
everything that went through them. Al-Qaeda in
Syria needed money. It attacked Ahrar al-Sham to
eliminate the competition and to gain control
over the only income source left. Last week
al-Qaeda overran nearly all Ahrar al-Sham
positions. It managed to capture and hold the
Bab al-Hawa border station with Turkey. Taxing
all trucks going through is a
very significant sources of money.
Al-Qaeda will now feed off all im- and exports
between the Idleb area and Turkey. Ahrar al-Sham
is practically done. It lost most of its weapon
and ammunition storages and several subgroups
left to join with al-Qaeda in Syria.
In an effort to support Ahrar al-Sham Turkey
transferred some of its Syrian proxies from the
Euphrates Shield area it holds north-east of
Aleppo
towards the
Turkish side of Idleb border station. But those
forces are too few and too little motivated to
take up al-Qaeda in Syria. Ahrar is now too
depleted and weak to win and control Idleb. The
Turkish move was too little too late. Idleb is
now for most parts consolidated al-Qaeda
territory.
The usual "expert" propagandists have long
claimed that Ahrar and Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham
(HTS) had no longer anything at all to do with
the original al-Qaeda. But today al-Qaeda
central
published a letter
that asks both of these groups to stop there
infighting. What will those propaganda goons
make out of that?
South
from Idleb a pocket of various insurgent groups
(Ahrar, al-Qaeda, ISIS) controls the mountains
around the Lebanese city of Arsal right next to
the border with Syria. In June several Lebanese
army personal were killed in the area. The
Takfiri insurgent groups are a continuing danger
to Lebanon as well as to Syria. Several offers
for their transfer to Idleb were rejected.
Last
week a united front of Lebanese and Syrian
forces started to clean up the pocket and to
eliminate all insurgents in area. The Lebanese
army took control of Arsal city and will protect
it against infiltration. About 5,000 Hizbullah
fighters were allocated to attack the insurgents
within Lebanon while 3,500 Syrian army personal
will mop them up from the Syrian side. The
Syrian air-force provides support within Lebanon
and Syria. The Hariri government of Lebanon (a
Saudi puppet) as well as the U.S. have agreed to
the operation. So far it ran without a hitch.
After several losses on the first day Hizbullah
gained significant ground (see map below) during
the last two or three days. Nearly half of the
insurgent area is already under control and it
will not take long for the rest to be liberated.
Those insurgents who do not want to get killed
and give up their fight may be send to Idleb
where they can join the infighting between their
brothers.
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The
U.S. and Russia had agreed on a deescalation
zone further south next to the border with
Israel and Jordan. While Israel was consulted on
the issue it later voiced disagreement. The
Israeli government wants a permanent U.S. forces
in the area to cover the Israeli occupation of
the Syrian Golan height. Neither the Trump
administration nor the U.S. military have any
interested in such a costly entanglement. Israel
has long paid, supplied and supported Takifiri
groups in the area. It gave them fire support
whenever they were in fighting the Syrian
government forces. The deescalation agreement
foresees the supervision of the deescalation
area by Russian military policy. That regime
will be installed during the next few weeks and
further Israeli shenanigans in the area will
become difficult. Russia will react harshly
against any interference with its troops' task.
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In the north-east the Kurdish YPG is the U.S.
proxy forces for the fight against ISIS in Raqqa.
When the YPG submitted to U.S. command was
told (video)
to rename itself
and became the "Syrian Democratic Forces". It is
still the same anarcho-marxist cult that it was
before. It is still the same group that is
killing Turkish soldiers within Turkey. The U.S.
military believes that it can sustain the
support for the group and continue to occupy the
north-east of Syria after ISIS is defeated:
U.S.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis last month left
open the possibility of longer-term
assistance to Kurdish YPG militia in Syria,
saying the United States may need to supply
them weapons and equipment even after the
capture of Islamic State's Syria stronghold
of Raqqa.
The U.S. plan
to split up Syria and Iraq
after ISIS is defeated is still in force. But
neither the Turkish nor the Iraqi nor the Syrian
government will allow the consolidation of a
U.S. protected Kurdish minority in east-Syria
that they all see as a threat to their
sovereignty:
The
question remains: how can new Kurdistan
states” survive with four countries
surrounding it (Iraq, Syria, Turkey and
Iran), all determined to do everything to
neutralise a future Kurdish state in
Mesopotamia and/or Bilad al-Sham? The Kurds
really believe they can rely on two US and
one British military bases in Kurdistan Iraq
and on Saudi Arabia monies, and on six US
military bases in the north of Syria to
impose their “state”?
The
YPG/SDF has already huge difficulties to defeat
ISIS in Raqqa. There is little progress but the
losses are considerable. Last week it had to
discontinue its attack and wait for fresh forces
to arrive. Raqqa is only a medium size city but
with many high-rise buildings and a still
significant population. Bombing support by the
U.S. and heavy artillery shelling will be
requited to eliminate ISIS from the city. This
may well take several additional months. The
city will be destroyed and the attacking Kurds
will have high losses. There will be many
civilian casualties. All this for a city that
even after ISIS is defeated will never submit to
Kurdish control and will eventually fall back to
the Syrian government. One wonders how the
political leadership of the YPG will justify
this costly effort when questioned by its
constituency.
On the
southern bank of the Euphrates the Syrian
government forces have now encapsulated the SDF
forces around Raqqa. They make continues
progress towards Deir Ezzor where a Syrian
government forces is still under siege of ISIS.
Source:
Weekend Warrior/@evil_SDOC
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The
Syrian government attack against ISIS around
Deir Ezzor will come on multiple axes. But there
are still some 80 kilometers to go and even
though the area is mostly an empty semi-desert
ISIS commandos are still active there. Only last
week some 25 Syrian soldiers were killed in one
ISIS commando attack at the T-3 pumping station
near Palmyra.
The Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov was
interviewed
(video) by some (know-nothing) journalist of
NBC. He rejected the claims of a stop of CIA
support to the insurgents (25:20):
“I
understand that the US supports much more
groups than just the ones, which were
announced as being left without the American
weapons.”
Lavrov
also warned against any thoughts of establishing
permanent U.S. bases in Syria.
This
article was first published by
Moon Of
Alabama
-
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
