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Syria's War Splits Nation into 3 Distinct Regions: Zeina Karam, Real Clear World, Aug. 5, 2013— More than two years into Syria's civil war, the once highly-centralized authoritarian state has effectively split into three distinct parts, each boasting its own flags, security agencies and judicial system.
Syrian Christian Towns Emptied by Sectarian Violence: Ruth Sherlock, The Telegraph, Aug. 2, 2013 —Tens of thousands Syriac Christians – members of the oldest Christian community in the world – have fled their ancestral provinces of Deir al-Zour and Hasakah in northeastern Syria, residents have said. "It breaks my heart to think how our long history is being uprooted," said Ishow Goriye, the head of a Syriac Christian political Hasakah.
Syrian Rebels' Turn for the Jilt: David Ignatius, Real Clear World, July 18, 2013—One of the worst recurring features of U.S. foreign policy is a process that might bluntly be described as "seduction and abandonment." Now it's happening in Syria.
Another Display of Israel’s Strategic Value: Evelyn Gordon, Commentary, May 23, 2013—The ongoing debate about whether America should intervene in Syria highlights an important point about Israel’s unique value as a U.S. ally: It is the only American ally in the Middle East willing and able to serve American interests by projecting power independently, rather than waiting for American troops to ride to the rescue.
Across Forbidden Border, Drs. in Israel Quietly Tend to Syria’s Wounded: Isabel Kershner, New York Times, Aug. 5, 2013
Fleeing Syria, Palestinians Find Little Support from Their Brethren in Lebanon: Claire Duffett, Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 3, 2013
What's Behind Recent Rebel-Qaeda Tensions in Syria?: Michael Weiss, NOW Lebanon, July 19, 2013
Riyadh, Ankara Call on Al-Qaeda to Declare War on Syrian Kurds: FARS News, Aug. 4, 2013
The Latest Syrian Sideshow: Al-Qaeda vs. the Kurds: Michael Weiss, Real Clear World, July 25, 2013
SYRIA'S WAR SPLITS NATION INTO 3 DISTINCT REGIONS
Zeina Karam
Real Clear World, Aug. 5, 2013
More than two years into Syria's civil war, the once highly-centralized authoritarian state has effectively split into three distinct parts, each boasting its own flags, security agencies and judicial system. In each area, religious, ideological and turf power struggles are under way and battle lines tend to ebb and flow, making it impossible to predict exactly what Syria could look like once the combatants lay down their arms. But the longer the bloody conflict drags on, analysts says, the more difficult it will be to piece together a coherent Syrian state from the wreckage.
"There is no doubt that as a distinct single entity, Syria has ceased to exist," said Charles Lister, an analyst at IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center. "Considering the sheer scale of its territorial losses in some areas of the country, Syria no longer functions as a single all-encompassing unitarily-governed state."
The geographic dividing lines that have emerged over the past two years and effectively cleft the nation in three remain fluid, but the general outlines can be traced on a map. The regime holds a firm grip on a corridor running from the southern border with Jordan, through the capital Damascus and up to the Mediterranean coast, where a large portion of the population belongs to President Bashar Assad's Alawite sect. The rebels, who are primarily drawn from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, control a chunk of territory that spans parts of Idlib and Aleppo provinces in the north and stretches along the Euphrates river to the porous Iraqi border in the east. Tucked into the far northeastern corner, meanwhile, Syria's Kurdish minority enjoys semi-autonomy.
Those contours provide the big picture view. The view from the ground, however, is slightly muddied. While Sunni rebels control large swathes of Syria's rural regions in the north, the government still controls provincial capitals there, with the exception of Raqqa city and parts of Aleppo city. The regime also still retains some military bases and checkpoints in the overwhelmingly rebel-held countryside, but those are besieged and isolated and supplies for troops are air-dropped by helicopters or planes.
Moreover, the opposition movement itself is far from monolithic, and there have been increasing outbursts of infighting between al-Qaida affiliated extremists and moderate rebel groups, as well as between Kurds and rebels of a radical Islamic bent. That violence holds the potential to escalate into a full-blown war among armed opposition factions.
The Assad regime has made headway in recent months in the strategic heartland of Homs, clawing back territory long-held by rebel fighters. Those gains have helped the government secure its grip on Damascus and the pathway to the coast. They also have reinforced opposition accusations that Assad's military is driving out local Sunni communities to try to carve out a breakaway Alawite enclave that could become a refuge for the community if the regime falls.
For now, Assad's overstretched and war-weary troops appear unable to regain the vast territories they have lost to rebels and jihadists who now control oil wells and other key resources such as dams and electricity plants in the north and east. Black al-Qaida flags that carry the Muslim declaration of the faith now fly over many areas there, as a way to mark their turf distinctly from the three-starred green, black and white flag flown by the various rebel brigades that make up the loose-knit, Western-backed Free Syrian Army. In the north, fighter brigades have set up judicial councils known as Shariah courts that dispense their own version of justice based on Islamic law, including in some cases, executions of captured regime soldiers and supporters.
In the northeast, Kurdish flags now flutter proudly over buildings after the country's largest minority carved out a once unthinkable degree of independence. Kurds, who make up more than 10 percent of Syria's 22 million people, were long oppressed under Baathist rule. Now, they have created their own police forces, even their own license plates, and have been exuberantly going public with their language and culture. Schoolchildren are now taught Kurdish, something banned for years under the Assad family's rule.
"While there are shifts in momentum on the battlefield, Bashar Assad, in our view, will never rule all of Syria again," Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, told reporters in Washington last month.
The comments appeared to leave open the possibility that while Assad has lost control over large parts of the country, he may well be able to hang on and even expand his core territory in the future.
This view has been reinforced recently with steady regime gains in and around the capital Damascus, and in Homs province, a strategic linchpin linking Damascus with predominantly regime strongholds on the Mediterranean coast. Homs is a crossroads, and if the regime were to secure its hold on the city – where a few rebel-held neighbourhoods are holding out – it would put it in a stronger position to strike out at the opposition-held axis running through the middle of the country.
Already, the government has been successful in clearing key routes leading to the Alawite community's heartlands of Tartus and Latakia, which have been largely spared the fighting in other parts of the country. Recent visitors to Tartus speak of beaches dotted with swimmers and night clubs packed with revelers. "It's like stepping into another world, completely sealed off from the rest of the country," said one Syrian in Beirut, who recently arrived from the Syrian coast and spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Despite the geographic split into three regions, none of the sides can speak of confidently retaining the terrain they control. Northern Latakia, for instance, has a notable presence of Islamic extremists, while in the capital, Damascenes live in constant fear of a repeat of the so-called "Damascus Volcano," when rebels briefly overran several neighborhoods in an assault in the summer of 2012. Mortars launched from rebel-held pockets around the capital constantly crash into the city, killing and wounding people.
In rebel held areas, regime warplanes swoop down at random, dropping bombs over targets that often kill civilians instead. The rebels have proved they are able to strike back despite significant advances by the military that have bolstered the confidence of the regime. Rebels on Thursday sent a wave of rockets slamming into regime strongholds in Homs, triggering a succession of massive explosions in a weapons depot that killed at least 40 people and wounded dozens, according to opposition groups and residents.
The conflict has laid waste to the country's cities, shattered its economy and killed more than 100,000 people since March 2011. The bloodshed also has fanned sectarian hatreds, and many fear that the divisions now entrenched in a country where Alawites, Sunnis, Shiites, Druse and Christians coexisted for centuries will make it hard in the future for people to reconnect as citizens of a single nation.
Syria's partition into mini-states is an ominous scenario for a country that sits along the Middle East's most turbulent fault lines. Any attempt to create an official breakaway state could trigger a wave of sectarian killings and have dangerous repercussions in a region where many religious, ethnic and tribal communities have separatist aspirations.
Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi author and columnist, argued in a recent article that at least one of Syria's neighbors will benefit if the dividing lines harden. "It is an ideal solution for Israel which will benefit from Syria's division into three weak rival states that will never again represent a strategic threat for Israel," he wrote in an article that appeared in the pan Arab Al Hayat newspaper Saturday [Aug 3].
SYRIAN CHRISTIAN TOWNS EMPTIED BY SECTARIAN VIOLENCE
Ruth Sherlock
The Telegraph, Aug. 2, 2013
Tens of thousands Syriac Christians – members of the oldest Christian community in the world – have fled their ancestral provinces of Deir al-Zour and Hasakah in northeastern Syria, residents have said. "It breaks my heart to think how our long history is being uprooted," said Ishow Goriye, the head of a Syriac Christian political Hasakah. Mr Goriye, told The Daily Telegraph how, over the past two years he has watched as Christian families from Hasakah pack their possessions on the rooftops of their vehicles and flee their homes "with little plan to come back".
Conflict in the area, desperate economic conditions, lawlessness, and persecution by rebel groups born from the perception that Christians support the regime, remain the main reasons for why Christian families are fleeing the area. The growing presence of radical jihadist groups, including al-Qaeda, has also seen Christians targeted. "It began as kidnapping for money, but then they started telling me I should worship Allah," a male Christian resident of Hasakah who was kidnapped by jihadists said. "I was with five others. We were tied and blindfolded and pushed down on our knees. One of the kidnappers leant so close to my face I could feel his breath. He hissed: 'Why don't you become a Muslim? Then you can be free'."
Another Christian in Hasakah said he knew of "five forced conversions" in recent weeks.
Mr Goriye's Christian 'Syriac Union' party has long been in opposition to President Bashar al-Assad's regime. While speaking to The Telegraph, its members were loath to criticise the opposition rebels, but many confessed that the situation had become "too bad" not to talk about it. Hasakah and other towns in northeastern Syria have long been one of the main population centres for Christians, who make up approximately 10 per cent of the country's population. Residents estimate that at least a third of Christians in northeastern Syria have fled, with few expecting to return.
One Hasakah resident who has now escaped the area said: "Rebels said we had to pay money for the revolution. My cousin is a farmer, and wanted to check on his land. I warned him he should take armed security but he refused. A group kidnapped him in the barn of his farm. We had to pay $60,000 [£52,000] for his release. They are milking the Christians".
Though accused by some opposition groups of supporting Mr Assad, much of Syria's Christian community has avoided "choosing sides" in the war, seeking self-preservation in neutrality. But the strategy has left Christians defenceless in the face of sectarian attacks and the lawlessness that now define rebel-held areas. Last year, when government forces pulled out Hasakah province, leaving the terrain in the hands of Kurdish groups and Sunni opposition rebel, Christians became an easy target. A Christian man calling himself Joseph and living in Hasakah said: "The only unprotected group are the Christians. The Arabs had arms coming from Saudi and Qatar, the Kurds had help from Kurdistan. We had no weapons at all."
Local residents said many Christians had tried to join the rebellion against President Assad, but their efforts were marginalised early on by sectarian minded Sunni rebel groups. Joseph added: "We are not with the regime. Many times the Islamists didn't want us to join them in the demonstrations. We tried to participate but we were not given a role. It felt as though it was a strategy to force Christians out of the revolution".
Bassam Ishak, a Christian member of the main opposition bloc the Syrian National Coalition, who comes from Hasakah, said he and his colleagues had tried "several times" to approach western officials asking for weapons for Christian groups to defend their areas.
"The West wants to arm the seculars or 'West friendly' people, well we, the Syriac Christians those people. We want arms to protect our communities," he said. "We spoke to western diplomats asking for help, and everyone ignored us".
SYRIAN REBELS' TURN FOR THE JILT
David Ignatius
Real Clear World, July 18, 2013
One of the worst recurring features of U.S. foreign policy is a process that might bluntly be described as "seduction and abandonment." Now it's happening in Syria. The seduction part begins with an overeager rhetorical embrace. Nearly two years ago, on Aug. 18, 2011, President Obama first proclaimed "the time has come for President Assad to step aside." He didn't back up his call for regime change with any specific plan, but this hasn't stopped him from repeating the "Assad must go" theme regularly ever since.
The next stage is a prolonged courtship with ever-deeper implied promises and commitments. The CIA began working with the Syrian opposition in 2011, and has been providing training and other assistance. When the Syrian opposition was wooed by other suitors (say, Turkey and Qatar), the United States chased those rivals away with renewed avowals of affection.
Then comes the formal engagement. On June 13, the White House announced it would provide military aid to the Syrian opposition because the Assad regime had crossed a "red line" by using chemical weapons. The rebels began preparing warehouses to receive the promised shipments — hopeful that at last the United States was serious about its intentions. And then? Well, this is a story of unhappy romance, so you know what comes next. It's what 19th-century English novelists called "the jilt." To quote a New York Times story published last weekend, it turns out "that the administration's plans are far more limited than it has indicated in public and private."
Imagine for the moment that you are a Syrian rebel fighter who has been risking his life for two years in the hope that Obama was sincere about helping a moderate opposition prevail not just against Assad but against the jihadists who want to run the country. Now, you learn that Washington is having second thoughts. What would you think about America's behavior?
Let me quote from a message sent by one opposition member: "I am about to quit, as long as there is no light in the end of the tunnel from the U.S. government. At least if I quit, I will feel that I am not part of this silly act we are in." A second opposition leader wrote simply to a senior American official: "I can't find the right words to describe this situation other than very sad."
An angry statement came this week from Gen. Salim Idriss, the head of the moderate Free Syrian Army. After Britain, like the U.S., backed away from supplying weapons, he told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: "The West promises and promises. This is a joke now. … What are our friends in the West waiting for? For Iran and Hezbollah to kill all the Syrian people?"
What's happening in Syria isn't a pretty sight, as the moderates struggle to survive without the expected Western aid. Last week one of Idriss' commanders, Kamal Hamami, was gunned down in Latakia by extremists linked to al-Qaeda. This week, the same extremist group overran a Free Syrian Army warehouse just south of the Turkish border. Having spent hundreds of billions of dollars to stop al-Qaeda in faraway Afghanistan, you might think the U.S. would try to check the terrorist group in Syria, but no.
The moderates are trying to hold on as the country crumbles. In the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood of Aleppo, a Free Syrian Army commander named Abdel-Jabbar Akidi has tried to prevent extremists from blockading food supplies to civilians who have supported the regime. He's also trying to stop a war between rival Shariah courts in the northern suburbs of Aleppo. This is a commander who has been pleading for almost two years for serious help from the West, apparently in vain.
The story that's playing out now in Syria is so familiar that it's almost a leitmotif of American foreign policy. Washington wants to see a change of government so it encourages local rebels to rise up. Once these rebels are on the barricades, policymakers often get cold feet, realizing that they lack public support. This process happened in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Bay of Pigs in 1961, the Prague Spring of 1968, the contras program in Nicaragua in 1984. It happened in Lebanon, Laos, southern Iraq … make your own list.
At the end of 19th-century novels, the seducer who abandons his flirtation usually gets what he deserves: He is shamed and ultimately ruined, while virtuous and steadfast characters are rewarded. But it doesn't happen that way in foreign policy.
ANOTHER DISPLAY OF ISRAEL’S STRATEGIC VALUE
Evelyn Gordon
Commentary, May 23, 2013
The ongoing debate about whether America should intervene in Syria highlights an important point about Israel’s unique value as a U.S. ally: It is the only American ally in the Middle East willing and able to serve American interests by projecting power independently, rather than waiting for American troops to ride to the rescue.
One of the most bizarre features of Syria’s ongoing civil war is the widespread assumption that outside intervention against the Assad regime will come from the U.S. or not at all. After all, the rebels’ main backers include two American allies with powerful militaries, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Turkey has one of the region’s largest armies, significantly larger than Syria’s; moreover, as a NATO member, it’s equipped with state-of-the-art Western weaponry. Saudi Arabia has been a major purchaser of the best American weaponry for years, including fighter jets, missiles and airborne warning and control systems. Both have billed Assad’s departure as a major national interest. Yet never once have they suggested that their combined air forces could use Turkey’s bases to impose a no-fly zone over part of Syria; they take it for granted that if military intervention is to happen, America will have to do it. And so does Washington.
In contrast, Israel has always insisted on taking sole responsibility for its own defense, and is consequently both willing and able to take independent military action. And because its interests in the region often overlap with those of its American ally, such action often ends up serving American interests. That was true in the Cold War, when Israeli battles with the Soviet Union’s Arab proxies repeatedly proved the superiority of American over Soviet arms. It was true when Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981: Had it not thereby stopped Saddam Hussein from acquiring nukes, an American-led coalition wouldn’t have been able to oust his forces from Kuwait a decade later. And it was true when Israel bombed Syria’s nuclear reactor in 2007: Today, Americans are sleeping better because they don’t have to worry about al-Qaida-linked militias in Syria getting their hands on nuclear materiel.
Thanks to Israel, America never had to face a choice between taking military action against Syria or Iraq itself or letting a hostile dictator acquire nukes. But because its other Middle Eastern allies aren’t willing or able to act independently, it does face that kind of choice in Syria today: either take military action itself, or see its credibility in the region shredded by allowing Assad to survive despite President Barack Obama’s repeated statements that he must go–with the attendant risk that some of its regional allies will switch sides and align instead with Russia and Iran, who have proven their willingness to support their Syrian ally to the hilt.
This understanding of Israel’s unique value was precisely what led to yesterday’s astounding 99-0 Senate vote on a resolution pledging American support for Israel if it is compelled to take independent military action against Iran’s nuclear program. The senators understand that despite Congress’ best efforts, sanctions may fail to halt Iran’s nuclear drive; that the Obama administration may ultimately prefer to avoid military action, even though a nuclear Iran would be disastrous for America’s interests in the region; and that none of the Arab countries that have vociferously lobbied Washington to attack Iran would ever do so themselves. But they know that Israel really might. And through this resolution, they were expressing their appreciation of the only Middle Eastern ally America has that is willing to act independently to advance shared regional interests.
Across Forbidden Border, Doctors in Israel Quietly Tend to Syria’s Wounded: Isabel Kershner, New York Times, Aug. 5, 2013—The 3-year-old girl cried “Mama, Mama” over and over as a stranger rocked her and tried to comfort her. She had been brought from Syria to the government hospital in this northern Israeli town five days earlier, her face blackened by what doctors said was probably a firebomb or a homemade bomb.
Fleeing Syria, Palestinians Find Little Support from Their Brethren in Lebanon: Claire Duffett, Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 3, 2013 —Every morning, residents of Ain al-Halwah, Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, scour the scattered leaflets advertising jobs for painters and menial laborers. Their ranks include both Palestinian refugees recently arrived from Syria and those who have lived in Lebanon for decades.
What's Behind Recent Rebel-Qaeda Tensions in Syria?: Michael Weiss, NOW Lebanon, July 19, 2013— The last week was a busy one for internecine warfare among Syrian rebel groups. First, Kamal Hamami, or Abu Bassir al-Ladkani, a member of the 30-man Supreme Military Command (SMC) of the Free Syrian Army, was killed on July 11 while traveling in northern Latakia.
Riyadh, Ankara Call on Al-Qaeda to Declare War on Syrian Kurds: FARS News Agency, 2013—Saudi Arabia and Turkey have ordered Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups in Syria to target Syrian Kurds after the latter renewed allegiance to the Damascus government and declared strong opposition to Ankara's plan for the Kurdish population in the region, media reports said.
The Latest Syrian Sideshow: Al-Qaeda vs. the Kurds: Michael Weiss, Real Clear World, July 25, 2013 — I recent months, the Syria crisis has begun to transform itself from a fairly intelligible civil war of rebel versus regime into a series of belligerent sideshows that do little but vitiate the overall struggle against the Assad regime.
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