Oh Syria the victory is coming

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Another perspective.

Idlib: Residents of last rebel stronghold declare their hatred for all sides in Syria's civil war

In the battle between Syria's government and opposition groups civilians say they would be 'happy with any solution that stops them again becoming the victims of displacement, destruction and war'

“People in Idlib hate all those with power over them,” says Ahmad Abu Omar, 33, a history teacher living in the province, the last opposition enclave in the west of Syria.

He says that the three million people of Idlib fear a return of government forces, but are almost equally hostile to the armed opposition groups now ruling Idlib because they have spread violence and chaos. He sees Turkey and Russia, who this week started implementing their ceasefire agreement to prevent a government offensive into the province, as acting solely in their own interests.

Abu Omar, in an exclusive interview with The Independent from Idlib city via Whatsapp, describes the mood as war weary and disillusioned. The province south west of Aleppo was once a stronghold of the armed opposition after the original uprising of 2011. Hostility towards the government in Damascus is still intense, but so is antipathy towards its opponents. “At the beginning you could see the youth rushing to fight [against government forces],” says Abu Omar. “But now nobody cares about fighting and religious belief can no longer motivate people to fight for those in control here [the armed opposition].”

Abu Omar, who does not want his real name published because of fear of retribution, was speaking as Russia and Turkey were implementing the terms of agreement reached by president Vladimir Putin and president Recep Tayyip Erdogan at Sochi in September. The terms of the deal show the extent to which Turkey and Russia are now the dominant powers in northwest Syria. They have established a demilitarised zone 15-20 kilometres wide to separate opposition and Syrian government forces which is being monitored by Turkish and Russian patrols. Opposition heavy weapons such as tanks, rocket systems and mortars have been withdrawn, along with 1,000 fighters.

Other provisions of the agreement include the withdrawal of the most militarily effective opposition group, the al-Qaeda linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, by 15 October as well as the opening of the M4 and M5 highways linking the government-held cities of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia.

The city's residents are sceptical about the motives of local and foreign players in Idlib, but they are grateful that a new round of the fighting has been averted for the moment. They see themselves as facing a choice of evils. Abu Ahmad Bakour, 47, who tries to eke out a living as a day labourer in Idlib, says: “We don’t understand what is happening in our region, but we are all happy that there is no fighting and no bombardment.”

He dislikes the continuing rule by opposition militias, said to number some 90,000 fighters, as much as the prospect of a return of Syrian government authority. “If we people are asked whom we would prefer to rule us, then we would say the Turkish rather than the Syrian government,” he says. Mr Bakour is fearful of the Iranian militias on the government side whom, he is convinced, would kill Sunni Arabs like himself and “put us in mass graves” if they ever recaptured Idlib.

He is trenchant in his criticism of the many opposition groups that have held Idlib city since 2015 and the rest of the province for even longer. “We are tired of war and of the militant groups that use the name of Islam to control us,” he says. “They are just stealing money and strangling the people by what they do.”

Abu Omar agrees with Mr Bakour’s rage against both the Syrian government and the armed opposition, though he does not go along with his preference for Turkish rule. He says that less than 10 per cent of people in Idlib are pro-Turkish and that the rest “realise that Turkey is playing for the region for its own benefit”.

People in Idlib are not starving, but they are very poor, particularly in the cities and towns where there is little work. In Idlib city, there are many, like Mr Bakour, who sit in the squares and roundabouts hoping to be hired as day labourers, which will earn them the equivalent of about $2 for a day's work. Others wait beside the road selling fuel, much of which comes from the Kurdish-held oilfields in eastern Syria. Nobody is building anything so there are no construction jobs, but some skilled workers and professionals, such as doctors, nurses, electricians and car repairmen, earn good money providing essential services. The best jobs are with aid organisations that pay between $200 and $700 a month in dollars.

Idlib shares a border with Turkey, but it is not isolated from the rest of Syria despite many government checkpoints in and out of the province. Sieges in the wars in Syria and Iraq seldom amount to a complete blockade of people and goods entering or leaving. This is because checkpoints act more like privatised customs posts. Government and opposition pay their forces too little to live on so their men depend on bribes. It will be a blow to the armed opposition if they lose the revenues from their control of the M4 and M5 highways under the Turkish-Russian agreement.

“Many agricultural goods, especially olives, tomatoes and potatoes, are exported to regime areas and industrial goods, including canned goods, pharmaceuticals, clothes and shoes come back,” Abu Omar says. He says that Syrian goods and produce are mostly cheaper than that those coming from Turkey. This flourishing two-way trade means that when fighting has closed the roads in and out of Idlib, prices in its markets have gone down rather than up because output can no longer be exported to the rest of Syria. When trade is free flowing, tomatoes sell in Idlib for the equivalent of 70 US cents a kilogram, but, when the checkpoints are closed, the price drops to 30 cents. Olive oil likewise costs $6 a litre normally, but when there is fighting the price is half that in Idlib.

The Syrian war has largely been a war of sieges and blockades of which Idlib is the last. All sides have found it profitable to allow trade with their worst enemies, even when Isis controlled the east of the country. This spring the main M4 east-west highway was crowded with road tankers bringing crude from the Kurdish-held oilfields in the north east to the government refinery at Homs.

The Turkish-Russian ceasefire agreement in Idlib is holding, though the Syrian government speaks of it as a temporary arrangement. But it is Mr Putin and Mr Erdogan who decide what will happen in Idlib and neither of them wants the deal to collapse. Almost unnoticed, the remnants of the armed opposition, once promoted by the West and regional powers as the future rulers of Syria, is losing any autonomy it still retained and, if it has a future, it will be as auxiliaries to the Turkish army. Mr Assad has not yet entirely won the war, but the opposition have certainly lost it.

Meanwhile, people in Idlib distrust all sides and with good reason, but, as Abu Omar says, they “are happy with any solution that stops them again becoming the victims of displacement, destruction and war”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/idlib-syria-civil-war-assad-russia-putin-turkey-erdogan-a8579996.html

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Another update

Syria 'expands state control' with strict new laws governing religious affairs

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has signed into law a new bill expanding the powers of a government ministry overseeing religious affairs and limiting the term of the country’s top Muslim cleric.

The draft, which state media reported Assad had signed into law Friday, had been amended by parliament this month after sparking controversy among Syrians at home and abroad.

The new legislation grants additional powers to the ministry of religious endowments, or “waqf”, which already oversees Islamic affairs in Syria.

Specifically, the waqf minister will have a role in naming the next mufti.

The mufti had previously been appointed by the president, as was the case with current mufti Ahmed Badreddin Hassoun, appointed by Assad in 2004.

The new law also sets the mufti’s term, previously unlimited, at a renewable period of three years.

The waqf minister will now oversee religious schools, head the Council on Islamic Jurisprudence, and regulate religious programming on media outlets.

The new law also stipulates that Muslim imams are not allowed to travel outside of Syria or attend any conference even inside the country without the waqf minister’s permission.

It forbids preachers and religious instructors from “stoking sectarian strife” or “taking advantage of religious platforms for political purposes.”

Syria’s pre-war population was overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, with smaller numbers of Shiite Muslims and Alawites, the sect from which Assad’s family hails.

Christian and Druze minority communities are also scattered across the country. It appears that non-Muslim communities are not affected by the new law.

The legislation had sparked controversy this month, with many saying it was state overreach into religious affairs.

Others said it was a way to regulate religious discourse in order to “fight extremism.”

In a recent television interview, current waqf minister Mohammad Abdulsattar al-Sayyed described it as a “huge achievement”.

“This is the first time there’s a law that issues controls and standards for religious work and conditions for appointing imams and preachers,” he said.

But a Syrian lawyer told AFP that the law was a worrying expansion of state control.

The waqf minister could now intervene “in activities unrelated to the ministry’s administration, including in religious literature,” said the lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity.

https://www.france24.com/en/20181014-syria-adopts-law-expanding-government-control-over-religious-affairs-assad-muslim

Salaam

Another update

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Another update

What to expect from Turkey-hosted summit on Syrian war

Leaders of Turkey, Russia, Germany and France to discuss Idlib, aid, drafting of constitution and reconstruction.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to host the leaders of Russia, Germany and France at a four-way summit in Istanbul to discuss the long-running war in Syria, now in its eighth year.

In Saturday's meeting, Ankara is expected to press for a clear outline of steps towards a political resolution, as well as for the preservation of a deal reached in September with Moscow that set up a demilitarised zone around Idlib, the last major rebel bastion in Syria.

The solution in Syria "is a political one, not a military one," Ibrahim Kalin, spokesperson for the Turkish president, said on Friday.

Erdogan and his guests - German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin - will also hold discussions on humanitarian aid, the drafting of a constitution and reconstruction of the war-torn country.

On Friday, seven people were killed in rebel-held areas in Idlib after Syrian government forces shelled two villages, according to opposition activists.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said three children were among those killed in the shelling of Rafa and Umm Jalal villages.

The White Helmets, a civil defence group operating in rebel-held parts of Syria, also reported the same death toll, as cited by Anadolu news agency.

The villages are part of the demilitarised zone in Idlib, agreed by Turkey and Russia in Sochi last month.

The agreement reached between Russia and Syria prevented a government offensive on the last rebel stronghold in the country.

Idlib has been relatively calm since, though some armed groups have not met an October 15 deadline to evacuate the demilitarised zone.

Many feared that a government offensive in Idlib would trigger a new refugee crisis as the region is home to some three million people, many of whom were already displaced by the war from other parts of Syria.

France has said it intends primarily to promote the maintenance of the ceasefire in Idlib to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and a new mass wave of refugees.

Paris also said it wants the effective launch of an inclusive political process in accordance with a United Nations resolution.

The summit comes amid Turkish threats of a new military operation across the border into northern Syria, in zones held by Syrian Kurdish fighters.

Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish militia, which is backed by the United States, to be "terrorists" and a part of the Kurdish armed campaign within Turkey.

On Friday, Erdogan said Ankara would not allow "terror groups located east of the Euphrates River" to threaten Turkey's security.

Turkey launched two incursions into Syria, in 2016 and 2018, into areas west of the Euphrates, pushing fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) armed group as well as Syrian Kurdish fighters from its border.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/expect-turkey-hosted-summit-syrian-war-181026192441162.html

Salaam

Another update.

Salaam

Another update

'Entire Families Wiped Out': U.S. Airstrikes Killed Many Civilians In Syria

On a busy street corner in Raqqa, Syria, a digger pushes through the rubble of a building hit by an airstrike. Onlookers shield their mouths and noses from the dust and stench of corpses of those who perished beneath.

Just streets away, three recovery workers pull out the delicate skeletons of two children from under the debris of a partially collapsed home. And across the city, in what was once Raqqa's public park, men unearth more bodies from a mass grave.

"Raqqa did not deserve this destruction," says Yasser al-Khamis, who leads the city's emergency response team. "Of course, we understood its fate because it was the capital of ISIS, but we were hoping that the civilian death toll would be lower."

One year after the U.S.-led military campaign against ISIS ended in Raqqa, Khamis' team is still recovering the remains of the battle's casualties. This grim, daily work is revealing a civilian death toll that is dramatically higher than the assessment offered by the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS.

The rescue workers' findings, which they document in meticulous notes shown to NPR, point to an offensive that killed many more civilians than it did ISIS members, and where the majority of those civilians likely died in American airstrikes.

The U.S.-led coalition against ISIS has so far verified 104 unintended civilian casualties caused by its attacks in Raqqa and is investigating more cases, coalition spokesman Army Col. Sean Ryan tells NPR.

"With new information being submitted to the CivCas [civilian casualties] team by a multitude of sources every month, the numbers will presumably go up," Ryan adds.

The workers in Raqqa, however, estimate the real tally is much higher — likely in the "thousands."

Since January, the rescue team has uncovered more than 2,600 bodies. Through their identification process, they say they have found that most of the bodies were civilians killed in coalition airstrikes during the battle for Raqqa between June and October 2017.

Formally called the First Responders Team, the group receives funding from the U.S. government, but the assistance is limited. Its approximately 37 members work long hours for little pay — some are volunteers — and say their efforts are slowed by a lack of heavy machinery needed to access the bodies.

With many more corpses still under rubble, the rescue workers estimate it will take another year to clean the city of the dead.

Faster strikes and artillery barrages

Raqqa served as the capital of ISIS' self-proclaimed caliphate for almost four years after the militant group seized the city in 2014.

The U.S.-led coalition's offensive on Raqqa came after several years of fighting the extremist group in Iraq and other parts of Syria.

While campaigning for president, Donald Trump vowed to "bomb the s*** out of" ISIS.

In the months following his January 2017 swearing-in, conflict analysts reported increases in both the numbers of U.S. airstrikes and of civilians reported killed in the attacks.

President Trump reportedly handed decision-making power for major bombardments to the military, enabling airstrikes to be more easily called in by commanders on the ground during a battle.

In May 2017, Defense Secretary James Mattis told CBS News the U.S. was accelerating and intensifying the campaign against ISIS, and added, "We have already shifted from attrition tactics ... to annihilation tactics."

In Raqqa, the consequences of the "annihilation tactics" are still keenly felt.

According to Airwars, an independent research group monitoring the anti-ISIS conflicts in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. was responsible for about 95 percent of the airstrikes and all of the artillery barrages in Raqqa. The U.K. and France also participated in the offensive.

Data given to Airwars by the U.S. military's central command show the coalition launched at least 21,000 munitions — airstrikes and artillery — in the city in little over four months.

"Entire families have been wiped out"

By the end of the campaign, Raqqa was a wasteland of smashed concrete; its residential tower blocks were flattened and schools and hospitals toppled. A United Nations study found that over 80 percent of the city — originally home to some 220,000 people — is damaged or destroyed.

Many residents say they lost loved ones in the strikes.

Mohanned Tadfi, 41, recently buried his mother, his brother, his sister-in-law and seven nieces and nephews. "Ten people," he says. "A plane came and hit the house and the building of five floors fell on their heads."

Tadfi says his brother Latuf had found it too hard and dangerous for his family to leave. "ISIS was executing anyone from his neighborhood who tried to escape. And in any case, our mother is diabetic and can't walk well, and it was too difficult [to] carry her because the bridges out of the city had been bombed."

The family stayed in their basement apartment as the war intensified around them. The Syrian Democratic Forces, a U.S.-backed militia, was closing in on the neighborhood and the family thought the fighters would soon capture the area from ISIS.

On Sept. 5, 2017, just after a muezzin in a nearby mosque called the end of noon prayers, an airstrike hit the building where Tadfi's family was. Another brother, Raed Tadfi, went to deliver insulin for their mother. He found Latuf dead on the steps and the building collapsed behind him.

Days later, SDF fighters seized control of the neighborhood. Tadfi says he and his brother asked the militia for access to the house. "Please, there are children under the rubble. My brother's children, young kids. Maybe even just one of them is still alive!" he recalls asking them.

But they were told the area was too dangerous for civilians. It wasn't until three months later that Tadfi was finally able to recover his loved ones. He hired a flatbed truck and took them away to graves he says he dug with his own hands.

The Tadfis' story is one of the cases being looked at by Donatella Rovera, a senior crisis response adviser for Amnesty International who has spent much of the last year in Raqqa. She compiles witness testimonies and analyzes war damage to buildings as part of an ongoing investigation to determine how many civilians were really killed in the coalition attacks.

"This is one case of many that I have been investigating where entire families have been wiped out in places where they thought they would be safe," she says, standing beside the wreckage of the Tadfis home.

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/09/664360606/entire-families-wiped-out-u-s-airstrikes-killed-many-civilians-in-syria?t=1541795959487

Salaam

Another update.

Blurb

Donald Trump's abrupt announcement to withdraw US troops from Syria shocked even his advisors. Who were the winners and the losers in the affair? Bilal Abdul Kareem gives his analysis.



When you're beaten, retreat

Declaring victory and bringing the defeated troops home is absolutely the right move in Syria. The same thing should be done in Afghanistan and Iraq.

President Donald Trump’s decision to declare ISIS defeated and order a full US withdrawal from Syria has been met with anger and disbelief by the Washington establishment that hoped for regime change in Damascus.

Trump declared victory over Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) on Wednesday morning, as media reported that some 2,000 or so US troops will leave Syria within 60 to 100 days. Though Trump had openly spoken about wanting to leave Syria back in March, senior officials in his administration have said that US forces would stay there indefinitely.

One satirical news site perhaps put it best, "reporting" that both the left and the right were taking aim at Trump for "breaking with the longstanding American tradition of remaining in Middle Eastern countries indefinitely."

Cue another round of "the troops weren't defeated, they just weren't permitted to win." Such statements reflect a total ignorance of what war is. The USA completely failed to obtain its military objectives. Despite many, many threats, Assad is still standing and the US-Israeli proxy troops of the Islamic State and the Kurds were repeatedly defeated by the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah-Russian alliance. All the US forces have accomplished is to prevent the complete destruction of their Syrian allies.

Like it or not, the USA is an empire in deep decline, and the sooner AIPAC realizes this and stops trying to parasitically make use of the US military forces to accomplish objectives it is incapable of accomplishing, the better it will be for everyone, especially Israel. Israel faces its own problems of a corrupt and declining military, as Martin van Creveld has been pointing out since before its failure to defeat Hezbollah in the 2006 Lebanon War.

But at least Israel can defend its own borders. The much-vaunted US military cannot even manage that.

http://voxday.blogspot.com

Salaam

Another update

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'You know what? It's yours': Trump reportedly threw his hands up on Syria during phone call with the Turkish president

• Reports from multiple outlets give some clues as to why President Donald Trump made his decision to pull US troops out of Syria, a move that prompted Defense Secretary James Mattis to resign.
• That development materialized last Friday during a call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after Erdogan asked Trump why there were still 2,000 troops in Syria if the Islamic State had been defeated.
• "You know what? It's yours," Trump said, according to The Washington Post. "I'm leaving."

Capping off what has been a tumultuous week for the Trump administration are reports from multiple outlets that offer some clues as to why President Donald Trump made his decision to pull US troops out of Syria that prompted Defense Secretary James Mattis to resign.

That development materialized last Friday during a call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after Erdogan asked Trump why there were still 2,000 US troops in Syria if the Islamic State had been defeated.

"You know what? It's yours," Trump said, according to The Washington Post. "I'm leaving."

The Associated Press reported that members of Trump's national-security team, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Mattis, wrote out talking points to dissuade Turkey from bringing troops into northern Syria and attacking Turkish Kurds, which would put US forces at risk. The US is allied with the Turkish Kurds in Syria, providing them with supplies and training in the fight against the Islamic State.

But both The Post and the AP explain that Trump went rogue.

"The talking points were very firm," one official told the Associated Press. "Everybody said push back and try to offer (Turkey) something that's a small win, possibly holding territory on the border, something like that."

John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser, also allegedly explained on the call that a victory against the Islamic State would need to mean more than just a loss of territory.

Trump, however, sided with Erdogan, and the AP reported that even Erdogan cautioned Trump on pulling troops out too hastily.

Attempts by his national-security team to change course were not successful, and on Wednesday, Trump tweeted out a video where he said that he was withdrawing troops from Syria — catching lawmakers off guard. On Thursday, it was reported that Trump is also cutting down the number of troops in Afghanistan by half.

Mattis, having failed to talk Trump out of leaving Syria, submitted a scathing resignation letter on Thursday, rebuking Trump's "America first" foreign policy and stressing the importance of maintaining alliances.

Lawmakers — including some Republicans that have previously backed Trump— have warned that pulling out of Syria would be a boon for US adversaries. They also expressed dismay at leaving the Kurds, who will likely face an invasion by Turkey.

"If you decide to follow through with your decision to pull our troops out of Syria, any remnants of ISIS in Syria will surely renew and embolden their efforts in the region," a letter from four Republican senators explained.

"The withdrawal of American presence from Syria also bolsters two other adversaries to the United States, Iran and Russia," they continued. "As you are aware, both Iran and Russia have used the Syrian conflict as a stage to magnify their influence in the region. Any sign of weakness perceived by Iran or Russia will only result in their increased presence in the region and a decrease in the trust of our partners and allies."

Trump's campaign platform included ending wars overseas — which he sees as expensive — and on making NATO pay more in defense spending.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-syria-us-troops-pullout-turkish-president-erdogan-2018-12?r=US&IR=T

Salaam

Another update

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Salaam

Another update. Mentioned earlier I think but to confirm.

UAE assisted Assad in assassinating rebel leaders, claims commander

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) alongside other gulf nations purportedly cooperated with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad in locating and killing nearly 80 leaders of the Syrian opposition, according to Syrian opposition commander.

During an interview with Yeni Safak daily, the commander of the Mohammed al-Fateh brigade, Mahmoud Sulayman stated that between 2012 to 2014 the UAE and other gulf nations had given hundreds of satellite phones to a group of commanders.

“The passwords of the UAE-made ‘Thuraya’ and the British-made ‘Inmarsat’ satellite phones, which were given to group commanders by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, were shared with Damascus, thus this information led to the killings of dozens of opposition commanders” Sulayman said. [1]

Amongst those martyred by the Syrian regime and its allies include prominent opposition leaders such as Zahran Alloush, commander of Jaish al-Islam, Hassan Aboud and Khalid al-Suri of Ahrar al-Sham and Abdel Qadwr Saleh of Liwa Tawhid. According to the Syrian opposition commander, these leaders were martyred as a result of their locations being shared by the UAE and other gulf nations with the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

These revelations come amidst Abu Dhabi’s decision to reopen its embassy in Damascus after having closed it down seven years ago in the wake of the violent crackdown by the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

The UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Dr Anwar Gargash tweeted that “the decision of the United Arab Emirates to return its political and diplomatic work in Damascus comes after a careful reading of the developments, and Walid is convinced that the next stage requires the presence and communication of the Arabs with the Syrian dossier in the interest of Syria, its people, its sovereignty and its territorial integrity.” [2]

He further added that “the Arab role in Syria is becoming more necessary towards the regional Iranian and Turkish territorial change, and the UAE today, through its presence in Damascus, seeks to activate this role and to make the Arab choices present and to contribute positively towards ending the war and promoting the chances of peace and stability for the Syrian people.” [3]

The UAE reopened its embassy in Damascus last week, boosting support for Bashar al-Assad whose forces, propped up and supported by Russia, Iran and several sectarian Shia mercenaries, are regaining territory throughout the country. Following the reopening of the embassy, the UAE foreign minister labelled the Syrian opposition as “terror elements”. [4]

In another boost to Assad, the Syrian government will be readmitted to the Arab League after being expelled eight years ago. The move to reinstate Damascus back into the bloc has been led and supported by the same gulf nations allegedly responsible in the deaths of these commanders. [5]

The conflict in Syria has entered its seventh year with over 500,000 deaths and no signs of de-escalation. The crisis has increased tensions between the U.S. and Russia and has brought about a gridlock in the UN with Russia vetoing any resolution brought forth by the U.S. and its allies.

https://www.islam21c.com/news-views/...ims-commander/

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Some responses.

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