International Crisis Group
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“Some of us looking at the conflict from the West have consistently underestimated the capacity for bloodshed in Syria to worsen, There’s a temptation to think, Well, it can’t get any worse. And yet repeatedly it has gotten worse. And I think there’s a lesson there. There’s no reason to believe this will be as bad as things get.” —Noah Bonsey, Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst, Syria
SOURCE: TIME, The White Helmets of Syria
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Syria battle between al Qaeda and Western-backed group spreads | Oliver Holmes
(Reuters) - Fighting between the Syrian arm of al Qaeda and Western-backed rebels in northern Syria spread from Aleppo province into neighbouring Idlib on Friday, the rebel group and an organisation monitoring the civil war said.
Clashes began on Thursday when the al Qaeda Syria wing, the Nusra Front, seized positions from the Hazzm movement west of Aleppo, threatening one of the few remaining pockets of the non-jihadist insurgency.
A Hazzm official said by telephone clashes had spread to Idlib and that his group had retaken some areas previously controlled by Nusra.
FULL ARTICLE (via Reuters)
Photo: Christiaan Triebert/flickr
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US anti-ISIL strategy faces major setback in Syria’s second city
As Aleppo goes, so go prospects for a viable rebel force to fight both Assad and extremists
GAZIANTEP, Turkey — A growing chorus of alarm has warned the Obama administration that its strategy to combat Islamic State forces in Syria is on the verge of unraveling in Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city. But with regime forces now in control of all but one road into Aleppo, the remaining residents of areas controlled by the rebels designated “moderate” by the U.S. are bracing for the worst.
“We started planning for the siege,” Zaina Erhaim, a journalist living in Aleppo, told Al Jazeera. “I have a friend who is a theater director who is learning how to use a pump action [shotgun]. If the regime attacks the city, he’d have to defend himself.”
Forces fighting for the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have taken advantage of the U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL) targets elsewhere in Syria to press their offensive in Aleppo and are now within firing range of Castello Road, the rebels’ last remaining supply route. “They can close it whenever they like,” Erhaim said, speaking by phone. “Maybe they’re still opening it for those who want to escape, before applying the siege.”
Aleppo is the most significant real estate to fall into rebel hands in the course of Syria’s three-year civil war, and the rebel sectors are under the control of forces designated as the Syrian partners vital to the U.S. campaign there. Earlier this year, fighters from three rebel alliances successfully forced ISIL to the periphery of the city while holding off the regime army. But the threat of a regime encirclement of the city represents a turning point in the multipolar fight in Syria among rival rebel factions, Assad’s forces, the Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Al-Nusra (the Nusra Front) and ISIL — a fight in which the rebel forces designated as potential partners by the West are rapidly being eclipsed. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned earlier this week that the “moderate” rebels are at risk of being obliterated if they lose their Aleppo foothold.
FULL ARTICLE (Al Jazeera America)
Photo: Amelia Jean/flickr
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Why ISIS Is Gaining Ground – and So Hard to Beat | Lara Setrakian
Noah Bonsey, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, gave us an in-depth explanation of why ISIS has had so much success in Syria and the challenges ahead for degrading its influence.
As of Thursday, the Islamic State (ISIS) had seized 40% of the strategic Syrian border town of Kobani, raising questions about the success of U.S.-led airstrikes meant to stem the group’s advance. The U.N. warned that ISIS could massacre the remaining 500 people trapped in Kobani, while analysts said an ISIS victory there would destabilize both the border region and the Middle East at large.
ISIS now controls roughly one-third of Syrian territory. Its continued spread has sparked a debate over new measures to counter the group, among them the possible creation of a buffer zone in northern Syria – which could require a no-fly zone to protect it.
As part of the strategy behind coalition airstrikes, unveiled last month, the U.S. had said it would rely on moderate rebel groups in Syria – what’s been known as the Free Syrian Army – to fight ISIS on the ground. But in the past couple of days, the White House admitted that those moderate groups are not prepared to take on ISIS and win; they have been outgunned and overwhelmed by the superior weapons, training and resources that ISIS has at hand.
“The U.S. shares some of the blame for the current state of the rebel forces,” said Noah Bonsey, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.
“Part of the issue here is that the U.S. is coming late into the game … prior to this current stage the U.S. had not invested significant resources in improving capacities.”
Bonsey gave us an in-depth explanation of why ISIS has had so much success in Syria and the challenges ahead for degrading its influence.
FULL INTERVIEW (Syria Deeply)
Photo: Wouter/flickr
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“As Aleppo goes, so goes Syria’s rebellion. The city is crucial to the mainstream opposition’s military viability as well as its morale, thus to halting the advance of the Islamic State (IS). After an alliance of armed rebel factions seized its eastern half in July 2012, Aleppo for a time symbolised the opposition’s optimism and momentum; in the following months, it exposed the rebels’ limits, as their progress slowed, and they struggled to win over the local population. Today, locked in a two-front war against the regime and IS, their position is more precarious than at any time since the fighting began.” — From Crisis Group’s report Rigged Cars and Barrel Bombs: Aleppo and the State of the Syrian War -
Rigged Cars and Barrel Bombs: Aleppo and the State of the Syrian War
Beirut/Brussels | 9 Sep 2014
Syria is sliding toward unending war between an autocratic, sectarian regime and the even more autocratic, more sectarian jihadi group that has made dramatic gains in both Syria and Iraq. Without either a ceasefire in Aleppo or greater support from its state backers, the mainstream opposition is likely to suffer a defeat that will dash chances of a political resolution for the foreseeable future.
It is hard to overstate the importance of the battle for greater Aleppo: continued gains there by the regime and Islamic State (IS) threaten the viability of the mainstream opposition as a whole, the defeat of which would be an unprecedented boon to IS and would render a negotiated resolution of the conflict all but impossible. In its latest report, Rigged Cars and Barrel Bombs: Aleppo and the State of the Syrian War, International Crisis Group focuses on Aleppo’s importance, analyses regime and IS strategies and examines the decision-making and political evolution of rebel forces.
The report’s major findings and recommendations are:
- There are two means of averting Aleppo’s fall. The first – immediately negotiating and implementing a ceasefire there between the regime and anti-IS rebels, including a regime withdrawal from recently captured territory – is unlikely because it would require a fundamental shift in Damascus’ objectives and strategy. The second – improving and increasing support by the opposition’s Western and regional state backers to local, non-jihadi rebels in Aleppo – is risky.
- Risks notwithstanding, augmenting support to mainstream rebels would offer potential benefits such as shifting the intra-rebel balance of power toward non-ideological groups and encouraging greater pragmatism among other factions. Their backers must jointly apply carrots and sticks to promote pragmatic political engagement with the regime and respect for local civil society, while penalising criminal behaviour, indiscriminate tactics and sectarian rhetoric.
- Calls for Western partnership with the Assad regime against jihadis are ill-conceived, unless Damascus and its allies fundamentally revise their postures. As long as the regime’s strategy strengthens the ji-hadis it claims to combat, a rapprochement would redound to IS’s advantage.
- At least in the absence of a coherent strategy to empower credible Sunni alternatives to IS, proposals for expanding U.S. airstrikes into Syria are similarly problematic; the resulting boost to IS recruitment might outweigh the group’s tactical losses.
“At stake in Aleppo is not regime victory but opposition defeat” says Noah Bonsey, Syria Senior Analyst. “If that occurs, the war would continue, pitting regime and allied forces lacking capacity to reconquer north and east Syria against an emboldened IS strengthened by recruits from rebel remnants”.
“If the regime and its Iranian and Russian backers truly wish to diminish jihadi power in Syria, they must change their strategy from pursuing the military defeat of the mainstream opposition to identifying jihadis as the primary threat”, says Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Crisis Group’s President. “Otherwise, they are leaving it to the opposition’s backers to determine whether and how to fight IS”.
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Syrian Forces Advance on Aleppo, Rebels Fear Another Siege | Maria Abi-Habib
REYHANLI, Turkey—Syrian government forces have nearly encircled Aleppo, preparing a siege to wrest control of the city from rebels in what would be the biggest blow yet to the three-year uprising.
The fall of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and economic hub before the fighting, could also bolster the ranks of Islamic State militants who continue to make gains across the country, as defeated members of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army switch to their side.
Rebel commanders in Aleppo say they are stockpiling goods as aid groups step up food deliveries—crates of lentils, rice, ketchup and baby formula—seeking to prevent the same kind of mass starvation that forced them to surrender the much smaller city of Homs in May.
Losing Homs, once dubbed the capital of the revolution, was a tremendous blow to the rebels. If they lose the battle for Aleppo as well, it could spell the end of their revolt against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, rebel commanders warn.
FULL ARTICLE (The Wall Street Journal)
Photo: Ed Brambley/flickr
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Syria crisis: truce in Aleppo | The Guardian’s Middle East Live
By Matthew Weaver
Gloomy assessment
The conflict in Syria could drag on for years and a quick decisive battle for Damascus looks increasingly unlikely, according to a gloomy assessment co-authored by one of the most respected Syria watchers.
Damascus-based researcher Peter Harling director of the Middle East programme at the International Crisis Group says the conflict is proceeding with “perverse predictability” with both sides becoming increasingly ruthless and sectarian.
Photo: James Gordon/Flickr
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Syria crisis: rebels ‘execute shabiha’ in Aleppo - Wednesday 1 August 2012 | The Guardian
By Matthew Weaver and Brian Whitaker
Summary of the latest developments on Syria
• The Assad regime is morphing into a brutal militia that is pushing the conflict towards an even bloodier outcome than many feared, according to a new report by the International Crisis Group.
• In a telephone interview with the Guardian, a spokesman for the Tawheed (“Unification”) Brigade in Aleppo has described “field trials” of shabiha suspects. He said those believed to have been involved in killing were executed, while others are being kept for trial “after the collapse of the regime”.
• After some delay, the opposition Syrian National Council has now condemned the executions carried out by rebels in Aleppo.
Photo: Freedom House/Flickr
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Syria: Urban Fronts | Financial Times
By Michael Peel and Roula Khalaf
A volley of gunfire shattered the early evening calm in Salhiya Street, bringing a posse of men armed with metal bars, plastic chairs and other improvised weapons dashing to the busy thoroughfare in the heart of Damascus.
