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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Russia’s Choice in Syria
In announcing Moscow’s intent to withdraw the “main part“ of the military assets that it deployed to Syria since last September, President Vladimir Putin again caught much of the world off-guard, this time allies and adversaries alike. Having declared victory while maintaining its war-fighting capacity in Syria, Russia has left key questions unanswered: will it actually reduce its military role and, if so, to what extent, where and against whom. But if it implements the announcement in a meaningful way, this could create the best opportunity in years to push the conflict toward an initial settlement, especially on the heels of Moscow’s decision to help implement a “cessation of hostilities”.
FULL REPORT (Via Crisis Group)
Photo: REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin
SOURCE: Crisis Group
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The Changing Face Of Deadly Conflict
Crisis Group President Emeritus and former Foreign Minister of Australia Gareth Evan’s contribution to the Future of Conflict collection of 20 essays for Crisis Group’s 20th Anniversary.
Policymakers trying to prevent and resolve deadly conflict — and those, like the International Crisis Group, seeking to influence them — are all too unhappily familiar with that corollary to Murphy’s Law which tells us: “If you’re feeling good, don’t worry: you’ll get over it”. The continuing decline in the reality and prospect of war between states gives us much to be pleased about, as does the reduction — more than most people think — in the number and intensity of wars and incidents of mass violence within states, at least those driven by the familiar forces of greed for territory or government power, or the fears or grievances of particular groups.
FULL ESSAY (Via Crisis Group)
Photo: MAGNUM/Moises Saman
Source: Crisis Group
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With Regime Troops Waning and Jihadis Rising, Only Regional Powers Can Solve Syria’s War | Katarina Montgomery
“The bottom line is that neither side is really capable of a full military victory in this war unless the other sides’ backers capitulate and cut support to their Syrian allies, which is highly unlikely.”
On its current trajectory, with no military or diplomatic breakthrough on the horizon, the Syrian war will likely worsen while metastasizing into a regional conflict, according to a new report from the International Crisis Group.
None of the warring factions are capable of an all-out military victory in a war that is rapidly fueling the growth of violent extremism in the region. Analysts say that both the regime and the various armed opposition groups are too invested in their current courses to break the status quo and make the concessions necessary to achieve a political resolution.
FULL ARTICLE (via Syria Deeply)
Photo: Freedom House/Flickr
Source: Syria Deeply
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What Obama Doesn’t Understand About Syria | Noah Bonsey
The U.S. policy to defeat the Islamic State is doomed to failure. Here’s how to fix it.
The current U.S. strategy to destroy the Islamic State is likely doomed to fail. In fact, it risks doing just the opposite of its intended goal: strengthening the jihadis’ appeal in Syria, Iraq, and far beyond, while leaving the door open for the Islamic State to expand into new areas.
This is in large part because the United States so far has addressed the problem of the Islamic State in isolation from other aspects of the trans-border conflict in Syria and Iraq. Unless Barack Obama’s administration takes a broader view, it will be unable to respond effectively to the deteriorating situation on the ground.
The good news is that the White House can still change course – and indeed, President Obama has reportedly requested a review of his administration’s strategy in Syria. In crafting a new way forward, the White House needs to understand three points about the Islamic State and the military landscape in which it operates.
FULL COMMENTARY (Foreign Policy)
Photo: Official White House Photo/Pete Souza
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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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Why Turkey is reluctant to join U.S-led coalition against ISIS | Mark Gollom
The launch of airstrikes in Syria by a U.S.-led coalition as part of the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has placed Turkey in a delicate position of needing to thwart the militant group’s growing threat while not wanting to raise its ire and face retribution.
“It`s obviously very careful on how it handles ISIS,” said Didem Ackyel Collinsworth, the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Turkey. “In terms of signing on to the coalition and taking part in airstrikes and so on, [it] would be very cautious about that.”
On Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was considering expanding support for Western and Arab operations against the Islamic State group to include everything, “both military and political.”
The remarks signalled a possible shift by Erdogan, who has so far not committed to a U.S.-led coalition to take on the militants.
FULL ARTICLE (CBC News)
Photo: Eboni Everson-Myart, U.S. Army/DOD/flickr
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West widens contacts with Syria’s Kurds but suspicion remains | TOM PERRY
(Reuters) - The fight against Islamic State could at last win Syria’s Kurds the Western help they have sought, but they must first clarify their relationship to President Bashar al-Assad and reassure Turkey that they won’t cause trouble on its border.
The United States has entered the war against Islamic State fighters in Iraq with air strikes, but is still trying to decide a strategy for fighting the group on the other side of the frontier in Syria.
In Iraq, Kurds are one of the main Western allies against Islamic State. But in Syria, where Kurdish militia have carved out a swathe of northern territory and repeatedly battled against Islamic State during a three-and-a-half year civil war, Kurds have yet to win the West’s acceptance as partners.
FULL ARTICLE (Reuters)
Photo: Chris De Bruyn/flickr
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A pincer move - Iraq’s bloody mess has helped the regime in Syria and its jihadist enemy
WHEN an alliance of disgruntled Sunnis led by the Islamic State (IS), an extremist group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), streaked across Iraq in June and proclaimed a caliphate in the territory it holds on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border, Syrian rebels with a more national focus thought their day had come. Surely, they surmised, America and its Western allies would not sit by and allow to prosper a group that had grown out of al-Qaeda in Iraq and killed American soldiers during the war there in 2003? Bar the Americans getting involved militarily, the only way for them to push back IS in Syria would be to bolster the more moderate rebels there.
A little more weaponry, mainly anti-tank missiles, did indeed arrive for eight vetted groups that have been supplied by a covert programme that since last year has been run by America and states in the Gulf and Europe that want to see the back of Bashar Assad, Syria’s president. These groups have made some gains in the northern part of Hama province and the southern part of Idleb, near the regime’s stronghold in western Syria (see map). But the main picture has not changed. Syria’s regime and IS both gain from the mess next door in Iraq, whereas the more moderate rebels are increasingly being squeezed. “The aid is for a plan to deal with a 2012 problem, not a 2014 one,” says Noah Bonsey, an American Syria-watcher at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank.
FULL ARTICLE (The Economist)
Photo: James Gordon/flickr