International Crisis Group
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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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Statement on a Syrian Policy Framework
On its current trajectory, and with no military or diplomatic breakthrough on the horizon, the Syrian war will worsen. Four years into a popular uprising that gradually degenerated into civil strife and regional proxy war, the conflict’s Syrian protagonists – the regime and its loyalist militias versus the broad spectrum of armed rebel factions and the external political opposition – are too fractious, fragile and heavily invested in their current courses to break with the status quo. They are also, as should be clear by now, incapable of military victory in a war rapidly fuelling the growth of a third category of protagonists: Salafi-jihadi groups. The sides’ respective state backers are better positioned to change tack and so affect the course of events, but they are prisoners of their own shortcomings, fears and wishful thinking.
Photo : REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh
Source : Crisis Group
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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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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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‘Zero hour’: Syrian rebels prepare to mount Damascus attack | The Telegraph
By Ruth Sherlock
As rebels fought government troops on the outskirts of the capital, a Damascus based analyst told the Daily Telegraph that the fighting was likely to defeat the aspirations of both sides.
“There is the risk of the total destruction of Damascus,” said Peter Harling, Project Director with the Middle East Programme of the International Crisis Group. “The regime is well entrenched in some key parts of Damascus and the opposition is unable to come up with a political vision to offer an exit to the bulk of people fighting for the regime.
“We could see a repeat of the level of destruction that we have seen in other towns, but it would be worse this time: what transition do you get when you destroy the seat on power?”
Photo: Elizabeth Arrott/Wikimedia Commons
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Bombs rock Syria military command centre | Financial Times
By Michael Peel, Abigail Fielding-Smith, and Najmeh Bozorgmehr
“The official media continues to refer to the ‘remnants’ of ‘terrorists’, but here we see the opposition striking again in the centre of Damascus,” said Peter Harling, Syria analyst for the International Crisis Group think-tank. “It reinforces this notion that the regime is making no progress and offering no way forward.”
FULL ARTICLE (Financial Times) (paywall)
Photo: DoumaRevolution/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.
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Syria: Battle For The Cities | KVIA
The Syrian government blamed last Friday’s rebel attack on an electric power station in downtown Damascus on “armed terrorist gangs” – the same epithet it has used to describe the protest movement that erupted in the southern border city of Daraa more than a year ago.
But the gunfire and explosions that echoed across the Syrian capital in recent days have underscored a turning point of sorts.
The clashes shattered the notion that Damascus exists in a security bubble.
Photo: KVIA
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Syria: Battle for the cities | CNN
By Ivan Watson, Omar al Muqdad and Shiyar Sayed Mohamed
Istanbul, Turkey – The Syrian government blamed last Friday’s rebel attack on an electric power station in downtown Damascus on “armed terrorist gangs” – the same epithet it has used to describe the protest movement that erupted in the southern border city of Daraa more than a year ago.
But the gunfire and explosions that echoed across the Syrian capital in recent days have underscored a turning point of sorts.
The clashes shattered the notion that Damascus exists in a security bubble.
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Al Arabiya | Damascus blasts push Syria ever closer to civil: analysts
The recent escalation of violence in Syria, including twin bombings on Thursday that killed scores, has pushed the country closer to war and could spell an end to a U.N. ceasefire mission, experts say.
“The country is in a civil war vortex, and all this is happening while the international community is not living up to its responsibilities,” said Khattar Abu Diab, professor of international relations at Paris Sud University.
Though the Damascus bombings were the deadliest since an anti-regime uprising began in March last year, analysts said the imminent failure of a U.N.-backed peace plan was already clear.
President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has failed to implement a six-point plan brokered by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, said Abu Diab.
“The ceasefire has not been respected, people have not been allowed to protest freely and peacefully, and the political prisoners have not been freed,” said the analyst.
The putative truce technically came into effect on April 12, but hundreds of people on both sides have died since then, and the U.N. and rights groups have accused both the regime and rebels of violating it.
Earlier this week, U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon warned the government and opposition that there was only a “brief window” to avoid “a full-scale civil war.”
But with no clear alternative to the peace plan in sight, “we stand before a dead end,” Abu Diab noted
Some say the U.N. mission may have already failed.
“The West is supporting a mission that it doesn’t believe in,” said Peter Harling, an expert on Syria with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, told AFP.
