Civil War in Syria

[palandio]

Am I correct in my impression that things are starting to look rather bad for Assad?

On the international/diplomatic level I'm not sure, the situation is complex.

On the military level his troops are over-stretched, the losses in the past four years were too high and he is increasingly running out of recruits. In many Alawite villages one third or so of the male part of the age cohort 18-30 years is dead. Hezbollah is focussing on the Syrian-Lebanese border region (Western Qalamoon, now Zabadani and coming soon Madaya and Wadi Barada). Iraqi voluntaries have gone back to Iraq to fight Daesh there. The Aleppo salient is costly and prevents Daesh and non-Daesh rebels from fighting each other, but giving it up would be a disastrous signal to parts of his middle-class passive support base. The break-down of the Idlib salient was kind of natural, the problem for Assad now is that the rebel offensive continues in the Al-Ghab plain (and soon Northern Latakia province?) and the Alawite core support regions are endangered. The permanent loss of the Palmyra region with its oil and gas resources would be an economic problem.

On the other hand you can compare the situation from 2 years ago to the current situation and see that the non-Daesh rebels have achieved very little since then (conquering the Idlib salient and some territorial gains in the South). They still control at most 15% of Syria and it doesn't depend on counting area or population. The strongest regional rebel alliance is now that in the Idlib region but on the other hand this is exactly the region where the Nusra Front has purged the "moderate" rebels in the last year and the US would probably have difficulties cooperating with what has remained.

So overall Assad is losing, but very slowly.

[palandio]

[...]
So overall Assad is losing, but very slowly.

He'll be fine. If the Iran deal passes Congress, Iran will send small arms over to Syria to shore him up. Iran won't let him fall unless they control the successive leader, at which point it wouldn't matter, nothing would change.

He'll be fine in the sense that Damascus and Latakia won't be overrun within the near future. From what I read I get the impression that his main problem isn't a lack of small arms, but of manpower. Iran is reluctant to send large numbers of Revolutionary Guard fighters to Syria (they are sending Afghan Shia fighters under Iranian command, though). But as Mr. Morden pointed out, there's movement on the diplomatic level.

[palandio]

The idea that al-Nusra should be distinguished from the other rebels came up about one year ago when there were violent clashes between al-Nusra and rival rebel groups like the SRF and the Hazzm Movement.

Many observers at that point thought that al-Nusra was trying to establish an IS-like mini-caliphate in the province of Idlib.

But after al-Nusra's victory against SRF and Hazzm, it went on to form a military alliance together with the other remaining rebel groups. In my view a territorial distinction between the different components of this alliance has become close to impossible.

Many surviving members of SRF and Hazzm have either become members of groups like the Levant Front which is cooperating with al-Nusra, or have fled and then regrouped and are now fighting under the SDF banner together with the Kurds. For example the clashes in the Afrin/Azaz area mentioned by ingemann are not only between FSA/JAN and the Kurdish YPG, but an Arab SDF group called Army of Revolutionaries is also fighting against FSA/JAN in this area.

[palandio]

That map doesn't distinguish al-Nusra from the other rebels, but perhaps any such distinction would be a dubious notion in the first place.

Not dubious, Al-Nusra are clearly not part of FSA, which is just a common term for groups which seek western support, and their claimed territory is not meaningless. But as FSA group are more likely to fight each other than JAN, it makes sense to just call them rebels on some maps. There's also other distinctions, JAN are more a party, while FSA are mostly local groups of militias, who just use FSA as common term. But if you want to know their territory, you can use Wikipedias map.

You are right that Al-Nusra is not part of FSA. At the same time different rebel groups (including Al-Nusra) are fighting side on side and often share control of places. That is why from a military/territorial point of view distinguishing between all the rebel groups (including al-Nusra) turns out to be difficult. That's also the reason why I think that distinguishing between Syrian Army and Hezbollah is impractical, although some maps make this distinction.

[...]
Yes to some degree, but the "Turkmen" rebels are one of the more interesting "new" groups, as they clearly have direct Turkish support. They're mostly Islamist and local Turkmens are part of them (they're mostly a Turkmen-Arab mix). Of course the difference between Turkmen and Arabs are often unclear, they share faith, practice intermarriage with each others and as a border population they're usual bilingual in Arab and Turkish, which is why the number Turkmens lies between a few hundred thousand to the Turkish number of 3-4 millions.

Yes, the "Turkmen" rebels are a very interesting phenomenon, but not one that is as easily depicted on a map as the frontline between rebels and loyalists.

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The SDF still stands and falls with the Kurds. At the same time some of its Arab components are somehow relevant militarily, although much weaker than the YPG:
- Shammar tribal militias have been backing the YPG in Hasakah province almost since the beginning, and the Shammar tribe is quite powerful.
- The anti-IS rebels in Raqqa province might fit your description.

[palandio]

I believe it when I see it. "Western sources" have not proven to be reliable very often over the last five years when it comes to interpreting the situation in Syria. It could also be that Iran was using its own IRGC forces for immediate response after the fall of Idlib and Jisr-ash-Shogur and that the plan was from the beginning to replace the lower ranks with Iraqis, Afghans and Pakistanis when available.

[palandio]

Interesting read. Fits together with the ISW report I linked to in the other thread a week ago:
http://understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Syrian%20Opposition%20Guide_0.pdf

The conclusions are both times questionable, but both reports give a good overview on the situation, much better than what one might extract from the usual news agency articles.

[palandio]

Honestly I didn't see the Russian intervention coming when I stated that Assad was losing slowly on August 07. (And it was in preparation at least since July, in coordination with Iran.)

Assad's fate depends on the commitment of both Russia and Iran (+ its proxies). For the next months I would expect them both to stay in Syria and maybe even expand their forces. As long as no other foreign force (Turkey? Not too likely...) intervenes directly against Assad (not counting supporting rebels), I expect continued advances for the regime. (Remember that I might be proven wrong again.) For the moment Russian and Iranian interests in Syria are not the same, but perfectly reconciliable, let's see what happens on the long run.

[palandio]

Al-Qaryatayn is a small town in the desert and the front in this area is more or less where it was at the beginning of the Russian intervention. (Remember that ISIS temporarily captured Maheen after the intervention until the SAA recaptured it.)

At the moment the SAA and its supporters are heavily invested on other fronts, in particular Latakia governorate (against non-ISIS rebels) and Greater Aleppo (against both ISIS and non-ISIS rebels), but also to a lesser degree Greater Damascus and Daraa. If Al-Qaryatayn plays a role, then mainly due to the danger that an ISIS presence there presents to the connections between Damascus, Homs and the Central Syrian oil/gas fields.

Priorities for the SAA are securing the coastal region and Greater Aleppo and weakening the Northwestern rebel alliance. Assad's nightmare is that otherwise the rebels with Turkish and Saudi support could try to seize Aleppo and endanger Latakia while the SAA stands in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor.

[palandio]

I just read an analysis by Fabrice Balanche for the Washington Institute, fitting together with what ingemann wrote. He describes the recent advances of the pro-Assad forces in Greater Aleppo (with a map) and how they fit into the bigger strategy (with a map). He also argues that Russia has been quite successful in accomplishing its short-term strategic goals, differently from what many Western observers had said before.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-battle-of-aleppo-is-the-center-of-the-syrian-chessboard

Probably Benwah is right and "The battle of Aleppo is the center of the Syrian Go board" is a better title.

With regards to "If I were IS I would try to attack Damascus": The so-called IS has already been weakened by Western and Russian airstrikes and Iraqi, Kurdish and Syrian ground fighting. I doubt that they have the military capacity to launch an open assault on the Syrian capital. Both regime and rebels have at least 20.000 fighters engaged in Greater Damascus (probably more), but it's rarely in the news because it's not chess but some extreme variation of Go (see the picture of Yarmuk you posted). What the IS has already tried and what it is still trying is the infiltration and takeover of besieged rebel-dominated suburbs of Damascus. The future of IS is to spread like cancer, the biggest tumors will be cut.

[palandio]

The first cease-fire is now dead on the South Aleppo front and other fronts and seems to have been only a break in which both sides rearrange their artillery...

[palandio]

Clashes between pro-regime militias and the Kurdish-dominated police force Asayish in the city of Qamishli (province of Hasakah, north-eastern Syria) are escalating. There have been minor incidents in the past, and temporarily stable truces imposed by the regime and PYD/YPG. This time the will to compromise on both sides seems to be questionable, and the party that would benefit is Daesh who are already moving troops in the direction of Shaddadi.

(For some general background, see also ingemann's post from February 22, 2016, 03:31:51 pm)

[palandio]

During the last week the Kurdish-dominated SDF have been advancing towards the Daesh-held city of Manbij near the Turkish border from the east and are already encircling it from the north, south and east.

This is interesting for several reasons. Turkey has said in the past that it would not allow the Kurds to cross the Euphrates, because the area between Azaz in the west and the Euphrates in the east which currently is mostly under control of Daesh should become a Turkish-influenced "safe zone".

- But Turkish proxies (FSA etc.) in the area around Azaz and Marea are now in a dire situation (see ingemann's post) and everyone sees that there is no realistic chance that they could conquer the "safe zone". So if Turkey continues preventing the Kurds from attacking Daesh in the "safe zone", this would be perceived as even more blatantly pro-Daesh than in the past.
- The SDF forces that are engaged in the battle of Manbij are at most 20% Kurdish, at least the SDF say so.
- SDF seems to have American backing.

Not too much attention has been paid to the Eastern Ghouta campaign. Eastern Ghouta is a rebel enclave east of Damascus, in fact the biggest of the Damascus suburb enclaves and also the only one that includes vast agricultural areas. For over one month Nusra-affiliated groups and the long-dominating Salafi Islamist group Jaish al-Islam have fought each other in a bloody conflict until they reconciled two weeks ago. But the Syrian Army has already profitted from the weakened rebel defense and conquered large swaths of land in the south of the enclave, including valuable farmland. From a broader perspective the Syrian Army has been continuously advancing in the Damascus suburbs over almost the whole duration of the war, dividing rebel-controlled areas and besieging the remaining enclaves. In other parts of the country the development has been much less continuous.

South of Aleppo rebels have conquered some villages during the past weeks, the cease-fire seems to matter no longer. Russia has detached some of its troups from Aleppo due to the cease-fire and Hezbollah has detached troups due to a potential hot conflict with Israel looming on the horizont. We see that without friends the Syrian Army in Aleppo is in difficulties. On the other hand the rebels are not achieving that much, if that is the strongest attack they can mount.

For the first time in two years the Syrian Army has entered Raqqa province from Ithriyah in Hama province and is advancing towards Daesh-held Tabqa. Has the race towards Raqqa begun? Is this the begin of a major offensive? Will there be coordination with the SDF? In other news Syrian Army advances around Palmyra and toward Deir ez-Zor are slow and there are set-backs like the repeated loss of the Shaer gas field.

[palandio]

Being under attack from the SDF in Manbij, Daesh is retreating from the Azaz/Marea front, hence allowing the pro-Turkish rebels to reverse their recent losses (mentioned in ingemann's post) and even to gain further territory. This strengthens the pro-Turkish rebels and their backers and might raise the tensions between Turkey and SDF even more. Very clever.

[palandio]

The Syrian Army's Raqqa offensive seems to have turned into a costly desaster, due to strategic mistakes, a surprise Daesh counter-attack, lack of communication between different units and an un-coordinated retreat that left some units behind enemy lines. One might almost say 'business as usual'. While lifting the sieges of Kuweires and Nubl/Al-Zahraa has been a major moral boost for pro-regime fighters, recent events once again might give them the sentiment that in critical situations their commanders tend to waste their lives due to military incompetence.

[palandio]

The most important development of the past two weeks has probably been the advance of the regime forces in the Mallah farms north of Aleppo, supported by the Russian Airforce. The effect of this is that now the Castello Road, which was the last supply-line to insurgent-held Eastern Aleppo, is under fire control by the regime, effectively cutting it and laying siege on Eastern Aleppo. Prices in Eastern Aleppo are already skyrocketing.

Insurgents so far have been unable to reverse these gains and might instead try to make further advances in the Southern Aleppo countryside.
There has also been an insurgent offensive in Latakia province, which has resulted in the gain of the town of Kinsibba, but which now has stalled.

The regime on the other hand has continued its advances in the Damascus suburbs, in particular the Eastern Ghouta.

Attempts by ISIS to break the siege of Manbij have been unsuccesful, and the SDF are slowly advancing into parts of the city.

An attempt by the American-supported "New Syrian Army" to cut the connection between the ISIS-occupied parts of Iraq and Syria at al-Bukamal on the Euphrates has resulted in failure.

Also regime operations against ISIS near Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra seam to be purely defensive for the moment, the offensives being postponed due to the army being busy in Aleppo and Damascus.

[palandio]

I think the three most important fronts the rest of the year will be the Kurd attempts to cut ISIS off from Turkey and connect Afrin with the rest of Rojava.

I think that the recent succesful SDF/Kurdish offensives against ISIS have shown that from a military standpoint they could cut ISIS off from Turkey within a short time. The question will be if Turkey will permit it like it is reluctantly tolerating the current offensive on Manbij. If no, the question might also involve players like Russia and the US and things could get really complicated.

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ISIS is already far weaker than it was one or two years ago. But who is ready to take over its remaining territory? Will the Iraqi Army be able to find enough Sunni allies in Niniveh province? Will the non-Kurdish component of the SDF be strong enough to fight battles that for the Kurds are not a priority? Will the Syrian Army have weakened the rebels enough that it can deploy more forces to the East?

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What do you mean? Offensives from Aleppo towards the east? Or towards the west? In any case it's interesting to see how much both regime and rebels are investing into the battle of Aleppo.

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Yes, that seems to be the primary motivation of the regime in their recent Eastern Ghouta and Daraya offensives.

[palandio]

What seems to be the loss of a huge territory by ISIS in Southern Syria and Western Iraq is just the loss of some desert outposts, sadly.
In Southern Syria the US-backed and Jordan-based New Syrian Army has captured the al-Tanf border crossing from ISIS, but overall success has been limited so far. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Syrian_Army
In Western Syria the Iraqi Army and allies have made progress in the densely populated parts of Anbar province (Ramadi, Fallujah etc.) which has allowed it to take back some desert outposts.

But maps like these can be really deceiving. Optically they give too much value to deserts and wasteland on the one side, and on the other side important devolopments like the encirclement of East Aleppo, the SAA progress in the Damascus suburbs or the future capture of Manbij by the YPG are barely visible.

[palandio]

Recent devolopments:

In Aleppo the Syrian Army was able to complete the siege of East Aleppo at the end of July, cutting the last rebel supply line in the north-west.
But within the next few days a long-prepared, massive rebel offensive, headed be the ex-Nusra Front (now Levant Conquest Front), resulted in a rebel breakthrough in the south-west, establishing a new (unsafe) supply line and cutting the main regime supply line towards West Aleppo.
The result is that now both sides have only unsafe new supply lines through recently conquered territory and the fighting is far from being over. The north-western rebels (Army of Conquest, Conquest of Aleppo) have once again shown that they are one of the strongest military actors on the ground.

Continued government advances in the Damascus suburbs (nothing new).

Heavy clashes are going on between regime forces and Kurds in al-Hasakah. In principle these are similar to the clashes in Qamishli in April which were ended by a ceasefire, but now there is the potential to develop into an all-out war with serious repercussions in other parts of Syria. In al-Hasakah it is probably the Kurds who have the upper hand, but this may not be the case in Sheikh Maqsoud and Afrin, when fighting against everyone else. A useful background article might be this:
http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/64375

Which leads us to the recent diplomatic developments between Turkey and Assad's foreign backers. As a result Turkey might not support the rebels anymore (except for its proxies in the Azaz-Marea pocket), and in turn Russia, Iran and Assad might become very hostile towards the Syrian Kurds in general. But this would both be a 180 degree turn-around, I don't know how likely this is.

[palandio]

It seems that I missed the news of the week by a few hours:

Turkey and some of its proxies have started an offensive on ISIS territory near Jarabulus in Aleppo province. While Turkey has supported its proxies earlier by artillery from Turkish territory, it is the first time that Turkish tanks and special forces have entered Syria for fighting purposes.

Things will get interesting when Turkey+proxies meet the SDF/YPG a few miles further south in the recently captured Manbij area.

[palandio]

Maybe this is a bit semantic, but that would make this the first overt invasion of Syrian territory by a sovereign country in this civil war, does it not?

This is indeed a bit semantic. The event that I had in mind when I wrote "for fighting purposes" was the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Suleyman_Shah#Second_relocation_.282015.29

Apart from this one might of cause argue that the overt presence of Iranian and Russian troops in Syria is an invasion. But since they are fighting on the sides of the nominal government, it is in my opinion a different thing.

I guess the big question is, does Turkey continue to advance into ISIS/Kurdish held territory or are were they just grabbing the low hanging fruit in Jarabulus.

I'm quite sure this is part of a bigger campaign aimed at impeding the connection of the Kurdish cantons of Kobane and Afrin. Capturing the border crossing in Jarabulus is not worth much when it was closed anyway.

[palandio]

Recent developments:

The Turkish offensive in the Jarabulus area has turned into Turkey+proxies vs. SDF/YPG, as many had been expecting. The Kurds' relations with both the US and Russia have soured.

The rebel pocket in Darayya south of Damascus has surrendered, rebel fighters and their families are transferred to Idlib, many civilians are preliminarily relocated to regime-held areas.

ISIS-friendly al-Nusra split-off Jund al-Aqsa and some FSA groups have started an offensive against regime-held areas north of Hama, so far resulting in the capture of the towns of Halfaya and Taybat al-Imam.

[palandio]

Two or three years ago ISIS was stronger, hence it would have been more difficult to gain ground against them.
YPG was weaker and an attack against ISIS would have helped the YPG, which was and is clearly not the Turkish intention. But now there is the danger of YPG/SDF actually linking up Afrin and Kobane, which was not there two or three years ago.
Assad did not yet have Russia's open support. Without a big buddy in the background he might have felt more endangered by the Turkish invasion and an all-out war between Syria and Turkey might have been the result. Of course the Turkish Army would have been stronger, but there would have been losses and unrest in Hatay province. The risk would have been high.

Now of course the "buffer zone" has a price tag, and in my opinion it might be East Aleppo. Turkey has already bought away some of the more "moderate" rebel factions from the Aleppo front, which are now fighting against ISIS and YPG/SDF instead. During the last days the Syrian Army and other pro-regime forces like Hezbollah have succesfully recaptured the Artillery Academy in South-West Aleppo, reverting the gains of the last rebel offensive and completing the encirclement of East Aleppo again.

[palandio]

There has certainly been a rapproachment between Turkey and Russia. Turkish-Western relations on the other hand have become much more complicated. But international diplomacy on the Syrian question is far more complex than two sides or a triangle. Everyone has his own interests and engages in temporary alliances, cooperations or nonaggression pacts.

In other news: Syrian-Israeli escalation.
Jihadist rebels have started a new offensive against regime-held areas in Quneitra province, with Israel bombing some Syrian artillery positions. The Syrian air defense claims to have downed an Israeli fighter jet and an Israeli drone. Israel confirmed the attacks, but said they missed their targets. This might become interesting.

[palandio]

That's what I think, too. Still clearly a sign of rising tensions.

[palandio]

There is no such thing as the rebels.

There is ISIL, there are the SDF (which include the YPG) and there is a broad spectrum of other rebel groups with varying supporters and various degrees of islamism.

The current Raqqa offensive is an SDF offensive. Relations between the SDF and Assad are complicated at times, sometimes even hostile (e.g. Hasakah clashes), but there is cooperation, too (e.g. north of Aleppo). Hopefully Raqqa at some point will be part of a united federalized Syria through a diplomatic solution.