Syrian rebels wrest town from government control

Why time and again, we have seen strikes not against Isis targets, but against the independent actors, civilians and anti-regime forces who want to see Assad gone.

A delegation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have agreed to meet the envoys of the Russian Defence and Foreign Ministries in Abu Dhabi, next week.

Reality is more complicated.

The Free Syrian Army, the so-called group of soldiers and officers who defected from the Syrian Army when the civil war began, has been taking over headlines in past weeks. In addition, virtually all rebel-held territories either host the terrorist group or are controlled by factions that are under its influence, ideologically similar to it, or militarily dependent upon it.

Boukamal is located on the Syria-Iraq border.

Thanks to the tools developed by brilliant investigative journalists like Eliot Higgins and his Bellingcat foundation, we have more information than we have ever had from a country in the middle of conflict. Strikes that Russian Federation can not oppose - because Russian Federation say they too are in Syria to fight Isis. On-ground reports suggest that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has dug in for the long haul by moving into territory vacated by either Hadi loyalists or the Houthi rebels. Terrorist groups could have a permanent safe haven in Syria from which to operate, hurting the USA throughout the region and beyond, including in the homeland. No distinction is made between combatants and non-violent activists, between secularists and Islamists, between moderates and extremists. Its victory in the war could be an acceptable, even optimal, outcome. The war has produced a quarter million deaths, displaced half of Syria’s population, with almost five million of those seeking refuge in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and beyond. This revisionism is a betrayal of a popular uprising which saw men and women of all sects, religions and backgrounds demand that the system oppressing them fall.

“In the area of Mont Mgar, Damascus Province, the Islamic State’s warehouse of unguided missiles was destroyed”, Konashenkov said.

This is not very reassuring. It is distinctly possible that Russia will become bogged down in Syria without any ability to effectuate its goal of rebuilding and controlling Assad’s regime while simultaneously inspiring ever more acts of terror against Russian people.

If, indeed, this is an ISIS bombing, not only is it one of the most devastating attacks since 9/11, it is also evidence that ISIS has placed Russian Federation in its cross-hairs. The clandestine effort to support Syrian rebels is another example of this. Plans for such domination has been variously described in the “Clean Break” proposal, the “Project for a New American Century”, and the “New Middle East”.

The deeper challenges lie with Riyadh’s implacable support for the various opposition forces and resistance to Iranian control over Syria’s revamped security and military apparatus. Putin’s hasty intervention into Syria appears to have been a miscalculation on the order of Russia’s ill-fated intervention into Afghanistan.

Putin justified the military campaign in part by saying that 5,000 to 7,000 people from Russian Federation and other former Soviet states have joined Islamic State and “can’t be allowed to apply later on at home the experience they are gaining today in Syria”.

Russia’s foreign minister said Monday the next round of Syria talks expected to be held this weekend must not focus squarely on demands for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s resignation, which he called a “simplistic approach”.

It is therefore time to accept that the USA has run out of moves in Syria.

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russian Federation, China, and Iran support the regime.

Washington must recognize that continuing to pursue increasingly pointless, desperate, and risky policies will fail in the best case, catastrophically backfire in the worst.

But it should also be noted that arrangement did not end the war.