MESOP NEWS “ALEPPO WILL BECOME A SHIA CITY” – THE IRANIAN THREAT Iran & Russia Count Their Winnings in Syria

Strategy Page –  2016-12-26 –  The pro-Assad coalition of Russia, Turkey, Iran and the Assad government agreed that peace talks with the rebels could be held in Central Asia (the capital of Kazakhstan). The problem is finding a rebel coalition large enough and agreeable enough to join the talks. Although all the foreign powers are supposed to be in Syria to defeat ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), that is clearly not the case. The core of ISIL power is in the east, in Raqqa. The only ones concentrating on Raqqa are a coalition of Syrian Kurd and local Arab groups supported by Western and Arab nations. The pro-Assad coalition will turn its attention to Raqqa once the rest of the country has been brought back under Assad control. At that point the Assads seek to regain Raqqa. For the Assads it would be best for the Syrian Kurd and Arab groups advancing on Raqqa to take the city. This would be a costly (in lives) process. The Assads could then claim Raqqa as theirs and the pro-Assad coalition would back them as that coalition has always backed a peace deal with the Assads still in charge.

Thus it is no surprise that with Aleppo back in hands of the Assads the war is going in two directions. The Assad government, backed by Iran, Russia and Turkey are concentrating on clearing remaining rebels out of the northwest. That means Hama, Latakia and Idlib provinces, the areas where the Assads always had the most support. Turkey is intent on getting any anti-Turk (pro-PKK) Syrian Kurds out of there as well. Idlib province, west of Aleppo and bordering Turkey, is the main target and is now receiving most of the Russian airstrikes. There are still lots of rebels (few of them ISIL) west of Aleppo.

While the Turks back a peace deal with the Assads they have different goals in Syria. Since late August Turkish forces have taken control of over 2,000 square kilometers of Syrian territory along the Turkish border. The Turks expect to complete their ground operation in Syria by mid-2017. So far about 30 of the thousand or so Turkish troops in Syria have died in operations that have left over a thousand ISIL men dead or captured. While the official goal of the Turks is to join in the international effort to destroy ISIL they are mainly in Syria to limit the presence of Syrian Kurdish rebels bear the Turkish border. Thus the Turks believed their forces have killed about 300 Kurdish rebels in Syria, most of the, members of the Turkish PKK or the similar Syrian YPG. Currently the main Turkish effort is against the ISLI held town of al Bab, which is east of Aleppo and near the Turkish border. Turkey indicates that they might join the advance on Raqqa after al Bab is taken, but only if the Americans get the Kurds to withdraw from the force now advancing on Raqqa. ISIL is taking a beating in al Bab and are expected to lose control of the town by the end of the month.

Syrian Kurds have kept the border areas they control in northwestern Syria free of ISIL and other Islamic terrorist activity but Turkey and Iran remain largely hostile to some of the Kurdish militias in Syria. That’s because the most active Kurdish rebels have belonged to the PYD (a Syrian Kurd separatist group allied with Turkish Kurdish PKK separatists) and their military forces (the YPG). There are also some Iranian Kurds who came to Syria and joined the YPG and other Syrian Kurd rebel groups. The Turks believe that the new American government, that takes over on January 20th might be more flexible.

The Quietly Sealed Border

Since Turkish troops entered Syria in August the Turks have carried out some key tasks that get little media attention. The most obvious of these is increased border security with Syria and Iraq. Since August Turkey has built 89 new military outposts along the Syrian and Iraqi border. Most of those new outposts (and all of the 157 new ones in 2017) were along the 900 kilometers long Syrian frontier. At the same time the Turks are building a concrete wall along 91 percent of the Syrian border and that is about 40 percent done. Since August Turkish forces have seized control of all the roads crossing the border and instated strict border controls that have temporarily put Turkish smugglers out of business, at least those not willing to work closely with the Turkish troops. Smugglers have been a tradition in the region for centuries, ever since more national states established rules regarding what could legally cross their borders (with or without paying tolls). All the nations in the region would use the smugglers, who were expert at getting things across guarded borders. Until ISIL began carrying out expensive (to the lucrative tourist trade) attacks in Turkey the Turks saw no reason to shut down the entire Syrian border. But once ISIL made the Turks an active enemy the smugglers could no longer do business with the Syrian rebels that still, technically, included ISIL. By early 2016 the Turks agreed that ISIL must be shut down whatever the cost. The Turkish efforts closed the last useful supply line for ISIL. All the other Syrian borders (with Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Iraq) are now controlled by governments who are extremely hostile to ISIL. This denies ISIL a way to get new recruits in and people (like families of senior ISIL members and members being sent abroad to help with recruiting, fund raising and planning overseas attacks) out. These borders are not completely sealed but they are now very expensive to cross and large shipments either way are all monitored. This hurts ISIL in terms of getting ammunition, weapons and, most importantly, equipment and supplies needed to run their Islamic State. Because Turkey quietly closed its border to Syrian refugees in early 2015 the latest crackdown is also hurting Syrians who could afford to pay the higher smuggler fees. Now there are more reports of Syrian civilians being killed, along with their smugglers, trying to cross illegally.

The Shia Threat

Another aspect of the Syrian fighting that gets little attention outside the region is the growing animosity between Sunnis and Shia because of the ongoing war. This is mainly about Iran allowing its Shia militias to go after Sunnis in general, not just the ones belonging to ISIL. Most of the rebels are anti-Shia, mainly because the Assads are from a Shia minority that has ruled Syria for decades and been brutal towards any Sunni opposition. This has been a problem for Iran in Lebanon, where the Iran backed Hezbollah militia continues to try and take control of the entire country for the Shia minority they represent. The Lebanese Shia are now a smaller minority because of the Syrian civil war. Lebanon is overwhelmed, economically and otherwise, by the nearly two million Syrian refugees it is hosting. That’s in a country of only five million. Since nearly all those refugees are Sunni Moslems and that radically changes the religious mix of Lebanon from 27 percent Shia, 27 percent Sunni, 27 percent Shia, 40 percent Christian (and other religions the rest) to a more volatile combination. With the refugee influx there are now nearly seven million people in Lebanon and 44 percent are Sunni, 20 percent Shia and 30 percent Christian. This puts the Hezbollah militia in a bad situation. Their better armed and train fighters have been able to dominate the other minorities since the 1980s. That was possible because of Iranian cash, weapons and advisors. But the Iranian help and better organization is no longer enough when the Sunnis are nearly half the population and out for blood because of the slaughter the Iran backed Shia Syrian government is inflicting on Syrian Sunnis. Lebanon does not want another civil war over this, but it is becoming more difficult to contain the anger. This is a problem unique to Lebanon, because the other two countries getting the rest of the refugees (Turkey and Jordan) are almost all Sunni.

There are also problems in Turkey, where the government has been dominated since 2000 by Islamic parties that depend on Turkish Sunnis (80 percent of the population) to stay in power. Turks have long seen themselves as foes of Shia Iran so the atrocities of Iran backed Shia militias in Syria are seen as another attack on Turkey. This Sunni Turkish nationalism also played a role in the recent assassination of the Russian ambassador by an off-duty Sunni policeman protesting the suffering of Syrian Sunnis in Aleppo. To further inflame Turkish popular anger Russia and Iran recently revealed that once the civil war is over and the Assads are back in charge Iran will be allowed to share with Russia the Syrian naval base at Tartus.

The Advance On Raqqa

This offensive began in November and moved towards the city from the east, north and west. Most of the non-Kurds in the attack force are local Sunni Arabs eager to get ISIL out of the area, but also hostile to the Assads. By the end of December advance was closing in on the Baath Dam which supplies electric power to Raqqa and surrounding areas. The dam also regulates the water flow to farmers along the Euphrates River and ISIL has threatened to damage or destroy the dam to punish the disloyal farmers. Thus the rebels, if they want to maintain the support of most of the Syrians in the area, have to capture the dam largely intact. That would put the advance within 22 kilometers of Raqqa and potentially weeks away from taking the city. Meanwhile a lot depends on what happens to the battle for Mosul across the border in Iraq and whether or not the Turks join the advance and the Kurds continue to. The Syrian rebels and their Western allies (especially the United States) consider the Syrian Kurds the most effective rebel force and key to driving ISIL out of Raqqa city and the rest of eastern Syria. The Turks are, on paper, the strongest military force in the area. But all Syrians, both the Assad government and the rebels oppose the Turkish intervention. The Turks are mainly doing this because of domestic politics in Turkey. The Kurdish separatists in Turkey (the PKK) are again openly fighting the government and often use bases in Syria. While the Kurds of northern Iraq will cooperate with the Turks in controlling the PKK, some of the Syrian Kurds (the YPG) have worked closely with the PKK before and the Turks do not trust them to behave like the Iraqi Kurds. Meanwhile Turkey is willing to work with Kurdish militias not associated with the YPG.

Syria And The War On Islamic Terrorism

A recent terrorism survey (Global Terrorism Index) found that while ISIL was successful in carrying out more attacks in Western countries (from 18 deaths in 2014 versus 313 in 2015) the organization suffered major setbacks elsewhere, especially in Iraq. ISIL losses in Iraq and Syria escalated in 2016. Overall the ISIL setbacks contributed to a 10 percent worldwide decline in terrorism related deaths to 29,376. Some things have not changed. Five nations (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria) continue to account for most of the terrorism related deaths in 2015 (72 percent), as has been the case since 2013. Four Islamic terrorist organizations (ISIL, al Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Taliban) account for nearly 70 percent of all terrorist deaths. Many of the lesser terror groups are also Islamic. In fact, of the top ten nations by terrorist activity (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Syria, India, Somalia, Yemen, Philippines and Thailand) only India and the Philippines had a significant minority of terrorist deaths that were not carried out by Moslems. In those two countries the minority terrorists were leftist rebels who had not noticed the collapse of radical socialism in 1989.

Most of the terrorism related deaths in the West (the developed countries) during 2015 were in Turkey and France, both of which have long had problems with Islamic terrorism. Turkey, bordering Iraq and Syria, is a relatively easy target for Islamic terrorists to reach. ISIL has, for several years, increasingly urged (via the Internet and mass media) Moslems in the West to make “lone wolf” attacks that do not involve direct contract with ISIL. About half of the serious attempts to carry out attacks in the name of ISIL were done so by individuals or small groups who had no direct contact with ISIL. Most of these attacks failed or were very small scale and generated more media attention than actual deaths and property damage.

U.S. intelligence believes ISIL has, overall, lost at least 50,000 personnel since mid-2014. Precise data on ISIL losses is hard to come by but that is less of a mystery as more ISIL territory is taken and more deserters and prisoners can be interrogated. The U.S. is also deliberately going after ISIL leaders everywhere it can with airstrikes and ground operations to grab ISIL documents (usually on laptops, smart phones, and USB drives). Compiling all the captured data gives the most accurate estimates of enemy losses. This means that since 2013 (when ISIL first appeared) the group has lost over 60,000 personnel to combat, disease, accidents and desertion. Most of the losses have been suffered in Syria, Iraq and Libya. It’s believed that ISIL currently has only about 15,000 fighters available, mostly in Syria and Iraq. There are a few thousand more in northern Libya, eastern Afghanistan and Egypt. In all five countries ISIL is under heavy attack and ISIL recently lost the coastal city of Sirte its only major Libyan base. Defending the city cost them the loss of some 3,000 dead, captured and deserters. ISIL is expected to suffer major losses in 2017, mainly in Syria and Iraq. That could mean in a year Afghanistan would be the largest ISIL force anywhere but not very large and under constant attack by just about everyone. www.mesop.de