Syrian Civil War Developments

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Interesting angle on the recent Russian raids from Iran.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1141VN

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No Win In Syria: We’ll Be Glad To Keep Assad
By James Durso
on August 31, 2016 at 10:12 PM


Russia Syrian Game

It seems just like old times: the Turk is back in the Levant, Aleppo is under siege, and the ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) is dispensing justice.

When did it all go wrong? When the Americans decided the stuttering ophthalmologist wouldn’t play rough like his fighter pilot dad had. As Donald Trump would tweet: Sad! Sadder still is Bashar’s death toll: about 400,000 compared to the 25,000 his father, Hafez Assad, killed in putting down the Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Hama in 1982.

Why? The Americans, led by President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, decided Syria could be split from its Iranian patron and thus deal a defeat to the Islamic Republic. In 2010, Israel and Syria had back-channel talks that reportedly included Israel’s return of the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for security guarantees. The talks slowed due to mutual suspicions about the other side’s ability to deliver and, by early 2011, the Arab Spring erupted across the region and leaders’ attentions turned to more immediate concerns.

At this point, America’s only option to move against Iran was the outright defeat of the Assad regime, so that became the policy. In 2011, Turkey provided a home for the opposition Syrian National Council and, in August 2011, the U.S., its allies, and the UN were calling on Bashar Assad to step down. Assad, not surprisingly, decided against early retirement and we were off to the races…

Proposed pipelines in Middle East. Credit: Oil-Price.net
Proposed pipelines in Middle East. Credit: Oil-Price.net

So that’s the reason, huh? Well, not all of it. It’s also about a pipeline. Qatar supports the Syrian opposition, not because it thinks people should have a say in their governance — they certainly don’t in Qatar — but because it needs a Syria run by pliable leaders responsive to Qatar’s interests. Why? Qatar is a leading natural gas producer and it wants a pipeline straight to the large natural gas market of Europe. Currently, Qatar’s current gas travels by Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tanker, mostly to Asia, or the Dolphin pipeline to the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The 1500-mile pipeline route would head north and land in Turkey after crossing Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria. But Syria declined Qatar’s offer in 2009 and instead agreed to a pipeline stitch-up with Iran and Iraq.

The Saudis fared no better in 2013 when they tried to get the Russians to drop their support for the Syrian regime, forgetting that Russia and Syria have had close relations since 1944. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the then-director general of the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate, pitched Vladimir Putin but the result was “no sale”, even when Bandar dangled $15 billion in arms sales combined with substantial investments in Russia. You can understand the Saudi’s bewilderment: this always worked in the U.S.!

And no one bothered to ask if there wasn’t something wrong with two Wahhabi monarchies funding insurrection in a secular, though authoritarian, state.

Could this have been avoided? Maybe. We have to look back to December 18, 2011, when the last U.S. troops left Iraq and Presdient Barak Obama satisfied his wish to be the not-George Bush. The Iraqi army had no one setting an example for it or stiffening its spine in 2012 as the Islamic State of Iraq (later rebranded as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) made its play for power in Iraq. Mosul fell and the rest followed.

In Syria, the U.S. went out of its way to look feckless by warning the regime in 2012 about a “red line” it had better not cross, then standing around with its hands in its pockets after the regime attacked the opposition-held town of Ghouta with sarin gas in 2013. Why? Obama’s desperate need to secure a nuclear deal with Iran. The Iranians told him they would cancel the talks if he punished Assad for Ghouta, so 1,300 men, women and children were asphyxiated.

The U.S. failed to prioritize. It attacked Libya ostensibly out of a concern for human rights abuses but also because its European “allies” hadn’t bothered to buy enough ordnance and asked the U.S. to help. This is the Libya that had surrendered its nuclear and chemical weapons programs and was no threat to Europe or the U.S.; it was just a big gas station for Europe. It wasn’t a useless exercise, though: the Iranian and North Koreans noted what happens to regimes that surrender their nukes. Then it was on to Egypt where the U.S. administration supported the Muslim Brotherhood because…well, it did.

Luckily, the Egyptian army later staged a coup and saved the day, but the U.S. and Egypt were left with a weakened relationship which the U.S. further damaged by delaying the delivery of attack helicopters and fighter jets.

After these serial failures, came the uprising in Syria, where the U.S. has a far greater strategic interest, given the malign Iranian influence in the area and the threat to neighboring countries friendly to the U.S.: Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and Turkey. If there was a place that needed U.S. involvement on Day 1, Syria was it, but the president waffled, apparently concerned that weapons might get in the wrong hands, mistaking a symptom for the cause.

The U.S. failed to act promptly and decisively and the vacuum eased Russia’s reentry to the Middle East, 40 years after Nixon and Kissinger marginalized the Soviets in the region. What Obama calls a “regional power” is the prime mover in the region most important to the security of the U.S. and Europe. So what does it matter that Russia’s power is “regional” if it’s in the most important region? Meanwhile, China has taken advantage of the instability to declare its support for Damascus. Not only that, but Russia has connected with Iran and Turkey who are opposed to all or much of U.S. policy in this conflict. It took some doing, but the U.S. managed to maneuver a NATO ally and two veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council to the opposing side.

This is a war unlike others in recent times. War drives innovation and every war introduces the public to a new weapon: in the war for Kuwait it was precision-guided munitions; in Iraq it was the IED. In Syria, the weapons innovation isn’t chemicals or barrel bombs; chemicals are so twentieth century, and anyone can do a barrel bomb.

The brilliant act of the Syrian civil war is the use of refugees as a weapon. This is the Mariel boatlift on a transcontinental scale: one million refugees from West Asia to Western Europe. Bashar got rid of anyone who refused to fight or get out of his way and — if he survives — he won’t be welcoming them back. Assad took the tactical advantage, but the strategic winner is his patron, Vladimir Putin, who appreciates the negative political, social, and fiscal effects the refugees have on Western Europe just when he is planning a move. Those bases in Syria are great, but an inward-looking, destabilized Europe that is reluctant to meddle is priceless.

What next for Syria? Bashar Assad says he’ll liberate “every inch” of Syria, but a wiser move would be to carve out a new “Skinny Syria” from the present border at Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan, running north to the east of the transport hub at Homs, east of Lake Assad, to the border with Turkey. Let the jihadis have the interior; it’ll keep the army busy instead of plotting against the regime. Secure the coastline in the event the Eastern Mediterranean oil and gas fields extend beyond Lebanon and Cyprus. If you find hydrocarbons, your new pals at Gazprom and Rozneft will have some ideas.

Russia is in the mix, but it’ll support anyone who will guarantee it secure bases on the Mediterranean. Turkey’s Pasha is looming and can cause trouble but he has purged his army and may have stunted his ambitions to skirmishing with the Kurds. Iran would have been a factor in any scenario, but the Syria civil war has allowed it to sharpen its skills in fighting and subversion, and it has been an opportunity for Hezbollah to learn to fight in larger military formations – a skill it will use against Israel at the earliest opportunity. On cue, Iran has promised to eradicate the Jewish state in 23 years with its newly formed Shi’ite Liberation Army. The only good news has been significant Hezbollah casualties: 1,600 dead and 5,000 wounded. In any case, more bad times are ahead for civilians in Israel and Lebanon. And the U.S. will remain fully engaged in the region, securing its own interests and shoring up allies under its new policy, Pivot from Asia.

“Strategic patience’ is a 10-dollar way to say, let’s not get involved. In this case, though, it might be the best option if America can stop obsessing about forcing a political transition in Syria. If Assad can see off all comers, let him stay. Those Saudi- and Qatari-funded aspirants may not be an improvement, and a post-Assad vacuum may turn Syria into another Libya. And there’s no reason U.S. troops should work for the Wahhabi monarchs, who have spent lavishly on military equipment but seem unable to use it to any effect.

The American people and fisc aren’t ready for another round of nation-building in Syria, but I have some candidates for the job: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, China, and Iran. They seem to think the Syria enterprise is worth the effort, so they should pay for the reconstruction. If they do that, we can be assured that, given their levels of corruption, most of it will be wasted or stolen, severely damaging their reputations. Not good for Syria, true, but it will blacken America’s enemies and frenemies, and will keep a generation of investigative reporters fully employed. And while they’re at it they can fund the cost of 5 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, or maybe allow the refugees to settle in their countries. They won’t of course, but a relentless and public U.S. push on resettlement could collect concessions on other matters.

There’s no “win” here for the U.S. The administration should cut its losses and focus its refugee support on Jordan and Lebanon: these friendly countries already host 2.5 million Palestinian refugees, at some hazard to their stability, but they don’t have the power so they are stuck with the human detritus of another war.

James D. Durso, a retired Navy officer, is managing director of Corsair LLC, a supply chain consultancy. He was a professional staff member on the 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission and the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan

http://breakingdefense.com/2016/08/n...to-keep-assad/

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U.S. Strategy on Syria Is a Nonissue in Washington and on Campaign Trail

By MARK LANDLER and MARK MAZZETTISEPT. 4, 2016
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The rebel-held Bab al-Hadid neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, in mid-August. Credit Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters

HANGZHOU, China — The image of a 5-year-old Syrian boy, dazed and bloodied after being rescued from an airstrike on rebel-held Aleppo, reverberated around the world last month, a harrowing reminder that five years after civil war broke out there, Syria remains a charnel house.

But the reaction was more muted in Washington, where Syria has become a distant disaster rather than an urgent crisis. President Obama’s policy toward Syria has barely budged in the last year and shows no sign of change for the remainder of his term. The White House has faced little pressure over the issue, in part because Syria is getting scant attention on the campaign trail from either Donald J. Trump or Hillary Clinton.

That frustrates many analysts because they believe that a shift in policy will come only when Mr. Obama has left office. “Given the tone of this campaign, I doubt the electorate will be presented with realistic and intelligible options, with respect to Syria,” said Frederic C. Hof, a former adviser on Syria in the administration.

The lack of substantive political debate about Syria is all the more striking given that the Obama administration is engaged in an increasingly desperate effort to broker a deal with Russia for a cease-fire that would halt the rain of bombs on Aleppo.

Those negotiations moved on Sunday to China, where Secretary of State John Kerry met for two hours with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, at a Group of 20 meeting. At one point, the State Department was confident enough to schedule a news conference, at which the two were supposed to announce a deal.

But Mr. Kerry turned up alone, acknowledging that “a couple of tough issues” were still dividing them.
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Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia at the Group of 20 meeting in Hangzhou, China, on Sunday. Credit Yuri Kochetkov/European Pressphoto Agency

“We’re not going to rush,” he said, “and we’re not going to do something that we think has less than a legitimate opportunity to get the job done.”
Continue reading the main story

Mr. Kerry said he would stay in China another day to keep trying. But his boss, Mr. Obama, voiced skepticism.

“If we do not get some buy-in from the Russians on reducing the violence and easing the humanitarian crisis, then it’s difficult to see how we get to the next phase,” the president said after a meeting with the British prime minister, Theresa May, in Hangzhou.

Whatever progress Mr. Kerry has made, officials said, could easily be unraveled by external events, whether a new offensive by Turkey or the Nusra Front — which until recently had publicly aligned itself with Al Qaeda — or intensified bombing raids by the government of President Bashar al-Assad. And it is clearer than ever that if Mr. Kerry’s latest attempt at diplomacy falls short, there is no Plan B.

Mr. Obama, officials said, has become increasingly skeptical about one of the major fallback options advanced by officials in the administration: expanding military aid to rebels vetted by the United States to put more pressure on Mr. Assad to compromise. With Nusra fighters playing a more dominant role in the rebellion, they said, the president has deepened his resistance to providing the rebels with more powerful weapons.

In October, Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, proposed enforcing a partial no-fly zone over Syria to create safe zones for civilians in places like Aleppo. She has said little about the plan in recent months, and people familiar with her thinking say she now acknowledges that the complexity of the battlefield — with Russian planes flying raids — would make it far more difficult.

Mrs. Clinton, these people said, would be open to other measures to ground Mr. Assad’s Air Force. They did not offer details, but officials in the Obama administration, including 51 State Department employees who signed a “dissent channel” memo on Syria, have pressed privately for the United States to carry out airstrikes to hit Mr. Assad’s planes on the ground and their runways.
Conflict in Syria By MEGAN SPECIA, YARA BISHARA and NEIL COLLIER 1:35
The Syrian Boy Pulled from the Rubble in Aleppo
Video
The Syrian Boy Pulled from the Rubble in Aleppo

Omran Daqneesh, 5, was rescued after an airstrike in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Within hours, a photo of his dust- and blood-covered face captured the world's attention. This is the story behind the image. By MEGAN SPECIA, YARA BISHARA and NEIL COLLIER on Publish Date August 18, 2016. Photo by Mahmoud Raslan/Aleppo Media Center. Watch in Times Video »

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In another election season, these are the kinds of questions that would be hotly debated. But the foreign policy debate has instead revolved mainly around the fitness of the Republican nominee, Mr. Trump, to be commander in chief. Mrs. Clinton, analysts said, has other reasons for not being drawn out on Syria.

“A clear imperative for the Clinton campaign is to stay as close as possible to President Obama,” Mr. Hof said. “That means neither looking for, nor emphasizing, areas of disagreement, such as Syria.”

And yet, Mrs. Clinton’s aides say, Syria remains a priority for her. At a private fund-raiser in the Hamptons last week, Mrs. Clinton delivered, unprompted, a lengthy policy prescription for what to do in Syria, including a gentle critique of the Obama administration for not pursuing her original proposal of a no-fly zone, according to a person who attended and described her remarks on the condition of anonymity.

The views of Mrs. Clinton — and Mr. Trump, for that matter — are critical. As Andrew J. Tabler, an expert on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, noted, “Everyone in the region is just waiting for the next U.S. administration.”

In the meantime, Mr. Kerry is persevering with his diplomacy, while the situation in Syria is growing ever murkier. A particular point of contention is the central role that the Nusra Front has played during the pitched battles against the Syrian military.

The Nusra fighters are commingled with rebels supplied by the C.I.A. and other Arab nations. The Russians have used the presence of Nusra fighters to justify airstrikes around Aleppo, saying the city is an important front in its campaign against terrorism.

The fact that the Nusra Front was not a party to past cease-fire agreements, allowing the group to continue its attacks on Syrian government troops during the fragile pauses in violence, has given added fuel to the Russian argument.
Conflict in Syria By NATALIA V. OSIPOVA and MARK MAZZETTI 2:52
Proxy War in Syria: U.S. vs. Russia
Video
Proxy War in Syria: U.S. vs. Russia

A look inside a fight for power behind the battlefield scene in Syria. Who is winning the proxy war between Moscow and Washington? By NATALIA V. OSIPOVA and MARK MAZZETTI on Publish Date August 6, 2016. Photo by George Ourfalian/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. Watch in Times Video »

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The “marbling” of the various rebel groups with more extremist groups has been a sticking point in the negotiations. American officials insist that they give no support to Nusra fighters despite the group’s name change and split with Al Qaeda.

“Nusra is Al Qaeda,” Mr. Kerry said. No name change, he said, “hides what it really is.”

The Russians have been pressing their advantage in recent months, bolstering Mr. Assad’s military as it claims more territory from the C.I.A.-backed rebels and the Nusra Front and gaining leverage as the diplomacy proceeds at a glacial pace.

Still, both the United States and Russia have shown an inclination to dial back the temperature of a proxy war that, for the first time since Afghanistan in the 1980s, has seen fighters backed by the C.I.A. in a direct confrontation with the Russian military.

“The four-way fight in eastern Syria is heating up, and our forces are right in the middle, in this instance some actually on the ground,” said Robert S. Ford, a former American ambassador to Syria.

Military analysts say Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, would recognize the folly in waging an open-ended war in Syria, and in having to prop up Mr. Assad indefinitely. Russia’s military successes in Syria since the campaign began last year, they said, could be solidified by a political settlement, and Moscow could gradually extricate itself from direct military involvement.

Some outside analysts see Mr. Kerry’s determination to broker a cease-fire as driven by their assessment that the Russian offensive has reversed the fortunes of Mr. Assad’s military, sending the American-vetted rebels into retreat and owning a shrinking patch of territory in northern Syria. The back and forth of the conflict continues, with insurgents making major gains against the government in central Hama Province over the weekend.

Any “cleareyed” interpretation of Mr. Kerry’s actions, said Michael Kofman, an expert on Russia at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, would read this as a public admission that the United States is bowing out of continuing the proxy war against the Syrian Army, seeing a negotiated agreement as “the best means of saving what little is left of the moderate opposition.”

If he fails, though, Mr. Obama will be left with little more than the news release his national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, issued last week, in which the White House took credit for achieving its goal of taking in 10,000 refugees from Syria, more than a month ahead of schedule — but only a small fraction of the five million Syrians who have fled their country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/wo...licy.html?_r=0

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Syrian Army Liberates Strategic Areas of Military Academies in Aleppo

© Sputnik/ Mikhail Alayeddin Middle East 12:37 04.09.2016Get short URL 33157440 Syrian Army troops along with militias completely liberated from terrorists the territory of the Air Force school and logistics support college in the south of Aleppo, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported from the scene. ALEPPO (Sputnik) — Another stage of the military assault in the areas of higher military institutions began on Sunday night. At the moment, only a part of the artillery school remains under the control of terrorists. "Air Force school and logistics support college are [under] our [control]. It is necessary to clean up the artillery [school]. This is an important and strategic step for the liberation of the entire city of Aleppo from terrorists," a brigade commander of a militia group told RIA Novosti. Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with government forces loyal to President Bashar Assad fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups. On February 27, a US-Russia brokered ceasefire came into force in Syria. Terrorist groups, which maintain a heavy presence in Aleppo, are not part of the deal. 29 ...

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20...my-aleppo.html

Syrian Army captures strategic military base in southern Aleppo
By Leith Fadel -
04/09/2016 25

Aleppo, Syria (5:30 A.M.) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), backed by Liwaa Al-Quds (Palestinian paramilitary), imposed full control over the strategic Armament School in southern Aleppo after a violent battle with the jihadist militants of Jaysh Al-Fateh (Army of Conquest).

Led by the Tiger Forces, the Syrian Arab Army and their allies broke-through Jaysh Al-Fateh’s first-line of defenses last night, forcing the aforementioned jihadist group to retreat to the central buildings.

Once the northwestern corridor of the Armament School was under control, the Syrian Armed Forces and their allies stormed the central buildings, overrunning Jaysh Al-Fateh’s defenses and establishing full control over this strategic military installation.

With the Armament School under their control, the Syrian Armed Forces will now target the Al-Ramouseh District in order to reopen their supply route from southern Aleppo.

ISIS launches suicidal raid on Syrian outpost in eastern Homs
By Chris Tomson -
04/09/2016 2
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...-eastern-homs/
Yesterday evening, Islamic State fighters began attacking government positions north of the T4 Airbase between Homs and Palmyra, eventually leading to jihadist forces temporarily capturing the abandoned Tank Battalion Base.

ISIS also seized a batch of weapons during the raid as seen in the video here.

During the initial thrust, the National Defence Forces (NDF) suffered 10 casualties and quickly found their positions indefensible, forcing the NDF to retreat from the site.

However, a few hours later, the local NDF commander mobilized his forces and went on the counter-offensive. Sometime during Sunday night, the NDF fully reclaimed the site and killed at least 10 ISIS militants, thus leveling the death toll score between the warring parties.

Syrian Army repels Jund Al-Aqsa attack on Kawkab village in northern Hama
By Leith Fadel -
04/09/2016 0
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...northern-hama/
Hama, Syria (9:35 P.M.) – Jund Al-Aqsa (Al-Qaeda franchise), backed by Faylaq Al-Sham and the Free Syrian Army (FSA), launched another attack in the northern Hama countryside on Sunday, targeting the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) controlled town of Kawkab near Qamhana.

The jihadist rebels began the assault by capturing the checkpoints outside of Kawkab, leaving them within striking distance of the town’s western flank.

Following the capture of these checkpoints, the jihadist rebels stormed Kawkab’s western flank, resulting in a series of fierce clashes with the Syrian Arab Army’s 11th Tank Division and Iranian paramilitary fighters.

However, Jund Al-Aqsa and their allies were unable to penetrate the government defenses after several attempts to enter Kawkab; this forced them to withdraw from the town’s western outskirts.

The Russian Air Force is now targeting Jund Al-Aqsa’s positions near Kawkab, as the Syrian Arab Army attempts to recover their lost points.

...

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SouthFront: Syrian Army expands buffer zone around Aleppo city


By Chris Tomson -
06/09/2016
0

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has finally won the upper hand in southern Aleppo as Islamist defenses have gradually fallen apart, resulting in over 200 insurgent casualties.

Next up, the SAA hopes to retake Aleppo’s Ramouseh district and outskirt towns such as Khan Touman. If these fall into government hands, the SAA will gradually tighten the noose around rebel-held districts in eastern Aleppo, ultimately leading to the liberation of Syria’s largest city.

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...d-aleppo-city/

Hezbollah, Syrian Army attack Khan Touman in southern Aleppo


By Leith Fadel -
06/09/2016
11

Aleppo, Syria (11:05 A.M.) – Not long after launching their assault on the Al-Ramouseh District in southern Aleppo, the Syrian Armed Forces and Hezbollah conducted a swift assault near the key town of Khan Touman.

Hezbollah, alongside Liwaa Al-Quds (Palestinian paramilitary) and Syrian Republican Guard, attempted to advance to Khan Touman this morning from their positions near Qarassi village; this resulted in a violent exchange with the jihadist rebels of Jaysh Al-Fateh (Army of Conquest).

The Syrian Armed Forces and Hezbollah are still attacking Jaysh Al-Fateh’s defenses near Khan Touman; however, the latter has already reinforced the area in anticipation for this assault.



According to the official media wing for Liwaa Al-Quds, their fighters destroyed a number of enemy vehicles near the Khan Touman axis this morning, but they did not report any field progress as of yet.

Syrian Army advances in Hama after repelling jihadist attack


By Izat Charkatli -
06/09/2016

Hama, Syria (8:11 P.M.) – After several failed assaults on Ma’an and the neighboring Karah village, jihadists from the Jund Al-Aqsa terrorist group and their allied Free Syrian Army renewed their assault on the aforementioned villages.

Unfortunately for them, the local NDF and Syrian Army units were well-prepared for the assault. Three militant tanks and four armored vehicles were destroyed in the failed assault. Moreover, over 30 jihadists were killed while dozens more were injured.

Adding insult to injury, Syrian Army units managed to recapture Batish and the western neighborhood of Ma’ardasmnorth of Mt. Arbaeen. So far, this offensive has begun to prove real costly for the jihadists who are currently attempting to fortify the towns they seized almost a week ago.

Syrian Army reverses ISIS gains in northeast Homs


By Leith Fadel -
06/09/2016
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...ortheast-homs/

Homs, Syria (3:30 A.M.) – The Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) launched a large-scale offensive in the northeastern countryside of the Homs Governorate last week, targeting the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) controlled Al-Mahr Gas Fields and Huwaysis village.

Initially, the Islamic State militants were able to seize several checkpoints and hilltops between the village of Huwaysis and Al-Sha’er Gas Fields; however, the Syrian Armed Forces would reverse these gains after a fierce battle with the infamous terrorist group on Sunday morning.

Among the many sites recaptured by the Syrian Armed Forces on Sunday was the strategic hilltop of Tal Sawwan, which was lost to the Islamic State militants on late Saturday.



In addition to reversing the Islamic State’s gains near Huwaysis, the Syrian Armed Forces also recovered several points near the Al-Mahr Gas Fields, forcing the remaining terrorists to retreat north.

The Islamic State has now retreated towards the previous front-lines after another unsuccessful offensive in the northeastern Homs countryside.

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Syrian Army, Palestinian committees launch fresh attack at Handarat Camp in northern Aleppo


By Leith Fadel -
07/09/2016


Aleppo, Syria (9:30 A.M.) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), alongside Liwaa Al-Quds (Palestinian paramilitary), launched a new assault in northern Aleppo on Wednesday, targeting the jihadist-controlled Handarat Refugee Camp near the provincial capital.

The Syrian Armed Forces began the attack by storming the eastern neighborhoods of the Handarat Camp; this resulted in a fierce battle with the Fatah Halab militants that is still ongoing.

A military source from Liwaa Al-Quds told Al-Masdar on Wednesday morning that their forces have already seized large parts of the Handarat Industrial District, which is located at the northeastern flank of the camp.



Clashes have somewhat died down in the Handarat Refugee Camp, thanks in large-part to the Syrian Air Force’s powerful airstrikes that have repeatedly struck Fatah Halab’s headquarters in the west district.

Syrian Army reinforcements pour into northern Hama


By Leith Fadel -
07/09/2016
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...northern-hama/

Hama, Syria (7:05 A.M.) – An entire battalion from the Syrian Arab Army’s elite “Tiger Forces” arrived yesterday in the northern Hama countryside, swelling the overall number of military personnel in the region to 4,000.

According to a private source in northern Hama, the Shaheen Group of the Tiger Forces was redeployed to the Qamhana outskirts in order to help retake several villages that were lost to the jihadist rebels of Jund Al-Aqsa (Al-Qaeda franchise).

Led by their prominent field commander, the Shaheen group has participated in several battles inside the Aleppo and Homs governorates; however, they are one of the smaller battalions in the Tiger Forces.


With their most elite units participating in the Aleppo offensive, the Tiger Forces high command made the decisions to redeploy the Shaheen Group from the nearby Homs Governorate to help drive back the jihadist rebels.

Jaysh Al-Fateh sends reinforcements to southern Aleppo


By Leith Fadel -
07/09/2016


Aleppo, Syria (10:45 A.M.) – Jaysh Al-Fateh (Army of Conquest) allegedly sent a large convoy of reinforcements from the Idlib Governorate to the southern Aleppo countryside last night, a government source told Al-Masdar on Wednesday morning.

These jihadist reinforcements were allegedly sent to the Al-‘Eiss Mountains of south Aleppo because of the rumored government offensive that is expected to target this area of the province.

The rumors regarding this government offensive began on Tuesday, when photos of Major General Qassim Suleimani were published on several social media pages.



With their allies from Faylaq Al-Sham and Nouriddeen Al-Zinki tied-up in northern Aleppo, Jaysh Al-Fateh will have to rely on their reserves from the Idlib Governorate to beat back the government forces; specifically, Hezbollah and Harakat Al-Nujaba (Iraqi paramilitary).

Another Change of Fortune in Aleppo




Aron Lund


Syria’s rebels are learning the disadvantages of being a proxy force.


September 05, 2016

Comments (+)




Government-held West Aleppo is secured and rebel-held East Aleppo is under siege—again. While the United States and Russia haggled over humanitarian access and truces, Syrian army forces, backed by the Russian aircraft and Shia foreign fighters, broke through Sunni rebel lines near the Ramouseh area of Aleppo.

Some suspect that U.S.-Russian or Russian-Turkish agreements may have influenced the developments on the battlefield. While rebel leaders deny this and say they simply faced overwhelming odds, the defeat in Ramouseh is undoubtedly connected to Turkey in one way: the Turkish use of Syrian rebels as a proxy force against the self-declared Islamic State and Kurdish forces has drawn many fighters away from their war against President Bashar al-Assad, weakening opposition lines in Aleppo.

No Rebel Sermons Just Yet

For nearly a whole month, the Jaish al-Fateh coalition of Islamist rebels from Idlib and Aleppo has held the area around the Artillery Faculty and the Ramouseh neighborhood, reportedly with Turkish backing. The rebels thereby severed West Aleppo from its main supply road to Hama and created a corridor between East Aleppo and the opposition-controlled countryside. For the rebels, taking the Artillery Faculty in early August turned defeat into victory, rekindling hopes of ultimately triumphing in the city.

“The battle is not about breaking the siege, breaking the siege was the beginning of the battle! God willing, the battle is about holding our next sermon in the Saadallah al-Jabri Square,” roared the Saudi jihadi preacher Abdullah al-Moheisini in a propaganda clip from Ramouseh, referring to the famous square in central Aleppo.

But now that the Artillery Faculty is back under Assad’s control, no jihadi sermons will soon be held at Saadallah al-Jabri Square.

A Costly Victory for Assad

For Bashar al-Assad, who lost hundreds of troops trying to expel the rebels from the Artillery Faculty, the battle must have served as a costly lesson about the importance of protecting your flanks. The area reportedly fell to Jaish al-Fateh in August because the army had withdrawn to fight on other fronts. This left a placeholder force of local militia that ended up fleeing its positions.

Assad’s fundamental problem is that he lacks enough troops to be everywhere at once. Not even the thousands of Shia Islamist volunteers pouring in from Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon have been able to compensate for this manpower problem. It leaves Assad with the options of limiting his territorial ambitions or making risky gambles. Aleppo was a gamble. It now seems to have paid off—but it very nearly didn’t. Indeed, just as the army prepared to seize the Artillery Faculty in early September, it was forced to divert forces to northern Hama where another rebel offensive had begun to chip away at loyalist territory. Though the government later managed to break through rebel lines, the price was high and the situation remains precarious. Jaish al-Fateh is not likely to give up the battle and may yet launch a counter-offensive or find another chink in Assad’s armor. Russian-American attempts to reach a diplomatic deal over Aleppo could also bring changes to the battlefield, perhaps not all to Assad’s liking.

But for the time being, assuming the army succeeds in holding the line in Hama, the situation has largely reverted to what it was in July. Rebel-held East Aleppo is again firmly under siege and Assad has secured his access to West Aleppo, leaving him clearly ascendant in the north. Although he has faced setbacks around Hama, Assad’s forces have recaptured Darayya and Moadhamiyeh west of Damascus, and they continue to advance in the East Ghouta.

In other words, other than the hiccup in Hama, Assad seems to be cementing his hold on what some have termed “useful Syria.” If this continues, with opposition forces driven into besieged cities and rural regions, it is likely to have implications for how the Syrian conflict is understood and managed by outside actors.

Rebel Needs, Turkish Priorities

The Syrian rebels will also draw lessons from what happened. The most obvious reason for their defeat at the Artillery Faculty was the disparity of power between Jaish al-Fateh and allied groups, on the one hand, and the combined forces of Syria, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, on the other. This is disheartening enough, but the rebels are also likely to draw other troubling conclusions from what transpired in Aleppo.

One is that the proxy problem is now beginning to bite. A rare piece of good news amid the gloom for Syrian rebels was their September 4 victory along the Turkish border northeast of Aleppo, where they fought under the leadership of Turkish special forces to drive out the Islamic State and anti-Turkish Kurdish groups. The Turkish intervention, which began on August 24, aims at creating a buffer zone to push the Islamic State away from the border—this is a longstanding U.S. demand—while also forestalling the creation a contiguous Kurdish-held region in northern Syria. Both of these goals are shared by the Syrian rebels, but they are not as much of a priority for them as holding the line in Aleppo. Yet rebels from the Aleppo region were pushed by Turkey, and paid, to stay on the border front, instead of returning to their home city to fight.

Credible figures are hard to come by, but some estimate that between 1,000 and 5,000 Syrians took part in the initial intervention on August 24, most of them drawn from U.S.-vetted nationalist and soft-Islamist groups operating under the Free Syrian Army banner. Thousands more were located in another border pocket, near Azaz, and have since joined Turkey’s border-clearing operation. For comparison, Reuters estimated the Jaish al-Fateh-led main force that seized the Artillery Faculty at around 6,000-8,000 fighters. Though the Syrian rebels will likely profit from the Turkish border zone in some ways, it seems certain that they would have gained more from these troops by putting pressure on Assad in Aleppo. But Turkey had other plans, because it has a different set of priorities—and in the end, thousands of fighters opted to follow Ankara’s lead.

Already, about a dozen air forces have bombed Syria since 2014 and tens of thousands of foreigners are now fighting on its soil. As the Syrian war has become more internationalized, such mismatched patron-proxy relationships are only likely to become more common.

http://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/64474?lang=en

[troung]

Syrian Army on the verge of capturing major Eastern Ghouta stronghold


By Izat Charkatli -
07/09/2016

Damascus, Syria (8:05 P.M.) – Moments ago, the Syrian Army’s elite Republican Guard supported by some of the most battle-hardened National Defense units (NDF) managed to capture the ‘Jaish Al-Islam’-controlled hilltop of Tal Sawwan after repelling a massive counterattack by the jihadist faction.

Heavy clashes are ongoing in the farm region between Tal Sawwan and Tal Kurdi. The Syrian Air Force unusually participated in this battle targeting JaI positions and artillery cells all around the northern fronts of Eastern Ghouta.

Several militant-manned vehicles and heavy machine-guns were destroyed in the process. A minimum of 10 Islamist rebels were killed and dozens injured in the aforementioned clashes.



Should the Syrian Armed Forces capture the imperative Tal Kurdi stronghold, they would essentially have destroyed the main line of defense around the large Damascene city of Douma and set the ground for a potential assault on the town

....

[troung]

Why Aleppo Matters: Syrian Army Just Broke Islamist Stronghold
Photo of Saagar Enjeti
Saagar Enjeti
11:31 AM 09/08/2016

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is tightening the noose around the jihadi stronghold city of Aleppo, possibly his greatest victory in the Syrian civil war.

Assad’s move in Aleppo could reverse all the gains a jihadi-led coalition made last month when it broke the regime’s siege. Aleppo has become a focal point of the broader Syrian opposition and involves almost every major player except the U.S. “Pro-regime forces reinstated the siege of Eastern Aleppo City” Sept. 4, the Institute for the Study of War noted Wednesday, explaining that, “new advances demonstrated the critical role played by Russia.”

Russia is pounding opposition-held areas of Aleppo in daily airstrikes. Iran just dispatched its favorite general to help coordinate the ground offensive, and earlier this month Hezbollah sent thousands of fresh troops to fight alongside the Assad regime. The Syrian regime even flouted the international community Wednesday when it likely dropped chlorine gas on civilians.

The only realistic chance of an end to hostilities in Aleppo is a potential deal between President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reports indicate that Obama was considering signing a deal with Putin for an immediate ceasefire in Aleppo, in exchange for military cooperation between the two countries. After months of haranguing over the details, the deal is now unlikely to come to fruition amid continued tensions between the two countries.

Syrian rebel opposition held positions inside Aleppo for nearly five years, but are unlikely to overcome Assad, Iran, and overwhelming Russian firepower. A rebel coalition led by al-Qaida-linked elements broke a government siege of Aleppo in early August, but the effort likely exhausted the military supplies of the groups. The reinstitution of a siege will deprive the group of supplies, and allow the regime and its allies to revert back to the original strategy of attrition warfare.

Despite a devastating five years of civil war, 300,000 civilians remain inside Aleppo. One humanitarian activist told Al Jazeera there are now only two bakeries in Aleppo to serve the remaining 300,000 customers.

Assad, Iran, and Russia have undertaken a concerted campaign to make the rebel position as untenable as possible, by bombing hospitals and cutting off any access to humanitarian assistance. The regime and its allies have tried to bomb as many hospitals as possible within Aleppo to cut off Rebel access to healthcare.

Cutting access to healthcare and food also makes life as miserable as possible for civilians living under rebel occupation.

The Assad regime’s strategy is to maintain control over as much of the civilian populace as possible to ensure perception of legitimacy in the eyes of the world, and bargain with the rebel opposition for peace from a position of strength.

“It is a shame that the world in the 21st century is watching an 8,000-year-old city destroyed on the heads of its inhabitants and bombed with 200 air raids and dozens of barrel bombs daily without doing anything,” President of the Opposition Council Anas Alabdah told The Daily Beast.

Follow Saagar Enjeti on Twitter

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/08/wh...#ixzz4JhvUgB00

Syrian Army captures strategic district in southern Aleppo
By Leith Fadel -
08/09/2016 3

Aleppo, Syria (4:15 P.M.) – Minutes ago, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) established full control over the strategic Al-Ramouseh District in southern Aleppo after a fierce 72 hour long battle with the jihadist rebels of Jaysh Al-Fateh (Army of Conquest).

According to a military source in southern Aleppo, the Syrian Arab Army’s “Tiger Forces,” backed by Liwaa Al-Quds (Palestinian paramilitary), managed to break-through Jaysh Al-Fateh’s last-line of defense inside the Al-Ramouseh District, forcing the latter to retreat to the nearby Sadkop Fuel Depot.

Following Jaysh Al-Fateh’s retreat from Al-Ramouseh, Syrian Arab Army engineers combed through the district to make sure there were no IEDs planted by the jihadist rebels; it was declared “safe” shortly after.

The clashes have now moved tot he Sadkop Fuel Depot, where the jihadist rebels are hoping to make their last stand against the Syrian Armed Forces and their allies.

Military situation map in southern Aleppo can be watched in full HD mood

Breaking: Airstrike targets Jaish Al-Fateh meeting in Aleppo
By Izat Charkatli -
08/09/2016 15
Breaking News
Breaking News

Aleppo, Syria (12:11 A.M.) – An airstrike targeted a Jabhat Fath Al-Sham (formerly Jabhat Al-Nusra) meeting in the Aleppo village of Kafar Naha moments ago.

A large number of prominent commanders were neutralized including the emir and founder of the jihadist coalition of Jaish Al-Fateh Abu Hajar Al-Homsi, the emir of the Nusra Brigades Abu Muslim Al-Shami, Abu Omar Saraqib who was a founding father and a commander of Jaish Al-Fateh, along with several other top commanders who have yet to be confirmed.

Early reports say the airstrike was carried out by a U.S warplane, however the targeted area is known to be an active airstrikes ground for Russian air force aswell

[troung]

Russian Marines replace Syrian Army on Aleppo’s Castillo Highway


By Leith Fadel -
13/09/2016

Aleppo, Syria (12:10 P.M.) - The Russian Marines have replaced the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) along the Castillo Highway in northern Aleppo after the ceasefire agreement took effect last night.

Initially, a member of the Syrian Arab Army's "Tiger Forces" told Al-Masdar News that their units did not receive any instructions regarding their withdrawal from the Castillo Highway.

However, on Monday, the Syrian Arab Army's High Command instructed the Tiger Forces to withdraw 1km north of the Castillo Highway in order to allow the Russian Marines to facilitate a humanitarian corridor along this roadway.



According to an Al-Masdar correspondent that is embedded with the Tiger Forces, the Syrian Arab Army is planning an offensive in northern Aleppo in the coming weeks, so they will keep a presence inside Al-Malaah Farms.

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...tillo-highway/

Syrian Army, Hezbollah attack the jihadist rebels in southern Aleppo


By Leith Fadel -
13/09/2016
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...uthern-aleppo/


Aleppo, Syria (11:50 A.M.) - The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), alongside Hezbollah, launched a barrage of missiles and artillery shells towards Jaysh Al-Fateh's (Army of Conquest) positions in the southern Aleppo countryside today, targeting the villages of Qarassi, Khan Touman, and Khalsah.

According to local activists in southern Aleppo, the Syrian Arab Army and Hezbollah began their attack against the jihadist rebels around 10:00 A.M. (Damascus Time) this morning after several enemy mortar shells struck their positions near the village of Al-Hadher.

While the ceasefire has officially started, several groups that are part of Jaysh Al-Fateh have been excluded from the agreement, including Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham (formerly Al-Nusra Front).



The Syrian Armed Forces are permitted to attack Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham and Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham, per the ceasefire agreement; especially since the latter did not accept the terms of this proposal.

[Breaking] Rebels ignore ceasefire to launch new assault in northern Hama


By Leith Fadel -
13/09/2016
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...northern-hama/
Hama, Syria (7:00 A.M.) - The Free Syrian Army (FSA), backed by Jund Al-Aqsa (Al-Qaeda franchise), launched a new assault in the northern Hama countryside on Tuesday, targeting the small town of Zour Al-Masalq near Khattab.

According to a field source in northern Hama, the Free Syrian Army's "Jaysh Al-Izza," alongside Jund Al-Aqsa, stormed their Syrian Arab Army's defenses at Zour Al-Masalq this morning, resulting in the second violation of this ceasefire by the rebel forces.

No gains have been reported thus far; however, the jihadist rebels have forced to the Syrian Arab Army to strengthen their positions all over northern Hama in anticipation for another attack.



The ceasefire in Hama lasted for a total of 12 hours before the jihadist rebels broke the agreement by launching their offensive.

[troung]

Syrian Army advances in southwest Deir Ezzor after killing 50+ ISIS fighters
By Leith Fadel -
14/09/2016 2

Deir Ezzor, Syria (1:50 P.M.) - The Syrian Arab Army launched an offensive last night in the southwestern countryside of the Deir Ezzor Governorate after repelling the large-scale Islamic State assault last week.

Despite the 104th Brigade coming under attack at the Industrial District, the Syrian Arab Army's 137th Artillery Brigade of the 17th Reserve Division was able to make a wide-scale advance near Tal Kroum, capturing several sites they lost to the Islamic State forces last week.

According to a military source in Deir Ezzor, the SYrian Armed Forces killed more than 50 Islamic State fighters over the last 24 hours, while also capturing the imperative hilltop of Tal Sannouf near the 137th Brigade's headquarters.

Currently, the Syrian Armed Forces are pushing southwest towards the Tayyem Valley, where they hope to recover the oil fields near the village of Mohassan.

ISIS snatches swaths of rebel territory northeast of Damascus – Map update
By Chris Tomson -
14/09/2016 6

In a somewhat silent ten-day offensive, ISIS fighters have gradually retaken three hill tops from rebel factions in the mountainous terrain of eastern Qalamoun.

Effectively, Jaish al-Islam and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) affiliated Ahmad al-Abdo brigade have lost control of Jabal Zubaydi, Tall Daba'a and Jabal al-Afa'i.

Rebel factions and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) are still on good terms in the eastern Qalamoun, a somewhat rare scenario in other Syrian regions still affected by more than 5 years of war.

Previously, the SAA has provided air support against ISIS in favor of Jaish al-Islam and the Ahmad al-Abdo brigade. In turn, rebel commanders have vowed not to harass nearby SAA forces.

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...us-map-update/

Syrian Army reinforcements from Aleppo arrive in northern Hama
By Leith Fadel -
14/09/2016 3
Soldiers from the 3rd Division overlook Al-Khalidiyah

HAMA, SYRIA (3:30 P.M.) - A large convoy of reinforcements from the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) arrived in northern Hama today, following their long deployment in the Aleppo Governorate.

The reinforcements sent to northern Hama today were primarily comprised of soldiers from the Syrian Arab Army's Republican Guard.

Due to the recent influx of violence in the northern Hama countryside, the Syrian Arab Army has bulked up their numbers in the province to combat anymore attacks from Jund Al-Aqsa (Al-Qaeda franchise) and their allies.

The Syrian Armed Forces are expected to counter the jihadist offensive after the 7 day ceasefire concludes next Monday.

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...northern-hama/

Syrian Army appoints brother of Issam Zahreddine to command troops at Quneitra
By Chris Tomson -
14/09/2016 2

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has assigned Brigadier General Osama Zahreddine the task of leading the Hader-Quneitra operations room in the Syrian Golan Heights. In the past four days, the SAA in Quneitra province has been fighting off both rebel attacks and Israeli air raids.

Osama Zahreddine is the brother of legendary Major General Issam Zahreddine, commander-in-chief of the SAA's forces at Deir Ezzor, a city still withstanding a two year long Islamic State siege.

Both Zahreddine brothers originate from a Druze family in Sweida province, further south. Meanwhile, the majority of inhabitants in the Golan Heights are equally Druze; therefore, Osama Zahreddine's deployment hints at a SAA strategy opting to win the hearts and minds of local inhabitants.

The Quneitra governorate has been locked down in somewhat of a stalemate since the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra (now Jabhat Fateh al-Sham) seized the town of Al-Quneitra and its the border crossing to Israel in 2014.

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...oops-quneitra/

Syrian Army launches counter-assault in northern Hama
By Leith Fadel -
12/09/2016 0

Hama, Syria (4:00 A.M.) - The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) launched a counter-assault in the northern Hama countryside on Sunday night, targeting the small, but important, Kawkab village that is under the Jund Al-Aqsa's (Al-Qaeda franchise) control.

Led by the 47th Regiment of the 11th Tank Division and the 555th Regiment of the 4th Mechanized Division, the Syrian Arab Army stormed the southern perimeter of this village, where they confronted by a joint force of militants from Jund Al-Aqsa and Faylaq Al-Sham.

Intense clashes ensued after the Syrian Armed Forces repeatedly pounded the jihadist defenses with a barrage of missiles and artillery shells in order to break their resolve.

So far, the Syrian Armed Forces have managed to reclaim a small part of Kawkab village; however, they are still immersed in a fierce battle with Jund Al-Aqsa and Faylaq Al-Sham at the southern flank.

[troung]

Syrian Army prepares for large-scale offensive in northern Hama
By Leith Fadel - 15/09/20162


HAMA, SYRIA (12:00 P.M.) - Damascus has given the Syrian Armed Forces in northern Hama the green light to launch a massive counter-offensive against the jihadist rebels of Jund Al-Aqsa (Al-Qaeda franchise) after several weeks of being on the defensive.

The offensive will include several units of the Syrian Arab Army's "Tiger Forces," who have just been redeployed from the Al-Castillo Highway in northern Aleppo after a long deployment.

According to a military source in the Hama Governorate, the Tiger Forces will lead the offensive, alongside the 47th Regiment of the 11th Tank Division, 555th Regiment of the 4th Mechanized Division, National Defense Forces (NDF), Syrian Air Force Intelligence Unit 333, and Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP).


Similar to their 2014 counter-offensive, the primary objective of this attack will be to recover all the villages lost to the jihadist rebels, along with the key town of Morek, which was captured by Jund Al-Aqsa earlier this year.

The date of this offensive was not revealed to Al-Masdar News

AMN Al Masdar News المصدر نيوز
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Thousands protest prominent Shia cleric’s trial in Bahrain
Turkey prepares for 3rd phase of Aleppo offensive
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Russian army chief travels to Turkey to discuss military cooperation in Syria
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(Graphic +18) Group of jihadists killed in Golan Heights after attacking Tal Taranjeh
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Syrian Army kills over 70 ISIS terrorists in latest Deir Ezzor advance
Russia
Syria
Syrian Army beefs up defenses around Palmyra in preparation for ISIS offensive
By Leith Fadel - 15/09/20161


PALMYRA, SYRIA (9:10 A.M.) - The Syrian Arab Army's 11th and 18th tank divisions have increased their presence around the strategic city of Palmyra (Tadmur) today after several intelligence reports from their Russian advisors indicated a massive build-up of Islamic State fighters along the International Highway.

A senior officer from the 11th Tank Division told Al-Masdar News on Thursday morning that their forces were alerted by their Russian advisors about a large presence of Islamic State fighters at the oil rich town of Al-Sukhanah near the Deir Ezzor Governorate border.

Syrian Arab Army soldiers from the ancient Assyrian town of Al-Quraytayn have already arrived in Palmyra to help with the city's defenses, the military source added.


To combat this large presence of Islamic State fighters, the Russian Air Force has launched a large number of airstrikes over the eastern countryside of Palmyra, destroying several armored vehicles between Al-Sukhanah and 'Arak village.

The Russian Ministry of Defense reported yesterday that their air force killed approximately 250 Islamic State terrorists during their air raids over eastern Palmyra countryside on Tuesday.

. ..

Syria
US-backed rebels prepare to storm last ISIS stronghold in Hasakah
By Leith Fadel - 15/09/20160


AL-HASAKAH, SYRIA (2:00 P.M.) - The U.S. backed "Syrian Democratic Forces" (SDF) are preparing to launch a wide-scale offensive to capture the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham's (ISIS) last stronghold in the Al-Hasakah Governorate: Markadah.

Leading the way is the U.S.-led Anti-ISIS Coalition, who has already begun the assault by launching several airstrikes over the strategic town of Markadah.

Once Markadah falls to the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Islamic State will be forced to retreat to the outskirts of Al-Hasakah.


The Syrian Democratic Forces are likely to start this offensive in the coming days, as they take advantage of the Islamic State's crumbling defenses in Al-Hasakah
.

[astralis]

i wonder what the attrition rate for the Syrian Army is, and exactly how many munitions have been shipped in by Russia. it's actually pretty surprising how the Syrian Army is still a viable organization after years of this type of intense grinding combat.

[troung]

https://citeam.org/here-s-why-assad-...-war-in-syria/

Here’s why Assad’s army can’t win the war in Syria



09.09.2016БлогRuslan Leviev


Original article in Russian by Mikhail Khodarenok
Читать оригинал публикации на русском языке (Газета.ru, Михаил Ходаренок)

Russia should consider gradual withdrawal from the conflict, according to a Russian military expert.

A Syrian army soldier atop Fahr-al-Din castle, photo by Valery Sharifullin/TASS
A Syrian army soldier atop Fahr-al-Din castle, photo by Valery Sharifullin/TASS

The following is a translation of a scathing article on the state of the Syrian Arab Army that appeared in an online outlet Gazeta.ru, which is Kremlin-controlled but sometimes critical of the Russian authorities online. The author is a retired Russian officer with 8 years of experience working in the General Staff and 5 years as an editor of an established military magazine. The article, originally titled "It would be easier to disband the Syrian army and recruit a new one", mirrors the emerging Syria fatigue sentiments in the Russian military circles and reportedly was confirmed by a serving Russian colonel, who added "Everything is like it’s written but worse". The expert notably omits mentioning regime war crimes even when describing the use of barrel bombs. Throughout the text, he calls Syrian rebels "militants" and "illegal armed groups" — terms widely used by Russian military and media to describe Chechen fighters during the wars. This anti-rebel stance perhaps lends even more credibility to the author’s assessment of their capabilities versus those of the SAA.

While militias, Iranian volunteers, Hezbollah and PMCs fight in lieu of the Syrian army, Bashar Assad’s soldier busy themselves with collecting bribes at checkpoints. This view becomes more and more widespread among military experts aware of the actual situation in Syria. The country’s air force is worn down and uses home-made bombs, the soldiers dig moats to protect from terrorists’ tunnels, while the militants enjoy tactical and moral superiority, says Mikhail Khodarenok, Gazeta.ru’s military observer.

The pro-government forces are likely to capture the city of Aleppo soon. However, it remains doubtful if this will bring the end of the Syrian war closer. In Middle Eastern wars, there is no single building to plant a flag on that would make the enemy surrender unconditionally.

Indeed, it is quite hard to say which side is currently winning the military conflict. Bashar al-Assad, the president of the Syrian Arab Republic, still does not control about half the country’s territory and a majority of towns and villages.

The results of the fighting in Syria so far have been disastrous. The total number of Syrians killed has grown to 250-300 thousand (giving a more precise number is impossible), while about a million people have been wounded. Syrians of all ethnic and religious denominations have grown weary of the civil war that has dragged on for over five years.

Always defeated

The actual fighting against opposition groups is mostly done by Syrian militias, the Lebanese Hezbollah Shia units, Iranian and Iraqi volunteers and Private Military Companies (PMCs).

The main military actions Assad’s army engages in is extorting a tribute from the locals. The Syrian armed forces have not conducted a single successful offensive during the past year.

Apparently Syria’s General Staff has no coherent short-term or mid-term strategic plans. Assad’s generals do not believe their troops can bring the country to order without military aid from foreign states. They do not plan large-scale operations, giving the reasoning of ostensibly high combat capabilities of the illegal armed groups, lack of ammunition and modern equipment, a fear of heavy losses and a negative outcome of the fighting.

The Syrian army’s junior officers, NCOs and privates have little enthusiasm to charge and fight for their motherland. The general morale deterioration is exacerbated by the fact that the history of the modern Syrian army has known no military victories.

Assad’s army bears the brand of constant defeats and humiliations since the first Arab-Israeli wars of 1947-1948.

The Syrian army fighters see no close end to the crisis. There are no set dates of ending military service. The achievements of soldiers and officers are not encouraged or awarded. The materiel and food supplies are inadequate. There are no benefits for soldiers or their families.

Most importantly, even if the Syrian leadership wished to solve these problems, they couldn’t raise the funds to do so. Assad’s government currently has no stable income sources. Years of fighting have severely disrupted the country’s economy. Industrial production has fallen by 70%, agriculture — by 60%, oil production — by 95% and natural production — by 70%. The Syrian treasury has no money even for immediate defense expenditures.

This situation is further exacerbated by the Syrian army being severely understaffed and underequipped. Currently, the staffing and equipment levels stand a bit over 50% of the required figures. The yearly draft does not satisfy even the minimal needs of the army. Due to this, since 2011 sergeants and privates who have served their terms have not been discharged.

The draft fails due to a number of reasons. Some potential conscripts support the anti-government forces and actively dodge the draft. Others have joined the illegal armed groups. Still others have adopted a wait-and-see attitude, preferring not to fight for any of the sides. Many potential recruits have become refugees outside Syria, some of them in Europe. A large part of the population lives on territories outside the government troops’ control. Finally, recruits and their families fear reprisals from the militants.

The majority of Syrian army units are based at fortified checkpoints. There are in total about 2 thousand such checkpoints throughout Syria. Thus, over a half of the army operates with no connection to their units.

Sitting inside those fortified checkpoints, the Syrian regulars are mostly doing defensive duties and extorting money from the locals. They do not conduct any major operations to liberate population or administration centers.

Such pillars of any military as "A superior’s order is the law for his subordinate" and "An order is to be performed at all costs, precisely, timely and with no objections", are at best limitedly enforced in the Syrian army.

"Barrel" bombs

It is hard to find anything worthy of studying or imitation from the Syrian army’s military practice.

The only worthy examples are of the "How not to wage war" variety.

The Air Force deserves a special mention. The Syrian Arab Air Force conducts a significant number of sorties daily (reaching 100 in certain days in 2015), over 85% of which are bombing runs. The Air Force’s contribution to the overall fire damage is about 70%. The airstrikes are conducted by several dozen fighter/bomber jets and around 40 army aviation helicopters.

The SyAAF’s main modus operandi is solitary sorties. Flights in pairs and larger units are not done in order to save resources. In order to decrease losses, the bombing runs are done at heights of 3 thousand meters and above. In extreme cases, dive bombing is used.

Due to the lack of air ordnance, the Syrian army has until recently used even sea mines, torpedoes and depth charges for ground attacks. The so-called "barrel bombs" are also widely used. Over 10,000 of the latter have been dropped on the enemy.

A "barrel bomb" is a type of home-made air ordnance weighting 200 to 1000 kg. It is a section of a wide oil pipeline welded shut with metal plates from both sides and stuffed with a high amount of explosives. A "barrel bomb" is highly explosive and is used to destroy buildings and attack large gatherings of the militants.

There is no pilot training to replenish the combat losses (training in Russia has been discontinued). The aircraft are not being repaired (the only aircraft repair plant is inside the Aleppo warzone).

Various estimates put the air force’s losses since the start of the conflict (April 2011) at about 200 planes and over 150 pilots.

The tunnel war

Tunnel and anti-tunnel tactics have seen widespread use during the Syria war. Tunnels are used to blow up multi-storey buildings used as command posts or ammunition and materiel depots. Drilling machines can dig tunnels at a speed of 3-4m/day while improvised machinery can do 1-2m/day.

Underground tunnels and passages have been gun in Syria since the times of the Roman Empire and the founding of the first cities, such as Palmyra (Tadmor), Damascus, Raqqa and Homs. The local soil encourages this. Being rather soft and clayey, the soil does not slough, which is why both sides of the conflict toil endlessly to dig underground passages of all kinds and purposes.

Militants dig tunnels or use a wide network of old ones to achieve surprise during attacks on military facilities and government troops. Despite a severe underground threat, the Syrian army has a rather negligent attitude to this. There is almost no information on caves or underground communications in towns or militant-controlled territories adjacent to them.

However, various anti-tunnel techniques are used to protect government troops and important facilities, such as using georadars (anomaly detectors), building counter-tunnels, digging shafts and building anti-tunnel moats.

The main technique government troops employs against enemy tunnels is drilling shafts.

Using dedicated drilling vehicles, holes up to 15 m deep are dug around important facilities at a distance up to 15 m. Then plastic tubes are inserted into the shafts and filled with sand. The fighters of the unit defending the facility monitor sand level in the tubes. Sagging sand indicates ongoing digging.

Another technique to counter enemy "diggers" is anti-tunnel mines — using excavators to extract soil up to 12 meters deep around military positions and important facilities. The time required to build a moat like that depends on the specifications of excavators involved and the heaviness of soil.

Militants’ morale and tactical advantage

Among the leadership of terrorists and armed Syrian opposition groups there are many former Iraqi officers who used to serve under Saddam Hussein.

They have amassed huge experience during the Iran-Iraq war and the two Gulf wars. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) higher officers are former General Staff leaders, brigade and division generals and colonels, while the rebel units are mostly staffed with deserters from Assad’s army.

The militants are highly mobile and capable of rapidly creating assault groups at critical points of the frontline. They have good knowledge of the area (70% of the illegal armed groups’ fighters are Syrian nationals) and command significant financial and human resources.

In the absence of a precise front line, the armed opposition groups engage in active focal fighting. Most of their efforts are applied to holding commanding heights and towns prepared for a perimeter defense. This enables fire control of government troops’ movement lines.

The high survivability of the militants during stationary fighting in fortified areas is ensured by using shelters prepared in advance. Those shelters often hide their actual location, numbers and composition.

The militants place observation points close to the contact line for advance detection of the government troops’ assault groupings. A post is manned by 2-3 people with means of observation, communication and transportation. The militants srtive to maintain control over areas by conducting local counterattacks, sabotage in the rear (including suicide attacks), constantly work to seize initiative from the government troops.

As a rule, counterattacks are performed by small groups of 10-15 militants in 3-4 cars with mounted heavy machine guns and 82mm mortars, supported by multi-launching rocket systems. One to five such groups may take part in an attack.

The purpose of the counterattacks is regaining initiative with the aim to reestablish control over the lost position an the territory in general.

When under attack from Russian forces, the armed groups leave their positions and towns, maintaining small groups of observers.

The militants’ units that have sustained significant damage are redeployed to Turkey or to areas under active ceasefire to restore capabilities, reinforce and resupply.

The morale and combat capabilities of the militants are highly above those of the SAA soldiers.

The illegal armed groups have integrated guerrilla and terrorist techniques into their tactics, combining them with conventional warfare methods utilized by regular troops. Their tactics continue to adapt based on the enemy’s behavior.

The command system the illegal armed groups have created enables prompt and rather efficient reactive measures towards changing conditions. The militants’ success is made easier by the openness of Syria’s borders (the government only controls the Syria-Lebanon border and a 50 km stretch of the Syria-Jordan border.

Time to go home

At the start of the civil war, the government troops enjoyed a quantitative advantage in everything, especially aviation, tanks and artillery. Assad could reasonably hope for a swift success in fighting irregular armed groups of the rebels.

However, the Syrian Civil War and the fight against islamists have once again confirmed that a numeric and technical advantage is not enough to achieve victory. Even good theoretical knowledge of the leadership does not play a decisive role.

In order to win a military conflict, just like in old times, one needs a strong spirit, an unyielding will for victory, trust in oneself and one’s troops, decisiveness, bravery, inventiveness, flexibility and an ability to lead others. All this lacks severely in Assad’s army.

It is unclear what should be done to the half-rotten structure of the Syrian army. No amount of repressions, be it shootings, penal battalions or retreat-blocking detachments, can’t make it fight. There are no examples of this in military history.

Strict disciplinary measures may establish order in shaky units and detachments which fell under a spell of panic on the battlefield.

Arms could be used to neutralize the panic and flight instigators, shoot deserters, self-injurers, traitors and defeatists. But no war has ever been won with military tribunals and death sentences.

If the soldiers have no higher goal to protect their motherland, aren’t ready to sacrifice themselves, defend every position to the last drop of blood and look into the face of death while rushing in an attack, no amount of penal companies or retreat-blocking detachments can save such an army.

One the one hand, it would seam easy to completely demobilize (in other words, completely disband) the Syrian army and recruit a new one. In other words, restart the process of building up the country’s military.

On the other hand, the main problem is that new men are nowhere to be found in modern Syria. Any newly created army will naturally inherit all the malaises of the old SAA. There also is no definitive answer to a substantial question: who’s gonna pay for that?

It is impossible to win the war with such an ally as Assad’s army.

The militias can’t be fully relied on either. Hezbollah and the Iranians have their own interests.

This is why apparently the Russian military and political leadership shall have to take a drastic decision: end the Syria campaign before the end of 2016, withdrawing all troops and leaving only the military bases.

It is impossible to restore the constitutional order to Syria by solely military means without serious diplomatic, political, economic and propaganda efforts, as well as significant support of the ruined country by foreign states.

Михаил Ходаренок/facebook.com
Mikhail Khodarenok/facebook.com

Mikhail Khodarenok is Gazeta.ru’s military observer, a retired colonel.
Graduated from Minks’s Higher Engineer Air Defense College in 1976, from the Air Defense Command Academy in 1986.
Commanded an anti-air missile battalion of S-75s in 1980-1983.
Was deputy commander of an anti-air missile regiment in 1986-1992.
Was a senior officer in the Air Defense HQ in 1988-1992.
Served in the Main Operative Directorate of the General Staff in 1992-2000.
Graduated from the General Staff Military Academy in 1998.
Worked as an observer in Nezavisimaya Gazeta in 2000-2003 and as editor-in-chief of "Military-Industrial Courier" in 2010-2015.

Didn't see this in the thread
http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/03...ence-pub-62968

....
The army’s ability to hold territory vital to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is the result of an unexpected paradox: the factors that had eviscerated its fighting ability in peacetime have become its main strength during the war. In particular, the army’s networks of patronage and nepotism, which predate the war, have morphed into a parallel chain of command that strengthens the regime. By withdrawing the army from select front lines, the regime has managed to bolster its social, political, and local community base after outsourcing its infantry needs to ad hoc militias. The parallel chain of command has enabled the regime to adapt its strategy to reflect the conflict’s quickly changing dynamics, secure its authority over loyalist paramilitary forces, and entrench itself in key territories.

The army is not simply an instrument of the regime’s strategy; the two operate as distinct but interdependent agencies that need each other to survive. The army divisions’ entrenchment across wide swaths of Syrian territory has helped the regime maintain control over key population centers. The army also serves as the logistical backbone for regime-sponsored militias and as a crucial aid channel for the regime’s backers, Russia and Iran. While the militias have supplied much of the regime’s infantry needs, the army has maintained control over the air force and the use of heavy weapons. As a result, the number of casualties and defections has dropped, with the Assad regime’s image as a symbol of national unity bolstered. The Syrian army’s evolution and resilience since 2011 has thus far allowed the regime to withstand the conflict and position itself as an integral part of any negotiated political settlement that may be reached.
....

Although exemplary administrative work could in theory assist an officer’s advancement, nepotism and clientelism have traditionally been the main factors in promotions, particularly among the middle and upper echelons.6 Rising above the rank of colonel was simply impossible without the necessary connections. One former conscript, assigned to the mapping unit of his army division in 2002, recalled having to carry out the most basic professional tasks for his colonel supervisor who lacked even the most elementary cartography skills. This particular colonel, who had family connections in the security services, became a brigadier general in 2005 and was later tasked with commanding a brigade in Daraa in 2012.7

Over time, the Syrian army devolved and came to resemble any other state bureaucracy in which employees’ primary ambition was to leverage their positions for personal gain. One longtime officer recalled that from the 1980s through the 2000s, yearly officer inspections (mashru harby) became evaluations in name only—inspectors would arrive at military bases, enjoy a leisurely meal with officers, and then sign the requisite certifications. Both the regime and the army knew about this widespread practice but did nothing to curtail it.

Following the 2011 uprising, the Syrian army’s lack of professionalism actually facilitated the regime’s ability to overrule and bypass segments of the officer corps that objected to the army’s crackdown on the opposition. The defection of up to 3,000 mostly Sunni officers during 2011 had little adverse impact on the army’s cohesion and operational capability,8 since the formal structures they previously staffed were not critical to performance. Patronage networks thus emerged as the regime’s de facto, informal chain of command once the crisis became militarized in 2012. The regime could relay orders through an agile system of trusted figures linked closely by familial and sectarian ties, as well as shared business and financial interests. For instance, Bashar al-Assad’s cousin and prominent investor Rami Makhlouf began funding the Tiger Forces (Qwaat al-Nimr) in 2013 under the leadership of General Suheil al-Hassan, an Alawite intelligence officer and celebrity among Alawites. The Tiger Forces are an elite unit, are better equipped than the regular army, and draw mostly Alawite officers from the Fourth and Eleventh Divisions. The regime’s Air Force Intelligence Directorate (Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiya) has also recruited and trained civilian Alawites to join this special force.9

Furthermore, by circumventing the army’s official bureaucracy, the regime could react swiftly to the rapidly unfolding conflict. The regime’s response to demonstrations in the central city of Homs in May 2011, in the presence of international observers, illustrates how this worked. In order to deceive UN monitors, regime members provided officers and locally based soldiers with civilian IDs and police uniforms, deploying them alongside demonstrators. The regime was able to skirt accusations that the army violently put down the protests as a result.10

Entrenched in Syria’s Land

The army has held onto key swaths of territory in the face of opposition advances since 2012 due in part to its territorial organization of combat divisions (furaq, singular firqa). Each division is assigned to a specific base area and to a portion of the surrounding lands. Division headquarters (quiada al-firqa) are located in these regions, as are training facilities, fuel depots, ammunition and equipment warehouses, and military housing. These, along with any nearby population centers and civilian facilities that fall within the division’s zone of operation, form a complex administrative unit known as a sector (qutaa).

By entrenching each firqa within a qutaa, an officer’s career and life become intertwined with the specific army division and sector in which they reside. This has prevented officers from defecting. In return, the military gives the division commander carte blanche with the territory over which he presides. This power was formalized in a section of the Syrian military code dedicated to officer responsibilities, which stipulates that “the commander can deal with any event within his qutaa, without asking the leadership [the Ministry of Defense in Damascus] if there is no communication or in emergency situation.”11

Then president Hafez al-Assad first instituted the qutaa system in 1984 to neutralize his brother Rifaat’s political ambitions after a brief illness seemed to open a path toward succession. After reasserting control and resuming his regular duties, Hafez al-Assad assigned the heads of various army divisions and the forces under their command to particular qutaas in order to prevent any challenge to his rule. The shift to a qutaa system enabled commanders to create personal fiefdoms in key areas of the country in which the sectors were located. For example, during the 1990s, the leader of the First Division, Ibrahim al-Safi, controlled the town of Kiswa and its surrounding areas on the outskirts of Damascus in which the First Division’s qutaa fell. To demonstrate his power, he illegally built a summer home outside the qutaa perimeters in proximity to Kiswa’s civilian residents—and faced little to no resistance.12 At the same time, the president could use the sector system to limit the influence of division commanders by playing them against each other, thus preventing any collective action that could wrest power through a military coup.13

The Army’s Resilience

In March 2011, the Syrian army was made up of twelve divisions. Their distribution over their qutaas was heavily weighted to the south and southwest of the country nearer to Israel, reflecting the strategic considerations of the 1970s and the 1980s. The Fifth and Ninth Divisions were, and remain, stationed on the outskirts of the southern city of Daraa; the Fifteenth Division is located in Sweida, which is also in the south; six divisions are around Damascus; the Eleventh and Eighteenth Divisions are in Homs; and the Seventeenth Division is in Raqqa.

Over the course of the conflict, the Syrian army has held onto territory with far more success in areas with an entrenched qutaa. Even though large swaths of the country have fallen to opposition forces, all the army divisions have remained intact and continue to command their sectors. The only exception is the Seventeenth Division in Raqqa, which fell to the self-proclaimed Islamic State in the summer of 2014. Critically, the division was less entrenched in its sector than the others, given that it had only been established after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In Aleppo Province, by contrast, army brigades were deployed in areas without military qutaas only to subsequently retreat under opposition advances. Similarly, in 2012 in Idlib Province, the regime set up a large military complex to house brigades and units from multiple divisions operating in the Mastouma area. The military base located there was not part of a long-standing sector, and it fell within a month after coming under siege in April 2015—the army withdrew without making a serious effort to hold its position. However, in the long-established qutaas of Daraa, the army’s Fifth and Ninth Divisions have been under a longer and more brutal siege than in Idlib, yet they have held on to the area
......

The regime also took the unprecedented step in the fall of 2011 of retaining its active service members until 2016, dubbed Class 102, and merely providing them a monthly salary between $60 and $100 as noncommissioned officers.17 Yet even this measure was insufficient, and the regime increasingly resorted to setting up and using paramilitary groups.

The Military Service Law, the legal framework officially governing the army, made the use of paramilitary groups possible because it permits “auxiliary forces” (quwwat fariyyah) and “other forces that are necessitated by circumstances” to fight alongside the army.18 Militias fall in the latter category because they are deemed autonomous armed groups working in the military’s framework. The regime mobilized recruits to establish paramilitary groups that appeared autonomous but were actually operating under army supervision.

Overall, paramilitary recruitment has been far more successful than army conscription, as it tends to occur through local, informal networks and familial or community ties. These groups also offer better pay—30,000 Syrian pounds compared to the 18,000 Syrian pounds per month for a regular soldier (or $136 compared to less than $81). Paramilitary groups typically allow fighters to stay close to home—critical in a war where many fighters are far more interested in defending their houses and communities than the regime. It’s also easier to join a paramilitary group and then leave it, which is enticing for military-age men who might otherwise be conscripted for many years. The National Defense Force (NDF) in the city of Homs is a prime example of the regime’s ability to mobilize Syrians via paramilitary groups. By mid-2013, the NDF of Homs and its surrounding areas had attracted as many as 30,000 fighters under the leadership of Saqir Rustum, an Alawite trained as a civil engineer who was the nephew of Bassam al-Hassan, the Republican Guard officer who established the NDF. Rustum had no previous military background.

Broadly speaking, these paramilitary forces can be categorized in one of two ways: those groups strongly linked to the regime’s security apparatus and the Republican Guard through General al-Hassan, and those personally connected to the Assad family and private businesses. So, when al-Hassan was forming the NDF, Rami Makhlouf was using private funds to start Al-Bostan Committee for Charity Work. Although initially a charitable foundation, it later developed a security branch, mostly recruiting Alawites from the sect’s coastal heartland in Latakia and Tartus. The Desert Falcons (Suqur al-Sahra), another force, was privately established by Mohammad Jabr, a businessman with close links to the regime. Centered around powerful personalities, these militias have a mafioso style. NDF members often refer to al-Hassan as the maternal uncle (el-Khal). Similarly, Mohamed Mansour, a retired noncommissioned officer who heads the 5,000-strong NDF force in Raqqa, is called the paternal uncle (el-Am).19

From 2012 onward, these paramilitary forces have proliferated across Syria, ranging in size from ten to 40,000 members. Some have only been deployed in restricted territory, from the size of a neighborhood to an entire region, and were quickly set up and dismissed according the task at hand. Other paramilitary groups revealed a larger degree of internal organization and hierarchy, with a clear chain of command leading up to Damascus. While some are army battalions in all but name, others more closely resemble private contractors with narrow duties such as securing and manning checkpoints. In any case, paramilitary forces have protected the army from exhaustion, and they display more internal coherence than the Syrian armed forces.

Army and Paramilitary Forces’ Balancing Act

The regime has put a great deal of effort into managing the division of labor between the army and paramilitary groups and into maintaining the right balance of power between them. It has had to ensure that the paramilitary forces remain dependent on the army, lest it risk being overruled in decisionmaking capacity or seen as losing credibility. First and foremost, this entails sustaining the army’s qualitative edge in weapons funding and distribution. In particular, Damascus has ensured that the army maintains its monopoly of sophisticated heavy weaponry, with paramilitary groups receiving only light weaponry or the occasional armored vehicle.

Similarly, ex-army officers tasked with channeling weapons (intidab) to paramilitary groups often direct them and select their deployment based on ground developments and military strategy. For instance, Bassam al-Hassan established the NDF but tasked Hawash Mohammed, an army officer, to lead the force. In Shaar, an area close to Homs, the Bostan forces fall operationally and administratively under the local army’s qutaa. Army officers also coordinate Bostan’s logistics with the Eighteenth Division.

In cases when conflict between paramilitary groups and the Syrian army has arisen, the regime has been quick to step in. After tensions flared up between the local NDF branch and army units in Homs, the regime prohibited anyone over thirty-five years old from remaining an NDF member. Many lost their salaried positions or joined other pro-regime paramilitary forces located elsewhere. The local branch’s fighting force subsequently dropped below 5,000 men, a decrease that neutralized the risk it could have posed to the army or to the regime’s authority.20

Yet at the same time, territorial losses have pushed the regime to increasingly rely on paramilitary groups to stem the loss and regain credibility. Although the army had been on the front lines during the early stages of the conflict, this ended after the battle of Baba Amr in Homs in 2012, where the army experienced heavy casualties. The 2013 battle of Khalidiya, another neighborhood in Homs, highlighted the regime’s new approach: the militias were charged with dislodging the rebel forces while the army supported them from behind, ready to assert control once the fighting was over. As paramilitary groups were mostly managing the ground operation, the regime could focus more on its superior armaments and air power. The army has since repeatedly assisted paramilitary operations with heavy weapons across the country, from an army-backed siege of Daraa to the deployment of tanks in Baba Amr to the barrel bombing campaign against opposition-held areas in Aleppo.

For its part, the Syrian army’s open support of the regime has polarized society’s views of the military institution. While opposition factions began to call it the Army of Assad (Jaysh al-Assad), the regime has framed the war as a struggle against external interference and terrorism. The army’s resilience through five years of warfare has bolstered this narrative. Indeed, for many Syrians living in regime-controlled areas—irrespective of their political views—the army has come to represent law and order. Ironically, corruption has never been worse in its ranks and the use of heavy weapons against civilian areas so widespread.

Foreign Intervention Through the Syrian Army

Foreign support from the regime’s international backers, Russia and Iran, has been key to enabling the army to adapt throughout the conflict, particularly through financial aid and human resources. Both allies have provided logistical support to the army in addition to establishing a myriad of new paramilitary corps that strengthen but do not supplant the army.
Russia in particular has insisted on providing military assistance through preexisting army channels. Historically, the Russian Federation and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, had close and pragmatic ties with the Syrian Arab Republic; the Baathist regime in Damascus was preeminent among Moscow’s few allies in the Middle East. The Syrian army has benefited from Russian technical and financial support since its creation in 1946 under Soviet supervision.21 In 2005, Russia forgave $10 billion in debt out of a total $13 billion owed for the modernization of Syria’s military with Russian equipment. Syria’s budget for weapons procurement also quadrupled during the following four years, almost half of which was spent on Russian matériel.22 Its support for the Syrian army has continued into the current conflict: in January 2012 alone, the regime received 60 tons of ammunition from Moscow.23

Most prominently, Russia entered the Syrian fray directly in the fall of 2015 to complement the army’s existing structures. In part spurred by the needs of the Russian air campaign to have closer coordination with ground forces, Russia, in tandem with regime figures, established a new unit called the Fourth Corps that blends army and militia forces. Based in Latakia, this group brings together Syrian regime–affiliated paramilitary forces (such as the NDF and Tiger Forces) under the joint supervision of Syrian, Russian, and Iranian officers.

Iran has, by contrast, played a more active role in the proliferation of militias, all of which work in the Syrian army’s military framework despite having a certain degree of independence. Thus, the various army divisions have retained their jurisdiction over their sectors, while foreign assistance has boosted the fighting ability of frontline militias. Whether these militias are newly established entities or were independent groups prior to the war, as in the case of Hezbollah, they operate in Syria only with the regime’s blessing and under the command structure of the army. Louaih Mouhala, a powerful Alawite general, has been a critical conduit between the Iranian embassy in Damascus and the Syrian army in this regard. His role is exemplary of how the regime’s informal command chains can bypass the army’s formal hierarchy, reacting with speed and agility to developing events while also ensuring the army’s structure remains intact.

One example came at the beginning of 2015, when a regime-affiliated division commander requested Iranian support to retrain the Sixty-Seventh Brigade from the army’s Eleventh Division, with the division stationed in Homs and the brigade charged with defending the area north of the Qalamoun Mountains. Mouhala facilitated the Iran-based Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ rapid intervention. The Iranians paid each of their trainers almost double what an ordinary Syrian officer would receive and provided them with Revolutionary Guard uniforms, which helped foster the impression that the Sixty-Seventh Brigade had become an Iranian proxy unit. The brigade was later redeployed with the Eleventh Division under its command and logistic structure.24 While the Iranians clearly left their mark on this brigade, it was also apparent that their intervention was at the behest of the Syrian army and that they deferred to the army’s structural apparatus.

Another example includes the commandos (maghawir), a branch of the NDF that was established in 2012 by prominent regime figures and Iranian trainers as a mobile fighting force capable of quick interventions across a wide zone of operations. Although part of the NDF, its officers are trained in army facilities and are barred from carrying out autonomous operations. The maghawir may only be deployed at the request of army commanders, and even then only on short assignments exclusively in support of regular army units. Thus, this ostensibly independent, Iranian-backed fighting unit still operates in the framework of the Syrian army’s overarching command structure.25

With these outside influences, opportunism has replaced professionalism and military doctrine. Syrian officers have often changed their clothing and behavior depending on the foreign military with which they work. Those serving in divisions receiving Russian military aid use the Russian military lexicon, while it is common for those cooperating with Iranian advisers to button up their shirt collars, which is standard Iranian Revolutionary Guard attire. An officer serving in a division advised by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, joking about his colleagues’ tendency to mimic Iranian military advisers, said that the “Syrian army has become a husseiniyah,” or a congregational hall where Shia celebrate religious ceremonies. Similarly, officers refer to Iranian military advisers and Hezbollah militias as “the friends” (al-asdiqa).26

...
Noncommissioned officers are often the backbone of an army, but in Syria their professional capacity and military status was already low prior to 2011 and has since deteriorated further. They have mostly been consigned to administrative tasks, without access to the benefits and opportunities enjoyed by both officers and paramilitary personnel. Young men serving the regime see the paramilitary groups and militias as more attractive options that offer a sense of belonging to a defined group, better pay, and the opportunity to extort money from citizens and traders who must pass through their manned checkpoints.

Additionally, the war has sparked a sharp decrease in the real value of officer salaries (which fell from the $400–$800 range to $100–$200) even as it has generated new opportunities for enrichment through corruption. The Syrian pound has lost about 80 percent of its pre-war value.27 As a result, officers are increasingly resorting to collecting bribes from conscripts in exchange for allowing them to avoid military service.

Mid- to high-ranking officers with ties to the regime have also expanded their patronage networks by overseeing militias and channeling foreign support. For instance, the officer tasked with coordinating between the army and the Bostan charitable foundation in Homs receives an additional $100 from the Makhlouf-led militia on top of his regular pay.28

Officers can also extract benefits by managing militia-held checkpoints. Indeed, the proliferation of checkpoints has generated revenue for both officers and militiamen. Syrians have nicknamed some of these lucrative checkpoints at the entrance of Damascus or Raqqa “the 1 million checkpoint” (hajiz al-milion), referring to the extraordinary amount of money that is collected in bribes from civilians wanting to travel through it. Traders willing to transport merchandise—especially food products—across the country have to pay taxes to the customs offices (makatib al-tarfiq) located in Damascus, as well as in the provinces they are transiting for NDF members to accompany them and to facilitate their passage through checkpoints. Army officers in charge of NDF units get direct benefits from the customs fees, keeping some of them for themselves and redistributing the rest among the militia fighters.

Recruits selected for officer training have taken on a pronounced sectarian and localized identity: they are exclusively Alawite and largely hail from the coastal regions of Latakia and Tartus.29 Since 2011, 10,000 new students have enrolled in Syria’s military education system, which has been shortened from three to two years. When the uprising began, three classes of recruits (from 2008 to 2010) were already enrolled in the Military College in Homs. From 2011 to 2015, the Military College continued to select recruits for officer training, adding one class each year, from class 67 to class 71.30

While the officer corps has long favored Alawites, it was by no means an exclusively Alawite institution. After all, the army remains officially secular and bars overt displays of sectarian affiliation. Before the 2011 uprising, for example, the Military Academy in Aleppo and the Military College in Homs accepted several hundred applicants per year from diverse backgrounds.

Although an entry quota system for the Military College favored recruits from Alawite-populated provinces (Hama, Homs, Latakia, and Tartus), entry was open to all groups. The army’s shift to security-vetted Alawite applicants has not been acknowledged publicly but is now the army’s de facto recruitment policy. Notably, the Military College draws most of its recruits from the Alawite coastal region rather than from Homs, a city that was ravaged early on by urban warfare where Alawites had opted to join the NDF rather than the army. This evolution will steer the future of the Syrian army so that its top tiers are populated by coastal Alawites, regardless of whether the regime survives.

In any case, the dominance by Alawites in the officer corps is the result of both practical requirements and a shifting regime strategy. First, the Military Academy was relocated in 2014 from the overwhelmingly Sunni city of Aleppo to Jableh near Latakia, in which a large percentage of the pre-war population was Alawite. The inability of most Syrians to move freely around the country makes it more difficult for people living outside Latakia to take the requisite military entrance exams. Also, the process of obtaining the necessary security clearance makes it very difficult to recruit non-Alawites. Not only are newcomers subject to greater political and security scrutiny but so are their immediate and extended families. This heavily disadvantages potential Sunni recruits, who are far more likely to have a relative who is a member of an opposition group or is suspected of belonging to one. Security vetting includes verifying information from local officials (mukhtars) who provide bureaucratic services for villages and urban neighborhoods.

Conclusion

The army has become vastly more corrupt, less professional, and more isolated from wider society in the five years since the start of the Syrian conflict. The military networks of nepotism and patronage, already deeply entrenched before the 2011 uprising, have transformed the army and especially the officer corps into kleptocratic organizations. The deprofessionalization of the army and the unfolding war have further hollowed out the army institutionally, leaving the officers little option but to collude with regime networks and cash in on the corruption to compensate for their low salaries. And as the army becomes less professional, the more it has to rely on Alawite recruits to help offset the army’s organizational deficiencies.

Yet, the army’s paradoxical resilience has been essential for the Assad regime’s survival. Subcontracting the ground operations to paramilitary forces has allowed the army to avoid many battlefield losses. It has also helped to prevent mass defections and to bolster the army’s image as a stalwart pillar of national unity among regime supporters.

Should substantive negotiations to end the Syrian conflict finally take place, neither the regime nor the opposition has any interest in dismantling the army, as this would likely bring about the total collapse of the Syrian state and renew the war. The regime has used this fact to its advantage: by ensuring the army remains deprofessionalized, it has secured officers’ dependence and prolonged its influence via parallel command chains.

And yet the army’s symbiotic relationship with the regime has been entirely detrimental to its capability and cohesion and must be addressed. Simply purging Alawite officers or reversing their dominance with de facto sectarian or ethnic quotas would likely fail. A more effective approach for any new government in Syria would be to invest in systematically reprofessionalizing the officer corps. This would help reduce the officers’ dependence on regime networks, thereby weakening the regime’s grip on the army. Admittance to the Military College and the Military Academy should also certainly be taken out of the control of the security agencies and not be based on their preferences. This would ensure equal opportunity for applicants from all communities and regions in Syria, and it should be accompanied by tightening entrance requirements. In parallel, the role and status of noncommissioned officers should be strengthened, with better training and increased avenues for promotion.

In the end, incentivizing the corporate identity of and loyalty to a united national military institution would promote acceptance of the political transition process.

[astralis]

thanks, good read.

so basically a lot of the shortfalls have been papered over with a mix of hezbollah, iranian units, local paramilitaries, and russian arms...but amount of external resources that need to be injected to keep it viable will go up over time.

syria's own ability to fix its military is pretty much kaput given how its economy has shrunk 60%+ since 2011.

[troung]

No problem. Pro-regime dispatches are rather open with who the various task forces are made up of in addition to the remnants of the old army.

Here is another good read by my buddy Tom

What’s Left of the Syrian Arab Army?
https://warisboring.com/whats-left-o...f43#.b5vk3ej0q
Not much

by TOM COOPER

The general impression is that the Syrian Arab Army remains the largest military force involved in the Syrian Civil War, and that — together with the so-called National Defense Forces — it remains the dominant military service under the control of government of Pres. Bashar Al Assad.

Media that are at least sympathetic to the Al-Assad regime remain insistent in presenting the image of the “SAA fighting on all front lines” — only sometimes supported by the NDF and, less often, by “allies.”

The devil is in the details, as some say. Indeed, a closer examination of facts on the ground reveals an entirely different picture. The SAA and NDF are nearly extinct.


Because of draft-avoidance and defections — and because Al Assad’s regime was skeptical of the loyalty of the majority of its military units — the SAA never managed to fully mobilize.

Not one of around 20 divisions it used to have has ever managed to deploy more than one-third of its nominal strength on the battlefield. The resulting 20 brigade-size task forces — each between 2,000- and 4,000-strong — were then further hit by several waves of mass defections, but also extensive losses caused by the incompetence of their commanders.


Unsurprisingly, the regime was already critically short of troops by summer of 2012, when advisers from the Qods Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps concluded that units organized along religious and political lines had proven more effective in combat than the rest of the Syrian military had.

Thus the regime’s creation, in cooperation with Iran, of the National Defense Forces. Officially, the NDF is a pro-government militia acting as a part-time volunteer reserve component of the military. Envisioned by its Iranian creators as an equivalent to the IRGC’s Basiji Corps, the NDF became an instrument of formalizing the status of hundreds of “popular committees” created by the Syrian Ba’ath Party in the 1980s.

According to Iranian claims, the NDF’s stand-up resulted in the addition of a 100,000-strong auxiliary to Syria’s force-structure. Moreover, the NDF functioned as a catalyst for the reorganization of the entire Syrian military into a hodgepodge of sectarian militias.

Namely, the IRGC and various other domestic and foreign actors began sponsoring specific NDF battalions. These actors included the Ba’ath Party, the Syrian Socialist National Party (SSNP), groups of Palestinian refugees living in Syria for decades — such the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — the General Command and the Palestine Liberation Army and even the Gozarto Protection Force, the latter made up of local Christian Assyrian/Syriac and some Armenian communities.


Strongly encouraging this process, the regime then went a step farther and authorized a number of businessmen and shadowy figures from Syria’s Alawite minority to create their own, private militias. All of these organizations offered much better salaries to their combatants than either the SAA or the NDF could, and thus proved an attractive alternative for thousands of Syrians.

At least as important is that most of organizations in question proved capable of deploying heavy weapons, too. A majority of the battalions of resulting militias each usually total around 400 combatants, often riding on a miscellany of so-called “technicals” — essentially four-wheel-drive trucks fitted with heavy machine guns or light automatic cannons — plus between three and 15 armored vehicles.

This process or reorganizing the Syrian military into a gaggle of sectarian militias was nearly complete by the time when Russians launched their military intervention in the country in the summer of 2015.

Correspondingly, while planning a counteroffensive against insurgents in northern Latakia, the Russians established what they call the “4th Assault Corps” — a typical formation for what can be considered the modern-day Syrian armed forces.
eaning upon the command structure of the former 3rd and 4th Divisions of the SAA, this headquarter is exercising control over the 103rd Republican Guards Brigade and six brigades of Alawite militia, all of which are private military companies administrated by the Republican Guards.

The 4th Assault Corps also includes the Nusr Az Zawba’a Brigade of the SSNP and two brigades of the Ba’ath Party Militia, or BPM. Because these units lacked in firepower, they were reinforced by Russian army artillery batteries drawn from the 8th Artillery Regiment, the 120th Artillery Brigade, the 439th Guards Rocket Artillery Brigade and the 20th Rocket Regiment — the latter equipped with the TOS-1A.

To lessen the strain upon this force, four battalion-size task forces — drawn from the Russian 28th, 32nd, and the 34th Motor Rifle Brigades and the 810th Marines Brigade — secured the secondary lines and supply depots.

A similar organization was subsequently introduced in the Damascus area, too. Although the regime can still fall back on at least five brigades of the Republican Guards Division deployed there, these units are incapable of running offensive operations.

Therefore, major assaults on insurgent-held pockets in Damascus and eastern Ghouta are overseen by two brigades from the Lebanese Hezbollah, three brigades of the PLA and various of local IRGC surrogates, including the Syrian branch of Hezbollah.

Units of Iraqi Shi’a militias are not only securing the Sayyida Zaynab District of southern Homs, but have also deployed to fight Syrian insurgents, too. Furthermore, IRGC-controled units of Iraq’s Hezbollah branch, Hezbollah-Syria, the PFLP-GC and the PLA played a crucial role during the offensive that resulted in the capture of Sheikh Mishkin in January 2016.

Currently, Homs and Hama appear to be the last two governorates with any kind of significant concentration of the SAA. Actually, merely the HQs of various former SAA units are still wearing their official designations. Their battalions all consist of various sectarian militias — including that of the Ba’ath.

The latter played a prominent role in the creation of several “special forces” units renown for their offensive operations in eastern Homs and southern Aleppo. These include the “Tiger Force” and the “Leopard Force.”

Essentially, all are private military companies, financed by businessmen close to Al Assad. Their operations in the eastern Homs and Palmyra areas are supported by battalion-size elements of the Russian 61st Marine Brigade and the 74th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade.


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Despite the presence of such units as the Ba’ath Commando Brigade, the city and province of Aleppo are largely controlled by Iranians, foremost the IRGC.

The latter is usually said to operate three or four units in Syria. Actually, the Fatimioun Brigade (staffed by Afghan Hazars) and the Zainabioun Brigade (staffed by Pakistani Shi’a) are most often cited, while the Pasdaran have deployed four other such formations in Aleppo province alone — all staffed by their own regulars.

Ironically, the IRGC’s fire brigade in this part of Syria is the Al Qods of the PLA Brigade. These units are supported by Russian army troops, too, including those from the 27th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade and the 7th Guards Assault Division and several artillery batteries.

Even larger are different contingents of Iraqi Shi’a, including nine brigade-size formations of Badhr and Sadrist movements, seven brigades of the Assaib Ahl Al Haq movement, five brigades of the Abu Fadhl Al Abbas movement, two brigades of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units and nine brigades staffed by Iraqi Sh’ia but which the author of this report was unable to associate with specific political movements in Iraq.

Finally, even the Islamic Republic of Iran Army is present in Syria, in the form of the 65th Airborne Brigade.


Correspondingly, there is hardly anything to be seen of the actual SAA and very little of the NDF. It’s unlikely that Al Assad has more than 70,000 troops left under his command.

On the contrary, while Iranians are said to have about 18,000 troops in Syria, considering the average size of the brigades they and Iraqi Shi’a are deploying there, they more likely to oversee at least 40,000 combatants.

On the top of this all, one should not ignore the Russian military presence, which is also larger than media usually report. In addition to the units listed above, Moscow’s forces include elements of no fewer than four Spetsnaz brigades — the 3rd, 16th, 22nd and 24th, primarily responsible for the Hmemmem and Sanobar air bases near Latakia and Shayrat air base in southeastern Homs.

All told, the Russians have at least 10,000 — and more likely up to 15,000 — troops in Syria.