The US and the EU should not buy Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s fake pro-Western posture (such as when he offered to run the Kabul airport, then fled) or his fake anti-radicalism (such as when he is courting the Afghan terrorists). Erdogan’s strategy, as a member of NATO, is clearly to bolster Russia’s and China’s plans for the future of Afghanistan.
Iran, for its part, seems to be hoping to hit two birds with one stone: by systematically facilitating the journey of illegal Afghans to Turkey and toward Greece, it might destabilize both Turkey and Europe.
In June 2021, southern Syria once again dominated the headlines when the regime laid siege to the Daraa al-Balad area of Daraa city. A few days after the monthlong siege, an agreement to end the escalation collapsed and the Syrian army’s Fourth Division spearheaded a major military push in the area. Intense clashes broke out as groups of unreconciled rebels violently repelled the advancement of Syrian military forces. Armed confrontations spread into eastern and western Daraa amid heavy bombardment via missiles, artillery, and mortar shells, marking the deadliest and most intense fighting in Syria’s south-west since the conclusion of the 2018 “reconciliation” agreements.
Local and external actors expected Russia to intervene and mitigate hostilities. Such expectations were based on a record of rapid interventions, whereby Moscow had managed to resolve localized conflicts and prevented the eruption of large-scale armed clashes in Daraa over the past three years. In the case of Daraa al-Balad, however, Russia was slow to intervene and showed an extraordinary reluctance to end armed violence, broker serious negotiations, and enforce a final agreement. Despite the catastrophic humanitarian implications it has on the exhausted local population, this delay seems to be warranted.
The central media apparatus of the Islamic State group is mis-reporting on the activities of its cells in central Syria. Rather than exaggerating their capabilities, something that it is conventionally assumed to be doing all the time,1 its Central Media Diwan appears either to be deliberately under-playing them, or, less likely, to be unaware of their full extent, possibly due to communication issues. Indeed, there is a significant disconnect between what the Islamic State is saying its cells in central Syria are doing versus what its adversaries are saying they are doing. This is starkly evident in the fact that the vast majority of attacks that pro-regime sources attributed to the Islamic State in the Badia, Syria’s expansive central desert region, in 2020 went entirely unclaimed by the group, according to data collected and cross-analyzed by the authors. Based on the dynamics that characterize this data, which is supported by fieldwork inside Syria, it appears that this under-reporting on the part of the Islamic State, which has continued unabated into 2021, is at least partially intentional. This suggests that its covert network in Syria may be attempting to surreptitiously establish a strategic hub in this remote central region, something that could act as a rear base for a resurgence in the rest of the country and Iraq in years to come.
Before disclosing his real identity and announcing he was breaking ties with al-Qaeda in July 2016, “the conqueror” amir of Jabhat al-Nusra (JN), Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, always made sure to speak with confidence when asked about his relationship with al-Qaeda. He also wore a traditional, modest Shami outfit, projecting a sense of local affiliation and asceticism. Things have changed since then, however. The al-Qaeda affiliation became a burden, “the conqueror” changed his title to simply “leader,” and he began wearing a formal Western-style suit. On June 1, PBS Frontline released a documentary entitled “The Jihadist,” which includes an interview by American journalist Martin Smith with al-Jolani, now the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who “opened his heart” about the past, present, and future of his group.1
By ceding control of its borders and airspace to various foreign actors, the regime has essentially resigned itself to a limited but potentially durable existence for the long term.
In an official sense, at least, the situation on Syria’s borders has hardly changed at all over the past couple years. The Western agenda still excluded any international solution comparable to what the Dayton Accords established in the former Yugoslavia. Russia and its partners in the “Astana process,” Iran and Turkey, oppose any formal efforts to partition the country or cement the existence of a separate Kurdish entity in the north. Moreover, the problems that followed the partition of Sudan have given Western policymakers serious doubts about the viability of such a solution for Syria. Yet none of these abortive international possibilities has prevented external powers from informally dividing the country into multiple zones of influence and unilaterally controlling most of its borders, thus depriving the Assad regime of a major instrument of sovereignty.
The first and best-known of the facade groups that Iran-backed militias use to conceal their involvement in operations, Ashab al-Kahf has a particularly strong connection to Asaib Ahl al-Haq.
Name: Ashab al-Kahf (AK) (Companions of the Cave).
Type of movement: Facade group. Kinetic military operations. Domestic counter-U.S. operations.
Ironically, the Syrian jihadist group now acts much like a typical Middle Eastern regime, from the way it mobilizes local support to the abuses it commits against those who oppose its rule.
This week, the Syrian jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) passed a notable milestone: it has now been active for longer than its predecessor, the al-Qaeda branch Jabhat al-Nusra (JN). Although HTS remains an extremist organization, it attempts to derive legitimacy from different constituencies these days. As JN, the group based its legitimacy on where it stood within the global jihadist movement, but as HTS, it seeks to build its reputation within the local milieu of Syria’s Idlib province. The latter form of legitimacy is more difficult to burnish, however, since it depends on how the group attempts to govern millions of residents with differing aspirations and worldviews. Ironically, HTS now acts much like the Arab regimes it claims to oppose throughout the Middle East—from the way it mobilizes local support, to the abuses it commits against activists opposed to its rule.
Ten years into Syria’s war, a large patch of territory in the country’s northwest controlled by jihadists and allied rebels is still holding out against the Damascus regime.
Can the Idlib bastion, protected against a military onslaught since a March 2020 ceasefire, continue to survive as its own self-run territory, perhaps a bit like the Palestinian Gaza Strip?
On Thursday, Turkish-backed Syrian factions intensified their artillery and missile attacks on the positions of Damascus government forces in the Idleb and Hama countryside, while the Syrian government bombed the opposition-held areas.
Meanwhile, sources from Fateh al-Mubin Operations Room, which includes Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other armed groups, bombed government forces’ positions east of Idleb.
The new defense minister of Iran pledged that his ministry will do its utmost to boost the capabilities of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.
In a meeting with IRGC Commander Major General Hossein Salami in Tehran on Saturday, Defense Minister Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani reaffirmed the Defense Ministry’s full support for all armed forces of the country.
Highlighting the need for a revolutionary approach in the military sector coupled with the continuation of the previous efforts, the general said the Defense Ministry will employ all of its capacities to deepen and boost the defense capabilities and fulfill the needs of the armed forces, specifically the IRGC, including by supplying modern and strategic systems and equipment.
Brigadier General Ashtiani stressed that coordination, synergy and convergence among Iranian military units will ensure the fulfillment of the strategic needs of the armed forces and strengthening of the defense power.
“Creating up-to-date defense capacities proportional to the future threats and the developments ahead is a strategy of the Armed Forces and will continue to grow by God’s grace,” the minister added.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has stressed the need for the simultaneous reinforcement of operational military capabilities and spiritual motives of the Armed Forces.
The commander-in-chief of the Iranian military forces has also praised the Armed Forces for employing a combination of military effectiveness and spiritual motivations, urging an incessant push to strengthen those capabilities.
The Armed Forces belong not to a specific individual or faction, but to the nation and country, protecting the national security, Ayatollah Khamenei said in April 2016.
