Local activists in Daraa said that the recent settlement reached by the central committees in the Daraa governorate with the regime’s security committee serves the interests of Daraa’s people and prevents the demographic change that Iran wants to impose.
The Ahrar Horan Group quoted the Syrian journalist Mohammed al-Aweed as saying that the agreed terms serve the interests of Daraa’s and amount to success for them. This is because the Fourth Division, which takes its orders from Iran, wanted to raze the area of Daraa al-Balad to impose demographic change on it, to create a new social structure imagined by Hezbollah and Iranian militias in southern Syria. In this way, Daraa would become a staging point for later reaching Jordan and Saudi Arabia, as a way of threatening Iran’s supposed enemy [Israel]. But Daraa undermined these plans because the local communities stood their ground and refused to yield their territory.
Three former ISIS fighters share their stories about how they joined the organization and their stay in Syria to Asharq al-Awsat.
The security authorities of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria granted Asharq Al-Awsat permission to interview three former ISIS members, at the anti-terror headquarters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in al-Hassakeh.
The three were young men when they decided to join the organization in Syria. They got married and had children in combat. Today, after their surrender and detention, they know nothing about the fate of their wives and children.
The Afghan Experience
A.N. is a German young man, born in 1987. He said he came from a small family, an older brother of two siblings, who had all completed their university studies. His parents, who are still alive, found out about his orientation during his university studies, due to his continuous talk about the “Afghan experience” and the Taliban movement, which fought the U.S. army and the international coalition for years, saying: “I was impressed by the defeat of the Soviet Union, but their project was not as clear as ISIS, who took control of areas.”
The young German man tells that while following the news bulletin in the summer of 2012 and the explosion of the Syrian radio and television building, he heard about the al-Nusra Front, only to know later that it was the Syrian arm of ISIS.
At the end of 2012, he flew to Egypt, from which he completed the trip towards Turkey, and entered the city of Idleb, western Syria, under fake names, to undergo a combat course, and remained there for nearly a year. After the separation of al-Nusra – currently known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham – from ISIS, he joined the ranks of the latter and went to the city of Raqqa, which at that time was the organization’s administrative capital.
When asked about the organization’s expansionist wars during 2014 and 2015, he replied: “The biggest enemy was Bashar al-Assad, who was a war criminal, but the conditions of the war dictated a change in tactics and objectives at the time.”
After the battles intensified in Raqqa in the summer of 2017, and the geographic area under ISIS control receded, he went to the city of al-Mayadin in the eastern countryside of Deir-ez-Zor. In the spring of 2019, he surrendered to the International Coalition Forces.
A Tunisian Recruited By His Neighbor
Mustapha (H.A.), was born in 1989 in the city of Sfax in Tunisia but lived in Sousse, which overlooks the sea. He revealed that the famous 3-D game “Counter-Strike” changed the course of his life.
The game featured two teams – a terrorist group and a counter army – while players used to exchange roles.
He recounted that one day, as he was sitting before his computer, and saw pictures and clips showing the Syrian regime’s suppression of peaceful protesters, he said: “My neighbor was sitting next to me, and I asked him: What is happening there? He told me secretly that he intended to travel to rid the Syrians of the tyrant.”
Without the knowledge of his family, the young man traveled with his neighbor by land to Libya and from there by air to Turkey. Then, at the end of 2012, they entered the countryside of Lattakia, western Syria, where the al-Nusra Front had spread. He later went to Aleppo, where he joined ISIS.
Mustapha refused to comment on the killing scenes, but he spoke about his wife, saying: “I love my wife, and I have children with her…and this is a positive thing in my life, as for the rest, I am not content with it.”
He remained in the ranks of the organization until it was defeated in Baghouz. He tried to escape with his wife and children, but they were arrested on February 15, 2019.
A Syrian Man Joining “Work”
For Malik (37 years old), who comes from al-Bab in the countryside of Aleppo, the year 2014 was nothing but a date. That year, ISIS launched more than 100 suicide attacks on his hometown.
He recounted that after the militants of the organization tightened their control over the region, Malik was forced to join the ranks of ISIS to get work.
He worked first in the Court of Justice, then in the local police and combat. He said: “The marriage office offered me to marry a Syrian woman from Aleppo, and indeed I decided to marry her, and I did not marry a second woman.”
He said that he engaged in many battles and witnessed the organization’s losses from Aleppo to Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. He added: “I tried to escape when they were expelled from Manbij, and then I tried in Tabqa and Raqqa, but I did not succeed. I stayed until the battle of Baghouz, and surrendered to the coalition.”
Seven people in the town of Azaz were wounded after a car bomb attack, which the YPG is accused of, according to Zaman al-Wasl.
A car bomb wounded at least seven people in the Turkish-held northern town of Azaz on Monday, the rescue Civil Defence group said. The YPG-suspected attack has occurred in the town centre.
On Sunday at dawn, pro-Iranian factions targeted the besieged neighborhoods of the city of Daraa, southern Syria, with artillery and missile shells, causing massive damage to people’s houses, while Russia bombards Idleb in the North.
The factions targeted the neighborhoods of Daraa al-Balad, Tariq al-Sad, and the nearby IDP camps with more than 50 surface-to-surface missiles. The bombing left material damage and cut most of the roads, without any casualties reported, local sources told North Press.
Syrian government and rebel news outlets did not identify the perpetrators of the attack.
Two Syrian security officers were shot dead in central Syria on Monday.
Two masked individuals shot at guard post in a motorcycle drive-by shooting in Hama early in the morning. The perpetrators used an automatic weapon to kill two members of the Internal Security Forces, Syria’s official SANA news outlet reported.
Syrian government forces shelled rebel-held parts of a volatile southern city Monday killing at least one person, while insurgents killed four soldiers after Russia-brokered talks to end the presence of opposition fighters in the area collapsed.
Syria’s state media reported that government forces retaliated against fire by opposition fighters inside the city of Daraa and that attacks on army checkpoints in the city left four soldiers dead and 15 wounded. It said several civilians were wounded in insurgent shelling of government-held parts of Daraa.
Syria’s military bombarded the last rebel enclave in the southern city of Deraa on Sunday, killing at least six people in one of the deadliest attacks in its siege of the birthplace of the country’s uprising, residents said.
The army declined to comment on the reports but said in a statement it was losing patience with what it called “armed groups and terrorists” in the neighbourhood.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday visited the Islamic State jihadist group’s former Iraqi stronghold Mosul, a day after vowing to keep troops in the country.
In a speech at the devastated city’s Church of Our Lady of the Hour, which the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO is working to restore, Macron urged Iraq’s religious communities to “work together” to rebuild the country.
A powerful Islamist militant group in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib has launched a military campaign against rival jihadist groups, local news reports and rights groups said Sunday.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the dominant force in Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold in Syria, on Sunday began targeting villages in the western part of Idlib where jihadists have significant presence, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Syrian Observatory, which monitors war developments in the country, said HTS fighters raided the village of Arab Saeed in Idlib, arresting several jihadist militants, including a leader with the Hurras al-Din group.
Hurras al-Din is one of several jihadist factions that have been operating in northwestern Syria. The group is al-Qaida’s main affiliate in the war-torn country.
Before formally severing ties with the global jihadist group in 2016, HTS was regarded as the Syrian branch of al-Qaida. At the time, it was known as the al-Nusra Front.
The crackdown comes nearly two weeks after several jihadist groups, including Hurras al-Din, announced the formation of a joint operations room to coordinate efforts in the fight against Syrian government troops and allied forces.
A local administration in Idlib backed by the HTS issued a statement Sunday, saying no armed groups are allowed to operate in the city of Idlib, except for those affiliated with the HTS.
Neutralizing extremists
The Syrian Observatory said the fighting Sunday between HTS and Hurras al-Din forced the latter to agree to a cease-fire that required the jihadist group to evacuate its headquarters and withdraw from certain parts of Idlib.
Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory, charges that the ongoing crackdown by HTS against other extremist groups in the restive province has been approved by the Turkish military.
“As part of this campaign, the Turkish government is trying to neutralize groups that are more radical than HTS,” he told VOA. “In one way or another, the HTS coordinates its efforts with the Turkish forces.”
Turkey rejects allegations that HTS is coordinating its recent efforts with Turkey-backed rebels.
Turkey, however, maintains a significant military presence in Idlib and other parts of northwestern Syria, while supporting Syrian rebel groups present there.
In March, Turkey and Russia brokered a cease-fire deal in Idlib aimed at bringing an end to a Syrian government offensive that had begun last year to recapture Idlib.
The two countries reached the agreement after several previous unsuccessful deals over Idlib, which is currently home to more than 2 million people.
According to all those agreements, Turkey was required to remove all extremist groups from the province, including those allied with the al-Qaida.
In 2018, Turkey officially designated the HTS as a terrorist organization. The designation came a few days before one of the agreements between Turkey and Russia over Idlib. According to that agreement too, the HTS was among the radical groups to be removed from Idlib by Turkey.
M4 significance
The current truce between Russian-backed Syrian troops and Turkish-backed rebels in Idlib remains largely holding as Russia and Turkey have been conducting joint patrols in the Syrian province.
Jihadist groups active in Idlib have consistently rejected cease-fires in the province, including the joint Russian-Turkish patrols on parts of the strategic M4 Highway that connects the two Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Latakia and goes through Idlib.
Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory said Turkey has been trying to remove all obstacles that stand in the way of fully implementing its agreement with Russia, and therefore it has decided to unofficially support HTS efforts to weaken the jihadists in Idlib.
Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a Syria researcher at Swansea University in the U.K., says he doesn’t believe the HTS crackdown came because of Turkish orders.
However, he told VOA, “the end result is that this [campaign] allows the Turkey-Russia patrols to proceed and is an end to the limited leeway HTS previously granted its jihadist rivals.”
The Islamist group seeks to subdue those jihadist rivals who attempt to challenge its monopoly on power in Idlib, al-Tamimi said.
“What HTS once saw as a nuisance it could keep under control now became more of a threat in its eyes requiring to be properly subdued, though not necessarily eliminated,” he added.
And while the HTS may use rhetoric against the Russian-Turkish agreement over Idlib, in practice it abides by it, al-Tamimi said.
Political benefit
Some experts believe the HTS campaign to target extremists is a bid by the militant group to be included in any political settlement over Idlib and Syria as a whole.
“HTS has been trying to signal – to Turkey, most immediately, but by implication to the wider international community – for some time that it can be an acceptable long-term actor in Syria, and attacking an avowed al-Qaida group like Hurras al-Din is certainly a way to do that,” Kyle Orton, a Syria researcher based in London, told VOA.
The timing of this campaign, however, seems to be sending mixed signals.
“HTS could have wiped out Hurras al-Din at any time and chose only to move when there was political benefit, or HTS is not in fact capable of eliminating Hurras al-Din, so even on cold realist terms HTS is useless in handling the issue that most external actors care about, namely transnational terrorists,” Orton concluded.
