Insight: By relying on Iran, Syria's Assad risks irrelevance

 
(Reuters) - Military support from Iran and its Shi'ite ally Hezbollah has given Syrian President Bashar al-Assad new impetus in his fight against the insurgents intent on ousting him, but at a price.
Assad now risks losing much of his autonomy to Tehran and becoming a pawn in a wider sectarian war between Sunni Muslims and Shi'ites that may not end even if he is forced to step down, military experts and diplomats in the region say.
Having lost thousands of troops and militiamen from his Alawite sect as the war grinds through its third year, and anxious to preserve his elite loyalist units, Assad is now relying on Hezbollah from Lebanon and other Shi'ite militias allied with Iran to turn the tide of battle.
Alawite army units with their vast arsenal of artillery and missiles have been taking a back seat in combat, using these weapons supported by the air force to obliterate rebellious neighborhoods and blow holes in rebel lines for Iranian-and Hezbollah-trained local militias.
In some cases men from Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed group that is one of Lebanon's most powerful military and political forces, have been doing the street fighting, according to rebel commanders and other opposition sources.
Under this new arrangement, Hezbollah and Iran have become directly involved in the command structures of Assad's forces, eroding his authority and the Alawite power base that has underpinned four decades of family rule by him and his father.
The Alawites, to which Assad belongs, are an offshoot of Islam that has controlled Syria since the 1960s.
Unlike the Shi'ites in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon, Syria's Alawites tend to be secular and lack the religious zeal that has helped motivate thousands of Shi'ite militia to come to Syria.
Security sources in the region estimate there are about 15,000 Shi'ite fighters from Lebanon and Iraq in Syria, and they have helped produce success on the battlefield, reversing gains made by rebels in two years of fighting.
When rebel fighters have held confined areas, such as the border town of Qusair, which was overrun by Hezbollah and Assad loyalists two months ago, they have put themselves at a serious disadvantage, the sources said.
Rebellious Sunni districts in Homs to the south are being hit hard and Damascus suburbs, a main concentration of the Arab- and Western-backed Free Syrian Army, are under siege as the war's death toll climbs above 90,000.
But Assad's newfound military advantage may prove short lived, despite the increasing pressure on the rebels, military experts and diplomats believe.
The fall of Qusair, and Hezbollah's triumphant rhetoric, spurred regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia into action. The kingdom, diplomats say, has assumed the main role in backing the opposition in coordination with the United States.
TRAINED MILITIAS
Signs of renewed support for the opposition are showing in the northern city of Aleppo, where a government counterattack backed by Hezbollah, which trained Shi'ite militia in the area, has stalled, according to the opposition.
Even if Assad can capture Homs, hold Damascus and overrun neighborhoods that had fallen to rebels, such as Jobar, Barzeh and Qaboun, he would preside over a much reduced country.
Kurdish fighters are consolidating their hold on a de facto autonomous region in the grain- and oil-producing northeastern province of Hasakah that came to being after Assad's forces withdrew to concentrate on defending areas in the interior.
Hardline Islamist brigades are ruling much of two provinces east of Hasakah and they are strongly present in Aleppo. Assad is mainly left with Damascus and a corridor running through Homs to his Alawite heartland and army bases on the coast and to Hezbollah's strongholds in Lebanon.
Andrew Terrill, research professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Army War college, said the rebels will "hang on" because Assad has lost too much of the country.
"Winning battles is very different than winning wars because people who are under assault are going to recoup at some point. The rebels remain armed and remain able to strike at him," Terrill told Reuters.
"Assad may be able to win in the sense that he may stay in power and he is not overthrown directly, but I cannot imagine him pacifying the country because I just think there are too many rebels and too much resistance," he said.
Terrill said new weapons expected from Saudi Arabia are bound to redress the balance of power as well as promised U.S. arms. Salim Idriss, head of the Free Syrian Army's command, is due to visit the United States this week to press for speedy U.S. arms shipments.
Iran meanwhile, continues to supply Assad with military assistance and financing estimated at $500 million a month, according to opposition sources.
"The Iranians and Hezbollah go in and train people and if they can whip these militias into shape then Assad could increasingly rely on them and spare his crack troops," Terrill said.
Hezbollah has openly acknowledged its involvement in Syria, but Assad and Iran have not commented.
PRAETORIAN GUARD
Faced with losing large areas of Syria to mainly Sunni rebel fighters, Assad has adjusted tactics in the last few months to preserve his mostly Alawite Praetorian guard units -- the Republican Guards, the Fourth Division and the Special Forces -- and started relying on Hezbollah, especially to capture the central region of Homs, the sources said
Mohammad Mroueh, a member of the Syrian National Council, said Hezbollah and Iran have been training the militias Assad is using for street fighting in Homs and have established, together with Iranian officials, operations rooms in the city.
"When there is an area where the army and the militia encounter stiff resistance, they're calling Hezbollah to do the fighting," said Mroueh.
Abu Imad Abdallah, a rebel commander in southern Damascus, said Hezbollah fighters and Iraqi Shi'ite militia were key to capturing two areas on the south-eastern approaches to the capital -- Bahdaliyeh and Hay al Shamalneh -- in recent weeks.
"They went in after saturation bombing by the regime. They are disciplined and well trained and are fighting as religious zealots believing in a cause. If it was the army we would not be worried," he said.
But veteran opposition activist Fawaz Tello said that using Hezbollah was a sign of Assad's weakness, pointing to his inability to rely on Sunnis who form the bulk of the army.
"Remember that Assad started this conflict with about a million men under arms between conscripts and the army and the security apparatus. Now more and more he is relying on foreign troops and without them he will lose, especially if the rebels begin to receive advanced weapons," Tello said.
Assad was now becoming an Iranian proxy, Tello said, while Mamoun Abu Nawar, a Jordanian military analyst, said the Syrian leader was forced to bow to the will of Tehran.
"He can no longer call a division head and tell him to bomb the hell out of this neighborhood or that. His command has been eroded and the command structure is now multinational," Abu Nawar said.
A diplomat in the region put it more bluntly: "Whether Assad stays or goes is becoming irrelevant. The conflict is now bigger than him, and it will continue without him. Iran is calling the shots."
(Editing by Giles Elgood)

Islamist-Kurdish fighting spreads in rebel-held Syria

(Reuters) - Clashes between Islamist rebel forces and Kurdish militias spread to a second Syrian province on Saturday, activists said, as factional tensions rose in the north of the country.
The fighting is further evidence that the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's rule has splintered into turf wars that have little to do with ousting him and highlight the risk of regionalized conflicts that could have an impact on neighboring countries.
The new round of fighting broke out in Tel Abyad, a border town near Turkey in the rebel-held Raqqa province. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes began after Kurdish militias in the area discovered fighters from an al Qaeda-linked rebel group trying to rig one of their bases with explosives.
The Kurds retaliated by kidnapping several fighters, including the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham, one of the most powerful Qaeda-affiliated forces fighting in Syria.
The country's revolt has transformed from a peaceful protest movement into a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people and become increasingly sectarian.
Syria's marginalized Sunni Muslim majority has largely backed the rebellion against four decades of Assad family rule. Minorities such as Assad's own Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, have largely supported the president.
Syria's ethnic Kurdish minority, meanwhile, has been alternately battling both Assad's forces and the rebels. Kurds argue they are backers of the revolt but rebels accuse them of making deals with the government in order to ensure their security and autonomy during the conflict.
Divided between Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria, the Kurdish people are often described as the largest ethnic group without a state of their own.
Activists also reported on Saturday a rare eruption of clashes between Assad's forces and rebels in the coastal province of Tartous, an Alawite enclave and Assad stronghold with only a few pockets of revolt.
The fighting broke out near the Sunni town of Banias, the site of a massacre of dozens of people only a few months earlier when militias loyal to Assad stormed the area after a rebel attack on their fighters.
COUNTER-ATTACKS
An activist from the area said Assad's forces launched a new assault after discovering more rebels operating in the area.
The Observatory reported a massing of security forces and militias loyal to Assad both near Banias and the Sunni village of Bayda, which was also the site of a massacre of dozens just days before the Banias killings.
Assad's forces have been on the offensive the past two months after a string of victories. They are trying to cement control of a belt of territory between the capital Damascus and his Alawite stronghold on the Mediterranean coast.
Security sources have said Assad's next move will be to push on to rebel-held territories near the border areas of northern and southern Syria, for which they are slowly trying to build up forces in the area.
Assad's offensive has been dogged by rebel counter-attacks in the north, even as a string of government victories elsewhere in Syria has shifted the battlefield tide in his favor after more than two years of bloodshed.
Activists said opposition forces advanced on the northern town of Khan al-Assal on Saturday and appeared close to seizing one of the last towns in western part of Aleppo province still held by Assad's forces.
Elsewhere in northern Syria, Assad's forces launched a third day of heavy air strikes on the town of Saraqeb in Idlib province.
Some activists suggested the army may be trying to hammer areas near a critical road leading to Aleppo in order to distract the rebels and bring in supplies to its forces.
Rebels have been blockading government-held areas in Aleppo city, Syria's largest urban centre. Aleppo has been mired in a bloody stalemate since rebels launched an offensive in the province last year.
Hardline Islamist rebels also appear to be leading the fight to seize Khan al-Assal. Western powers such as the United States are alarmed about the rising power of radical Islamist groups, particularly since Washington has pledged to offer military support to Assad's opponents.
No military aid has been given yet due to political deadlock over the Islamist issue in the U.S. Congress.
"Perhaps the Islamists are trying to stay out of the spotlight. They've been regrouping and naming themselves with numbers, things like 'the 9th Division' and so on, but these are the same Islamist radical groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham or the Islamic Front to Liberate Syria," one opposition activist said, declining to be named.
(Editing by Alison Williams)

Rebel infighting in Syria undermining revolt

BEIRUT (AP) -- On Syria's front lines, al-Qaida fighters and more mainstream Syrian rebels have turned against each other in a power struggle that has undermined the effort to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

After violent clashes and the assassination of two rival commanders, one of whom was beheaded, more moderate factions are publicly accusing the extremists of trying to seize control of the rebellion.

The rivalries - along with the efforts by extremist foreign fighters to impose their strict interpretation of Islam in areas they control - are chipping away at the movement's popularity in Syria at a time when the regime is making significant advances on the ground.

"The rebels' focus has shifted from toppling the regime to governing and power struggles," said a 29-year-old woman from the contested city of Homs. "I feel that the lack of true leadership is and has always been their biggest problem." She spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation from the fighters and the regime.

The infighting, which exploded into the open in the country's rebel-held north in recent days, is contributing to a sense across many parts of Syria that the revolution has faltered. It threatens to fracture an opposition movement that has been plagued by divisions from the start.

The moderates once valued the expertise and resources that their uneasy allies brought to the battlefield, but now question whether such military assets are worth the trouble - not to mention the added difficulty in persuading the West to arm them.

"We don't want foreign fighters. We have enough men and we want them out of Syria," said Brig. Gen. Salim Idris, head of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, an umbrella group for dozens of brigades.

In strikingly blunt comments in an interview with Al-Arabiya on Monday, Idris, a secular-minded army defector who has the backing of foreign powers, accused members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant of being regime agents and "criminals."

That group, formed in April and made up of al-Qaida's branches in Iraq and Syria, has taken on an increasingly dominant role in the Syrian civil war. Many of its fighters are north Africans, Iraqis, Afghans and Europeans who have flocked to Syria to join the overwhelmingly Sunni uprising against Assad.

Gunmen from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant were behind the killings of the two rebel commanders, the highest-profile casualties of the growing tensions between jihadi fighters and Western-supported rebels.

Kamal Hamami, known as Abu Basir, served in the Supreme Military Council. Activists say he was shot late Thursday in a clash that erupted after militants tried to remove a checkpoint he set up on the Jabal al-Turkoman mountain in the coastal province of Latakia. Two of his men were seriously wounded in the shooting.

Also last week, members of the extremist group killed Fadi al-Qish, the local commander of a group affiliated with the mainstream Free Syrian Army, or FSA. The fatal attack took place in the village of Dana in the northern province of Idlib near the Turkish border. Activists say the militants decapitated al-Qish and another fighter and left their severed heads on the ground as a lesson to other rebels who challenge their rule in the area.

The executions have enraged FSA commanders, who are demanding that the killers be handed over to stand trial.

Activists also say extremists have recently been sweeping into villages previously controlled by the FSA, taking over crucial resources such as bakeries, oil wells and water pumps to secure people's loyalties. In several cases, the militants were said to seize weapons from army bases and keep them from other rebels.

But what alienates the general population is the brutality. The extremists have carried out summary executions, public floggings and mass arrests, fueling the backlash against them.

In one prominent case in Aleppo last month, al-Qaida-linked militants executed a 15-year-old boy, Mohammad Qattaa, accusing him of being an "infidel" for mentioning Islam's Prophet Muhammad in vain. Gunmen shot the boy dead in front of his parents near a stand where he sold coffee in a killing that sparked rare local protests against them.

In many parts of Aleppo and Idlib and Homs, where a suffocating stalemate has been in place since last year, residents say their support and patience for the rebels is fraying.

In Aleppo last week, residents staged a protest at a checkpoint against a blockade imposed by the militants on government-held districts, because the blockade created food shortages at the onset of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. The protest led to a physical quarrel between supporters and opponents of the siege and ended with gunshots fired in the air to disperse protesters.

Syria's uprising started in March 2011 as an Arab Spring-inspired revolt against the decades-long Assad family rule. It eventually transformed into an insurgency and civil war in response to a brutal government crackdown against the protests. More than 93,000 have been killed and millions uprooted from their homes.

The rebels are a disparate mix of ordinary citizens who took up weapons, army defectors, moderates and hard-liners, and increasingly, jihadists who have trekked to Syria from all over the world. A shortage of weapons and the inability of external players to interfere in the conflict to tip the balance in favor of one side or another has worked against the rebels.

Some FSA commanders are trying to tamp down the dispute with the al-Qaida militants, mindful of the damage the infighting has done to their cause.

"Their actions are despicable, but we will not be drawn into a fight with them," said one commander, who declined to be named so as not to aggravate the situation.

FSA spokesman Loay al-Mikdad was less delicate.

"I think they should come out in public and tell the Syrian people why they are in Syria. Is it to fight Bashar Assad or to impose a specific agenda on the Syrian people?" he asked.

"We never see them on the battlefield anymore," he said of the al-Qaida militants. "We only see them in liberated areas either next to oil wells or trying to impose specific agendas on territories."

The dispute is not restricted to Islamic militants versus moderates. In the north, there has also been deadly infighting between Kurdish and Arab groups over control of captured territory along the border with Turkey.

"This infighting is very dangerous and is undermining our revolution," said Mohammed Kanaan, an activist based in the northern province of Idlib. "People are fed up and tired. ... They are starting to hate both sides," he said via Skype.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the al-Qaida militants are working to entrench themselves and secure a place in a post-Assad Syria.

"They are trying to control everything, they have a lot of money," most of it from private donations, he said.

Still, al-Mikdad ruled out a scenario similar to the Iraqi one, when U.S.-allied groups of Sunni fighters battled al-Qaida.

"Until now, the FSA does not consider itself in confrontation with these groups. Our weapons are directly only against Bashar Assad's troops," he said in a TV interview.

"But if a fight is imposed on us, we will defend ourselves," he said.

---

AP correspondent Yasmine Sakr contributed to this report.

Syrian troops advance against rebels in Damascus

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Government troops fired tank shells and artillery in heavy clashes between Syrian forces and rebels Sunday on the edge of Damascus, where the military has been pushing its offensive to retake key districts that have been in opposition hands for months.

The Syrian army has seized the momentum in the civil war over the past three months, wresting back territory lost to rebel forces and solidifying its hold over contested areas, particularly on the fringes of Damascus. Two of the embattled districts are Jobar and Qaboun, from which rebels frequently launch mortar rounds on the heart of the capital.

A Syrian military commander said forces loyal to President Bashar Assad have recaptured 60 percent of Jobar, south of Qaboun, and were trying to retake the rest. The commander talked to reporters Sunday during a military escorted tour of Jobar organized by the Information Ministry. His claim could not be independently verified.

An Associated Press reporter on the tour saw widespread destruction that pointed to heavy fighting in the neighborhood. Marble tile factories were destroyed. Reporters made their way in the devastated area by climbing through holes knocked in walls because of warnings of rebel snipers in the area.

At least two bodies, apparently those of rebel gunmen, lay on the floor of a bunker described by the official as a "terrorist" hideout.

"The army is advancing rapidly in Jobar ... the area will be secured in the next few days according to a well-studied plan," the commander said. He declined to be named in line with regulations.

Jobar is near the road linking Damascus with its eastern suburbs known as Eastern Ghouta. Rebels have been using the road to transport weapons and other supplies to the capital, the seat of Assad's power.

The commander said the Jobar-Qaboun axis was important to "cleanse Ghouta from terrorist groups."

Assad's government routinely describes the rebels fighting to overthrow him as terrorists playing out a foreign conspiracy hatched by Israel, the United States and some of its Arab allies in the region, like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

During the tour of Jobar, reporters were taken to a hideout the army said it seized a day earlier after killing 30 rebels and their leader there. Reporters were shown RPG mortar rounds and explosive devices, as well as an alleged chemical material with a strong odor.

Arabic graffiti on the walls read: "The al-Tawhid Brigade," and "the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" - names of militant groups fighting to topple Assad.

Sunday's tour came as Syria's main Western-backed opposition group claimed that 200 civilians were trapped in a mosque in Qaboun as fighting raged outside between rebels and Assad's army. It warned that thousands of civilians in Qaboun could be "massacred" by Assad's army as armored vehicles and elite forces move in.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said dozens of people were held captive Saturday by regime forces in the basement of the al-Omari mosque, but they were able to escape when clashes broke out between rebel and regime forces in the perimeter of the mosque, and the troops retreated.

It said 13 people, including seven fighters, died in the shelling of Qaboun Sunday.

"They (troops) are using tanks and artillery and are trying to break into Qaboun. The shelling is very intense and there is a lot of smoke," said an activist in the area, speaking via Skype on condition of anonymity, fearing retribution.

"This is day 26 of a bombing campaign, and they still haven't been able to break Qaboun," he said.

Later Sunday, a powerful bomb explosion rocked the Deir Atiyeh town north of Damascus, killing and wounding a number of people, activists said. The bomb went off near a police station in a densely populated area, but most of the casualties were civilians, according to the Observatory and the Military Council for Damascus and its Suburbs, a rebel group.

In Washington, U.S. officials said Israel targeted advanced anti-ship cruise missiles near Syria's principal port city in an airstrike earlier this month, according to a report by The New York Times. It cited the officials as saying the attack on July 5 near Latakia targeted advanced Russian-made Yakhont missiles that Russia sold to Syria.

There was no immediate comment from Assad's government, whose key political ally and arms supplier is Russia.

Asked about the reports on the CBS-TV show "Face the Nation," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to confirm or deny Israeli involvement.

He insisted that he will not allow "dangerous weapons" to reach Lebanon's Hezbollah militants.

 Halaby reported from Amman, Jordan. Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

From AP.

Hundreds of families were trapped

Hundreds of families were trapped on Sunday in a northeastern district of Damascus by regime troops who fought fierce battles with rebel forces, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
"There is a siege because regime snipers are posted on the outskirts of Qaboun and this makes any attempt to leave difficult," the monitoring group said.
"Violent clashes are underway between regime forces and rebels in Qaboun," in northeast Damascus where battles have raged for months as the army tries to
boot out rebel forces, the Britain-based Observatory said.
"The area has also been bombed by the army," added the watchdog, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers on the ground. [AFP]

Tensions increase within Syria rebel ranks

Free Syrian Army and al-Qaeda-linked fighters clash at Aleppo checkpoint, days after commander was shot by rival group.
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) and al-Qaeda-linked fighters have clashed again, just days after a leader of the FSA was shot dead at a checkpoint after a row between fighters from the two groups.
Activists told Al Jazeera that the FSA and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Saturday fought for control of a strategic checkpoint in Aleppo city's Bustan al-Qasr district, a strategic gateway between rebel and government controlled territory.
Some members of the groups now fear that tensions will escalate, hampering rebel efforts to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Analysts say divisions between Syria's rebel groups are partly to blame for giving Assad's forces the chance to regain the upper hand in the conflict.
Leaders of the Western- and Arab-backed FSA told Al Jazeera that they did not consider the ISIL an enemy, but that they would defend themselves.
"They are welcome if they help us fight the regime," Colonel Abdel Rahman Suweis, a member of the FSA Supreme Military Council, said.
"But if they want to cause strife, impose a new understanding of religion and make Syria another Afghanistan, we will take the necessary measures."
While FSA units sometimes fight alongside groups with different ideologies, rivalries have increased and al-Qaeda-linked groups have been blamed for assassinations of commanders of moderate rebel units.
Families trapped in Qaboun.
Meanwhile, hundreds of families were trapped in a northeastern district of Qaboun in Damascus by government troops who fought fierce battles with rebel forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based anti-government rights group, reported.
"There is a siege because regime snipers are posted on the outskirts of Qaboun and this makes any attempt to leave difficult," the group said on Sunday.
"Violent clashes are underway between regime forces and rebels in Qaboun," in northeast Damascus where battles have raged for months as the army tries to boot out rebel forces, the Observatory said.
"The area has also been bombed by the army," added the watchdog, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers on the ground.

Source:    Al Jazeera and agencies

Pakistani Taliban have set up camps and sent hundreds of men to Syria to fight alongside rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.

The Pakistani Taliban have set up camps and sent hundreds of men to Syria to fight alongside rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, militants said on Sunday, in a strategy aimed at cementing ties with al Qaeda's central leadership.
Operating alongside groups such as the al Nusra Front, described by the United States as a branch of al Qaeda, they mainly come from nearby countries such as Libya and Tunisia riven by similar conflict as a result of the Arab Spring.
On Sunday, Taliban commanders in Pakistan said they had also decided to join the cause, saying hundreds of fighters had gone to Syria to fight alongside their "Mujahedeen friends".
"When our brothers needed our help, we sent hundreds of fighters along with our Arab friends," one senior commander told Reuters, adding that the group would soon issue videos of what he described as their victories in Syria.
The announcement further complicates the picture on the ground in Syria, where rivalries have already been on the boil between the Free Syrian Army and other anti-regime groups.
Tensions erupted on Thursday when an al-Qaeda linked militant group assassinated one of Free Syrian Army's top commanders after a dispute in the port city of Latakia.
It also comes at a time when Assad's forces, with backing from Shi'ite fighters from Hezbollah and Iran, have been making gains on the Syrian battlefield.
Another Taliban commander in Pakistan, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the decision to send fighters to Syria came at the request of "Arab friends".
"Since our Arab brothers have come here for our support, we are bound to help them in their respective countries and that is what we did in Syria," he told Reuters.
"We have established our own camps in Syria. Some of our people go and then return after spending some time fighting there."
- Al Jazeera 

Syria war

The Syrian uprising has escalated into a bloody civil war. The UN says more than 90,000 people have died since the crisis began in March 2011. More than 1.5 million people have fled the country. With no end in sight to the bloodshed and concern that the conflict will spill over borders to neighbouring countries, the international community is pushing for the warring sides to agree on a political solution.