During the last couple of months, two very similar military
campaigns have simultaneously been going on in Syria and Iraq, while the Syrian
offensive with Russian air support against the militants in east Aleppo has
been reviled as an assault against humanity, the military campaign in Mosul by
the Iraqi armed forces and Shi’a militias with American air support has been
lauded as the struggle for “liberation” by the mainstream media.
Although the campaign in Mosul is against the Islamic State
while in east Aleppo the Syrian regime has launched a military offensive
against the so-called “moderate rebels,” but the distinction between Islamic
jihadists and “moderate” militants is more illusory than real.
Before it turned rogue and overran Mosul in Iraq, the
Islamic State used to be an integral part of the Syrian opposition against the
regime and it still enjoys close ideological and operational ties with other
militant groups in Syria. Keep in mind that although turf wars are common not
just between the Islamic State and other militant outfits in Syria, but also
among the rebel groups themselves; however, the ultimate objective of the
Islamic State and the rest of militant outfits in Syria is the same: that is, to
overthrow the Shi’a majority regime of Bashar al-Assad.
It is not a coincidence then that when the regime was on the
verge of winning a resounding victory against the militants holed up in east
Aleppo, the Islamic State came to the rescue of its brothers-in-arms by opening
up a new front in Palmyra from where it had been evicted in March.
Consequently, the regime has to send reinforcements from Aleppo to Palmyra in
order to defend the city and thus the momentum of the military offensive in east
Aleppo has stalled.
It defies explanation that while the US has announced the
Phase II of the military campaign against the Islamic State in Syria and the
Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have amassed north of the Islamic
State’s bastion in al-Raqqah, instead of buttressing its defenses against the
SDF in the north, the Islamic State has launched an offensive against the
Syrian regime in the south? In order to answer this perplexing question, we
need to revisit the ideology, composition and objectives of the Islamic State
in Syria.
Unlike al Qaeda, which is a terrorist organization that
generally employs anticolonial and anti-West rhetoric to draw funds and
followers, the Islamic State and the majority of militant groups in Syria are basically
anti-Shi’a sectarian outfits. By the designation “terrorism” it is generally
implied and understood that an organization which has the intentions and
capability of carrying out acts of terrorism on the Western soil.
Though the Islamic State has carried out a few acts of
terrorism against the Western countries, such as the high profile Paris and
Brussels attacks, but if we look at the pattern of its subversive activities,
especially in the Middle East, it generally targets the Shi’a Muslims in Syria
and Iraq. A few acts of terrorism that it has carried out in the Gulf Arab
states were also directed against the Shi’a Muslims in the Eastern province of
Saudi Arabia and Shi’a mosques in Yemen and Kuwait.
Many biased political commentators of the mainstream media
deliberately try to muddle the reality in order to link the emergence of the
Islamic State to the ill-conceived invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the Bush
Administration. Their motive behind this chicanery is to absolve the Obama
Administration’s policy of supporting the Syrian opposition against the Syrian
regime since the beginning of the Syrian civil war until June 2014 when Islamic
State overran Mosul and Obama Administration made an about-face on its previous
policy of indiscriminate support to the Syrian opposition and declared a war
against a faction of Syrian opposition: that is, the Islamic State.
Moreover, such spin-doctors also try to find the roots of
Islamic State in al-Qaeda in Iraq; however, the insurgency in Iraq died down
after “the Iraq surge” of 2007. Al-Qaeda in Iraq became an impotent
organization after the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and the subsequent surge
of troops in Iraq. The re-eruption of insurgency in Iraq has been the spillover
effect of nurturing militants in Syria against the Assad regime, when the
Islamic State overran Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in January 2014 and
subsequently captured Mosul in June 2014.
The borders between Syria and Iraq are quite porous and it’s
impossible to contain the flow of militants and arms between the two countries.
The Obama Administration’s policy of providing money, arms and training to the
Syrian militants in the training camps located at the border regions of Turkey
and Jordan was bound to backfire sooner or later.
Notwithstanding, in order to simplify the Syrian theater of
proxy wars for the sake of readers, I would divide it into three separate and
distinct zones of influence. Firstly, the northern and northwestern zone along
the Syria-Turkey border, in and around Aleppo and Idlib, which is under the
influence of Turkey and Qatar.
Both of these countries share the ideology of Muslim
Brotherhood and they provide money, training and arms to the Sunni Arab
jihadist organizations like al-Tawhid Brigade, Nour al-Din Zenki Brigade and
Ahrar al-Sham in the training camps located at the border regions of Turkey.
Secondly, the southern zone of influence along the
Syria-Jordan border, in Daraa and Quneitra and as far away as Homs and
Damascus. It is controlled by the Saudi-Jordanian camp and they provide money,
weapons and training to the Salafist militant groups such as al-Nusra Front and
the Southern Front of the so-called “moderate” Free Syria Army in Daraa and
Quneitra, and Jaysh al-Islam in the suburbs of Damascus.
Their military strategy is directed by a Military Operations
Center (MOC) and training camps located in the border regions of Jordan. Here
let me clarify that this distinction is quite overlapping and heuristic at
best, because al-Nusra’s jihadists have taken part in battles as far away as
Idlib and Aleppo.
And finally, the eastern zone of influence along the
Syria-Iraq border, in al-Raqqah and Deir al-Zor, which has been controlled by a
relatively maverick Iraq-based jihadist outfit, the Islamic State. Thus,
leaving the Mediterranean coast and Syria’s border with Lebanon, the Baathist
and Shi’a-dominated Syrian regime has been surrounded from all three sides by
the hostile Sunni forces: Turkey and Muslim Brotherhood in the north, Jordan
and the Salafists of the Gulf Arab States in the south and the Sunni
Arab-majority regions of Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in the east.
The bottom line is that although the American efforts to
stall the momentum of the Islamic jihadists’ expansion in Iraq appears to be
sincere, but the Western powers and their regional allies are still pursuing
the duplicitous policy of using the Syrian militants, including the Islamic
State, to destabilize the Assad regime in Syria.
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