Syria Archives - Page 5 of 5

September 30, 2018October 1, 2018 by Kristine Olsen

Voting in Syria: Elections Signal an End to ISIL

On September 16th Syria held its first local elections in government-controlled areas since anti-government protests and protracted civil conflict broke out in 2011. Polling booths were open from 7 am to midnight, having been extended five hours to accommodate the throngs who wished to participate.

Though the EU, US, and Gulf Cooperation Council dismissed the election as illegitimate, it is meant to signal to the world that the country is on the path to recovery. And that its people are actively involved. There were televised events showing voters casting ballots in Damascus, Tartus, and Latakia. Surprisingly, elections were also held in Deir ez-Zor, a city recently recaptured by Syrian troops. Deir ez-Zor had been occupied by the Islamic State for years. Within a year the city was able to drive ISIS out, regroup, and function well enough to host elections.

Four years ago, when the country was in its most violent convulsions, an election would have been unthinkable.

There has been speculation that the election serves the sitting regime’s purposes. That it helps unite citizens against ISIL and it alerts terror groups that the ruling party has regained control. Four years ago, when the country was in its most violent convulsions, this was unthinkable. Roads were impassable, and people were afraid to leave their houses. Thus, for some, the act of casting a ballot is a message to ISIL and other terrorists that the people have taken their control back.

More than 5 million refugees and 6 million internally displaced people will not be able to vote. Syrian law prohibits voters from casting ballots outside of their municipality. However, given the progress in Deir ez-Zor, Syrians hope the entire country can be free of violence and people can return home and cast their votes with time. The election has encouraged people. Perhaps the seemingly interminable chaos can end. And perhaps Syrians can vote for leaders to rebuild their country. In addition to demonstrating to the terrorists that they have no place in Syria, the election is a way for the regime to rebuild hope with a people who have lost it over seven years of conflict.

More than 5 million refugees and 6 million internally displaced people will not be able to vote

While the election represents a bit of progress, state oppression remains a reality for most Syrians. Some see the vote as a ploy by the regime to demonstrate its power. Not an opportunity for the people to use their voices. Such people argue that election results are predetermined. To be sure, Syria is a long way from open elections. Ones where candidates and parties truly represent the people’s will. But ISIL will be excluded from elections, and we can all say good riddance.

A woman casts her vote at a polling station in Damascus, Syria. chinadaily.com

July 23, 2018December 4, 2018 by Ben Maalouf

Hezbollah: Exporting the Political Paramilitary Organization Model

Thursday evening, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah phoned six fighters in his paramilitary political party recalling them to Lebanon following months of support in Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s defense against Syrian rebel fighters. “You accomplished the greatest [accomplishment] of steadfastness, triumph, and fortitude in the history of Hezbollah,” said the incumbent who has held leadership over Hezbollah, a terrorist group according to the United States among others, since 1992.

The praised fighters were assisting in the defense of two Shia-majority towns from rebel siege in Northern Syria. On Tuesday, a deal was struck between Syrian government backers, Russia, and rebel backers, Turkey, wherein several thousand civilians are to be evacuated, thus ending the siege and allowing the Hezbollah fighters to return home.

In the last five years, this is not an unfamiliar story. This update regarding Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian Civil War is part of a spiking-trend involving the organization and its growing influence. This is the case politically in Lebanon as well as worldwide.

Hezbollah is the quintessential political paramilitary organization success story: highly trained, heavily armed, and politically and economically influential. Their influence and highly efficient communication present an even more dangerous situation.

Foreign extremists traveling to train in Lebanon, and vice-versa, hinder the fight to end extremism and strengthens such groups. But how does Lebanon secure an end to such training without drawing the ire of Hezbollah and its patron, Iran?

Beyond Syria, eight Hezbollah fighters were killed less than a month ago by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. The fighters were providing military support to the Iran-aligned Houthi (Ansar Allah) group. Hezbollah denied the deaths, but are yet to rule out their involvement in the Yemeni proxy war. Saudi-backed Yemeni government officials have accused Iran, for years, of backing the Houthis in an effort to transform them into a carbon copy of Hezbollah.

Such reports coupled with ones highlighting Hezbollah’s training of Boko Haram fighters in Nigeria to legitimize the idea that Hezbollah has established itself as the manifestation of what terrorist-backers want such groups to become.

Furthermore, the continued development of these organizations’ communication methods reinforces one’s sense that the best way to cripple Hezbollah’s training and scope is to break its communication apparatus. Easier said than done, especially in Lebanon. The Lebanese military can barely secure its frontier. And due to Hezbollah’s Parliamentary presence, any military intervention against it would instantly unravel the country.

Ethical hacking methods exist, and while their implementation is difficult, and therefore improbable, a reduction in the flood of foreign financial support, and increased border security technologies could go away toward limiting extremist trainees’ movement to and from Lebanon. These considerations also come with consequences, so the question lingers, can Lebanon solve its problems without creating new ones?

Hezbollah training ME Shiites to fight in Syria

February 27, 2018October 3, 2018 by Austin Ludolph

Harrowing Death, Calls For Action: The Syrian Genocide Persists

The Assad regime has been conducting airstrikes on its own citizens for six years now. To date, more than a quarter million civilians have perished. Hundreds of thousands more have been burned, dismembered, or otherwise scarred physically and psychologically.

Diana Semaan, a Syria researcher at Amnesty International, commented on the matter saying, “For six years, the international community has stood by as the Syrian government has committed crimes against humanity and war crimes with total impunity” [1]. Dispiritingly, all the international community can do now, it seems, is help the victims as best they can.

The cry for help is at its latest peak as more than 500 Syrians have been killed this week in the suburbs of Eastern Ghouta. More than 1,000 have been injured. [2] Russian-backed Syrian forces claim they are trying to uproot rebels, but civilians comprise the majority of the casualties. “Nearly 400,000 people live in Eastern Ghouta. They account for 94% of all currently besieged Syrians.” The airstrikes, suffice it to say, are ineffective at targeting so-called rebels.

On Friday, February 23rd, 2018 the United Nations will be voting on a “30-day truce in Syria to allow [much needed] aid deliveries and medical evacuations” [3]. Medical supplies could be delivered and those who are critically wounded could be evacuated to receive life-saving treatment. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has demanded before the U.N. that there be, “An immediate end to ‘war activities’ there.” [3] The resolution might sound like progress. But Russia, Bashar al-Assad’s key backer, is a U.N. Security Council member and is likely to veto the resolution. It has already, “…cast 11 vetoes on possible Security Council action on Syria since its civil war began in 2011,” [3].

So many images, tweets, news reports, and videos have emerged from Syria over what has already been so many years revealing devastation and disarray. It sometimes seems there is little that can be done. The U.N. tries to step in, but Syria has become a frenzy over power, religion, and territory. Russia, Iran, Turkey and the United States all have equities in Syria, making it all but impossible to give precedence to the Syrian people’s needs.

“Ghouta will fall,” says Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the online British newspaper The Independent, and once it does, “Idlib must surely be next” [4]. The carnage will not end anytime soon. All we can do is help those who suffer the brutal consequences of the war, day after day, especially the children. They should remain central to what is fought for in Syria.

Sources:

Click here to learn more about Ahmad Mohibi, Founder of Rise to Peace

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February 19, 2018October 3, 2018 by John Sims

Syrian Conflict: When Great Powers Do Not Play Well Together

Syria remains a disaster; for the people who remain there, for those who’ve fled but hope one day to return and for those who seek a sound, diplomatic solution. The catalog of actors operating in the theater, even at this late date, is increasingly alarming: Syrian pro-government forces, Syrian rebels, ISIL-terrorists, Russian armed forces, and U.S. coalition forces. International actors like Russia and the United States claim to have entered the conflict to subvert the threat of ISIL. Both sides dispute the other’s rationale. But when direct military contact occurs between the United States and Russia, that threatens not only the goal of reducing ISIL terror but the stability of the whole international order.

Graphic by Anastasia Beltyukova and Henrik Pettersson for CNN[1]

Innumerable horrors have emerged from the region since the Syrian Civil War’s start. Each is terribly important, but ISIL’s offenses engender a category of sadism and butchery that cannot be ignored. ISIL engages in genocidal campaigns against minority populations like Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims. It has murdered internationally protected journalists in manners too barbaric for mass media consumption and advocates extremist violence the world over[2]. This only scratches the surface of ISIL’s crimes.

The United States committed to combating and reducing the ISIL threat in 2014. In concert with European and Middle Eastern allies, the U.S. supported regional friends with a crippling campaign of airstrikes directed against ISIL. The advent of Russian intervention, however, complicated things. In 2015, Bashar al-Assad’s regime requested Russian assistance in combating Islamic extremists and rebel factions alike. Though ISIL has been significantly reduced since 2014, the U.S. and Russia maintain daily military operations in Syria. Global concerns mounted in February 2018 when pro-government forces, backed by Russian mercenary squads, attacked U.S. forces and Syrian allies.

Another case in point, a U.S. drone destroyed a Russian made T-72 battle tank on February 10th, 2018. No U.S. or allied troops were killed, but reports indicate three Russian affiliates died in the tank [4]. The T-72 in question was reportedly moving, with coordinated indirect fire, on a position held by coalition advisors and Syrian Democratic Forces, the latter of which is a Syrian rebel group supported by the United States and its allies[5]. This incident followed another assault in which pro-Syrian forces attacked coalition troops on February 7th and 8th. U.S. coalition forces are reported to have killed 100 Syrian operatives following this unprovoked attack on coalition headquarters [6].

Questions persist regarding Russia’s motivation in the conflict. Since its intervention, it has consistently bombed rebel groups allied against Bashar al-Assad [7]. To justify its strikes, Russia labels as terrorists any group contending for power with Assad. Russian operations have helped the regime dramatically reduce the rebel threat while leaving the lion’s share of the ISIL fight to the American-led coalition. At this point in the conflict, with the threat of ISIL reduced, Russian and American backed proxies, to say nothing of national forces, are increasingly coming into conflict with each other, as February’s developments prove.

We may never know who was killed in the tank or how many Russians died in the February 8th coalition forces assault, but the escalating conflict between the world’s sole superpower and its former cold war adversary helps no one, especially not Syrians whose homeland has become an arena where international scores may be settled. US-Russian relations are at a low due to Syria, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Further conflict promises to exacerbate an already fraught bond.

ISIL should remain the focus of American and Russian military operations. The so-called caliphate has been diminished, but it has not been defeated. Its calls for extremist violence have been heard across the world. The U.S. has witnessed ISIL-inspired violence in San Bernardino, Orlando, and in the bombing and vehicular attacks in New York City. A Russia-bound commercial airliner over Egypt was bombed out of the sky by ISIL. Bombs claimed by ISIL have exploded in the metros of St. Petersburg. American and Russian nationals have traveled to Syria, fought for ISIL, and threaten to wage further conflict upon their return home. ISIL and its propaganda remain virulent threats to both nations.

The Syrian Civil War is rightfully viewed as one of the great geopolitical cataclysms of the young, 21st century. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead and millions have been displaced, yet peace remains elusive. These great powers should be working together, not at odds, to resolve global conflicts. Better US-Russian commitment to avoiding concentric operational areas mitigates the likelihood of further conflict. To be sure, awareness of one another’s airspace exists, however, each country must honor such arrangements. As long as the Syrian Civil War drags on, the possibility of even more destructive conflict remains. It seems self-evident that resolving the civil war should be everyone’s priority.

Disagreements between the U.S. and Russia would hardly disappear were the two to resolve their differences over Syria, but so doing would remove two adversaries from a kinetic combat zone and remove a critical issue that’s currently impeding bilateral relations. A resolution would allow each nation to fight international and regional terrorism directly rather than eliciting proxy warfare in the guise of fighting terror. For the Middle East’s sake and that of the rest of the world, the United States and Russia must do better.

Sources:

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/25/middleeast/syria-isis-whos-fighting-who-trnd/index.html
[2] http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/03/isil-committed-genocide-minority-groups-isis-160317132446363.html
[3] http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104470/mq-9-reaper/
[4] http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/02/13/us-drone-destroys-russian-made-tank-in-syria-in-self-defense-officials-say.html
[5] http://www.businessinsider.com/video-of-us-destroying-russian-t-72-tank-in-syria-with-drone-strike-2018-2
[6] http://www.businessinsider.com/us-syria-killed-100-russian-syrian-backed-fighters-2018-2?r=UK&IR=T
[7] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/01/syria-airstrikes-everything-you-need-to-know

Click here to learn more about Ahmad Mohibi, Founder of Rise to Peace

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