ISIS/ISIL conflict in Syria/Iraq (No OpEd, No Politics)

I just found this article in my Dutch Protestant newspaper of Thursday:

In English: The dangerous brother of IS is Al Qaeda in Syria. The writer, Ghassan Dahhan, a native Dutch speaker, is now writing his dissertation at the War Studies department of King's College London on insurgencies in the Levant.
He cites the US anti-IS representative Brett McGurk saying that Idlib is the main safe haven of Al Qaeda since September, 11, and is directly connected with Ayman al-Zawahiri. That is a great problem and has been for a considerable time.
The writer calls these remarkable words for a US representative because they are very similar to what Assad and Putin are saying. Bombing Idlib and Aleppo provinces was considered by the Obama administration as hitting the "moderate opposition". McGurk leaves that point of view. He said that the power of Al Qaeda had been underestimated for years. "The policy of some of our partners to send tens of thousands of tons of arms and not seeing what was happening while so may foreign fighters entered Syria was perhaps not very sensible. Al Qaeda made full use of this."
Al Qaeda cooperated closely with the Free Syrian Army since 2011, often changed its name, formed coalitions and and so received large scale support from foreign countries.
The writer concludes with the remark that the next duty of the "international community" will be to fight Al Qaeda in Idlib and that was perhaps the reason president Trump said to end support for the "rebels"in Syria.

I think that Syria would prefer to receive financial compensation for the damage done by the foreign sponsored terrorists to be spend on providing work rebuilding towns and cities and infrastructure above US and friends bombing Idlib.

There has been an increase in death of SAA soldiers during the recent campaigns against ISIS on its last legs in Raqqa, Homs and Deir Ezzor. The Tiger's and 5th Corps paid a heavy casualty price for their successes against ISIS positions on the banks of the Euphrates and Sukanh respectively. This was to be expected as ISIS were never going to give those areas up easily.
It seems the SAA's strategy is to cut ISIS supplies lines into the East Hama pocket, and taking those towns with its roads should (in theory) lead to the eventual collapse of ISIS in all of central Syria.

On a side note, it seems the SDF has given up attempts to race the SAA towards Deir Ezzor city. They are (still) struggling to dislodge ISIS in Raqqa city, which is increasingly taking a strain on its manpower esp in face of Turkey's aggressive moves against their positions in Northern Syria.

Equation said:

How soon will one of the US coalition forces will lose focus and gets angry and take their anger on the US as a new terrorist group? Remember Osama Bin Laden Mujahidin forces was a US ally once over the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union.

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Please remember that the Mujahideen were the indigenous Pukhtuns, Afghan ethnic group that is native and makes up the majority of the country's population. Long before America ever came to help the Mujahideen of Afghanistan, the Mujahideen were fighting the Soviets (not Russians, Soviets then & Russia today, two different entities all together). Remember, Mujahideen were native Pukhtun Afghans. Osama Bin Laden was a Yemeni (by origin) saudi Arabian. He (OBL) was a long way away from home and had no business in Afghanistan. It is a widely accepted fact that OBL was CIA's point-man in the U.S effort to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan. Using the "Islam Card", OBL managed to wiggle his way into the core of the Afghan Mujahideen camp. OBL's "Islam Card", was the saudi-wahhabi belief (a corrupted and wrong one) when it came to the Islamic faith. Before the cancer of wahhabism ever entered spread into Afghanistan. The relations between the non-Pukhtun Afghanis and the native Pukhtun majority was relatively peaceful. Since the non-Pukhtun Afghanis were Shia and spoke Persian tongue. They were always considered to be as Muslims from a different sect to Sunnis (predominant in Islamic World). The wahhabi ideology that came with OBL into Afghanistan (thanks to the CIA), ensured that the distant, yet peaceful relations between the majority native Pukhtun and the persian tongue minorities (Farsiban, Hazaari, Uzbek, Kyrgyz & etc), was infected with the wahhabi ideology that paints all Shais as "Kafir" (non-beliver in the ONE TRUE GOD & Nabi Muhammad Sallallaho Alaihi Wassallam). This wahhabi venom was the cause of divisions, bloodshed and tearing up the very fabric of Afghan social landscape.

It is important for people to know the truth about Osama Bin Laden, the wahhabi venom he spread in Afghanistan, the destruction of peace between different ethic and sectarian groups. It is also important for people to know that ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko-Haram and Al-Shabab all follow the wahhabi ideology and which is why they will not ever be accepted by the overwhelming majority of the 2 billion Muslims on this planet.

And in case people did not know where wahhabi originates from. It came from man named Abdullah Ibn Wahhabi. A heretic who was rejected by the Islamic Scholarship in Baghdad, back in the 1890s. Who subsequently fled to Najd (Eastern Arabia), where he managed to gain popularity among the Ikhwaan (Bedouin fighter clans). Under the supervision and financial of the British, an alliance was brought about by the British between Abdullah Ibn Wahhab and Saud. This alliance was used by the British to bring about the rebellion and the subsequent breaking away of the Hejaz (Western Arabia and the Spiritual Capital of Islam) from the Ottoman Khilafah. And that is how the saudis and wahhabis came to be one in the same.

People of the world ought to know that the events of today, have a deeper history than they could possibly imagine. People should not ignore history and should make the effort to research and analyse it. For if they don't, then they will continue to live in ignorance.

Here we go

Looks like the collapse of ISIS in its Central Syrian Salient is now in full swing.
The two pincer movements which can be seen developing in this map of 2 days ago

Have apparently been achieved and the salient split into three parts with the two Westwards disintegrating rapidly.



Waiting for new maps, but feel that this part will end very quickly now.

SampanViking said:

Here we go

Looks like the collapse of ISIS in its Central Syrian Salient is now in full swing.
The two pincer movements which can be seen developing in this map of 2 days ago

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Have apparently been achieved and the salient split into three parts with the two Westwards disintegrating rapidly.

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Waiting for new maps, but feel that this part will end very quickly now.

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It seems this site updates the map faster.
I agree that the development in the gray area will be fast as it is vast desert, meaning less water, less food, less population, taking a town along the road will mean taking the whole surround area.

Ambassador Bhadrakumar writes in this article in Asia Times - :

A shift in the overall military balance in Assad’s favor is borne out by reports that Hezbollah has cut back its involvement in Syria from a peak level of 20,000 fighters in Syria to a force level of 5,000.

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Uqayribat liberated by SAA from ISIS. If confirmed this would mean entire central Syria is now in the hands of the government. Furthermore it indicates momentum in full swing towards lifting the ISIS siege on Dier Ezzor in the coming weeks/months.

What's interesting to note are 2 things:

1) What happens East of the Euphrates after SAA retakes all of Deir Ezzor city. Would Assad and Russia let the Kurds keep a slice of Syria? Turkey (and probably Iraq) would go fully berserk if this actually happened.
This point is also not as straightforward as it seems as there are many overlapping factors complicating the situation. The biggest issue is the tension within the SDF between the Arab and Kurdish factions, where hostilities could spill out into the open. Another are the Iraqi PMU militias, who fresh from their victory over ISIS in Tal Afar, now control most of the border between Syria and Iraq. I imagine these guys would no way in hell support Kurdish independence.
The way I see it, the Kurds are stuck between a rock and a hard place; the only things keeping the SAA, PMUs and Turkish backed FSA from ganging up on them are the US and Russia. Would the Kurds continue to be of use to the US once Raqqa falls in a few weeks?

2) The normalisation of relations between the Assad government and the former backers of the rebellion. Turkey, Jordan and even the Saudis are slowly coming around and reestablishing diplomatic connections with Assad. This is the biggest indication that Assad (with the aid of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah) will end up as eventual victors in this long and bloody civil war.

Iraqi Kurdistan has been supported by Israel ever since it achieved a measure of autonomy and it exported its oil via Turkey. With the deterioration of relations between Turkey and Israel and the improvement of relations between Turkey and Iran the way may open to cooperation between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria to offer an equal and very limited amount of autonomy to the Kurds in all four countries, enough to drive out US and Israeli influence.

SAA reaches Deir Ezzor and officially lifts the siege. Amazing achievement! Not only for the troops steamrolling ISIS across the desert, but also for the soldiers and civilians who held out against ISIS inside & around the city for 3 years.

flyzies said:

SAA reaches Deir Ezzor and officially lifts the siege. Amazing achievement! Not only for the troops steamrolling ISIS across the desert, but also for the soldiers and civilians who held out against ISIS inside & around the city for 3 years.

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Indeed Syria is on a roll. It eliminated the Daesh area on the border with Lebanon, sharply reduced the Daesh area in Hama, reduces the East Ghouta area, captured area along the border with Jordan and is preparing to drive its enemies away from West Aleppo. The main area not yet attacked is Idlib province.