US Backed Syrian Rebel Group Dissolves, Merges With Islamist After Losses
Source: Associated Press
Associated Press
Published: 03.01.15, 18:18 / Israel News
One of the main western-backed rebel groups announced on Sunday that it had dissolved itself and joined a larger Islamist alliance, weeks into a battle which saw it lose ground and men to more powerful al Qaeda insurgents.
Hazzm is one of the last remnants of non-jihadist opposition to President Bashar Assad in northern Syria, much of which has been seized by the Nusra Front and Islamic State, an offshoot of al-Qaeda that controls roughly a third of Syria.
The statement posted online said its fighters would join the Shamiyah Front, an alliance of Islamist brigades in Aleppo, to prevent further bloodshed.
The decision comes after heavy weekend fighting between it and the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's official Syria wing. Both Hazzm, which is part of the Free Syria Army collection of mainstream rebel groups, and Nusra fight the government.
Read more: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4632188,00.html
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)What-a-surprise.
Remember, the exact same posters on DU now howling for Putin's head on a plate, were demanding US military action in Syria in 2013 and are wholly supportive of our arming and funding of Syrian "rebels" - the same act they condemn Putin for in Ukraine.
Igel
(35,356 posts)I've disliked the Assads since Reagan. I also thought Bush II was a fool for wanting to overthrow Assad the Lesser, but at least he didn't do anything to actually implement his foolishness.
I though Pelosi was a fool when Bush II said how bad he was an, in response, went to visit Syria, donned the headscarf, and said good things about the Lesser (at least wrt Israel).
And I thought that supporting the "Arab spring" student protests in Damascus was also stupid. Even if it put me on the same side of the neo-Nazi-Night-Wolf-supporting Putin. The West saw in the student movement only what confirmed its bias and conformed to its liberal views. The diversity of opinion, the lack of unity, the unsavory underbelly of the movement and the sheer incompetence of its leaders was tempting to overlook--and if there's one thing that a lot of people have trouble resisting, it's temptation, esp. self-flattering temptation.
Putin I've disliked since he was elected. Possibly before. Bush II's "looked into his soul" line was idiocy of the highest calibre, rivaled only by Obama's "reset" (it was more accurate in the Russian botch-up, "overload" .
And don't try a come-back that I must have been on the side of Qaddhafi the Vile or the tribalized uprising. Those who cited Qaddhafi's "gates of hell" line against Benghazi had heard this line dozens of times from many different Arab (and other) leaders--Arafat, Meshaal come to mind readily--and never took it as a literal claim of genocide and mass murder but as the rhetorical flourish that it was.
(Some others that want Putin's head on a platter haven't been here for enough years or have interest in calling for US military boots-on-the-ground intervention in Syria.)
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Kind of a difference between disliking Putin and Assad, there - sentiments i share.
(coulda sworn I saw a :wave: smiley... oh well)
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)to Assad. I argued, and rightfully, that we could not know who we were supporting. We do not know who is what in Syria or most of the Middle East.
I have to say supporting the Syrian rebels was a stupid thing to do. Assad is horrible, but the rebels never appeared to be much if at all better.
So here we are.
Hillary Clinton has no business running for president. This faux pas will destroy her candidacy. And rightfully so. It did not take much experience or knowledge of the world to foresee that supporting any group in Syria would backfire.
Uggh!
I will get slammed on DU for saying this, but, hey, I'll be slamming myself if I don't point out these obvious facts.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)From Clinton helping crush a pro-democracy movement in Bahrain, and working with all he might to keep Mubarak in power, to Kerry waltzing around hand in hand with Fateh al-Sisi and snarling at Europe's reluctance to go to war with Syria ("Munich Moment," are you fucking kidding me), it's been fucking abominable.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)sealed. No matter how much we might like to stay out, we will be embroiled in the ISIS war. The alternative is bedlam and a lot of problems across the world.
Assisting the rebels in Syria was really stupid, really. The outcome was foreseeable. It is inexcusable. Sorry. I hate to criticize a Democratic administration like this, but we should never have become involved in Syria. We should have waited and then acted,
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Chaos and disorder, warlords. Repeatedly and frequently.
The same was argued before we went into Afghanistan and Iraq. Libya and Yemen have now been reduced to chaos too. This is not an accident. It is a folly.
blackspade
(10,056 posts)pscot
(21,024 posts)roving bands of butchers. It would be a lot easier to remember that insurgent group Ursula had rebel group Norman on the run, or had joined forces with popular front Boris.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Thank you General and Madam Secretary for championing the humanitarian solution, and supporting our moderate friends in the region. Re:
pscot
(21,024 posts)the Nobel commissioners have soured on Americans.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)seveneyes
(4,631 posts)Bring your own plate.
obxhead
(8,434 posts)and how we need to unite behind the anointed one right now!
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)(probably towards the end of Bush's second term).
There was an interesting tidbit that I don't think anyone else has picked up on.
He told Jon Stewart that bribing the Sunni tribes was his idea and that he started doing it without the knowledge of, and against the wishes of, the (Bushco) White House. So, if true, the so-called "Sunni Awakening" was his initiative. Of course it helped tamp down the Iraq civil war.
Now, here's the thing: maybe that wasn't the neocons plan!
So, maybe he made up for lost time with the Libya and Syria projects and helped to redeem himself in the eyes of the neocons.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)See, "PETRAEUS WMD DECEPTION: How the General Earned his stripes stripes with Bush-Cheney", http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/311
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)"They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down"
Syrias prime location and muscle make it the strategic center of the Middle East. But it is a complex country, rich in religious and ethnic variety, and therefore fragile. After independence, Syria reeled from more than a half-dozen coups between 1949 and 1970, when the Assad dynasty seized full control. Now, after 30 months of bloodletting, diversity has turned deadly, killing both people and country. Syria has crumbled into three identifiable regions, each with its own flag and security forces. A different future is taking shape: a narrow statelet along a corridor from the south through Damascus, Homs and Hama to the northern Mediterranean coast controlled by the Assads minority Alawite sect. In the north, a small Kurdistan, largely autonomous since mid-2012. The biggest chunk is the Sunni-dominated heartland.
Syrias unraveling would set precedents for the region, beginning next door. Until now, Iraq resisted falling apart because of foreign pressure, regional fear of going it alone and oil wealth that bought loyalty, at least on paper. But Syria is now sucking Iraq into its maelstrom.
The battlefields are merging, the United Nations envoy Martin Kobler told the Security Council in July. Iraq is the fault line between the Shia and the Sunni world and everything which happens in Syria, of course, has repercussions on the political landscape in Iraq.
Over time, Iraqs Sunni minority notably in western Anbar Province, site of anti-government protests may feel more commonality with eastern Syrias Sunni majority. Tribal ties and smuggling span the border. Together, they could form a de facto or formal Sunnistan. Iraqs south would effectively become Shiitestan, although separation is not likely to be that neat.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/opinion/sunday/imagining-a-remapped-middle-east.html?pagewanted=1&pagewanted=all
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)It's kinda like someone redrawing a map of Africa and naming their new countries "mfobuzulo' and "Nklodo-click-click-click" and "Zombobubu" and the like. Made-up nonsense showing a profound inability to grasp some basic fucking things, and some pretty heavy biases and assumptions
But then it's been drawn by a writer who works for the Brookings Institute's Saban Center, another fine outlet of American anti-Arab bigotry and islamophobic ignorance.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)It's also a map of War Crimes Future. Or, at this point, ongoing for 10+ years.
The Ralph Peters map in Armed Forces Journal, 2006:
If the Nazis had drawn it, it would have been an exhibit at the Nuremberg trial. The AFJ link no longer works, possibly they took it down because back then the Saudi crown called in Condoleezza Rice to complain officially.
The article appears to have been readapted into his book:
https://books.google.com/books?id=2DvhkRE9GP4C&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq=%22International+borders+are+never+completely+just.+But+the+degree+of+injustice%22&source=bl&ots=zSqsZXB-WL&sig=VPPqqwDkn-s9SfznGc0Hbpr1u1c&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qLLzVKuzMM2hyATF04HoAg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22International%20borders%20are%20never%20completely%20just.%20But%20the%20degree%20of%20injustice%22&f=false
bemildred
(90,061 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)Last edited Mon Mar 2, 2015, 12:16 PM - Edit history (1)
and breakup of Iraq right, Peters envisioned a far more expansive Shi'ite coalescence along ethnic population lines. The Saudis and Qataris, with a lot of help from the US, Israel and the Europeans, have managed to suppress the coalescence of Shi'ia power.
It is hard to imagine that the Shi'ia will manage to takeover The Prize, the oil-rich eastern province of KSA - the area designated by Peters as "Arab Shiite" along the western banks of the Gulf above Qatar.
If the idea behind all this was to extend Sunni power within the region, neutralize the non-acquiesent states on Israel's borders, and to simultaneously overextend Iran thus containing it, the approach appears to have worked spectacularly, regardless of the spillover and immense loss of life. I have the impression that this is how HRC and the neocons are going to try to justify this.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)Bernard Lewis, FBA (born May 31, 1916) is a British-American historian specializing in oriental studies. He is also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Lewis' expertise is in the history of Islam and the interaction between Islam and the West. He is also noted in academic circles for his works on the history of the Ottoman Empire.[1]
..
Stance on the Iraq War
In 2002, Lewis wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal regarding the buildup to the Iraq War entitled "Time for Toppling", where he stated his opinion that "a regime change may well be dangerous, but sometimes the dangers of inaction are greater than those of action."[44] In 2007, Jacob Weisberg described Lewis as "perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq".[45] Michael Hirsh attributed to Lewis the view that regime change in Iraq would provide a jolt that would "modernize the Middle East" and suggested that Lewis' allegedly 'orientalist' theories about "what went wrong" in the Middle East, and other writings, formed the intellectual basis of the push towards war in Iraq.[46]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Turning Fars into "arabistan," but keeping Khuzestan as part of "Persia"? Why is "Greater Syria" smaller than "Syria" (which is itself but a fragment of historical "Greater Syria" ?
The amount of ignorance in that graphic is terrifying in its abundance.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Goes back to Lewis' thinking in the 1970s at a time that Syria seemed permanently embedded in the limestone of history, and Iran had the backing of the United States, a custodianship which also may have been assumed to be permanent at the time. While the Ayatollah emerged to change that equation, Lewis may not have had to adjust his thesis too much. There's a article linked here from 1992 that goes into the gestation of Lewis' theories about the engineered defeat of "Pan-Arabism": http://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1uua1r/bernard_lewiss_proposed_map_of_the_middle_east/celpzss
leveymg
(36,418 posts)The line of thinking portrayed as radical isn't so neo or conservative, after all. In fact, the idea of breaking up the Arab nation-states of the Middle East seems to go back to the moment they were "lines in the sand" drawn by Messrs. Sykes and Picot.
Thanks for posting this.
7962
(11,841 posts)PaddyIrishman
(110 posts)I thought they had the Saudi's SHIT spot on.
reorg
(3,317 posts)in reducing 'Greater Syria' to 'Alawitestan':
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2914475/ISIS-expand-control-Syria-American-airstrikes.html
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)um....they know but we sure as hell don't. But then, I'm thinking probably we don't care...we still get the sale of arms.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)The Southern Front
They're working with Al Qaeda.
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-south-violence-20141130-story.html
<snip>
Fighting along with U.S.-backed rebels were elements of Al Nusra Front, the official Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. In a Facebook posting, Al Nusra supporters reported "vicious battles" in the Sheik Maskin area. Earlier posts also eulogized a prominent Al Nusra commander, Abu Humam Jazrawi, who was killed in the fighting.
Al Nusra's participation illustrates how Western-supported rebel groups often cooperate with the Al Qaeda franchise, though both sides try to play down the extent of coordination. Recent clashes between Al Nusra Front and U.S.-backed rebels in northwestern Syria do not appear to have broken the de facto alliance between the Al Qaeda affiliate and West-backed fighters in the south.
A Southern Front spokesman confirmed Al Nusra's presence in Sheik Maskin but maintained that only a small number of Al Nusra fighters had taken part.
U.S.-backed insurgents in southern Syria insist they represent a model that, if provided with sufficient U.S. and other foreign support, could challenge Assad's power.
<snip>
Bugenhagen
(151 posts)At least we can't blame ourselves (or our leaders) because no one could have possibly seem this coming.
On the plus side, since arming random groups hasn't been successful the last dozen times, the next time it's statistically bound to work!
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Even the goons in Paris had a rocket launcher. It's the thousands of MANPADs looted from Libyan military stocks that really should worry us.