Syrian Civil War - The Hindu (22.02.18)

FIRE AND FURY: ON EXISTING VIOLENCE IN SYRIA'S EASTERN GHOUTA (22.02.18)

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has demonstrated once again that his regime cares little about the lives of its own people. The barbaric campaign of airstrikes and bombardments launched by government forces in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus, have killed at least 270 people in three days. Eastern Ghouta, with an estimated population of 400,000, is one of the last significant areas held by militants fighting the regime. It fell into the hands of the rebels in the early stages of the seven-year-long civil war, and repeated government attempts to overrun it were foiled. It was here that chemical weapons were used in 2013, killing hundreds of people. When most other rebel-held parts of Syria, including Aleppo, were recaptured by government troops, militants have moved to Eastern Ghouta and Idlib. Now both areas are under attack. In the use of heavy firepower, the assault resembles the government campaign in Aleppo and elsewhere. In Aleppo, one of Syria’s largest cities, Syrian and Russian jets pounded rebel targets in late 2016; this was followed by a ground attack by government troops and Iran-trained militants. Similarly, Eastern Ghouta, which was under a government blockade for years, appears to have been surrounded by ground forces, which could advance to rebel positions inside the city any time.

There is a wide range of militant groups in Eastern Ghouta, including the Saudi-backed Jaysh al-Islam, the Qatar-funded Faylaq al-Rahman, and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. The government says the city is occupied by terrorists from these groups and that the few civilians remaining there are used as human shields. The militants in Eastern Ghouta and the jihadist elements amongst them have repeatedly shelled government-controlled neighbourhoods in Damascus. Generally the rebels appear to have lost the momentum against Mr. Assad in the civil war. Nonetheless, the government narrative is problematic as it holds all residents of Eastern Ghouta responsible for the occupation of the area by militants. The years-long blockade of the area that has deprived Eastern Ghouta of food and medicines, and the indiscriminate bombing, killing of unarmed civilians including children, expose the monstrosity of the Assad regime. From the very beginning of the civil war, the regime and its Russian and Iranian backers have paid little attention to human suffering, be it in Hama, Homs, Aleppo or Eastern Ghouta. Given the brutality it has unleashed now, the government could capture Eastern Ghouta as well. But at what cost? After seven years of war and 400,000 deaths, Syria is a broken, bleeding land, thanks to Mr. Assad and his friends and foes. The real tragedy is that none of the parties involved is interested in ending this war.

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The Israel factor in Syria (22.02.18)

The massive air raids that Israel carried out in Syria earlier this month against “Iranian targets” and the subsequent downing of an Israeli jet by Syrian fire showed how deeply and dangerously Israel is involved in the civil war in its neighbouring country. On the face of it, the whole story appears to be strange. In Syria, the civil war is complex. On the one hand, there is the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Hezbollah, Iran and Russia. On the other, a wide range of militias, from al-Qaeda and Islamic State jihadists to Free Syrian Army rebels, is fighting the regime. What has Israel got to do with a civil war between a hostile regime and a group of unpredictable dangerous militia groups?

In the initial years of the civil war, Israel’s policy choices seemed to have been driven by the same calculation. The Assad regime and Israel have never been friendly. In the 1967 war, Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria and continues to occupy the region. More than a decade later, Syria intervened in Lebanon. It then provided help to militants, mainly Hezbollah, who were resisting an Israeli occupation of the country. Syria and Israel do not have formal diplomatic ties. Despite this, there was no direct military confrontation between the two countries. In fact, despite the hostility, Israel’s border with Syria has been its calmest frontier for years. When the crisis broke in Syria in 2011, Israel was a fence sitter. It didn’t want the stable secular dictatorship in its neighbourhood to be replaced by a bunch of militants. But as the Syrian civil war evolved into a regional conflict over the years, Israel’s preferences and strategic calculations changed too.

The Hezbollah factor

When the Syrian regime’s position got weakened in the conflict, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group backed by Iran, sent thousands of its soldiers to the battlefield to defend the Assad government. Iran also sent Shia militants, who were recruited from different countries, to Syria. Besides the government army, these militias fought the war on the ground on behalf of the regime. Israel was alarmed by the growing role of Hezbollah and other Iran-sponsored militias in Syria. Since the early 1980s, Hezbollah has remained a thorn in Israel’s regional strategy. In 2000, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon, ending 18 years of occupation, mainly due to Hezbollah’s guerrilla resistance. In 2006, Israel bombed Lebanon again to destroy Hezbollah’s weapons infrastructure, but even after a month-long campaign, it failed to achieve its stated goals. Hezbollah has heavy military presence along southern Lebanon (or across Israel’s northern border).

The Syrian war allowed Hezbollah to coordinate with its Iranian patrons directly in the battlefield. Iran has also reportedly transferred short-range missiles and other sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah via Syria. Israel responded to this through a two-pronged strategy. First, it established contact with anti-regime rebels in southern Syria, closer to the Golan. Initially Israel offered medical aid and other humanitarian assistance to the rebels, which later acquired military and logistical dimensions. The plan was to carve out a buffer between the Golan Heights that Israel controls and the Syrian Golan. Israel didn’t want Hezbollah or other Iranian proxies to take control of the border region. According to analyst Elizabeth Tsurkov, who wrote a detailed report on Israel’s activities in southern Syria, Tel Aviv now offers support to seven different rebel groups in the region, including Liwaa Forsan Jolan, Firqat Ahrar Nawa, and a section of the Free Syrian Army. Besides providing money, weapons and intelligence, Israel also supported the advances by these groups on the ground with air cover. One such incident was the Israeli bombing of regime positions in southern Syria in April 2017 after local rebel groups came under heavy attacks by regime-backed troops.

The second strategy was to retain the freedom to strike Hezbollah positions inside Syria. When Russia intervened in Syria, Israel negotiated for this freedom with Moscow. Since Russia’s intervention in Syria in September 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has travelled to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin at least five times. Both nations developed a deconfliction mechanism that allowed Israeli planes to attack Hezbollah targets inside Syria without clashing with Russia, which is practically controlling most of the Syrian skies. This agreement worked perfectly for Israel. Last year alone, Israel said it struck suspected weapons shipments to Hezbollah around 100 times.

The Iran heat

But despite these on-and-off interventions, Israel has failed to build any substantial leverage in Syria’s conflict zones. True, it has built influence among rebel groups in southern Syria. But developments in Syria over the past two years have scuttled Israel’s strategic plans. The Israelis may have initially thought that the Russian intervention could reduce the Syrian regime’s dependence on Iran, which is Tel Aviv’s primary concern. But the Russians played on both sides. Their only strategic target was to rescue the regime. They neither stopped the Israelis from attacking Hezbollah targets inside Syria nor did they stop the Iranians from expanding their footprint in the country. Later, when the regime stabilised its rule, thanks to the Russian intervention, Iran’s influence also grew. Iran now has various military facilities across Syria’s regime-held territories.

In southern Syria, Israel had built a network of rebels. But even in this area, its position has weakened over the past year. Jordan, which had offered support to the rebels in the early years of the civil war, changed its policy in the wake of heavy refugee flow. Last year, the Trump administration shut down the CIA’s military operation command in Amman that was coordinating with Syrian rebels, leaving the rebels, particularly those in the south, entirely dependent on Israel. Besides, the regime forces are making advances towards the south. They have already established some posts near Quneitra in northern Golan. Late last year, the regime regained a foothold on the de facto border with Israel by capturing Beit Jinn from the rebels. In effect, Israel not only failed to contain the spread of Iranian influence in Syria, but is also under pressure to halt the advances of regime forces towards the south.

It was against this background that Israel strengthened its bombing campaign in Syria this month. Prime Minister Netanyahu has also warned Iran “not to test our resolve.” But beyond rhetoric, as the past incidents suggest, Israel’s capacity to shape reality in Syria is limited. In seven years, Iran has built a huge network in Syria and emboldened Hezbollah. This cannot be eliminated by occasional aerial raids. A full-scale intervention is risky as long as Russia directly backs the regime. And if the regime forces capture Idlib and the Damascus suburbs, which is only a matter of time, they will shift their focus to the Israel-backed rebels in the south, dragging Tel Aviv deeper into the conflict.