The Syrian Revolution Is Running Out Of Room As ISIS And Assad Close In -- Rana Moussaoui, Agence France Presse
Western-backed rebels in northern Syria are fighting to survive in the face of advances on their strongholds both by jihadists and government forces, analysts and regime opponents say.
The opposition has sounded the alarm, appealing indirectly to the international community to carry out air strikes on jihadist Islamic State (IS) positions in Syria, like the United States has done in Iraq.
"More than ever the rebellion is caught in a pincer movement between the regime and IS," says Karim Bitar, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations.
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My Comment: Squeezed by the Syrian Army on one side and by the Islamic State on the other .... coupled with no international support .... I do not see how this movement can survive by next year. My prediction .... in the end the Syrian civil war will have two sides .... the Islamic State on one side and everyone else on the other.
1 comment:
I do not fully agree with this BI article. I not yet seen any cas. details of this IS offense on FSA (I just call the moderated, ex-FSA and Islamic-Front units as FSA) north of Aleppo. Early in this year or even just late last year IS captured dozens of villages in the same area almost without a single bullet fired or any person got killed. FSA clearly not really want to waste their forces on IS, and instead of fighting they just retreat from the battle. For IS the most important now to keep the "public image" as they expanding every day, not matter it it's just an empty dessert of a huge city, but they captured something. Make advences in the areas where you know the enemy will not fight is not really a win, because the size of the territory is not really matter, but more like the casualties and how much you spend on it. By this move IS just made a very unconfortable situation and moved their forces into a trap where they could be encircled by SAA, very easily.
What could the FSA loose is a border crossing to Turkey, which I think they already lost. There is two option for them. In the first case IS capture the border crossing. The other case is when the SAA just break into the "bottleneck" (area between the town of Nubl and Aleppo) of the supply line between this border crossing and Iblid province, and with this move they just block the real use of this crossing and make it useless. There are some real chance for this SAA move, because in this "neck" SAA keep holding two town which are encircled for long long time, and the last reinforcement ( which was just contained regular supplies ) were delivered when the SAA-Rebel agreement were made in Homs, May 9 of this year. Anyway I thing the SAA will not waste their forces in this objective, because currently it's just not worth the price. The city of Aleppo will not fall any soon, and the loss of the border crossing will not effect the situation inside the city, because it's already had been encircled, so no more supplies going into there anyway.
The loss of this border crossing to Turkey is a big loss bot not really that much of important. FSA still contol other border crossings in Iblid province, and they are just about the same distance to Aleppo as the one they will probably loose soon. As long as they hold the border corssing in Iblid there will be no big problem. FSA can say anything and can ask the US for intervention against IS, but as long as it's inside Syria, Assad will punish any action like that. US know it, and for them it's enough if they clear Iraq, because Syria is not their bussiness (yet).
SAA probably just days from the start of the new offences, which will include almost all the active front. Preparations has already started in some places like minor actions in Aleppo and the renewed offence against the town of Morek in Hama. Hopefully in the following days we will get some more information about what SAA really planning and how this will effect the FSA-IS conflict. FSA is just a small power in this conflict but they and mostly the Islamic Front will not give up the fight. I think those who got enough fight will go to Turkey as a refugee (just like many other rebel did it in the past after they fought against the IS), or join back to the SAA. But most of them will fight and even join to IS instead of make peace. Now it's again all depend on how the SAA will move in the following days, but don't forget, it's not matter what they will do it's probably not a reaction, it's just the situation make it looks like so.
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