Tag Archives: Quds Force

Syria’s Flawed Ceasefire Comes Crashing Down

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 21, 2016

A version of this article was published at The New Arab

Humanitarian convoy in Aleppo after the airstrikes by pro-regime coalition, 20 September 2016

The United States and Russia reached an agreement over Syria on 9 September that was supposed to lead to a week of reduced violence—a ceasefire or “cessation of hostilities” (CoH). During this time, there would be free distribution of humanitarian aid—followed by joint operations against the rebranded al-Qaeda branch in the country, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS), formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra. This agreement was essentially ignored by Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which Russia had pledged to restrain, and on Monday the agreement was torn up by the regime, returning Syria to all-out war. Continue reading →

A Rebel Crime and Western Lessons in Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 24, 2016

Abdullah Issa on the back of a truck with Harakat Nooradeen al-Zengi fighters who will soon behead him

Abdullah Issa on the back of a truck with Harakat Nooradeen al-Zengi fighters who will soon behead him

A horrifying video emerged on Tuesday of a teenage boy being beheaded. This had occurred the day before around Handarat in Aleppo, northern Syria. The boy had been fighting for Liwa al-Quds, a militia of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, composed mostly of Palestinians from the Nayrab camp and likely also from the unofficial settlement at Ayn al-Tal near Handarat. The rebel group that took him captive and then murdered him was Harakat Nooradeen al-Zengi, which had previously received support, including TOW anti-tank missiles, from the United States’ covert program run by the Central Intelligence Agency, though that support ended nearly a year ago. The episode is important in itself, and underlines some trends, namely al-Zengi’s evolution and the dynamics underway in northern Syria, where the U.S. is preparing to intensify its de facto policy of collaborating pro-Assad coalition against Jihadi-Salafist terrorist groups, which are strengthening al-Qaeda. Continue reading →

The Passing of Hizballah’s Old Guard

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 15, 2016

Hizballah's military commander (2008-2015) Mustafa Amine Badreddine

Hizballah’s military commander (2008-2015) Mustafa Amine Badreddine

Mustafa Badreddine, the military commander of Hizballah, was announced killed in Syria on 13 May. This is the third major casualty of the founding generation: Imad Mughniyeh, Badreddine’s predecessor and also his cousin and brother-in-law (Mughniyeh married Saada, Badreddine’s sister), was killed in February 2008 in Damascus in an operation led by MOSSAD and supported by the CIA, and Hassan al-Laqqis, who had become one of the Party of God’s military officials in Syria, was gunned down outside his home in Beirut in December 2013. For all the speculation about “Ahrar al-Sunna Baalbek Brigade” and its links to Kataib Abdullah Azzam and al-Qaeda—or Saudi intelligence, as Hassan Nasrallah had it—the likeliest suspect was never in doubt. Hizballah has also lost other senior and propagandistically important men like Samir Kuntar, who was killed in an explosion in Damascus in December 2015. Again, however, there seemed little doubt—even from Hizballah—that Israel had done this. Continue reading →

Assad Taking Palmyra Does Not Bring Syria Closer To Peace

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on March 29, 2016

Originally published at Left Foot Forward. See also pieces in The International Business Times and The New Arab today on the same subject.

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The ancient city of Palmyra and the inhabited adjoining town of Tadmor was conquered by the armed forces of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and a consortium of foreign Shi’a jihadists, some of them designated terrorist organizations, and all of them led by the Quds Force, the external operations wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), itself a listed terrorist entity.

While the takeover of Palmyra by the Islamic State (IS) in May 2015 was considered by almost everybody a negative development, the pro-Assad coalition’s capture of the city under the cover of 900 indiscriminate Russian airstrikes has been called “a good thing” by no less an authority than the United States Department of Defence. It was little surprise among that Robert Fisk echoed this sentiment; it was more surprising that Boris Johnson did.

The basic case for regarding Palmyra’s fall to the pro-Assad coalition as a positive development is that, to quote Johnson, “no matter how repulsive the Assad regime may be … their opponents in [IS] are far, far worse,” and this defeat for IS moves Syria closer to peace.

There is nothing in this formulation that stands up to scrutiny. Continue reading →

Russia is No Partner Against the Islamic State

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 12, 2016

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This morning, Russia ostensibly agreed to help the U.S. impose a ceasefire in Syria within a week—on the way to a negotiated settlement. This could not work right now, even if Russia intended it to. But Russia does not. Russia’s role since intervening in Syria in late September 2015 has been to bolster the regime of Bashar al-Assad and a primary tactic in that overarching strategic aim has been the attempt to destroy all opposition to Assad that the international community could possibly deal with, and to create a binary situation where there is only the regime and jihadi-Salafist terrorists, primarily the Islamic State (IS), and secondarily—in areas where they do not threaten key regime interests—Jabhat an-Nusra (al-Qaeda). Moscow will eventually turn on IS, but in the short-term Russia has engaged in indirect coordination with IS to weaken the rebels and push them out of key strategic areas, notably in eastern Aleppo where Russia bombed rebels out of the way who had been holding IS out for years. On Tuesday, Foreign Policy reported on another aspect of this Russia-IS collaboration that aims to empower the takfiris in the short-term as part of the long-term plan, also supported by Iran, to secure the Assad regime in power. Continue reading →

The Iranian Nuclear Deal and North Korea

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 18, 2016

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In the last few days, the international sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program were lifted, which will allow Tehran access to $30 billion immediately and more than $100 billion will become available in short order. There are many fears about the uses Iran will put this money to, whether on the nuclear program itself, in aiding Iran’s imperial policy in the region, now proceeding with assistance from Russia, or perhaps exporting terrorism further abroad. An under-examined potential use of this money, highlighted by new sanctions the United States applied to Iran over its ballistic missile program, is to purchase weapons from North Korea. Pyongyang has already conducted what it claims is a hydrogen bomb test this year; fuelled by Iranian money the Hermit Kingdom might yet make more trouble for its neighbours and beyond. Continue reading →

Destroying Islamic State, Defeating Assad: A Strategy for Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on November 25, 2015

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Today, my first report with The Henry Jackson Society was published: “Destroying Islamic State, Defeating Assad: A Strategy for Syria“. Continue reading →

In Syria, Russia and Iran Reap the Harvest of Obama’s Failed Foreign Policy

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) and James Snell on October 1, 2015

Published at National Review.

Aftermath of a Russian airstrike against U.S.-supported moderate rebels in Talbiseh, Homs (AP)

Aftermath of a Russian airstrike against U.S.-supported moderate rebels in Talbiseh, Homs (AP)

The situation in Syria could hardly get more desperate. With more than half the population displaced and 300,000 people dead, the civil war in Syria is the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time. But Syria is also a profound challenge to the American-underwritten geopolitical order that aspires toward free institutions and representative rule. As a direct consequence of policies pursued by the Obama administration, Iran and Russia, two enemies of this order, have taken their chance to assert their dominance. Continue reading →

A Year Into The War Against The Islamic State, The Coalition Has Little To Show For It

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 30, 2015

Published at Left Foot Forward

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A year into the campaign against the Islamic State, the American-led coalition has precious little to show for it. Tactical victories in Kobani, Tikrit and Tel Abyad have been more than offset not only by the negative long-term side-effects of those victories but by direct I.S. military gains in the present—notably the capture of a third provincial capital in Ramadi, the capture of Palmyra and a push into Homs and southern Syria; as well as increasing I.S. infiltration of Idlib, an area cleared entirely of I.S. by a rebel offensive in early 2014. Continue reading →

Russia’s War For Assad

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 30, 2015

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Russia began airstrikes in Syria today, ostensibly to combat the Islamic State (I.S.). In reality the strikes first hit U.S.-supported moderate rebels and the campaign is intended to buttress the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. Continue reading →