Tag Archives: Russia

Turkey’s Syria Policy and the Elections

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 June 2018

Turkish soldiers and their rebel dependencies in Efrin, 18 March 2018 // AFP

On June 24, for the first time in 15 years, there seems a possibility, however faint, that elections in Turkey will end in defeat for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

It is an uphill battle, not least because of the ongoing state of emergency after the 2016 attempted coup, which has exacerbated the systemic biases against Erdoğan’s political opponents. But the Turkish opposition has managed to overcome its own fractiousness and has a strategic game-plan that makes sense. One card Erdoğan still has to play is foreign policy, and there are signs in Syria and Iraq of advantageous news to come. Continue reading →

Don’t Bet on Russia to Restrain Iran in Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 30 May 2018

Russian president Vladimir Putin and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamene’i meeting in Tehran, Iran, 1 Nov. 2017 // Picture via Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader

There have been renewed claims that Russia and Iran, while both supporting Bashar Assad’s regime, have such differences in vision and interest in Syria that there is a schism Western policymakers can take advantage of.

The basic notion is to work with Moscow, which has a less maximalist position, to limit the influence of Iran, a more disruptive power that could draw in worried regional countries to a wider war. This idea is not new and remains illusory. Russia is powerless—even if it were willing—to restrain Iran, the dominant force driving the regime coalition’s war. Continue reading →

Islamic State Focuses on the Rival “Religion of Democracy” as its Insurgency Escalates

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 25 May 2018

Al-Naba 132

The Islamic State released the 132nd edition of Al-Naba, its newsletter, on 18 May. Continue reading →

Islamic State Claims Attacks Against the Police and a Sufi Shrine in Russia

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 23 May 2018

Said Afandi al-Chirkawi (image source)

The Islamic State (IS) laid claim, in two recent issues of its newsletter, Al-Naba, to three recent attacks in Russia. Continue reading →

The Scandinavian Fascists Fighting for the Syrian Regime

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 16 May 2018

Skandinaviska Förbundet (Scandinavian League) fighters in Syria, where they fought under Russian command // Picture via Skandinavisk Frihet

The Norwegian news portal AldriMer reported on 11 May about a group of far-Right Scandinavians who fought under Russian command for the pro-regime coalition in Syria.

AldriMer was relaying an interview published last month by Skandinavisk Frihet (Scandinavian Freedom), a website that describes itself as attached to the Skandinaviska Förbundet (Scandinavian League), a far-Right group based primarily in Sweden. The interview is with a member of Skandinaviska Förbundet who fought in Syria. Continue reading →

The Failure of the United Nations in Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 14 May 2018

United Nations in East Ghouta, Syria (image source)

At best, the United Nations has been impotent as Syria was destroyed. But when the U.N.’s role is examined more closely it looks more like a collaborator, than a bystander, to that destruction. Continue reading →

The Strikes in Syria and America’s Path Forward

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A version of this article was published in CapX

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) and James Snell on 8 May 2018

The Barzeh chemical weapons facility in Damascus, Syria, demolished by U.S. cruise missiles on 14 April 2018 (image source)

The United States and its allies, Britain and France, launched over 100 missiles at the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad in the early hours of 14 April. This was retaliation for the regime’s use of poison gas in the town of Douma, east of the capital, Damascus, exactly a week earlier, which massacred at least 43 people and wounded 500 more. The military strikes were an important signal and will likely be some deterrent against the future use of chemical weapons in Syria, but ultimately this was another missed opportunity by the West to meaningfully affect the course of the war. Continue reading →

A Wave of Assassinations Hits Idlib

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 5 May 2018

Syrians being deported from East Ghuta after the regime conquest, 15 March 2018 // Credit Louai Beshara, Agence France-Presse

There has been an unprecedented wave of assassinations, and assassination attempts, in Idlib, beginning on 26 April and lasting about two days, targeting mainstream, Free Syrian Army-branded rebels, opposition activists, and journalists, as well as Islamist and jihadist insurgents.

Continue reading →

The Criminality of the Syrian Regime

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 29 April 2018

A satellite image of Sednaya prison, about 20 miles north-east of the presidential palace. CNES and ASTRIUM / Amnesty International via AFP

To accompany the release of “Syria’s Slaughterhouses”, a film by TRT World’s “Off The Grid”, I was asked to give an overview of the available evidence of the Assad regime’s crimes against humanity.

The launching of a limited punitive raid against the Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad for the use of poison gas has brought some attention to the regime’s crimes. The regime’s visible crimes are numerous and devastating.

In addition to using weapons of mass destruction, fighter jets have levelled ancient cities, sieges have starved populations into submission, and improvised explosives like barrel bombs have maimed thousands. These tactics are part of what UN investigators have called a “systematic and widespread attack against [the Syrian] civilian population”.

The UN commission recently noted that what the Assad regime has done amounts to crimes against humanity, including extermination, murder, rape, and torture.

What does not get enough attention is the part of Assad’s criminality that is most difficult to see: that which takes place in the prisons, a vast network of concentration camps where torture and murder is routine. Continue reading →

What Is Trump Thinking About Syria?

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 18 April 2018

Egyptian ruler Abdelfattah al-Sisi, Saudi King Salman, and President Donald Trump in Riyadh on 22 May 2017 (image source)

Two days ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that President Donald Trump has been exploring plans to replace American troops in the areas of Syria held by the Coalition partner force, the “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF), with troops from the Arab states. The problems with this proposal, even in the rudimentary form it is presented, are manifold. It also feeds into the broader problem of Trump’s inconsistent messaging about Syria—or, more precisely, his failed efforts to balance domestic messaging, which calls for what was once referred to as “nation building … at home”, and his foreign messaging that needs to emphasise U.S. constancy to see through the mission to defeat the Islamic State (IS) by, among other things, stabilising and reconstructing Syria. Continue reading →