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The Rebels Are Screwed
by James Dunnigan
July 13, 2014

The U.S., NATO and Saudi Arabia are discussing what to do about their support for the Syrian rebels. The main problem is the Islamic terrorists, who are hostile to the Syrian government as well as all the nations supporting the rebels. This is an embarrassing situation for Saudi Arabia where much of the current Islamic terrorism originated over the past few decades. The Saudis officially support Islamic conservatism because that is popular throughout Arabia and especially in the areas (Mecca and Medina) containing the most holy Islamic shrines. But the most extreme of the Islamic conservatives consider the Saudi royal family not Islamic enough and seeks to impose an Islamic religious dictatorship. This has been the goal of Islamic extremists for over a thousand years. It never happens, but keeps exploding into periods of Islamic terrorism before it is crushed again but never completely eliminated, at least in Arabia. The Saudis have controlled Islamic terrorism within their kingdom but at the cost of still tolerating Islamic radicals who behave (or else). That arrangement is rare and does not exist anywhere else. In Syria and Iraq the Saudis now support the extermination of Islamic terrorists. This means the Assad government is no longer the main target in Syria. This also means that the Saudis and Iranians have to pause their growing Sunni-Shia feud because both countries have more to fear from ISIL Sunni Islamic terrorism than from each other. Western nations know they are already on the ISIL radar and are cracking down on ISIL fund raising and recruiting in the West. Where does this leave the Syrian rebellion? The secular rebel groups and acceptably moderate Islamic rebels already have a coalition of sorts although that currently includes unacceptably radical groups like al Nusra. In short, things do not look good at all for the rebels. They are screwed.

The rebels are crippled mainly because the six month long internal civil war between ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and all the other rebels (half of them rival Islamic terrorists and the rest secular and tribal groups) has weakened rebel resistance. The government has been taking advantage of this and attempting to aid their fellow Shia in Iraq with air attacks in western Iraq. The Assads see themselves as soon winning the civil war, now that they have the Saudis, the Israelis and the West on their side.

The ISIL versus Everyone battle is a civil war within a civil war has left over 7,000 dead (mostly fighters, the rest civilians) in the last six months. Over a third of these losses have occurred in eastern Syria. This has caused ISIL to move more of its fighters from western Syria to the east and now to Iraq. Here is where ISIL has had more success, although it continues trying to hang onto some of its gains in the west (especially around Aleppo). In eastern Syria ISIL is at home and close to their cousins across the border in western Iraq (Anbar province). In effect eastern Syria and western Iraq contain a similar Sunni, often Bedouin, Arab tribal population. Many of the tribes straddle the border with Syria (and Jordan and Saudi Arabia). These Sunni tribes are related (in terms of culture and religious attitudes) to the ones that run Saudi Arabia and dominate the Arabian Peninsula. That’s why an Islamic radical group like ISIL can recruit so many fanatic men from “northern Arabia” (largely desert eastern Syria and western Iraq) and challenge al Qaeda (which has denounced ISIL) for leadership of the Islamic radical movement. Some of the ISIL groups in eastern Syria and western Iraq have, in effect, merged.

Currently ISIL is trying to gain complete control over eastern Syria and western Iraq. That proved difficult for a long time because of continued resistance in Syria by government forces and Kurds as well as some rival Islamic terrorist groups (mainly al Nusra). In Iraq the Shia controlled government sent so many of their best units to Anbar that the security forces in Mosul collapsed and handed ISIL an unexpected victory. This led to more ISIL victories in Anbar and northern Iraq. There was a downside because now the Shia government of Iraq has given in to years of Kurd demands that the autonomous Kurds of northern Iraq be allowed to take control of Mosul and Kirkuk and nearby oil fields. At this point the Iraqi government doesn’t have much choice. The Kurds will have to fight hard for Mosul although they quickly took and held onto Kirkuk. The Kurds are hesitant to go after Mosul until they see what the Americans will do. The Kurdish army (the Peshmerga) have been defeating Sunni Islamic terrorists for a long time. In this fight the ISIL is the underdog. ISIL can afford to give up Mosul and Kirkuk because these are not historically Bedouin lands but rather Kurdish. What ISIL really wants is the oil fields in the south, which are surrounded by millions of Shia, many of them armed. The Kurds will be fighting harder for the northern oil fields. Ultimately ISIL wants to control their own homeland further south. The main ISIL goal is Baghdad, which is now largely a Shia city. Once Iraq is conquered ISIL believes their Holy Warriors can gain control of all of Syria and Iraq and then the world. This has never worked, in large part because of the extreme brutality these Holy Warriors use against their opponents. That creates more opposition and eventually the Islamic terrorists are destroyed. ISIL has been deliberately murdering Shia, Christian and Kurdish civilians in an effort to terrorize their groups into surrender. That is not working and rarely has in the last few centuries. All these groups have powerful foreign allies who work hard to help their kinsmen fight back.

In Iraq taking control of Mosul on the 9th gave ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) another victory and even if it does not last it helps with recruiting and fund raising. ISIL looted the banks in Mosul, taking over a hundred million dollars in local and foreign currency. Many more valuables were taken, giving the Sunni terrorists economic security for the near future. ISIL is competing with al Qaeda for recognition as the most effective Islamic terrorist group in the world and having all this cash helps them in that struggle. Whoever holds that position gets most of the cash donations from the many wealthy Gulf Arabs who support Islamic terrorism and that means ISIL would also get most of the young Sunni men from the Gulf States looking to jihad a bit.

In Syria some of the Iraqi Shia Arabs who took the Iranian offer of regular pay, weapons and so on to go fight Assad forces in Syria are now leaving that job and returning to fight ISIL in Iraq. There are believed to be over 20,000 Iraqi Shia fighting for the Assads in Syria. They are paid and supported by Iran but with families and friends threatened by ISIL back in Iraq, which has persuaded many to go home to join (or rejoin) militias there. So far only about ten percent of the Iraqi Shia have left Syria, but a lot more may soon follow. While this weakens the Assad forces a bit, it does not do so as much as the fighting between ISIL and all the other rebels has damaged the rebel forces. The Assads are also losing some of their Hezbollah fighters as Hezbollah sees growing ISIL activity in Lebanon as a bigger threat.

The ISIL forces are not numerous with total strength of about 10,000. Some 70 percent are still in Syria and 3,000 in Iraq are joined by even more Sunni tribal militias and various other Sunni groups (pro-Saddam Baath Party groups Sunni Nationalist groups). What ISIL lacks in numbers they make up for in ferociousness. This shows how effective having so many men willing to die fighting larger forces of men who are only willing to kill.



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