Crafty al-Qaida Affiliate Looking to Win US War on IS
Jeff Seldin, Voice of America
Slowly but surely al-Qaida’s Syria affiliate - Jabhat al Nusra - appears to be positioning itself to emerge as the victor in the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State terror group.
Even more concerning, according to some analysts, is that U.S. policy is playing right into the group's hands with its “excessive” focus on destroying Islamic State while at the same time providing only marginal support to moderate opposition groups.
“Jabhat al Nusra has weakened the moderate opposition and penetrated other Sunni opposition groups in Syria so thoroughly that it is poised to benefit most from the destruction of ISIS and the fall or transition of the Assad regime,” says the Institute for the Study of War in a report Wednesday.
The report goes on to warn that unless the U.S. finds a way to change course, the result could be exchanging one terrorist-led proto-state for another.
“The likeliest outcome of the current strategy in Syria, if it succeeds, is the de facto establishment and ultimate declaration of a Jabhat al Nusra emirate in Syria,” the report said, serving as “a central node in the global al-Qaida network” to export violence to the West.
Stepping Up IS Campaign
Concerns about U.S. policy regarding Jabhat al Nusra have been growing just as the U.S has been intensifying the military campaign against Islamic State and its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
“The momentum is definitely gaining in the coalition’s favor to ISIL’s disadvantage,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told Alhurra Television, using an acronym for the terror group.
At a meeting Wednesday in Paris, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter encouraged Washington’s European allies to step up their efforts.
"We agreed that we all must do more,” Carter said.
French Defense Minister Yves Le Drian agreed.
“It is the moment to increase our collective forces with a coherent military strategy,” he said.
But the authors of the ISW report caution such Western rhetoric is part of the problem, allowing Jabhat al Nusra to fly under the radar.
“The group has the same objective and the same ultimate end state as the Islamic State,” said ISW analyst and report co-author Jennifer Cafarella. “They’re trying to build a base of local legitimacy from which in the future to launch attacks against the West.”
But unlike Islamic State, which has sought to impose its caliphate, the report’s authors argue Jabhat al Nusra has managed to intertwine itself with the Syrian population and embed itself within key opposition groups.
They also say Nusra, which has long opposed the upcoming peace talks for Syria, is poised to pick up support from additional rebel factions who feel they have been shut out by the process.
U.S. Officials: Nusra, Unlikely to Emerge
Still, some U.S. officials argue the emergence of a Jabhat al Nusra emirate is an “unlikely outcome,” pointing out the group has not been ignored in the drive to destroy Islamic State.
“The leadership and their staffs, both military and civilian, are definitely considering the second and third order effects,” the official told VOA on condition of anonymity. “They are not being supported either directly or indirectly.”
U.S. officials also contend that pursuing a political solution will also work against Jabhat al Nusra’s ambitions.
“Such a result would provide the basis for a consolidated front against various radical groups including Nusra and ISIL,” a U.S. intelligence official told VOA.
Other officials and analysts point out that while the majority of the U.S.-led airstrikes have targeted Islamic State, al Qaida and Jabhat al Nusra operatives have also been hit.
Yet some say Jabhat al Nusra, though not the biggest or strongest of the various Syrian factions, is positioned well enough to survive and eventually thrive.
“What makes Jabhat al Nusra one of the most lethal forces is that it’s a very skilled tactical group, with fighters with a tremendous amount of experience,” said Nathaniel Barr, a research manager at Valens Global who has written about the group’s exploitation of U.S. strategy.
“Ultimately Nusra’s the one that has the more sustainable long-term strategy,” he said. “We run the risk of missing that strategy, of allowing them to further entrench if we continue to pursue the status quo.”
Comments
The US needs to urgently wake up and fully understand the intertwining of JaN and the other anti Assad forces....both are very proSyrian and actually both are anti IS if one takes the time to truly analyze them AND answers the "boots on the ground" we are looking for to fight IS.....
BTW...the US MSM and the Obama WH seems to have forgotten the relationship between JaN and JaI.......AND FSA.
#News
Jabhat al-#Nusra & the #FSA's 1st Coastal Division recaptured Ayn al Hawr in #Latakia from pro-#Assad forces.
Footage
Some heavy stuff from #JaishAlIslam on the move in #EastGhouta.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN20irHJaYY …
BTW.....TOWs are again flowing but ground rumors say against US insistence to not delivery them.....ie from the Sunni Front States over Turkey.
BreakingNews
New TOWs appear in #Syria, used by the #FSA
#KhanTuman, S-W of #Aleppo city.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPyPe1J9_j4 …
I am not the only ranting individual that is openly stating that this Obama administration and it's NSC is the worst coupling seen since 70 years....
Really worth the entire reading of this article just alone on the first paragraph or so of the article........
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/putin-syria-ukraine-2131…
The Dangerous Link Between Syria and Ukraine
Vladimir Putin has used the fighting in both countries to trap the U.S.
By Eerik-Niiles Kross and Molly K. McKew
9/22/2015
QUOTE:
Despite what Vladimir Putin is saying, the United States still staunchly refuses to believe Russia is engaged in a new Cold War—and that the U.S. is losing. But Russia aggressively pushes its own narrative where U.S. leadership is absent. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov seems to be everywhere in recent weeks, speaking several times with his US counterpart and others in the region, selling Russia as a partner for peace and stability when the West is faced with crisis.
Experts from the left and right alike warn that cooperation with Russia on Syria can have potentially disastrous consequences for the U.S., but too many Americans still don’t understand how closely linked these two headline conflicts are, and American policy has yet to confront the reality that Syria and Ukraine are part of the same mission for Russia—the destruction of the post-WWII architecture of the West. To achieve this goal, Russia has pursued a clear policy of disruption, chaos and destabilization—in Ukraine and in the Middle East—in order to force the West to have to partner with Russia to “resolve” the crises it has created.
Now, poised to launch a direct military campaign in Syria, Russia wants the U.S. to join a Russian-led coalition against the Islamic State and complete the rehabilitation of Bashar al Assad, or else end up in direct conflict with Russia in the Middle East. Indeed, many of the anti-aircraft and other Russian weapons systems being moved to Syria are more suited to shooting at American drones and assets than anything the Islamic State has access to.
This suggested coalition is little more than a well-constructed trap for the White House and for Europe. Russia created the conflict in Ukraine. Their military support for Assad fuels a bloody civil war and a refugee crisis from Syria. Russian efforts have also materially aided in the creation of the Islamic State—the wealthiest, best-armed terrorist network in history.
Well worth reading the entire article.......
This article goes as well to a complaint of mine that namely any number of US MSM and that includes the VOA vs say the RFEL broadcasts on similar subjects reflect a sense of an altered state of reality when it comes to Syria.......actually we have seen the same altered state of reality when it came to Putin and eastern Ukraine.
When the articles talk about events and or their version of the Syrian reality one wonders exactly just what realm of reality they are in.
JaN has a checkered past in Syria....firstly not affiliated with AQ then affiliated, and then internally openly critiqued lately by senior members for this move BUT in the end JaN has held close relationships with literally the entire anti Assad front and participates in their various offensives as well as their own.
I posted here and on the Syrian threads an interesting comment at the beginning of the Russian engagement now over 100 days ago as the FSA's use of the TOWs were literally taking on the entire armored forces of Assad and his Shia mercenaries....
That comment focused on an interesting development...in exchange for FSA TOW support the viewed more Islamist statements of JaN have been largely toned down and in exchange for their "moderation" FSA has allowed them a closer planning for the use of the FSA TOWs.
IMHO this has been one of the major reasons the Obama administration has slowed down the delivery of this important battlefield weapon that has largely blunted the Assad Shia mercenary army offensives and has negated the Russian AF engagements supporting them.
JaN needs a much closer look than DC has been willing to do...WHY is the next question?
The US seems unable to fully understand and openly discuss the single question...has the total inaction by Obama, his entire NSC and the DoS in Syria the last four years ACTUALLY contributed strongly to the "radicalization" of the "entire Syrian Sunni majority" thus going far beyond the question of "moderates", Islamists, or even jihadi's?????
The Syrian "Arab Spring" arose in late 2011 early 2012 after the Obama speech in Cairo NOT before. The early demos were totally peaceful and carried by largely students and what was then the response by the dictator Assad...what all ME dictators have done in the past...he unleashed his security forces and secret police and attempted to brutally suppress the Sunni majority that was demanding open elections, democracy and the rule of law....all elements of the Obama speech.
That early suppression has turned into genocide with not a single comment being muttered by Obama and for that matter any other western leader....then the Syrian civil society started their slow march towards more radicalization a natural progression that a civil society has when it cannot match the violence being perpetuated on them in the form of disappearances, torture, starvation, barrel bombs, chemical weapon attacks EVEN after the Russians claimed there was not any chemicals left in Syria and on and on.
BTW...what is equally interesting is that Putin is following exactly his Grozny playbook of brutally punishing the civil society for their support of the anti Assad forces with deliberate air strikes on civilians killing large numbers along the way, striking schools, NGO food centers, churches, residential housing, barrel bombs are still falling and the use of chemical weapons is on again and especially the use of starvation as a weapon.....BUT what has the US response been...largely muted to non existent....so if you are a Syrian Sunni what do you do you radicalize even more and trust no one from the West....
BTW......proof of this tactic is easy....98% of the claimed RuAF 12,000 sorties flown have focused on IS and largely have been ineffective thus negating the Putin thesis he is in Syrian to destroy IS...AND WHERE is bama in his comments on this...muted, to nothing.
the Syrian org SOHR is stating that out of these 12,000 sorties only 891 IS fighters have been killed and way over 1000 civilians including a large number of woman and children have been killed...last number was placed in the 1800 range.
THEN Russian MoD propaganda even goes to embarrass the US by claiming the US is ineffective in killing IS which largely overlooks the approx. 24,000 that has been killed by US strikes.
AND presto what happened--- an open civil war or rebellion openly broke out and literally hundreds of small Sunni self defense groups sprung up centering around a tribal leader, local civil leader and or local politican in attempts to defens themselves from the SAA and assads genocide.
Some of these groups on their own drifted into a stronger Islamist stance out of sheer frustration with the West's utter lack of interest in Syria usually led by a local religious figure...now enters JaN which if one really looks at it has never really openly recruited jihadi fighters as has IS NOR stated it has an open intent in attacking the Us or US citizens.
That JaN is responding to US strategy does not surprise me so why does it surprise others?....FSA is doing the same exact thing AND is not getting much support from the US...most of their support comes via the Sunni Front States via Turkey.
The Southern Sunni Front army is more beholden to the CIA and Jordainian MOC AND the moment they Southern Front was on a roll to push assad into true negoiations the CIA under Obama orders curtailed further weapons and supplies thus the SF has not been participating virtually at all since the Russians arrived.
BTW...I would open state that the entire ME especially the Sunni Front States now fully realize there is no US strategy at all for the ME outside of an open and blatant support for the Shia and Iran so in effect they as well are responding to the US moves THAt should surprise no one...simple IR 101.
I posted a comment here and on the Syrian thread that the SF has been basically told by the US and Jordan..if you want more TOWs, weapons and supplies you MUST stop the attacks on Assad and fight only JaN and IS.
WHAT is interesting BUT not discussed in DC and in the US MSM is WHY did that happen.
EVEN in recent The Daily Beast article on the CIA and the US Proxies NOTICE TDB did not mentione the sudden demise of TOWS being sent into Syria just when the TOWs were in fact giving the anti Assad forces a fighting chance against Assad.
ALSO notice just nhow many articles in the US MSM, or have ther ebeen any major announcements by Obama, his NSC, and or Kerry on the simple fact that since 2013 the Syrian Arab Army is certainly no longer Syrian, no longer Arabic, and certainly not an Army BUT rather is is now a fighting Shia mercenary army compsed of IRGC troops, Hezbollah, over 30 Iraqi Shia militas several declared terrorists by the US, and a large number of Shia mkercenaries recruited from over 12 countries.
So exactly just where is that story in US MSM...no we are worried about JaN, we cannot seem to find "any moderates", we talk about the need of Syrians to fight IS, we talk about about needing boots on the ground to defeat IS BUT then we turn in the opposite direction and ignore the simpe fact that JaN, FSA and other anti Assad forces have numerous times stated...first Assad must go and then we will turn our full attention on Is who they dislike as much as the rest of the world does.
Reality currently is FSA is fighting and winning when they have the edge daily against IS AT the same time they are fighting the Assad Shia mercenary army AND dodging Russian air strikes....WHICH BTW is terrorizing the Sunni civil society as badly as Assad is YET not a single comment comes from Obama, his NSC and or Kerry.
AND the US position is what again....."our strategy is working" but we are not ebing understood so we need more messaging".
Does that make sense to any SWJ reader???