Posted on 09/17/2017 9:17:26 PM PDT by BeauBo
While the United States and NATO remains focused on defeating Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, al Qaeda in Syria is accumulating strength and territory at an alarming pace and may eventually pose the most daunting counterterrorism challenge that the U.S and west has ever faced. Al-Qaeda has reportedly benefited from the U.S.-led coalition’s single-minded focus against ISIS and exploited the opposition against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to grow stronger.
(Excerpt) Read more at nrttv.com ...
"Al-Qaeda has created its most powerful stronghold ever in north-west Syria. It has taken full control of Idlib province and of a vital Syrian-Turkish border crossing since July this year. “Idlib Province is the largest al-Qaeda safe haven since 9/11” says Brett McGurk, the senior US envoy to the international coalition fighting ISIS. The al-Qaeda linked movement, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which used to be called Jabhat al-Nusra, has long been the most powerful rebel group in western Syria. But after the capture of east Aleppo by the Syrian army last December, it moved to eliminate its rivals in Idlib, including its powerful former Turkish-backed ally Ahrar al-Sham. Now HTS has a stronghold over the province and it’s unchallenged.
HTS is estimated to have 30,000 experienced fighters whose numbers is growing as it integrates brigades from other defeated rebel groups and recruit’s young men from the camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who have sought refuge in Idlib from Syrian government forces. Al-Qaeda is growing in strength in and around Idlib province just as ISIS is suffering defeat after defeat in eastern Syria and Iraq"
Just turn the entire Arabian middle east into a parking lot. Stop putzing around.
Brett McGurk is an Obama appointee. Why has Trump kept these people onboard?
Brett McGurk seems all right.
He sticks his neck out quite a bit going to meet with folks over there, and has served there pretty much since 2004 (which must kind of suck for him on the personal level). He knows the place and the players like just about no one else.
He worked for Bush before Obama, and was a clerk for Chief Justice Rhenquist - so no flaming liberal. He was really a Bush Guy - one of the very few who got called back by the Obama Administration, when they were in a bind.
I think that these factions (with some name changes) are among the ones that the US earlier funded, armed & trained. Thank you Hillary, Obama, McCain, et al -— you dumb asses.
“I guess al Qaeda is not as dead as Obama has led us to believe”
It looks like they have built themselves quite an Army - in the ballpark size of ISIS (30K, according to the article), while letting ISIS get all the press, and take all the bombing.
Quiet like the mafia, the chaos in Syria has been a fertile environment for them. They remain dedicated to attacking, and overthrowing Western Civilization.
“I think that these factions (with some name changes) are among the ones that the US earlier funded, armed & trained.”
Yup.
The article points out the pretty much the whole witches brew of so-called “moderate rebels” in that corner of the Country have pretty much fallen under the command of the local al Queda affiliate, who was the last one standing with their act together, after the US pulled support.
Before, they offered lip service to democracy or such (while handing the advanced weaponry they were provided to al Quueda) - now there is no more pretense, they straight out take orders from al Queda.
Al Queda is getting in bed with the local powerbrokers and politicians in Idlib Province for the long haul, like they did in Afghanistan.
In the old days, Syria's Assad family killed off the parent organization, Muslim Brotherhood, and it's terrorist murderers Al Qaeda when they had the resources to do so.
Nowadays, not so much, with the US pressuring Assad, because he is so dangerous.
...
... to Al Qaeda
Speaking of a rock and a hard place, check a map of Syria and Idlib province. NRT TV is a Kurdish News and current affairs TV channel owned by the Nalia company and is based in Sulaymaniyah, the Capital of Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Iraq. Its reputation is so-so.
Yesterday: Eyewitnesses confirmed the arrival of [Turkish] vehicles, including armoured personnel carriers, at the Rihaniyah area on the Turkish-Syrian border.
Syrian opposition officials and activists said they expected the troops would continue towards Syria as per the terms reached in the Astana agreement. The treaty requires the entry of Turkish forces in areas controlled by the Syrian opposition in the province of Idlib.
I wonder what hand Erdogan has had in Al Queda’s ability to do this in this area of Syria on Turkey’s border. Erdogan certainly does not seem worried about it, compared to his attacks on Syrian Kurds in other areas.
“I wonder what hand Erdogan has had in Al Queda’s ability to do this in this area of Syria on Turkey’s border.”
Turkey has been the main support for jihadis in the area, throughout the whole rebellion against Assad. Turkey provided the weapons (Obama sent some from Qadaffi’s arsenals), gave safe passage and free medical treatment in Turkey, paid salaries (with Qatari money), and embedded their military and intelligence personnel in with those rebel groups.
All year, Turkey has been sending an increasingly large and overt military contingent into that Idlib part of Syria (which borders/flanks the Syrian Kurdish Province of Afrin). Turkey has tank units and 155mm artillery units overtly stationed there now.
In my humble opinion, there is no way in hell that they are not at least cooperating with al Queda - but most likely they have materially supported (if not directed) al Queda’s takeover of command of the rebel groups.
The US kind of gave up on the Turkish promoted so-called “moderate rebels” after years of non-performance and betrayal, shifting our train and equip efforts toward the Kurds/SDF (who have reliably kicked ISIS ass every since) back under Obama. Even though our trainers moved away, the flow of American resources continued - until the first month of the Trump administration, when salaries were cut off cold. It is unclear to me how completely Turkey has picked up the slack/maintained it’s relationship with those groups. Clearly they have maintained the groups around al Bab as Turkish surrogates (including many of the former ISIS garrison of al Bab), intimately directing their operations.
So the degree of Turkish support to alQueda in Idlib is really a huge strategic question. No doubt they have some coordination. The best case is that they simply want a live and let live agreement for Turkish troops to operate in the area (against their common Kurdish enemies). The worst case is that al Queda and Turkey have the same covert comprehensive sponsorship relationship that Turkey had with the previous rebel leadership.
Turkey seems interested in grabbing part of Syria in this war, and intent on containing Kurdish expansion (isolating Afrin from the other Kurdish regions, and from access to the Sea). That could explain their activity. But Erdogan has done so much to promote Sunni jihad (the Muslim Brotherhood is now headquartered in Turkey) that this could well signal a strategic decision by Turkey to support al Queda as the new standard bearer for the jihad, as ISIS is on the verge of collapse. If so, they won’t be able to keep it secret for all that long, and there will be a heavy price to pay when al Queda attacks the West.
Al Queda is unfortunately, a more sophisticated opponent.
An event that was overlooked in the West was the March 2011 gathering of international Muslim Brotherhood members. It was the largest such gathering in more than fifty years and congregated in Istanbul to attend the funeral of Turkish politician and Erdogan’s guru, Necmettin Erbakan (1926-2011). It will be recalled that the Arab Spring was in bloom, the Ikhwan was preparing a return to power in Egypt. It should be noted that the Ikhwan never officially rejected Al Qaeda, and the visitors to the Erbakan funeral were almost to a man pro-Al Qaeda. Since that meeting Erdogan has been walking a tightrope. Playing kissy face with the EU on the one hand, supporting Salafist activity in Syria on the other. He has, to my way of thinking, never disavowed Al Qaeda and its various wings. He has made a home for the Syrian Brothers in Turkey, and his hatred for the Syrian Alawites is palpable. I think he sees that the Syrian regime will now remain in power thanks to Russian intervention. He does however want to keep the Brotherhood qua Al Qaeda alive in Syria.
I still remember the brother of al Queda's Emir, Muhammad Zawahiri, leading a mob of islamists over the walls of the US embassy in Cairo on 9-11 (while the Beghazi annex was being attacked), and raising the al Queda flag. The Muslim Brotherhood Government in Egypt, which had sprung him from jail, and pardoned him from his prior convictions and death sentence, had no problem with that.
Really, when I stop to think about Erdogan's past associations and statements, it would really be more shocking for him not to support al Queda, than for him to be behind their rise in Idlib.
Erdogan, routinely flashing the Rabia hand sign of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood:
“the United States and NATO remains focused on defeating Islamic State in Syria”
Haley: No political solution in Syria with Assad in power
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/08/politics/nikki-haley-syria-interview-sotu-cnntv/index.html
After hanging on through years of brutal war, I don’t see Assad leaving unless forced. Now his forces are on the march.
The ISIS operation is wrapping up - the US could be boxed out, and Iran built in, if we don’t have a plan for the next phase of the conflict, beyond the upcoming collapse of ISIS.
Turkey will likely advocate supporting their “moderate rebels” in Idlib (previously known as al Queda), who will adopt a new temporary name/flag for the duration of the exercise to replace Assad.
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