By Countercurrents.org
14 December, 2013
@ Countercurrents.org
Michael Hayden former CIA chief believes that The sectarian bloodbath in Syria is such a threat to regional security that a victory for Bashar al-Assad’s regime could the best outcome to hope for.
A Washington datelined AFP report said:
“Michael Hayden, the retired US Air Force general who until 2009 was head of the Central Intelligence Agency, said a rebel win was not one of the three possible outcomes he foresees for the conflict. “Option three is Assad wins,” Hayden told the annual Jamestown Foundation conference of terror experts.
“‘And I must tell you at the moment, as ugly as it sounds, I’m kind of trending toward option three as the best out of three very, very ugly possible outcomes,’ he said.
“The first possible outcome he cited was for ongoing conflict between ever more extreme Sunni and Shiite factions. And the second outcome, which Hayden deemed the most likely, was the ‘dissolution of Syria’ and the end of a single state within the borders defined by a 1916 treaty between the French and British empires.
“‘It means the end of the Sykes-Picot (Agreement), it sets in motion the dissolution of all the artificial states created after World War I,’ he said.
The report added:
“A breakdown in the century-old settlement could spread chaos in Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, “Hayden warned. ‘I greatly fear the dissolution of the state. A de facto dissolution of Sykes-Picot,’ Hayden said. ‘And now we have a new ungoverned space, at the crossroads of the civilization. The dominant story going on in Syria is a Sunni fundamentalist takeover of a significant part of the Middle East geography, the explosion of the Syrian state and of the Levant as we know it.’”
Disarray
Citing US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel another AFP report headlined “Disarray for moderate Syrian rebels a ‘big problem’: US” said:
“Setbacks for Syria’s Western-backed opposition are a ‘big problem’ and the United States is assessing the damage.
“The United States would continue to support ‘moderate’ forces but will withhold non-lethal assistance to the rebels until it can assess who is in control of arms depots and border crossings, the Pentagon chief told reporters.
“‘I think what has occurred here in the last couple of days is a clear reflection on how complicated and dangerous this situation is and how unpredictable it is,’ Hagel said at a joint press conference with Singapore’s defense minister.
“He spoke after a powerful rebel faction, the Islamic Front, last week seized the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the Turkish border and weapons warehouses from the Free Syrian Army, which is led by General Selim Idriss.”
Citing a US official the Washington, December 12, 2013 datelined AFP report added:
The Islamic Front seized a compound near the Turkish border belonging to the Free Syrian Army, or the Supreme Military Council (SMC).
‘Following that, SMC officials fled other compounds out of fear that they could be attacked as well,’ said the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
‘The initial incident occurred at a single compound but there were ripple effects,’ the official said.
The report said:
“Some media reports also said Idriss had fled Syria but a spokesman said he was on a working trip to Turkey.
“‘We continue to support General Idriss and the moderate opposition,’ Hagel said.
“‘But this is a problem, I mean, what has occurred here, a big problem. And we’re going to have to work through it and manage through it with General Idriss and the moderate opposition.’
“He added that ‘when the moderate opposition is set back, that’s not good.’
“Asked who was in control of the arms depots, Hagel said: ‘We’re evaluating right now. We’re assessing what has happened, where we are.’
“He said there were ‘very dangerous elements’ in the opposition that ‘complicates our support’ for the rebels.
“Delivery of non-lethal assistance would be withheld ‘until, first of all, we can get a clear assessment of what has happened,’ Hagel said.
“The fractured opposition included Al-Qaeda and other ‘terrorist groups,’ he said, added: ‘So it’s not a matter of just an easy choice between the good guys and the bad guys here.’”
Islamists kidnap Kurdish civilians
Citing monitoring group The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights a Reuters report from Beirut said:
Islamist rebels linked to al Qaeda kidnapped at least 120 Kurdish civilians on December 13, 2013 from a village near the Turkish border in Aleppo province.
Citing Arab and Kurdish sources in and around Ihras the monitoring group with a network of sources across Syria informed:
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters entered Ihras, 20 km south of the border town of Azaz, and took the captives, including at least six women, to an unknown location.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
The incident is the latest in a series of kidnappings and killings by ISIL this month targeting Kurds in northern Syria, where mainly Sunni Arab Islamist rebels and Kurdish fighters have clashed repeatedly in recent months.
The monitoring group said:
ISIL had kidnapped 51 Kurdish civilians from the towns of Manbij and Jarablus northeast of Aleppo since the start of December, including eight women and two children.
ISIL has also evicted 15 Kurdish families linked to the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) from their homes in Idlib province, according to the Observatory.
Front against al-Qaeda
In an Istanbul, December 14, 2013 datelined report by İpek Yezdani, Hurriyet Daily News (http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/syria-rebels-unite-against-al-qaeda.aspx?PageID=238&NID=59483&NewsCatID=352) said:
Fifteen Syrian armed opposition groups, including the Supreme Military Council of Free Syrian Army (FSA), have established a new front under the name of “Syrian Rebels Front” to fight both President Bashar al-Assad’s government and al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Syria.
The report headlined “Syria rebels unite against al-Qaeda” said:
The former spokesperson for the Supreme Military Council, Col. Qassim Saad Eddine, called on all other fractions to join the front, which included 15 battalions and a brigade belonging to the FSA.
Eddine said in July 2013 that the killing of senior FSA commander Kamal Hamami by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was a declaration of war.
The announcement of the new front came one month after Syria’s most powerful rebel groups said they had forged a new Islamic force called “The Islamic Front” and were seeking to topple the government of al-Assad and replace it with an Islamic state.
Meanwhile, a prominent member of the political wing of the Syrian opposition, the Syrian National Council (SNC), refuted allegations that the commander of the FSA, Gen. Salim Idris, fled Syria after Islamist militant fighters ran him out of his headquarters.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, which was based on White House sources, Idris flew to Doha recently after fleeing to Turkey from Syria.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a member of the SNC claimed “Idris has been living in three countries, Turkey, Qatar and Jordan for the last one year. He was going to Syria from time to time.”
The 13-month-old U.S.-backed Syrian National Coalition, which supports the FSA, is based in Doha. The United States and United Kingdom have suspended all “non-lethal” support for rebels in northern Syria after the Islamic Front took over key FSA-controlled warehouses holding lethal and non-lethal weapons intended for moderate fighters in northern Syria.
Al-Qaeda linked group executes rebels
In an earlier report Reuters said:
Al Qaeda-linked the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, members have executed the commander of a rival rebel faction and six of his men, an amateur video of the public execution showed, part of their campaign to marginalize other groups.
The report from Beirut headlined “Video shows execution of Syrian rebels by Al Qaeda-linked group” said:
The ISIL have taken advantage of a power vacuum in rebel-held areas to assert its authority over more moderate elements of the armed opposition.
The November 28, 2013 datelined report added:
The video, posted online by the anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, shows armed men in black standing below an ISIL banner.
The Observatory said the video was taken in the northern Syrian town of Atarib in Idlib province. Its authenticity could not be independently confirmed.
A masked man on the video identifies seven men kneeling as members of the Ghurabaa al-Sham brigade, a moderate Islamist group that was one of the first to fight Assad.
He spoke into a microphone to a crowd of men, some of whom used their mobile phones to film the killing.
They were then shot in the head.
Refugees
Another AFP report headlined “European response to Syrian refugees ‘pitiful’: Amnesty” said:
European Union leaders should “hang their heads in shame” at their failure to provide safe haven for Syrian refugees fleeing the brutal conflict, Amnesty International said on Dec. 13.
In a damning report, the human rights group says EU member states have offered places for just 12,340 people over the next year — well below the 30,000 sought by the UN and a tiny fraction of the millions who have fled Syria.
The report from London said:
As winter storms brought fresh misery to the hundreds of thousands of refugees sheltering in tents in camps in Lebanon and Jordan, the group urged the EU to ease some of the pressure on Syria’s neighbors.
“The EU has miserably failed to play its part in providing a safe haven to the refugees who have lost all but their lives,” said Secretary General Salil Shetty.
Amnesty also condemned the bloc for making it so difficult to enter the EU legally, and for leaving those who do make it languishing in squalid detention centers for weeks on end.
“The EU must open its borders, provide safe passage and halt these deplorable human rights violations,” Shetty said.
Syria’s neighbors have borne the brunt of the refugee crisis, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has called for other countries to provide 30,000 places by the end of 2014.
Only half of these places have been pledged so far, and of the 12,340 offered by EU nations, the vast majority — 10,000 — is from one country, Germany.
Eighteen EU member states have offered no places, including Britain, where Prime Minister David Cameron has been vocal in his calls for international action to stem the crisis.
In September, two British refugee campaign groups wrote to Cameron urging him to establish a resettlement program.
But a government spokesman said on December 13, 2013 it had no plans to resettle or provide temporary protection to Syrians, saying it was focused on providing humanitarian aid to the region.
In Bulgaria, where an estimated 5,000 refugees arrived between January and November, Amnesty said it had found refugees “living in squalid conditions in containers, a dilapidated building and in tents”.
“It is deplorable that many of those that who have risked life and limb to get here, are either forced back or detained in truly squalid conditions with insufficient food, water or medical care,” said Shetty.
Refugees trying to cross from Turkey to Greece reported being met by gun-wielding, hooded coastguard officials who stripped them of their belongings before sending them back.
“They put all the men lying on the boat; they stepped on us and hit us with their weapons for three hours,” explained one man picked up by the Greek coastguard near the island of Samos in October.
“Then at around 10 in the morning, after removing the motor, they put us back to our plastic boat and drove us back to the Turkish waters and left us in the middle of the sea.” Just 55,000 Syrian refugees have managed to claim asylum in the EU, a fraction of the estimated 2.3 million who have fled the country, Amnesty said.