[Midden-Oosten] What’s Happening in Raqqa, Idlib and in Syria
Jeff
meisner op xs4all.nl
Do Nov 2 19:47:07 CET 2017
What’s Happening in Raqqa, Idlib and in Syria
Joseph Daher
http://peacenews.org/2017/10/29/whats-happening-in-raqqa-idlib-and-in-syria-joseph-daher/
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About The Author
Dr. Joseph Daher is an assistant teacher in the university of Lausanne,
Switzerland and has a PhD in Development of the university of (School of
Oriental and African Studies), SOAS, London, UK. He is the author of the
book “Hezbollah: the political economy of the party of God,” Pluto
Press, 2016, and the founder of the blog Syria Freedom Forever. He is a
Swiss/Syrian leftist activist.
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You may have seen the horrible photo of 34 day-old Samar Dofdaa that
activists circulated recently. Her family is one of thousands under
siege in Eastern Ghouta by Assad forces. The baby was skeletal and in
obvious agony. She died the next day. While world attention has left
Syria, civilian suffering continues, but so does the remaining popular
resistance.
The war continues and the suffering does not diminish on the ground. The
Russian and Syrian air forces have intensified their bombing since
September in support of the pro-regime troops’ military campaigns
assisted by pro-Iranian Shi’a Islamic fundamentalist militias and
Hezbollah in several regions: Deraa, Deir ez-Zor, Hama , Homs, Eastern
Ghouta, Idlib. In the eastern Ghouta region, more than 1,100 children
have suffered from acute malnutrition in the past three months, UNICEF
said. This area has been besieged by regime’s forces since 2013. No less
than 397 civilians, including 206 children and 67 women, have died due
to starvation and medication shortage particularly between the start of
the siege in Eastern Ghouta in October 2012 and Oct. 22, 2017. Fadel
Abdul Ghany, chairman of Syrian Network for Human Rights declared
regarding this situation:
“It is not only that the Syrian regime used siege as a mean of
warfare, but the siege is now beyond military necessities and their
proportions, as the siege has turned into a matter of starving and
restricting civilians. Its cost is higher than any anticipated military
objective, and has become a form of collective punishment that denied
civilians basic services and food.”
On Oct. 24, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council draft resolution to
extend by one year the investigation on the use of chemical weapons in
Syria. Russia has rejected a renewal of the mandate of the UN experts
and the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) to
investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria. This is the ninth time
Moscow has used its veto to protect its Syrian ally.
The United States is also not left out with its bombings in their
so-called “war on terror” and especially in the campaign for the
conquest of Raqqa. According to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights
(SOHR), more than 3,000 civilians and soldiers died in September alone,
the deadliest month of the year. Many essential infrastructures have
also been destroyed, including multiple hospitals in areas outside the
control of the regime and Islamic State (IS).
Raqqa, IS defeated, but …
The IS was definitively expelled from the city of Raqqa in mid-October
by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of fighters (Kurds,
Arabs, Syriacs) dominated by the YPG, armed wing of the PYD, with the
support of United States-led international coalition aviation after four
months of intense fighting. The defeat of the jihadist group in Raqqa is
certainly good news, but the cost in human terms, as in Mosul a few
months ago, is terrible.
More than 80% of the city is destroyed and/or uninhabitable and basic
infrastructure is now virtually non-existent. “The humanitarian crisis
is more serious than ever,” the NGO Save the Children said in a
statement a few days before IS troops were expelled, with a serious
shortage of food, medicine, electricity, drinking water, and basic
necessities. There are also no functioning medical facilities in the
city and schools have long been closed.
In four months, the fighting killed between 1,300 and 1,800 civilians
[1]. About 270,000 to 320,000 people have been displaced by the fighting
and are living in miserable conditions in overcrowded camps in the
outskirts of the city. They will not be able to return until the city is
cleared of the mines and explosives scattered by the IS. Fourteen people
were actually killed in the explosion of mines left in the ruins of
Raqqa since IS’s expulsion from the city.
With the loss of Raqqa, IS now controls only 10% of the Syrian territory
— compared with 33% at the beginning of the year — of which more than
half in the province of Deir Zor, close to that of Raqqa. IS is the
target of two separate offensives in Deir Zor: one led by the regime’s
troops and its allies, supported by Russia, the other by the SDF
supported by the United States. The province of Deir Zor has also
suffered tremendously from these offensives and bombings. Since
September 10, between 660 and 880 civilians have died, while more than
200,000 people have fled the province.
However, this succession of defeats has not prevented the IS from
multiplying suicide operations and car bomb attacks in different regions
of the country. The jihadist group has also increased the number of
abuses against civilians in the areas in which its soldiers are
withdrawing, for example, on Oct. 23, the IS has been accused of
“executing at least 116 civilians” in the city of al-Qaryatayn in Homs
Province before being expelled. Qaryatayn was once home to roughly
14,000 Syrian Muslims and Christians reliant on agriculture and
government jobs in Damascus. When the town first fell to the IS in 2015,
thousands of its residents fled for safety.
After the end of the military operations in Raqqa, large sections of the
SDF left Raqqa for other regions, mainly for Deir Zor. The SDF announced
that the city and its province would be part of a decentralized and
federal Syria and that they intended to entrust the administration to a
civil council, create a local police and protect the borders of the
province from external threats.
The Raqqa civil council is composed of local dignitaries and was created
six months ago under the guidance of the SDF. The council has a dual
presidency, a man and a woman like the other SDF councils, led by Leila
Mustafa, a Kurdish woman from the border town of Tel Abyad, mostly
populated by Arabs, and her Arab counterpart Mahmoud al-Borsan, a former
member of the Syrian parliament and a leader of the Walda tribe, who is
influential in Raqqa.
The real dominant political force remains, however, the PYD, the Syrian
branch of the PKK. Huge portraits of PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan were
actually displayed in Raqqa’s central square, Naeem, during the
announcement of SDF’s victory, while SDF commanders dedicated the
victory of Raqqa to Öcalan and all the women.
It is necessary to underline a certain fear and mistrust present among
certain sectors of the local Arab population against the SDF. Some
Syrian activists have even spoken of a new occupation … [2]
Everything remains to be done in Raqqa to rebuild the city, help local
people to resume a decent life and regain the trust of the local
population.
On its side, the regime by the voice of its dictator Bashar al-Assad has
promised to restore the authority of the state over the entire national
territory, including Raqqa. For his part, the Minister for National
Reconciliation, Ali Haidar, said that the future of Raqqa could be
addressed “only within the framework of the final political structure of
the Syrian state” in response to the communiqué of the SDF.
Idlib, but especially Afrin, in Ankara’s horizon
The Turkish army deployed in Idlib province in northern Syria, setting
up observation posts as part of a mission to control SDF, whereas
initially, the mission was officially aimed at dislodging Hay’at Tahrir
al-Sham (HTS), a military alliance dominated by the jihadists of Jabhat
al-Nusra. HTS actually agreed not to interfere with Turkish operations
along the border and is therefore relatively spared for the moment by
Ankara.
This Turkish military deployment in collaboration with Syrian armed
opposition groups is part of the so-called de-escalation agreements
reached with Iran and Russia in September and May. This new military
expansion at the border came three months after another one between
Aazaz and al-Bab. The objective is to isolate the city of Afrin
controlled by the SDF. The Turkish pro-government daily Yeni Safak did
not hesitate to titrate use as a headline in one of its editions at this
period: “Today Idleb, tomorrow Afrin.” The Turkish government also
placed in the areas opposition armed groups that it sponsors and
supports. At the time of writing, the Turkish forces continued their
incursions into the northern territories of the country.
As a reminder, Turkey occupies territories in the north of Syria,
including towns and villages like Jarablus and al-Bab. They have even
established their own institutions, favor their own humanitarian
organizations, depriving others of acting, including local ones, and set
up a local police trained in Turkey.
Popular resistances despite everything
This endless war against the Syrian people has not prevented popular
resistance actions. On October 14, significant demonstrations took place
in the provinces of Idlib, Homs, Eastern Ghouta and several other cities
for the “day of rage,” despite the bombardments of the regime and Russia
and the threat of Islamic fundamentalist groups often opposed to these
mobilizations and not hesitating to repress activists and other sectors
of civil society.
A few days before, on October 11, a strike was organized by shopkeepers
and workers in the city of Idlib demanding the resignation of the
officials in the HTS-led civil authority in Idlib, and that the jihadist
coalition’s security forces remove the masks and hoods that conceal
their identities. Increasing complains against HTS can be heard by the
inhabitants of Idlib regarding the encroaching on almost every aspect of
civilian life by the jihadist coalition. In recent months, HTS members
continuously demonstrated intentions to impose control over civilian
affairs: it has monitored money transfers, prohibited education projects
that do not have its approval and sought control over bakeries, and
water and transportation directorates in the province. HTS has committed
numerous Human Rights violations in these past few months following
their full control of the city and the province, including murders,
arbitrary arrests, and raids relief organizations.
In addition, at the Central Prison in Homs, 500 political prisoners went
on hunger strike in mid-October to demand international action for their
release as they were under the threat of major repression by the regime.
The prison’s director has however continued to threaten the prisoners
after their call and detainees reported that the prison director also
threatened to burn them with their families. Several Syrian
organizations demanded that the Syrian regime immediately accept the
demands of hunger strikers, to end referring prisoners to military
courts or other courts, such as “the Terrorism Court,” and to stop all
arbitrary executions. We should support the demands of the hunger
strikers and moreover demand the liberation of all political prisoners.
Local popular and democratic initiatives were also continuing in
different regions against the regime and Islamic fundamentalist
organizations.
The resilience of what remains of the sectors of the popular democratic
movement against the multiple enemies of freedom and dignity is
admirable in this atmosphere of continuous war, of which the end remains
the absolute priority to lessen the suffering of the civilian
population.
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1. More than 1,000 civilians (1,058) died under US-led coalition
bombings, 311 civilians by IS and 191 civilians by SDF. IS jihadists
have also used many civilians as human shields.
2. One can and should have a critical stance against the PYD and its
authoritarian practices (see the many posts and articles on my blog
Syria Freedom Forever on the issue), but the comparison with the
practices of the jihadist group IS and talk about new occupation on the
IS model ignores the real and massive differences between the two groups
(including comparing the management of territories between the two
organizations) and is more of a misplaced propaganda. For example, we
should denounce when around 10 civilians were injured on October 26
after they got shot by SDF fighters after residents from “Al-Mashlab”
neighborhood in Raqqa protested to demand SDF to allow them to go back
to their homes, despite the lack of security as mentioned in the text.
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