With the exception of the United States which has mastered the art of becoming the airforce and strategic leader of non-state guerrilla/terrorist groups in Syria, the remaining parties to the conflict all stand united against non-state entities. Groups like Daesh, FSA and al-Qaeda are uniformly opposed by the states of Syria, Russia and Iran, while Turkey…
While President Trump has recently hailed the defeat of ISIS, the group has been able to stave-off a complete defeat by retreating to a few, small remaining pockets in Syria. One of these pockets, located east of the Euphrates along Syria’s border with Iraq, is surrounded by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a grouping of…
Syria reportedly agreed to the Kurdish PYD-YPG “federalist” militia’s request to enter Afrin and stop the Turks’ military advance, though it still remains to be seen whether Damascus will actually carry through on this decision or not. There have been conflicting reports on this topic all across the past week, but the official “Syrian Arab…
Last week, Defense Secretary James Mattis shot off a warning to Assad for alleged chemical attacks. Washington had heard enough sob stories from partisan NGOs and anti-government forces that it reprimanded the Syrian government publicly. On Wednesday, the United States followed through. After pro-regime forces assaulted the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the United States lead…
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson unveiled a tentative agreement with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Kavusoglu Friday after a bilateral meeting in Ankara aimed at patching up sharp differences. The meeting was part of a Middle East tour by Tillerson, who made clear that the US is in the advanced stages of preparing a major…
“Israel is climbing up a high horse,” Alex Fishman (the veteran Israeli Defence Correspondent) wrote in the Hebrew daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, last month, “and is approaching with giant steps a ‘war of choice’: Without mincing words, it’s an initiated war in Lebanon.” In Fishman’s article, he notes: “Classical deterrence is when you threaten an enemy not to…
