Yearbook 2008
Syria. According to
Countryaah reports, Syria's relations with the western world thinned
slightly during the year. President Bashar al-Asad visited
France July 12-14. He met his colleague Nicolas Sarkozy and
also negotiated with Lebanon's new president Michel
Suleiman. Sarkozy repaid the visit to Damascus in September,
thus becoming the first Western leader to visit Syria since
the assassination of Lebanon's Prime Minister Rafiq
al-Hariri in 2005, which many suspected was behind Syria.
However, the United States behaved coldly and in February
tightened its sanctions on several high-ranking Syrian
government representatives. On Oct. 26, U.S. troops in Iraq
scoured about a mile into Syrian soil, killing eight people,
according to Syrian sources, all civilians. Anonymous US
sources confirmed the information but said it had killed a
leader in the Islamist al-Qaeda network.
One of Hizbullah guerrilla's highest-ranking commander,
Imad Mughniyah, was killed by a car bomb in Damascus on
February 12. Israel withdrew from the deed and no one else
took on the responsibility. Mughniyah, an icon of Hizbullah,
was accused, among other things, of being involved in bomb
attacks against US facilities in Beirut in 1983 and against
the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1994.
On September 27, 17 people were killed when a car bomb
exploded on the outskirts of Damascus. The deed occurred
near military buildings, but all victims were civilians.
Syria blamed Islamists from the militant group Fatah
al-Islam, active in especially northern Lebanon.
The regime's offensive against oppositionists continued.
Former MP Riyad Sayf was arrested in January along with
several other regime critics. He and eleven others were
sentenced to six years in prison each for demanding
democratic reforms in the Damascus Declaration. In October,
they had their sentences reduced to two and a half years.
Syria also felt the economic crisis. In May, the government
cut fuel subsidies, which led to a 300 percent increase in
the price of diesel.
From the outset, the civil war in Syria had been a war
between the Islamist dictatorships in the region on the one
hand and Syria on the other. From 2015 further with the
participation of Russia, Hezbollah and Iran and with the
potential to quickly develop into military conflict between
the major powers. While the United States sought to step on
the brakes to prevent the development of such a scenario,
Turkey and Saudi Arabia stepped on the accelerator.
With the prospect of a drastic escalation of the war,
Russia and especially the United States put maximum pressure
on their allies in the war, and by the end of February 2016,
they managed to negotiate a ceasefire. Excluding the
ceasefire, al-Nusra was front and IS - in line with the
December UN resolution. Turkey's price was that the Kurdish
YPG was also exempted from the ceasefire. Turkey wanted to
continue its war against the Kurds. The ceasefire was thus
only partial. The war against al-Nusra, IS and YPG
continued. Still, the following two months were marked by a
significant decline in the war actions. In areas where women
and children had not previously been able to arrive, they
now came out in the daylight after 2-3 years. A limited
peace descended upon the country. But it was only a
temporary stay in the fighting. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and
their jihadi movements were interested in resuming the
fighting, as was the Assad regime which still held out hope
for victory. At the end of April, therefore, the ceasefire
finally collapsed. Already at the beginning of the month,
Syrian government forces and Russian aircraft had removed IS
from the historic city of Palmyra and they were now
continuing the advance towards Deir Azzor. However, the
toughest battles came around Aleppo. In late July,
government forces managed to surround the eastern jihadi
controlled part of the city. Many thousands of jihadis and
about 250,000 civilians were thus under siege. Just a week
later, however, jihadis managed to break the siege. Further
north, the YPG and Syrian rebels managed to push IS back. In
the middle of the month, they captured the strategically
important city of Manbij from IS. That caused Turkey to
invade Syria. First with a dozen tanks that quickly rose to
over 100 as well as heavy artillery. Turkey's discourse was
that they wanted to fight IS, but the Islamic State (Turkey)
had no problem with IS in the 2 years the movement had
controlled the border area. Only when it suffered defeat for
the Kurds did Turkey move to the rescue and attack the YPG.
Local self-defense groups and militias in the liberated
towns and villages were exposed to Turkish bombings. Turkey
and the United States are now open on both sides of the
conflict. The United States drew the shortest straw and
tried to get the YPG to withdraw over the Euphrates, which
the Kurds refused. Turkey was now an open part of the war.
In May, the Danish Folketing decided to enter the war in
Syria. In July, the Danish Air Force carried out the first
bombings in Syria in support of Syrian jihadis.
In late July, al-Nusra broke the front with al-Qaeda and
changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (The Front to
Conquer al-Sham (the classic name for the Levant: Syria and
Iraq)). The previous 6 months there had been speculation and
persistent rumors and an imminent breach. al-Nusra contained
two strong tendencies: the foreign jihadis that made up
about 1/3 of the front fighters. They were there primarily
because of al-Qaeda's perspective of a caliphate. However,
the majority of the fighters were Syrians who had a national
perspective alone. al-Nusra had been weakened by ongoing
Russian (and North American) bombings, and at the same time
Qatar promised open financial and military support if it
broke with al-Qaeda. In other words, the Jihadi movement
should be made "the living room". This realization also
reached al-Qaeda, which in late July gave its approval to a
rupture. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey could now more
openly support the movement financially and militarily.
However, the United States was not immediately persuaded.
The superpower added Jabhat Fateh al-Sham to its terrorist
list.
The United States and Russia signed a ceasefire agreement
in Syria at the beginning of September, instructing each of
their groups of military organizations to suspend the
mid-month fighting. As in the spring, however, IS and Jabhat
Fateh al-Sham were exempt from the ceasefire. However, after
a few days of ceasefire, the agreement went up in the bond.
The reason was that the United States, Britain, Australia
and Denmark bombed Syrian government forces outside Deir
al-Zor. The attack cost somewhere between 62 and 90 soldiers
and allowed IS to encircle the Syrian regime's air base
outside the city. Both the US, UK and Australia were quick
to apologize for the attack. Denmark did not apologize. As
in the war against Libya in 2011, Denmark's military role
was to carry out the attacks that other Western countries
cannot carry out. US s political purpose of the attack on
the Syrian troops was to test the reaction of the Syrian
regime and its Russian allies. The Russian and Syrian
response to the attack was to intensify the attacks on
Aleppo, after which the ceasefire finally collapsed. In
addition to the Danish military support for IS was Denmark
now formally at war with Syria. (Truce teeters after raids
on Aleppo, Syria troops, The Daily Star 18/9 2016;
Denmark error bombs in Syria - and what should we then ask
about, believe and learn? Peace Researcher Jan Øberg 19/9
2016).
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