Rulers of Syria 1920 — 2024 and Pakistan 1973 — 2024

Putin's air power soars over Syrian quagmire
The Australian
Alan Cullison, Wall Street Journal
Thursday, March 17, 2016

When Russia began its bombing campaign in Syria last year, the move provoked outrage in Washington and warnings from the White House that Russia faced a quagmire. But President Vladimir Putin's announcement that he would draw down some forces this week signalled his determination to skirt such a predicament. After five months of bombing in Syria, Kremlin watchers say, Russia has accomplished what it set out to do.

Russia has long said it wants to avoid a Libya-like scenario in Syria, where the toppling of a dictator allowed Islamic State to use the power vacuum to build up a force of several thousand fighters there. Putin argued that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is the most effective tool for fighting jihadist terrorism in Syria — whatever the West may think of Assad's human rights record. A drawdown of Russian forces is a signal that Putin believes that, for now, Assad's future is ensured.

The Kremlin will certainly continue to support him, manning Russian military bases and carrying out missions at the request of the Syrian government, said Ivan Safranchuk, a political-science professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

"I think that Russia's goals are mainly achieved," Professor Safranchuk said. "The regime has survived: it doesn't control all the territory of Syria, but there are no existential threats to the regime any more."

But Russia's rescue of Assad has reaped broader benefits than the rescue of a military ally. The bombing campaign upset Western plans to isolate Russia diplomatically for its behaviour in Ukraine, since the West was forced to consult Moscow about its operations in Syria. Although Western politicians continued to call for the US to declare a no-fly zone over Syria, such a move was impossible without running the risk of shooting down a Russian plane.

Russia's bombing campaign also served notice to the West of how far Russia's military has come since Putin ordered a build-up after returning to the Kremlin as President. Russia surprised many military experts by its ability to sustain its bombing over many months — a feat it couldn't have accomplished a few years ago, and something few other countries besides the US could manage today. Russia's air force fared badly in its latest open conflict, with the former state of Georgia in 2008, when several of its planes were shot down in a few days. Syrian rebels, who have little in the way of anti-aircraft gear, have been easy targets for Russian air power.

Russia made a display of its cruise missiles and precision munitions at the beginning of the campaign, when rebels were near Damascus. Later it mainly bombed rebels from high altitude with unguided bombs, a tactic critics said wreaked havoc on the civilian population, accelerating refugee flows to Europe.

But ultimately the Russian airstrikes had a greater chance to be effective because Moscow, unlike the West, had a large and reliable ally on the ground who could spot targets and capture territory after the strikes, experts said.

Russia has denied causing any more civilian casualties than the Western bombing campaigns. "They are following a clear strategy and, in my opinion, are succeeding at it mightily," said Benjamin Lambeth, an air-warfare expert at the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, though adding it was also done "most sloppily and in total indifference to the collateral damage to infrastructure and killing of innocents".

Russia was always known for its powerful land forces, but the bombing campaign was a new operation, and required a complex resupply effort far from its own borders, where ships carried munitions from the Black Sea through the Dardanelles to Syria.

Although most of the Russian equipment was old, experts said Moscow deployed some of its latest-generation fighters and new Mi-35 helicopters, using Syria as a proving ground. Analysts said the Russian operation was relatively cheap, since it dropped mainly inexpensive munitions, some of which it would have used in military exercises anyway.

But Russia also has cogent reasons for worrying about the outcome in Syria: more than 2000 fighters from Russia have joined Islamic State in Syria, independent analysts said, and thousands more have flowed into Syria from former Soviet republics. Most of those from Russia have arrived from Chechnya and other troubled North Caucasus regions. The Kremlin has long feared a victorious return of such fighters.

 
Defiant or delusional? Assad rails against the West
Weekend Australian
Ian Phillips, Zeina Karam, AP
Saturday, September 24, 2016

DAMASCUS: He's been stigmatised internationally, a contentious figure presiding over a ruinous civil war that seems to slip into further depravity every day. But in his power base in the Syrian capital, Bashar al-Assad projected confidence — conceding nothing to his critics, and accusing the US of derailing a ceasefire and lacking the "will" to fight extremists in his country.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Assad rejected US accusations Syrian or Russian planes struck an aid convoy in Aleppo this week and his troops were preventing food from entering the city's rebel-held areas. He maintained deadly airstrikes by the US-led coalition on Syrian troops last weekend were intentional, dismissing US statements they were an accident. In Washington, the State Department countered that Assad's assertions were "ridiculous."

While acknowledging the war would "drag on" indefinitely as long as his opponents were receiving support from countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Assad said Syria would bounce back as a more unified state, and pledged to rebuild the ruined country and even welcome back refugees if assistance to the insurgents were to stop. The sense of detachment projected by the 51-year-old, who inherited power from his father 16 years ago, was striking. While acknowledging some mistakes, he denied any excesses by his troops and claimed the rebel-held parts of Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city, weren't really under siege.

"If there's really a siege around the city of Aleppo, people would have been dead by now," he said, and questioned how rebels were able to smuggle in arms but apparently not food or medicine.

The ancient city, which has become both a symbol of resistance and the high price civilians are paying in the war, has been carved into rebel and regime controlled areas since 2012. Its eastern, rebel-held neighbourhoods are encircled by regime troops and there are reports of malnutrition and severe shortages of food and medical supplies. The UN has accused Assad of obstructing aid access to the city, despite an agreement to allow aid in during the weeklong ceasefire that ended on Monday.

Throughout the conflict, Assad's forces have been accused of bombing hospitals and civilians and choking rebel-held cities. Millions have fled Syria, some drowning at sea in the Mediterranean while trying to reach safety. Assad denied any hospitals were purposely targeted. "They accuse Syria of attacking hospitals, so you have hospitals and you have doctors and you have everything. How could you have them?"

The war has been defined by gruesome images of the aftermath of bloody attacks, documenting the plight of children in particular. Assad, while acknowledging the war had been "savage," said the accounts should not be automatically believed. "Those witnesses only appear when there's an accusation against the Syrian army or the Russian (army), but when the terrorists commit a crime or massacre … you don't see any witnesses," he said. "What a coincidence."

Syria and the US have been at loggerheads since an airstrike by the coalition hit Syrian troops in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour on Saturday, one week ago. US officials said the attack — the first direct hit on regime forces and in which Australian aircraft were involved — was accidental and the warplanes intended to target ISIS positions. Russia said the strikes killed more than 60 Syrian troops and, afterwards, ISIS militants briefly overran regime positions.

Assad dismissed the US account, saying the attack targeted a "huge" area for more than an hour. "It wasn't an accident by one airplane. It was four airplanes. You don't commit a mistake for more than one hour." Assad flatly rejected US accusations Syrian or Russian planes carried out an attack on an aid convoy on the outskirts of Aleppo that killed 20 people, many of them aid workers. He said whatever US officials say "has no credibility" and is "just lies". He also scoffed at the idea the White Helmets — civil defence volunteers in opposition-held areas seen as symbols of bravery — might be considered for a Nobel Peace Prize. "What did they achieve in Syria?" he said. "I would only give a prize to whoever works for the peace in Syria."

Asked about his methods, including the use of indiscriminate weapons, Assad said there was no difference between bombs: "When you have terrorists, you don't throw at them balloons or you don't use rubber sticks … You have to use armaments."

Syrian government warplanes struck near and inside Aleppo in northwest Syria on Monday, state media and rescue workers said, as President Bashar al-Assad’s government moved to repel rebels who took control of the city in a recent lightning offensive. Airstrikes also hit residential buildings in the city of Idlib, which has become a refuge for people displaced by the civil war, killing at least five civilians and leaving 30 others injured, according to the White Helmets, an independent rescue organisation.

The outskirts of Aleppo came under attack in a joint operation by Russian and Syrian forces, according to SANA, a Syrian state-run news agency. The White Helmets said the city itself was targeted.

Joint Syrian-Russian strikes hit residential areas in Idlib city, causing widespread destruction and killing many civilians. The opposition offensive poses the most serious challenge to Assad in years, where the civil war between the government and rebel forces has been frozen since 2020. It also presents a quandary for US and Western powers over their policy toward Syria.

Holding Aleppo, which was Syria’s largest city and an important trading hub before the war, has been a significant prize during the more than decadelong war. In 2012, Assad and Russia launched a yearslong military offensive to retake part of the city that was taken by rebel forces that year. They retreated from the city in 2016 after holding out against a monthslong siege.

The US has sanctioned the Assad regime for its use of chemical weapons against civilians during the conflict, among other things, and the first Trump administration launched airstrikes against Syrian military assets in 2018. At the same time, Syria’s largest rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, whose antecedents were affiliated with al Qaeda and is leading the offensive, is a US-designated terrorist organisation. The US, along with France, Germany and the UK, issued a joint statement overnight calling for a de-escalation in the conflict. “The current escalation only underscores the urgent need for a Syrian-led political solution to the conflict,” they said.

In another sign of widening hostilities, the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, a rebel faction, said Monday it had captured territory from Kurdish-led groups near Aleppo in the Tel Rifaat district, according to Turkey’s state news agency. Analysts say the rebels decided to move on Aleppo while Assad’s allies, including Iran and Russia, were under pressure globally. Russia has poured military resources into its invasion of Ukraine, shifting some armaments out of Syria, where it has propped up Assad for years. Meanwhile, Iran has suffered a setback in the Middle East after Israel went on the offensive against its militia allies, including Hezbollah, the Lebanese group that has also fought for Assad in Syria.

The White Helmets said early Monday that 58 people were killed in attacks on Aleppo and Idlib provinces by regime and Russian forces between Nov. 27 to Dec. 1. Rebel soldiers swept into Aleppo and seized a series of towns and villages across the northwest at the end of last week, capturing within a day the city that took Assad’s forces four years to reclaim after part of it fell to rebel control in 2012.

The rebel attack has reignited the rebellion against Assad, which began in 2011 with a popular uprising that soon spawned an armed insurrection when the government met the protests with a violent clamp down. Russia and Iran have moved to reassure Assad, who has become increasingly dependent on his foreign backers as Syria has been rocked by economic crisis in recent years. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held talks with his Turkish counterpart on Monday, a day after meeting Assad in Damascus. “Of course, we continue to support Bashar al-Assad,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, according to Russian state media. Assad traveled to Moscow in recent days pleading for more support, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In the past, Assad has also relied on the support of Iranian-allied militias in Iraq. Iraqi officials on Monday said that militants could be observed gathering on the Iraqi side of the border, but that the government was shoring up the border to prevent them from crossing in large numbers. A small number crossed the border earlier, the officials said.

Forces loyal to Assad have used bombings, chemical weapons, mass arrests and torture to maintain the president’s grip on power. Russia launched a campaign of airstrikes in 2015 that was instrumental in rolling back initial rebel gains. The war has uprooted millions of Syrians.

The rebel military command on Monday morning said they had attacked government forces in the town of Masyaf in the countryside east of the city of Hama, further south of Aleppo. The rebels said they planned to organise defensive positions there, suggesting a possible slowing of the offensive in that area of the country. The rebel offensive has reawakened an unresolved conflict in Syria that left the country divided into zones controlled either by the government, opposition, Turkish-backed factions or US-backed militias who control a swath of northeastern Syria as a part of the American-led battle against Islamic State.

Throughout the Arab Spring, which descended into both a civil and proxy war, Asma strongly supported Bashar’s iron rule. This smart and modern woman who didn’t wear a veil and professed to want to improve the lot of women and children was ideally placed to have helped westernise Syria. Yet she has done nothing of the sort.

Like her husband, Asma has revelled in a life of obscene luxury and unfettered power throughout the past 24 years. The veneer of being the British girl-next-door faded very quickly as she became inextricably linked to her husband’s calls to eradicate opposition “terrorists” at the very start of the domestic conflict when the regime fired upon unarmed protesters. All the while her expensive shoe and bag collection grew, only matched by the designer clothing and numerous palaces.

Then, after the fragile peace pact in 2020, the Assads fiercely enriched themselves further by transforming the ailing economy of the country into a multibillion-dollar illegal drugs manufacturer.

There have been international investigations linking Asma directly to Syria’s gigantic Captagon drug trade (a milder form of amphetamine for treating ADHD), flooding Saudia Arabia, Lebanon and Jordan with millions of pills smuggled across borders by women and children, and also by drones. The Assads weren’t simply turning a blind eye to the trade, they were the drugs cartel, Joel Rayburn, the former US special envoy for Syria says.

The trade was raking in as much as $US8bn a year, analysts have estimated. Der Spiegel reported that in an Essen court, documents and intercepted phone calls showed the Assad army’s Fourth Division, controlled by Assad’s brother, was transporting the drugs to the country’s ports; collecting money for export permits while the Assads also operated their own drug factories in a mafia-style operation.

Charles Lister, the founder of SyriaWeekly.com said this year that Asma had also skimmed off 20 to 50 per cent of every dollar the UN sent in aid to Damascus. She also used food aid as a currency to extract loyalty from her associates.

Three years ago, London’s Metropolitan Police opened an investigation into whether terrorism charges could be levelled at Asma for inciting, aiding and encouraging war crimes by Syrian government forces, including using chemical weapons and subjecting citizens to torture and sexual violence. After an initial flurry of publicity, the police scrutiny appeared to abate and no charges eventuated. But now that the Assads have sought asylum in Russia, and if further evidence emerges from any files not shredded in their hasty exit, Asma could find it difficult to fly back to Heathrow.

Earlier this year Asma announced she had leukaemia, some five years after battling breast cancer, and issued a solemn video describing how hard it was to be away from the Syrian public while she had treatment.

Humble beginnings

Asma would not have foreseen such a life back in 1994 when she was studying computer science and met the young eye doctor, Bashar al-Assad, who was a family friend and furthering his training in London. As a Sunni Muslim she wasn’t from the Assad’s Alawite sect, Arabic was her second language and she then began working as an investment banker: three reasons for the more conservative Assad family to treat her warily. But by 2000, Asma reconnected with Bashar while on holiday in Damascus. That year was significant, for Bashar’s father died, meaning Bashar was now president. Asma, then 25, and Bashar, ten years older, married soon after.

Asma reportedly ran the family – the couple has two sons and a daughter – with a steely determination which became even more intense during the civil war. When her mother-in-law died in 2016 Asma assumed the role of family matriarch. She became an even more feared overlord of the regime, demanding loyalty from an ever shrinking cohort of business allies.

In 2016 she gave an interview to Russian television saying “Yes, I was offered the opportunity to leave Syria, or rather, to run from Syria. These offers included guarantees of safety and protection for my children and even financial security. It doesn’t take a genius to know what these people were really after. It was a deliberate attempt to shatter peoples’ confidence in their president.”

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that Asma’s standard of living and power play are all but over, as she and her family turn to the Kremlin to secure their safety. Whether Asma ever wants to return to Britain is uncertain. Her parents’ terrace home in Ealing is neat and tidy, but neighbours say the family hasn’t been seen for a while.