On 11 December, the United States and the United Kingdom announced they had stopped shipping non-lethal assistance to Syrian rebels.
IHS Global Insight perspective | |
Significance | Islamist force gains and weakening of the more secular opposition fighting groups is making it more problematic for the United States to back any Syrian rebel force. However, Gulf aid to rebels is likely to increase. |
Implications | The Geneva II summit, if it goes ahead at all, is probably doomed to fail. Islamist forces oppose talks with the Bashar al-Assad administration under any circumstances and those rebels willing to take part, and who are acceptable to the West and Turkey, lack legitimacy and would be unable to enforce any meaningful concessions on the ground. |
Outlook | The survival of the Syrian administration looks like an increasingly attractive option for the US and could be used as a bargaining chip with Iran. |
The suspension of aid followed a takeover of Free Syrian Army positions along the Turkish border by the Islamic Front coalition of rebel forces. The Islamic Front took over various warehouses and arms depots, including sites where US equipment was being stored, apparently without FSA opposition. Following the takeover, Salim Idriss, head of the FSA's Syrian Military Council and FSA military commander, fled from Syria to Qatar via Turkey. Turkey also closed its border crossing at Bab al-Hawa after the Islamic Front took over the Syrian side of the crossing on 8 December.
Islamic Front coalition gains problematic for the US
The Islamic Front is a coalition of some of Syria's largest and most influential rebel factions, including Harakat Ansar al-Sham, Jaish al-Islam, Suqour al-Sham, and four others. Its fighters probably number approximately 45,000. It was formed on 22 November 2013 with the express intention of ousting the entire Syrian administration, government, and army of Assad as well as instigating an Islamic state in Syria. The US held talks with the new coalition after its inception aimed at encouraging it to participate in peace talks at the Geneva II conference.
However, giving any kind of lethal or non-lethal aid to this coalition would be extremely problematic politically, despite its clear credibility as a fighting force. This is because it firstly supports an Islamic state rather than a secular one, with implications for women and religious minorities' rights in areas under its control. Secondly, some of its member factions have Islamist foreign fighters in their ranks, raising Western concerns they could pose terrorist threats to their own home countries. Thirdly, some member factions are also fighting alongside and co-ordinating with the Jabhat al-Nusra group, elements at least of which are subservient to al-Qaeda, although it has a less transnational focus. Jabhat al-Nusra does not form part of the Islamic Front coalition and the Islamic Front is likely to disavow connections to Jabhat al-Nusra in its public statements. However, this is probably more due to the wish to avoid being proscribed internationally as a terrorist organisation than any major differences between the groups' agendas.
US reluctance for decisive intervention
Some FSA brigades have attempted to promote themselves as the counterweight to the Islamic Front by forming a new coalition known as the "Syria Revolutionaries Front". This coalition presented itself in a video published online on 9 December as the nucleus of what would eventually become the Syrian Army under a new secular state. However, its component forces are likely to hold less weight, credibility or ability to attract backing from external sponsors than those of the Islamic Front. US appetite to back such a coalition will be reduced by the Islamic Front's control on the Syrian side of supply lines from Turkey and the likelihood that they could seize equipment destined for other factions. The likelihood of FSA defections to the Islamic Front coalition also increases the risk that equipment will be acquired by Islamic Front factions for whom it was not intended. All this is added to the fact that the current US administration has shown itself as unwilling to intervene decisively in the Syrian conflict, even if there is a cohesive secular coalition to which it could give political support.
Diverging US and Gulf positions
There is also a risk that if the US chose to back the more secular elements of the opposition, these would eventually end up fighting Islamist elements backed by Gulf states allied to the US, like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The Islamic Front is especially likely to receive such Gulf support given that Saudi Arabia perceives the P5+1 deal with Iran as a direct threat and a signal that the US is not committed to protecting Saudi Arabia's interests in the region. For instance, Zahran Alloush, the leader of the Islamic Front's Jaish al-Islam faction, is the son of a Saudi-based sheikh and is a particular conduit for Saudi backing to rebels. The Gulf states also see the Islamic Front, rather than the FSA, as the main bulwark against the influence of the transnational jihadist al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
All this is likely to strengthen the capabilities of the Islamic Front against the residual elements of the opposition that back a secular state, heightening the likelihood they would try to take control of territory from the latter. There is also a high probability that Turkey will conclude that the Islamic Front is in the ascendancy rather than the FSA and re-open borders to allow supplies to this coalition rather than to the FSA. Spokespersons for factions within the Islamic Front have previously visited Istanbul and are likely to have channels of communication with the Turkish government.
Worsening prospects for Geneva II summit
The Islamic Front gains also significantly reduce the likelihood of any positive results emerging from the Geneva II summit due on 22 January 2014, if it takes place at all. Already, rebels in exile that had agreed to participate in Geneva II were doing so from a position of weakness, following losses around Damascus and in the south of Syria. Their ability to offer any concessions that could be implemented on the ground is now even more in doubt, given the serious weakening of the SMC command inside Syria. Meanwhile, US attempts to persuade the Islamic Front to participate in the summit are very unlikely to succeed, given that the group insists on the precondition of the full removal of the Assad administration, security, and military apparatus, and would not be content with simply Assad's removal.
Outlook and implications
The weakening of the more secular elements of the Syrian opposition, and the emergence of the Islamic Front as the main alternative to ISIL, reduces US options inside Syria. In the context of ongoing negotiations with Iran, the US is increasingly likely to see the retention of a Baathist administration in Syria, if not Bashar al-Assad himself, as the least undesirable option in Syria. IHS assesses that the appetite of the Obama administration for decisive involvement in the Middle East region is in any case low. It appears increasingly likely that the US will seek to contain the situation in Syria not by assisting rebels but by coming to terms with Iran over its nuclear programme, on the condition that Iran reins in the Syrian Baathist administration to reduce atrocities and contain the jihadist threat emanating from Syria.