The whole Syria conflict is confusing as shit because there are way too many foreign proxies operating. The groups themselves are more or less the same as they were 5-10 years ago when the conflict was mostly frozen, but everyone's changing sides now.
Background to the current conflict - israel and Lebanon apparently signed a very contentious 'ceasefire', and immediately after it went into effect, HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, effectively Al-Nusra/Al-Qaeda on its 100th rebrand) broke the 2018 truce with the Syrian government which effectively confined them to Idlib and began attacking Aleppo.
israel and Lebanonisrael invaded South Lebanon at the beginning of October in an attempt to stop Hezbullah from shutting down north and central israel with constant rocket fire. The long-range weapons they were using were typically inaccurate and not especially lethal, but they forced the evacuation of the entire northern region, then expanded in scope to shut down Haifa, and even began striking various targets in Tel Aviv, which, for the most part weren't causing casualties but completely shutting down industry and civilian life by forcing people into bunkers several times a day - even if we assume that the majority of strikes were either shot down or didn't strike vital targets (as israel claims).
Similar to the 2006 war, israel was never able to progress more than a kilometer or two past the border. After three months, around 60 soldiers killed and 1000 seriously injured (admitted - casualty ratios are usually around 1:4 killed to wounded so numbers are likely significantly higher) as well as the loss of 50+ tanks, a very strange 'ceasefire' went into effect. US and French representatives spent around a week in Beirut supposedly negotiating a truce with the Lebanese government on behalf of israel. On the 27/11, israel, the US and France declared that a ceasefire had been reached, and both sides suspended military operations. Strangely enough, to this day (03/12) no official statement has been made by the Lebanese government or Hezbullah, but they appear to have suspended operations altogether. Western media consistently reports on the US/israeli side but has had nothing at all to say regarding Lebanon or the actual text of the ceasefire agreement aside from vague statements about the Lebanese army replacing Hezbullah in South Lebanon and israel 'reserving the right to respond'.
The full text of the ceasefire agreement has supposedly been leaked, but I have no way to know whether it's legitimate as neither side has commented on it to the best of my knowledge. If it's real, it's a terrible agreement for Lebanon:
- As per UN Res 1701, Hezbullah is to move all of their personnel and hardware north of the Litani, where most of their arsenal is outside the range of israel proper. The (much weaker, barely operational) Lebanese army is to replace them in the South.
- israel is not to attack Lebanese state forces, infrastructure or civilians,
but may still attack non-state groups such as Hezbullah (or ostensibly Amal, or the Christian militias). - All Hezbullah infrastructure in the South is to be dismantled.
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A US-French 'peacekeeping force' dubbed the 'mechanism' is to be formed and deployed in the Southern territories alongside UNIFIL to ensure that Hezbullah is fully removed.The fact that Hezbullah and the Lebanese side appears to be adhering to the one-sided requirements (even though France clocked 51 israeli violations in the first day alone) without openly agreeing to them indicates that the israeli side likely has some sort of leverage over them.
SyriaImmediately after the agreement went into effect, HTS began attacking the Syrian goverment forces, most directly in and around Aleppo. As a small primer, the main factions operating in Syria are as follows:
- The Syrian Arab Army under the control of the state, and by extension the heavily demonised President Bashir Al-Assad.
- Various Arab militias, such as Iraqi PMUs, militias organised by the Iranian IRGC, and relatively small numbers of Hezbullah fighters.
- The 'SDF', or Syrian Defence Force, which is the main US proxy in the country, comprised primarily of the Kurdish YPG/PKK (Kurdish separatists from Turkey and Iraq. The YPG is effectively a rebrand of the PKK, which is a proscribed terrorist organisation in Turkey).
- Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham, which is effectively a rebrand of the Al-Nusra Front and primarily comprised of foreign fighters from North Africa, Europe, Turkey and Chinese Uighyrs. It has historically been a Turkish funded and controlled group with some degree of influence from the Gulf States, but as they were effectively granted sanctuary and control over Idlib for the last five years, they've absorbed many of the smaller groups and large numbers of members from competitors such as ISIS/DAESH.
- ISIS/DAESH, the premier 'scary black flag' group from the previous war was also the most brutalised. As a result much of their membership bled into HTS even though they technically feud with each other, mostly on ideological grounds. ISIS has typically been a cutout for the Gulf States, primarily Saudi Arabia, and have drawn their membership from 'extreme' Wahabbi mosques that KSA has set up around the world.
- 'New Syrian Army' or 'Free Syrian Army', a much smaller group of fighters similar in composition to the other two but originally created and led by SAA defectors. Effectively a US proxy.
It is always worth noting that generally speaking, none of the anti-government groups are 'Syrian' in that over 80% of them are foreign fighters and mercenaries.
HTS has been the primary workhorse in the new attacks against government forces, and Erdogan has specifically denied that he had anything to do with planning this latest attack. This is a strange claim to make given that HTS has historically been primarily supported by Turkey, that captured HTS fighters have broadly spoken of being trained inside Turkey, and that a large chunk of their more capable combat units have been comprised primarily of Turkish nationalists such as the Grey Wolves and pro-Turkish Chinese Uighyrs. It also does not make sense for Turkey to support open military action against Russian forces given their tenuous balancing act between Russia and NATO, but Erdogan is a dangerous retard with no concept of the future so who knows.
israel and the US' fingerprints are definitely all over this operation, and it appears to have been planned far in advance given the equipment they've been using and the amount of training required, as well as the PR and media tricks they've been using to exaggerate their advance and successes. On a relatively small scale,
SAA radios exploded in the same manner as the Lebanese pager/radio attacks in late September.
It's being downplayed, but both Turkish and Ukrainian sources admit that Ukrainian intelligence officials have helped train HTS on the use of FPV drones in tactical combat, and may have supplied or secured drones and parts for them. There are hints that HTS have been given drone/surveillance data on SAA deployments and positions, but there is no hard data on this.
In regards to the other groups, ISIS has been very quiet, but an interesting development has been that significant numbers of Kurdish YPG fighters have rushed to reinforce the SAA. This is almost certainly not on behalf of the US, but them independently coming to the realisation that Assad is not going anywhere and it's better to fight with the State than with the pro-Turkish 'rebels' who intend to wipe them out in order to secure a future inside Syria.
WHAT MEANS!!!The whole situation is extremely confusing because there are obviously major things happening that we aren't privy to. First the israel-Lebanon ceasefire - when it was first signed I argued with many 'resistance' supporters who saw it as a victory for Lebanon on par with israel 'declaring victory and leaving' in the 2006 war. It is incredibly strange that there was zero public response from one side in a ceasefire agreement, and even stranger still that israel repeatedly violates the terms without any response. It appears as though the ceasefire was imposed on the Lebanese government with no real input from Hezbullah, and the primary negotiator on the Lebanese side was ostensibly Nabih Berri, a man with deep ties to Hezbullah - it appears to me that israel holds something over not just the Lebanese government (ie. if you don't accept this we'll just bomb more apartment blocks and towns - see the
Dahiyeh Doctrine) but Hezbullah itself, but we have no way of knowing what that might be.
As for opening a front in Syria, we don't know what israel/the US' greater goals are there either. Western analysts variously believe that israel is either trying to split Hezbullah's forces (encouraging them to deploy to Syria in order to weaken them for further attacks in Lebanon) or mean to sever weapons and supplies to Hezbullah (Syria is the primary transit country for weapons and aid from Iran to Lebanon), but neither is practical - Hezbullah is only sending small numbers of regional forces to Syria, and HTS has no hope of completely toppling the Syrian government with Syria and Russia having total air superiority (HTS has a supposed strength of 40,000 and over 1,000 were killed in the first days of their attack. Assuming 4,000 were seriously injured, 10% attrition in 2-3 days is not sustainable).
The assumption here is that israel is attempting to play for time, but to what end? They could be trying to create chaos in the wake of Trump's inauguration, but even in that case, what could he offer to change the dynamic of the war? He's already stated there will be no restrictions on the weapons the US will provide to israel, but it's not like there were any real restrictions in place to begin with.
Are we looking at guaranteed, direct US involvement?
