Let's start from the battlefield. The Syrian army is at 4 km from the Tabqa air base, on the same positions as a few weeks ago. On this heading, based on local sources, we hypothesized that after the lightning advance of early June, the approach to the "capital" of the Islamic State Raqqa would have slowed down (v. article).
The rapidity of conquest of the desert territory east of Hama has created very long supply and communication lines, with the risk of exposure to ISIS counterattacks.
After the initiatives of the Caliphate militias in the last week of June, for now the front has stalled.
On the political front there is instead a certain fibrillation. After the agreements for the February ceasefire, unofficial contacts between Moscow and Washington had focused on two central points:
- keep it status quo political determined by the victories on the field of the Syrians and their allies (basically accepting Assad);
- allowing Americans a face-saving victory that would make the Syrian campaign less catastrophic.
The development of the two points was in turn based on some axioms:
- less Russian help to the Syrians, so as to slow down their reconquest of the country;
- massive US support for Syrian Kurds, to allow victories on the field against ISIS to be weighed down in Syria's future.
In these pages for months we have been highlighting the increasing friction between Damascus and north-eastern Kurds, once allies, now openly hostile (v. article). To give an example, local sources confirm that the militiamen of theSDF every time they tear a village away from the Caliphate, they devote themselves more to the cancellation of the surviving government symbols than to the reclamation of the territory by the Islamists, giving life to a real race with Damascus for the final victory.
The squeeze between the US and Russia would have allowed a good one exit strategy to all, generating however bad mood in the Assad government, forced to swallow a possible federal project resulting from a geopolitical calculation between superpowers (v. article).
The basis of the agreement between the Russians and the Americans was the downsizing of the Islamist militants outside the Islamic State. In particular, Russia demanded the cancellation of Al Nusra as a condition for allowing the Americans to "return" and participate on the ground (through the support of the Kurds) in the defeat of the Caliphate. Putin's announcement to withdraw the bulk of the air force from Syria in March was right in this scenario.
The behind-the-scenes deal, however, was blown when Moscow realized that aid to terrorists not only did not cease from the spring onwards, but even increased, as always across the Turkish border. Just Al Nusra it was the group that would have benefited the most.
With good satisfaction from Damascus, the Russian raids are then resumed with vigor on all fronts (doubled since June), intensifying the polarization of the past: on the one hand the Syrian government and its allies; on the other hand, more or less fundamentalist rebel groups fighting them. Absurdly, in all this ISIS becomes just the piece of a bigger game.
What will happen now?
The Syrian Kurds, located mainly in the two major Qamishli and Hasakah centers, are only instrumental to the slice of glory that the US is forced to carve out before the end of the Obama presidency. However, their future seems to be strangled by Turkey's intransigence. In this regard, it had already been hypothesized that Turks and Syrians would once again discuss the common Kurdish problem ...
Regarding the clash between rebel groups and Syrian Armed Forces, everything will still be concentrated around Aleppo. Local sources of Online Defense they assure that pressure from Iran and Hezbollah to contain the Sunni jihad in northern Syria is becoming stronger every day. Damascus must necessarily take this into account if it wants to end a devastating war that has been going on for almost six years.
While waiting for the Raqqa front to move, the next novelties will arrive with all certainty from Aleppo. It is no coincidence that the Russian raids on metropolitan areas controlled by are underway at this time Jaish al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham e Al Nusra.
(photo: AMN)
