The evolution of the Syrian crisis passes from the northern front. Three key areas:
1) the area around Aleppo, where the bulk of the loyalist mobilization for the reconquest of the city is concentrated;
2) the region northeast of Latakia, straddling the Governorate of Idlib, where the reconquest of Damascus forces comes to terms with mountainous terrain and constant support that the terrorists of Al Nusra they receive from the rear beyond the Turkish border;
3) the area north-east of the country, a sort of Syrian spur that creeps between Iraq and Turkey.
This last sector from the political point of view is at the center of the debate of the last weeks. The development in Syria of the Islamic State starting from the 2014 ended up creating two fronts, a summary fusion of two major priorities: all those who are at the side of Damascus; all those who for one reason or another support the fundamentalist insurgency.
In the very complicated Syrian scenario they thus found themselves fighting side-by-side even little similar realities, not only for extraction, ideology or belonging but also for final objectives.
On the Islamist front the question is relative. The most obvious disagreements have materialized in the last month between so-called moderate rebels and ISIS militias in the southern front of Syria, in the districts around Daara and in the area east of Aleppo. However, the clashes only had the effect of facilitating the operations of the Syrian Armed Forces and their allies, without however providing an organic political framework. 
On the loyalist side, on the other hand, the issue is more delicate under a political logic.
In the north-east of the country, the Kurds of the YPG supported the major effort in the war against the Islamist militias for years. So far the Syrian army and Kurdish militias have been considered allies, with even joint checkpoints in many districts. For about a year, the counter-offensive against ISIS in the Hasakah area has often been conducted jointly by the respective commands.
In recent weeks, however, relations between Damascus and the Democratic Union Party (the largest political representative of the Syrian Kurds) have deteriorated. To the point that the news from the north-east front reports heavy clashes between the Quwat ad-Difāʿ al-Watanī ((the National Defense Forces, government paramilitary troops acting on a territorial basis) and YPG militias. The clash area would be Qamishili, controlled by the government but within a region completely in Kurdish control.
The reading of the new friction must be made in the light of the rivalry between Arabs and Kurds, never hidden even in time of peace, but above all it is the signal of a new phase of the war in Syria, as has been said on the road to final accounts. In March the north-eastern Kurds declared the birth of the autonomous federal region (il Rojava). The news, passed to the chronicles without particular attention, has aroused a decisive reaction both of Damascus, contrary to a federal system for Syria of the future, both of Turkey, terrorized by the Axis between Syrian Kurds and PKK. Now the altars are discovered: with the prospect of the end of the war, the parties in the field are quick to shed light on their priority objectives. It is clear that the Kurds, rather than the survival of a strong government in Damascus, give precedence to the much-needed autonomy.
How the military situation will evolve is not easy to understand now. Certainly it is an important distraction from the siege to the south to the territory under the control of the Islamic State, within which Deir ez-Zur remains under siege for years.
And precisely in the direction of the entrenched city, the Syrian Armed Forces continue to march after the victory of Palmyra. The advance, slowed down only by the minefields scattered by the Caliphate militiamen, now concentrates around the Arak oil area where the assault units would have been repositioned Tigre.
Also from Deir Ezzor comes the news that 104 unita Parachute Brigade of the Republican Guard, commanded by General Issam Zahreddine, would have shot down a reconnaissance drone belonging to ISIS. The use of drones by the Islamic State would not be new. The question of who the suppliers are is not new either. In the Syrian drama there is still room for ridicule.
(photo: SAA)
