Saturday Politics : The Apocalyptic Horror that Is Syria and Aleppo

Saturday Politics is sometimes about the worst possible human behavior. • • • THE FALL OF ALEPPO. Thousands of people were evacuated on Thursday from the last rebel bastion in Aleppo, the first to leave under a ceasefire deal that could end years of fighting for the city and mark a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Reuters reported early on Friday that a first convoy of ambulances and buses with nearly 1,000 people aboard drove out of the devastated rebel-held area of Aleppo, which was besieged and bombarded for months by Syrian government forces. Syrian state television reported later that two further convoys of 15 buses each had also left east Aleppo. The second had reached the rebel-held area of al-Rashideen, an insurgent said. The International Committee of the Red Cross said late on Thursday that some 3,000 civilians and more than 40 wounded people, including children, had already been evacuated. ICRC official Robert Mardini told Reuters there were no clear plans yet for how to ship out rebel fighters, who will be allowed under the ceasefire to leave for other areas outside government control. • While al-Assad forces were hoisting Syrian flage over the former rebel stronghold of East Aleppo, women cried out in celebration as the first buses passed through a government-held area, some waving the Syrian flag. Al-Assad said in a video statement called the taking of Aleppo - his biggest prize in almost six years of civil war - "an historic moment." Earlier, ambulances trying to evacuate people came under fire from fighters loyal to the Syrian government, who injured three people, a rescue service spokesman said. The UN humanitarian advosor for Syria said : "Thousands of people are in need of evacuation, but the first and most urgent thing is wounded, sick and children, including orphans." Left behind was a wasteland of frubble -- flattened buildings, concrete chunks and bullet-pocked walls, where tens of thousands had lived until the recent intense bombardment, staying in theri city even after medical and rescue services had collapsed. The once-flourishing economic center of Syria -- its renowned ancient sites pulverized during the war that has killed more than 300,000 people -- has been destroyed in the civil war that created the world's worst refugee crisis and that many experts say allowed for the rise of ISIS. The UN says about 50,000 people remain in rebel-held Aleppo, of whom about 10,000 would be evacuated to nearby Idlib province, controlled by by hardline Islamist groups not friendly to the "moderate" nationalist freedom fighters being evacuated, and already under attack by al-Assad and Russian forces. The rest would move to government-held city districts. • • • THEN, ANOTHER CEASEFIRE COLLAPSES. In the unending circle of fragile ceasefires and brutal fighting, even the 'final' Aleppo ceasefire could not hold. The evacuation of the last opposition-held areas of Aleppo was suspended later on Friday after pro-government militias demanded that wounded people should also be brought out of two shiite villages being besieged by sunni rebel fighters. This caused the second day of the evacuation of fighters and civilians out of Aleppo's rebel enclave to grind to a halt, while every side blamed everyone else -- Russia said the Syrian army had established control over all districts of eastern Aleppo although government troops were suppressing rebel fighters in isolated pockets where they continued to resist; rebel sources accused pro-government shiite militias of opening fire on buses carrying evacuees from east Aleppo as roadblocks went up and a bus convoy was forced to turn back; rebels in eastern Aleppo went on high alert after pro-government forces prevented civilians from leaving and deployed heavy weaponry on the road out of the area, according to a Syrian rebel commander in Aleppo; a Syrian official source said the evacuation was halted because rebels had sought to take out people they had abducted with them, and they had also tried to take weapons hidden in bags, and this was denied by Aleppo-based rebel groups; a media outlet run by the pro-government Hezbollah group said protesters had blocked the road from the city, demanding that wounded people from two villages in nearby Idlib province should also be evacuated, adding that rebels had bombarded the road to be used by buses to conduct the evacuation from the shiite villages; a Syrian rebel source said all the groups besieging the villages except for Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as Nusra Front, had agreed to let out injured people; and, both rebel and UN sources said that Iran, one of Syria's main allies, reportedly had demanded that the shiite villages be included in a ceasefire deal under which people are leaving Aleppo, adding that Iran had opposed the previous ceasefire deal negotiated by Turkish intelligence and the Russian military because evacuation of the two rebel-beseiged shiite villages was not included in it. An official from Ahrar al-Sham, another key rebel group, denied, however, that Fua and Kefraya were part of the deal, which was reached after Turkish mediation. • Yasser al-Youssef, a spokesman for the Noureddine al-Zinki rebel group, said : “Iran has prepared to invade our besieged areas and has defied Russia’s agreement." Al-Assad told Russia Today in an interview aired on Wednesday that western powers were seeking a ceasefire in Aleppo to stop the regime advance and save “the terrorists.” Civilians left in the opposition districts have been posting farewell messages on social media as the Iranian-backed militias and forces loyal to Assad rampaged through newly reclaimed neighbourhoods in what the UN described as a “meltdown of humanity.” The UN reported on Tuesday that the Iranian-backed militias, including the Iraqi Harakat al-Nujaba, had carried out at least 82 “extrajudicial killings,” including women and children who were living in opposition-controlled areas. There have also been reports of detentions and forced recruitment into the Syrian army in recent days as the al-Assad regime advanced through former rebel territory. Many predicted they would either die once the regime’s forces reached their homes, or would be detained and tortured if they gave themselves up to them. One doctor working in the remaining rebel area of Aleppo sent a voice message saying : “Save us, people. Save us, people, world, anyone who has even a bit of humanity. We beg you, we beg you, the dead and wounded are in the streets and people’s homes have collapsed on top of them. Save us. Save us.” “This is an urgent distress call,” said another doctor, who on Tuesday night had told the Guardian he was saddened to leave Aleppo but happy that civilians would survive, “Save the besieged districts of Aleppo. Since the early morning, the shelling has targeted all the besieged neighbourhoods with all types of weaponry. The dead are in the street, and so are the wounded, and there are no ambulances. Save Aleppo. An urgent distress call to every free person in the world.” A nurse whose father and brother were killed on the same day, pleaded for civilians to be spared : “A lot of shells and bombs are falling on us, no one can walk in the streets,” he said in a voice message. “Hundreds of shells and rockets. Please let us stay alive. Please pressure the regime to keep us safe. Please, from Aleppo, the last call.” • If anything can be taken at face value regarding Aleppo, Reuters reported that the World Health Organization said aid agencies involved in the evacuation had been told to leave the area without explanation after the operation was aborted. And, the usually-reliable Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitoring group, said a total of 8,000 people, including some 3,000 fighters and more than 300 wounded, had left the city in convoys of buses and ambulances since the evacuation began on Thursday morning and before the ceasefire broke down. By early Friday morning, Reuters reported that WHO said nearly 200 evacuated patients had arrived in eight "overwhelmed" hospitals in opposition-held rural western Aleppo, Idlib and Turkey. Idlib province is already a target for Syrian and Russian air strikes but it is unclear if the government will push for a ground assault or simply seek to contain rebels there for now. Turkey has said Aleppo evacuees could also be housed in a camp to be constructed near the Turkish border to the north. Two potential sites just inside Syria have been identified as space for a camp that could take up to 80,000 people, Turkish officials said, adding that they expect up to 35,000 people to arrive. Turkey also would continue to accept sick and wounded coming from Aleppo. • • • IRAN CLAIMS VICTORY IN ALEPPO. The Guardian reported on Wednesday 14 that Iranian leaders "have claimed a military victory in Aleppo, with the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s chief military aide boasting that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces would have been unable to retake the besieged city without support from Teheran." Seyed Yahya Rahim-Safavi asserted : “Aleppo was liberated thanks to a coalition between Iran, Syria, Russia and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Iran is on one side of this coalition which is approaching victory and this has shown our strength. The new American President should take heed of the powers of Iran.” Iran’s defense minister called his Syrian counterpart to congratulate him and Mohsen Rezaie, a former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, wrote threateningly on Instagram that Iran’s aim was to cleanse “terrorists and takfiris [a term used in Iran for sunni jihadists]” from Syria and Iraq. The Iranian parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, also congratulated al-Assad’s government, saying that US and British policies had hit a dead end in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. Shiite militias have also played a decisive role in Syria and Aleppo. Created by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the militias have been more effective than al-Assad's units. Their numbers have grown around East Aleppo since early last year to an estimated force of 6,000-8,000 troops, many of them battle-hardened in Iraq or southern Lebanon. The militias report to the Iranian Major General Qassem Suleimani, whose task for the last decade -- given to him by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei -- has been to export the values of the Islamic Revolution into the Arab world. Suleimani’s Quds Force is one of the Guards’ most elite units. They are ideological cadres who believe in shiite supremacy. Under Suleimani’s control are several Iraqi units -- Asa’ib ahl al-Haq, Abu al-Fadhil al-Abbas, and the Nujaba Front affiliated with the Keta’ib Hezbollah militia -- are all power players in Iraq’s political-military sphere. Lebanese Hezbollah plays the same role in Beirut and southern Lebanon, where it is interwoven into the political and security apparatus. Hezbollah was the first Iranian proxy to join the fight alongside al-Assad, and it has paid a heavy price. Party loyalists in Beirut say at least 1,600 of its fighters had been killed in Syria before the conquest of east Aleppo. Most Iranian casualties have been Afghan refugees, recruited on the promise that their families would gain the right to reside in Iran. But, an Iranian official said recently that as many as 1,000 Iranians had died in Syria since the conflict began. Iran has framed its war effort in sectarian terms, insisting the men it has sent to fight are in Syria to defend the shrine from sunni extremists. In addresses inside Syria, Akram al-Ka’abi, the leader of the Nujaba Front, has exhorted his followers to seek revenge for battlefield losses to sunni figures in the founding years of Islam almost 1,500 uears ago. On Tuesday, President Hassan Rouhani, meeting with the prominent Iraqi cleric Ammar al-Hakim, in Teheran, said his government would spare no efforts in supporting “the oppressed nations of the region, including Iraq and Syria.” Departing from his cautious stance on Syria, Rouhani telephoned al-Assad on Wednesday to “congratulate” him on the “liberation of Aleppo,” Fars news reported. “We see it as our duty to support those trying to force takfiri terrorism out of their territory,” he told his Syrian counterpart. • Nevertheless, the Iranian comments this week underline the key role played by Iranian-backed shiite militias in toppling Aleppo. They took over after the Russian air bombardments had paved the way to breaking the rebels. Shiite militias have played a decisive role in Syria and Aleppo. Created by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the militias have been more effective than al-Assad's units. Their numbers have grown around east Aleppo since early last year to an estimated force of 6,000-8,000 troops, many of them battle-hardened in Iraq or southern Lebanon. The militias report to the Iranian Major General Qassem Suleimani, whose task for the last decade -- given to him by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei -- has been to export the values of the Islamic Revolution into the Arab world. Suleimani’s Quds Force is one of the Guards’ most elite units. They are ideological cadres who believe in shiite supremacy. Under Suleimani’s control are several Iraqi units -- Asa’ib ahl al-Haq, Abu al-Fadhil al-Abbas, and the Nujaba Front affiliated with the Keta’ib Hezbollah militia -- are all power players in Iraq’s political-military sphere. Lebanese Hezbollah plays the same role in Beirut and southern Lebanon, where it is interwoven into the political and security apparatus. Hezbollah was the first Iranian proxy to join the fight alongside al-Assad, and it has paid a heavy price. Party loyalists in Beirut say at least 1,600 of its fighters had been killed in Syria before the conquest of east Aleppo. Most Iranian casualties have been Afghan refugees, recruited on the promise that their families would gain the right to reside in Iran. But, an Iranian official said recently that as many as 1,000 Iranians had died in Syria since the conflict began. • Analysts say that Iran and the al-Assad Syrian government do not want to compromise on the battlefield or at the negotiating table, believing that total domination will better position them to shape the aftermath. Russia, on the other hand, sees a benefit in transitioning from bludgeoning superpower to peace-broker. This clash is reportedly the first serious divergence between Teheran and Moscow, whose interventions have saved al-Assad but greatly reduced Syria’s sovereignty. The EU, marginalized in the Syria crisis being resolved by Russia, Iran and Turkey, will undoubtedly push back against Russia and Iran, making it clear that it will not supply cash for Syrian economic reconstruction unless there is a negotiated political settlement, not a military resolution imposed by Iran or the Syrian government. In a letter to EU leaders, Dr. Riyad Hijib, the co-ordinator of the Syrian High Negotiating Committee (HNC), has called for “targeted unilateral sanctions against Russian and Iranian entities and individuals directly enabling war crimes in Syria through the supply of material assistance.” The HNC also called for an urgent review of economic ties with Iran, including commercial airlines used by Iran to send weapons and fighters to Syria. But, it is unlikely EU states will be ready to re-impose sanctions on Iran so soon after lifting them as part of the Obama nuclear deal with Iran. • • • THE RUSSIAN CARD. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syria's most powerful ally, said he was working with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to try to start a new round of Syrian peace talks aimed at securing a nationwide ceasefire. Speaking while in Japan, Putin said the new talks could be held in Kazakhstan and would complement UN-brokered negotiations that have been taking place intermittently in Geneva. Putin said : "The next step is to reach an agreement on a total ceasefire across the whole of Syria." In addition, Putin and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a joint statement on Wednesday night urging an end to the ceasefire violations and “reaffirmed their commitment to start the evacuation of civilians and the opposition through safe corridors as soon as possible.” A senior Syrian opposition leader, Riyad Hijab, said he was willing to attend the talks if the aim was to set up a transition government. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has ruled out stepping down as part of a political solution to the war. • The United States stood by and watched as the Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, mounted the assault that pinned down the rebels in an ever-shrinking pocket of territory, culminating in a ceasefire this week. US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday that the Syrian government was carrying out "nothing short of a massacre" in Aleppo. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the UN Security Council would meet on Friday to discuss a quick deployment of UN observers to East Aleppo to ensure there were no atrocities and that humanitarian aid reached the city. The Syrian White Helmets civil defense group and other human rights organizations have accused Russia of committing or being complicit in war crimes in Syria, saying Russian air strikes in the Aleppo region had killed 1,207 civilians, including 380 children. But, rebel officials and a source with knowledge of the negotiations indicate that the original deal was undermined by Iranian intransigence and the actions of its proxies on the ground, some of whom have been accused of carrying out execution-style shootings of civilians, had violated the ceasefire. • • • THE FUTURE FOR SYRIA. The basic question is whether there is a future for Syria. Or will it follow Iraq and break up into warring sectarian factions, some aided by ISIS, some by Iran and Hezbollah, and most forgotten by the West, while Russia continues to strengthen its position with the al-Assad military. • Even with victory for al-Assad in Aleppo, the war will still be far from over. Insurgents retain their rural stronghold of Idlib province, and jihadist ISIS holds much of the east and recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra this week, apparently taking a store of weaponry -- potentially including a surface-to-air missile system -- since again wresting control of the Syrian city of Palmyra this weekend. Video footage appears to show equipment left behind by Syrian and Russian troops, though it is unclear when it was taken or how long the Russian base had been abandoned before ISIS’s arrival. Images show food bowls still on the table, and large stores of ammunition, small arms, heavy machine guns and damaged antiaircraft guns, all left behind. One video segment that shows ammunition crates and an antiaircraft gun that appears to be inside the Russian base. While US and international coalition forces are carrying out regular airstrikes in Syria, American aircraft have rarely carried out attacks near Palmyra. ISIS recovered air-to-air missiles when the group took the Tabqa air base in 2014, but appeared to fail to convert them into anything that could take down an aircraft. The group has also used shoulder-mounted surface-to-air-missiles, known as MANPADS, notably taking down an Iraqi helicopter in 2014 with a Chinese variant of the weapon. Other images posted Tuesday show that ISIS fighters have also closed to within visible range of the strategic Tiyas air base west of Palmyra. Known as the T4 air base, Tiyas in the past has been home to Russian helicopter gunships and Syrian Arab Air Force aircraft. The civil and sectarian war in Syria is far from over. • • • DEAR READERS, The New Yorker writer Robin Wright says : “Much of the famed city, the largest in Syria, has already been destroyed. The Old City has been gutted. The destruction has been compared to that at Stalingrad and in the Warsaw Ghetto. The savagery has become primordial." • The deepening tensions between the US and Russia were reflected in a virulent exchange at the UN Security Council : Ambassador Samantha Power righteously turned Assad, Russia, and Iran : "Your forces and proxies are carrying out these crimes. Your barrel bombs and mortars and air strikes have allowed the militia in Aleppo to encircle tens of thousands of civilians in your ever-tightening noose. It is your noose. It should shame you. Instead, by all appearances, it is emboldening you. You are plotting your next assault. Are you truly incapable of shame?" The Russian envoy replied that it was "very strange" for Power to speak "as if she was Mother Teresa." • The surprising Putin-Erdogan move to hold Syria negotiations without the US or the UN emphasizes the growing strength of Russia's rapprochement with Turkey, which it denounced last year over the shooting down of a Russian plane. It surely is a reflection of Russia's desire to cement its renewed influence in the Middle East and more widely. It also shows how fed up Russia is with what it sees as long and pointless talks with the Obama administration over Syria. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier this week called those talks "fruitless sitting around" and said Ankara might prove a more effective partner on Syria. Turkey wants to boost its global sway, too, and is also frustrated by US policy in Syria, particularly Washington's support for Kurdish militia fighters whom it sees as a hostile force, and by what it sees as Barack Obama's failure to give enough support to the rebels. Putin said : "It won’t compete with the Geneva talks, but will complement them. Wherever the conflicting sides meet, in my view it is the right thing to do to try to find a political solution. But, the initiative is unlikely to go down well with UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura. He told reporters in Paris on Thursday that it was time for all sides to return to the table, saying the UN would have to broker any talks for them to have legitimacy. • Perhaps Russia hopes it can co-operate on Syria with the United States and join forces with Washington against ISIS once President-Elect Donald Trump takes office. But, Trump will not be inaugurated until January 20, leaving a power vacuum until then. It may be that Russia,one of al-Assad's closest allies, has more confidence in the US than in Turkey, a NATO member that wants him removed. However, Turkey's main priority is one that Russia can agree with -- to ensure that Kurdish militias are unable to gain further territory in Syria along its borders. • When US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power asked "Are you incapable of shame?" as she criticized Syria, Iran and Russia over Aleppo. Ambassador Power might more pointedly have directed her remark to her own boss, President Obama, whose continuing refusal to recognize or help the moderate Syrian rebels, his refusal to pragmatically engage either Putin or Erdogan, and his nuclear deal that freed Iran to openly take a lead in the terrorism that is sweeping over Iraq and Syria -- all go a long way to explaining the horror that is Aleppo and Syria today. • Slaughter. Evil. Depravity. Brutality. Bestiality. All these words and more come to mind to describe what has happened in Aleppo. The worst of it is that I don't even know where to direct my fury and disgust. Who is responsible? Al-Assad, Putin, Khamenei, ISIS, Obama? All of them. This "Apocalypse Now" belongs to the world.