Tornado Alley (PROG)

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In Syria, US sides with local jihadists to defeat global ones


Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Saud al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud
listens as US Secretary of State John Kerry makes a statement in Riyadh,
Jan. 5, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Brendan Smialowski)

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is the victim of a US-Saudi decision to get rid of the ISIS burden and rehabilitate the Islamic Front as a final substitute for the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Summary

The attack on the Islamic State of Iraq .. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/11/isis-al-qaeda-iraq-syria-weak-state.html .. and al-Sham (ISIS) by the Islamic Front and the Syrian Revolutionaries Front seems to be part of a US-Saudi plan to replace the Free Syrian Army (FSA) with a more effective force that does not threaten US regional interests.

Author Mohammad Ballout Posted January 7, 2014
Translator(s)Rani Geha

In the last few hours, ISIS lost control of more areas in northern Syria. For the third day in a row, the military operations against ISIS are being conducted by an alliance that includes the Islamic Front and the Syrian Revolutionaries Front (SRF), which are respectively led by Saudi Arabia’s two men in Syria: Zahran Alloush and Jamal Maarouf.

ISIS fighters retreated in front of a coordinated attack by the Islamic Front on ISIS sites in the strategic towns of Atma and Dana in Idlib. ISIS abandoned its positions in Sarmada near the Turkish border. Islamic Front fighters ejected ISIS from the vital Bab al-Hawa border crossing, through which convoys of foreign fighters and weapons supplies from the West and Saudi Arabia pass. ISIS also gave up its positions around the crossing.

The Americans seem to have succeeded in igniting a major front among the jihadists in Syria. The Americans chose to stand by those advocating “jihad only in Syria” and against the regional and global jihadist trend represented by ISIS.

The offensives by the Islamic Front and SRF on ISIS positions in northern Syria coincided with the counteroffensive launched by the Iraqi army and rebel tribes in Iraq against ISIS and with US support, which is clearer in Iraq than in Syria. US Secretary of State John Kerry said in Jerusalem, before going to Riyadh where he met Saudi King Abdullah [bin Abdulaziz Al Saud] and Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, that “this battle is too big for Iraq to be left alone. The fighting in Syria is part of what’s causing instability in the region. This is the battle in the end. They have to achieve victory in it.”

In a joint news conference with Faisal, Kerry said .. http://geneva.usmission.gov/2014/01/06/remarks-by-secretary-kerry-and-saudi-foreign-minister-in-riyadh-after-meeting-with-saudi-king-abdullah/ , “[During the meeting], we discussed Syria, the Geneva II meeting. We discussed Iran and our common interests in seeing Lebanon be able to be stable and unimpeded by the interference of Hezbollah …”

Kerry will be meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Jan. 13 in Paris. Kerry said that Iran could perform a “role” in the Geneva II conference but only from the sidelines. He insisted that Iran will not be a full participant in the international conference, which will open in Montreux, Switzerland, on Jan. 22.

The statement by the US Embassy in Baghdad last week was interesting. For the first time, the US State Department called on the countries neighboring Iraq and Syria to not allow the passage of weapons and fighters through their territory.

The US-Saudi plan aimed at replacing the FSA with the Islamic Front started a few weeks ago with attempts by US Ambassador Robert Ford in Antakya, through meetings with Ahrar al-Sham, Suqour al-Sham and Liwa’ al-Tawhid Brigades, and the most prominent leaders of the Islamic Front, to persuade them to return to the FSA General Staff, whose headquarters and weapons stores near Bab al-Hawa they seized, and to join the political process in Geneva.

Saudi intelligence oversaw a meeting in Mecca last December attended by Salafist preachers Mohammad al-Arifi, Saad al-Barik, Saad al-Muhaimad and Nasser al-Omar. Those four are known to have supported Sahwa’s fight .. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/iraq-sahwa-splits.html .. against al-Qaeda in Iraq. No anti-ISIS religious edicts were issued in the Mecca meeting. But, according to experts on Syrian jihadism, the group worked to create the atmosphere to fight ISIS.

The Syrian National Coalition, which re-elected Ahmed Jarba as its president for six months, provided significant political support for the ongoing military operation and accused ISIS of being an ally and a product of the Syrian regime.

If the military operation by the Islamic Front succeeds, the Americans would have been able to weaken the global jihadist wing in Syria before the Geneva II conference and portray those fighting the global jihadists as a party that is acceptable in the political process.

The Americans would also be able to continue exhausting Damascus and its allies through a force that is better organized than the FSA and with a more ideologically homogeneous discourse, whose “jihadism” doesn’t threaten US regional interests and is limited to the US need to strike Syria.

Despite that, it is not certain that the jihadist-Salafist allies, represented by the Islamic Front and SRF, would be able to quickly defeat ISIS, first and foremost for military reasons.

Despite ISIS losing important regions in north Syria. It still controls the main supply routes in Syria’s east, from Raqqa and Deir al-Zour, to Anbar in Iraq, where ISIS has significant posts and an army of foreign and Arabs fighters coming from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and North Africa.

[ Islamic Militants Extend Battle Into Another Iraqi Province
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/world/middleeast/islamic-militants-extend-battle-into-another-iraqi-province.html?_r=0 ]

The outcome of the battle in Anbar will determine the outcome of the battles in north Syria, and vice versa. Militarily, ISIS is building a strategy that tries to avoid confrontations in the areas where ISIS cannot fight. ISIS withdrew from its besieged positions around Aleppo and handed them to Jabhat al-Nusra .. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/2013/11/isis-jabhat-nusra-rift-syria-jordan-1.html . Instead of a direct confrontation, ISIS sent six car bombs yesterday [Jan. 5], killing dozens of people in Haritan and the Aleppo countryside.

ISIS launched a war of ambushes in the town of Magharat al-Artiq, killing four enemy fighters and 10 others near Tal Rifaat. ISIS also executed five fighters in Haram and assassinated Ammar Laila, a main leaders of Liwa’ al-Tawhid in the northern Aleppo countryside, in response to Tawhid killing Assem al-Masri (Abu Hafs), one of the most important ISIS military leaders. ISIS regrouped its fighters in Aleppo and can still send fighters and reinforcements, and conduct operations in the region.

More importantly, ISIS is threatening to bring down the temple on everyone’s head. The situation in Aleppo and its countryside may turn in the interest of the Syrian army if the Islamic Front maintains its attack. ISIS has threatened to withdraw from its fronts in Aleppo in al-Sheikh Saeed, Afrin, Magharat al-Artiq, Nabbal, al-Zahra and Khan Toman.

There are other reasons preventing a direct defeat of ISIS. They are related to the complexities of “jihad” in Syria. The presence of more than 10,000 Arabs and foreign “immigrant” jihadists in both the Islamic Front in ISIS is preventing the fight between them to go all the way to the end.

The factions inside the Islamic Front are unable to agree on decisiveness against ISIS because the leader of Ahrar al-Sham Abu Abdullah al-Hamwi decreed the killing of anyone who assaults any “immigrant” woman, after the Syria Martyrs Brigade captured the families and women of ISIS “immigrants” fighters and killed the emir of Jund al-Aqsa Abu Abdul Aziz al-Qatari.

The harsh rhetoric against targeting the “immigrants” is due to their central role in giving the Syrian “jihad” their best leaders and fighters. Ahrar al-Sham and the Islamic Front arrested fighters for Suqour al-Izz, which especially attracts Saudi “immigrant” fighters and is led by the Saudi man named Saqr al-Izz. The latter is famous for his hard line in the battles in the Latakia countryside and in his role in massacring Alawite villages.

ISIS has accused its attackers of seeking to kill the “immigrants.” The Islamic Front responded, “We are fighting those who attacked us and to defend the factions from both supporters and immigrants.”

The fighting between the “jihadists” and the clear Americans support to the National Coalition and the Islamic Front raises the question about America’s position regarding Jabhat al-Nusra and its avoidance so far in the ongoing fighting, noting that Jabhat al-Nusra, not ISIS, is the official al-Qaeda representative, through its leader Ayman al-Zawahri, of the global “jihad” in Syria.

So far, Jabhat al-Nusra is “dissociating” itself from the conflict going on between the “jihadist” brothers. The group of Abu Mohammed al-Golani (Jabhat al-Nusra's leader) is mediating between the warring parties. He was handed ISIS’s headquarters and weapons, which strengthens Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, but only if the fighting stops because Golani and Jabhat al-Nusra's Shura Council cannot stay on the fence for very long. Otherwise, Jabhat al-Nusra may split between ISIS and the Islamic Front.

The rift appeared in the implicit call by Jabhat al-Nusra Islamic jurists, such as Sultan bin Isa al-Atawi and Abu Hassan al-Kuwaiti, to support the attack against ISIS, because “whoever lit the fire should be the one to put it out.” In contrast, an ISIS emir named Abu Sami al-Waili said that he has received messages from a senior official informing him that Jabhat al-Nusra stands with ISIS because the latter has been attacked.

The question raised by those partial to ISIS is being echoed inside Jabhat al-Nusra. They think that their role will come as soon as ISIS is defeated.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/2014/01/us-fight-jihadists-syria-isis-islamic-front.html#

~~~~~

.. meat in the sandwich .. GR's

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ISIS is the one referenced
~~~~

Saudi Arabia's ideological battle with terrorism


Saudi Interior Minister Muhammad bin Nayef (R) speaks to his Iraqi counterpart Adnan al-Asadi
during the conference of Arab interior ministers in Riyadh, March 13, 2013. (photo by REUTERS)

It's perhaps unusual for an interior minister to be in charge of foreign policy, travel to world capitals and negotiate transfers of arms to rebels in regional conflicts. But conventions often do not apply in the Arab world and certainly not in Saudi Arabia, where princes perform multiple and diverse tasks. Reports are circulating in the media that Minister of Interior Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, known for his counterterror efforts .. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/02/saudi-anti-terror-law.html , will replace his nephew Prince Bandar bin Sultan as the man in charge of the Syrian file .. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/02/burns-obama-saudi-syria-egypt.html . Saudi sources remain unsurprisingly silent on the speculations. The prince’s task allegedly revolves around defeating President Bashar al-Assad by arming moderate Syrian rebels and fighting al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Syria. Such a specific agenda is reportedly meant to reinvigorate Saudi efforts to remain relevant in Syria, where bin Sultan's strategies have failed miserably over the last three years. Can bin Nayef achieve this rather difficult objective that would allow him to go beyond his narrow expertise as the security man who defeated al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and eventually emerge as the future monarch of Saudi Arabia?

Summary

Print Saudi Interior Minister Muhammad bin Nayef faces a local, regional
and international battle to defeat al-Qaeda and related groups.

Author Madawi Al-Rasheed Posted February 20, 2014

One outcome of the war on terror was the making of "big men" who were granted extensive powers and unlimited budgets to fight the menace of terrorism, uproot its fiercest practitioners, de-radicalize its sympathizers and emerge triumphant over not only terrorists but societies that are ruled with an iron fist. Bin Nayef’s career over the last decade seems to correspond to that of the counterterror "big man." Like the terror they fight, such "big men" seek to be global. To succeed, they need to reach out to an international constituency and a web of world leaders and intelligence services. Bin Nayef visited Washington several times over the last year or so — the last such visit was on Feb. 11 — seeking dialogue with US President Barack Obama and senior officials in the State Department and the CIA. A counterterror "big man" needs to convince Washington that he knows the terrorists and their hideouts and can turn their religiously saturated discourse on its head and catch them before they unleash their terror on peaceful civilians.

Bin Nayef must have convinced Washington that he knows the terrorists very well, so well in fact that they came too close for comfort. On one occasion, a terrorist was invited to meet him to discuss repentance and reunion with his wife. But treachery won out, and the terrorist turned up with hidden explosives that exploded and mildly injured the prince. The prince inaugurated a showpiece de-radicalization program, almost a five-star rehabilitation resort, where a number of religious scholars, psychologists and sociologists work as counselors re-educating terrorists in the art of tolerance and moderate religious interpretations. After graduating from the program, they are rewarded with a comfortable life, a stipend, a wife and a job. The project attracted international attention as a success story despite the fact that some graduates may relapse and return to their original convictions. Nevertheless, as the program's founder, bin Nayef emerged as the tamer of terrorists whose expertise is now sought by international counterterrorism agencies from Washington to Singapore.

One difficulty that hindered the program's success was the fact that Saudi Arabia was fighting a battle with its own ideology. The terrorists were simply putting into practice what their government and its agencies had taught them for years. Bin Nayef was not fighting a battle with an external ideological trend, but a very local one, so local in fact that it helped forge the Saudi state itself, which was conceived as a project to "purify" Islam and eradicate differences. The prince wanted to eradicate the ideology of terror in a state that was founded on eradicating other ways of thinking and behaving, so this dilemma will continue to haunt any serious effort to contain terrorism. To put it bluntly, the prince did not succeed in eliminating terror; he simply pushed it away to countries like Yemen, Iraq and now Syria and Lebanon.

Like many counterterror "big men," bin Nayef used the pretext of fighting terrorism to further undermine the limited human, civil and political rights that Saudis aspire to enjoy. Like his father, the late Prince Nayef, he presides over a network of security, intelligence and policing agencies that curtail people’s freedom. During the last decade, it has become easy for a Saudi to end up in prison after posting an article on Facebook, appearing on international media outlets or dreaming of establishing a civil society organization. In fact, posting 140 characters on Twitter may lead to a prolonged visit to prison and a delayed trial presided over by one of his "little men," mainly judges who claim to apply Sharia but in fact they apply the prince’s law. It was no surprise that bin Nayef’s portrait was burned by women demonstrators in Buraidah last year when they called for fair trials and the release of their relatives, held in prison for several years. Torture in bin Nayef’s prisons has become notorious, reported by both international human right organizations and local ones that remain unlicensed in a country that still bans an independent civil society.

The war on terror allowed bin Nayef’s ministry, by now a state within the state, to become too big for comfort. On several occasions, Saudi reformers .. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2013/12/saudi-arabia-security-reform-regional-interference.html .. composed petitions in which they called for limiting the Ministry of Interior’s powers over the judiciary and the provinces. They pointed out that the rule of law and the protection of civil and human rights were lacking in Saudi Arabia and called upon the government to respect the law when dealing with citizens. While retaining their commitment to a national agenda, reformers envisaged a federal system that would free the provinces from the Ministry of Interior’s centralized control and push toward local development and the elimination of poverty and corruption. The unlicensed Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association went as far as asking for putting bin Nayef on trial. His son Muhammad made sure that all authors of petitions were not only put in prison, but also banned from travel for several decades after their release.

On his coming visit to Riyadh in March, certainly Obama will not be concerned with such unpleasant local Saudi details. Like his US predecessors and European counterparts, Obama will congratulate the Saudi leadership for all its efforts to combat terrorism and set a new target for bin Nayef and other Saudi princes, mainly to show how effective they are in Syria, where a raging rebellion is unsurprisingly refusing to calm down, given the multiple sources of funding that are fueling it. It may not be so straightforward for bin Nayef to control Syrian rebels on the Saudi payroll, separate the radicals from the moderates or agree on the meaning of rebellion and terrorism in the Syrian context. Bin Nayef will fight hard on the Syrian front, simply because there is too much at stake — namely, his credentials as he tries to overcome his narrow counterterrorism legitimacy and replace it with that of a statesman. The shift toward positioning himself as the rightful monarch from among the second royal generation after King Abdullah’s death will require something beyond the Saudi local context. Bin Nayef needs to establish his reputation regionally as an arbiter of complex webs of interest groups, countries and rival powers. Success in counterterrorism efforts may be an important but not sufficient precondition for the transformation of a "big man" into the monarch of one of the most important countries in the region and the world. But he can rest assured that his policing excesses at the home front will never worry Obama when he turns up in Riyadh next month.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/02/saudi-terrorism-battle-ideological.html#