“Greater Syria: From Dagestan to Xinjiang”

Al-Qaeda offshoots are set to declare an Islamist state in Syria’s north on Eid al-Fitr (August 8), according to Saudi Arabia’s leading daily Asharq Alawsat quoting a Free Syrian Army (FSA) top dog.

The paper quotes him saying the al-Qaeda-linked groups hope by then to have wrested control from the FSA of the two border crossings into Turkey: Bab al-Hawa and Harem.

Bab al-Hawa links Turkish and Syrian highways between the cities of Iskenderun and Aleppo. The closest town to Bab al-Hawa on the Turkish side of the border is Reyhanli in Hatay province, and the nearest town on the Syrian side is al-Dana.

Harem is right by the Turkish frontier in Syria’s northern Idlib Province.

The FSA official speaking to Asharq Alawsat linked plans to declare an Islamic state in Syria’s north to recent killings by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant of two senior FSA officers – namely, Fadi al-Qish, a local FSA commander in the village of al-Dana and Kamal Hamami (aka Abu Baseer al-Ladkani), member of the FSA Supreme Military Council.

Asharq Alawsat’s FSA source said the FSA was deploying units and checkpoints in areas targeted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to prevent them falling into its fighters’ hands.

Tariq Alhomayed, Asharq Alawsat’s former editor-in-chief, writes in his daily column for the newspaper:

Irrespective of the accuracy of reports about armed clashes between al-Qaeda and the FSA, and the attempt to assassinate the latter’s overall commander Gen. Salim Idriss, this is what is in the cards, whether now or later on.

The confrontation between al-Qaeda and the Syrians is inevitable because al-Qaeda is the fleeting anomaly while Syrian moderation is the established rule.

The danger in the Syrian scene today is that the FSA is now facing Bashar al-Assad’s regime, fighters from Iran, (Lebanese) Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite militias, and al-Qaeda...

The irony is that the FSA is still being deprived of qualitative arms and left to face this array of forces singlehanded.

Gen. Idriss has accused David Cameron of betrayal after the British Prime Minister abandoned plans to arm the Syrian opposition.

He said the decision would "leave us alone to be killed" by Assad, and pave the way for al-Qaeda to dominate rebel ranks.

Gen. Idriss hit out in an interview with The Daily Telegraph after Downing Street confirmed Cameron had ruled out arming the opposition on advise from the British military. The government had previously hinted that it was strongly considering it, successfully lobbying two months ago for an end to the European Union arms embargo.

But military chiefs at Britain's National Security Council are understood to have warned Downing Street the conflict was now too advanced for basic weapons supplies to make much difference.

They said that could only be achieved by a much-larger scale intervention, involving jet strikes on regime air defenses and bases, which Britain has already ruled out.

Instead, Britain will draw up plans to train moderate rebel units and continue supplying "non-lethal" items like body armor and communications equipment.

Idriss greeted the British change of heart with fury. The FSA has spent much of the last two years trying to persuade the West to give it military backing.

"The West promises and promises. This is a joke now," Idriss said, the anger clear in his voice. "I have not had the opportunity to ask David Cameron personally if he will leave us alone to be killed. On behalf of all the Syrians, thank you very much."

"What are our friends in the West waiting for?" asked Idriss. "For Iran and Hezbollah to kill all the Syrian people?"

He also warned the West’s refusal to arm the more moderate elements of the insurgency would hand Syria's revolution to extremist groups, who already have better access to weapons.

"Soon there will be no FSA to arm," he said. "The Islamic groups will take control of everything, and this is not in the interests of Britain."

The British refusal will be seen as a particular blow to rebel morale given that recent signals suggested the government was planning the very opposite tack.

Only last month, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, insisted Britain "shouldn't rule any option out," claiming that concerns about arms earmarked for secular rebel groups falling into jihadist hands were exaggerated.

“Greater Syria: From Dagestan to Xinjiang” is the title of a related and enlightening think piece by veteran Lebanese political analyst Jihad el-Zein for today’s edition of the Beirut daily an-Nahar.

The gist of Zein’s opinion:

The Syria crisis is into a third “jihadist” phase, having already gone through “civil” then “militarized” chapters.

The “jihadist” phase currently underway elicits greater commitment by Russia and China because it touches on their home front concerns.

Earlier this month, for instance, Chinese state media blamed Syrians for unrest in Xinjiang, which is home to the minority Muslim Uighur population.

China has traditionally blamed violence in Xinjiang on Islamic separatists who want to establish an independent state of “East Turkestan.”

This time Beijing laid the blame squarely on terrorists in Syria, of which the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front is the most notorious, but the charge of a Syria connection still comports with a common government narrative of portraying Xinjiang’s violence as coming from other countries, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, rather than homegrown agitation.

While about 90 per cent of China is ethnic Han, more than 40 per cent of Xinjiang’s 22 million people are Uighurs.

The Global Times, a tabloid owned by the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily, said some members of the East Turkestan faction had moved from Turkey into Syria.

The rise of Salafist militancy in Syrian rebel groups is a tremendous concern for Russia too.

Moscow fears the numbers and efficacy of forces such as al-Nusra Front will one day turn their attention to oppressed Muslim regions in Russia such as Dagestan and Chechnya.

Dagestan, the region where the brothers who bombed this year's Boston Marathon once lived, borders on the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Chechnya and Georgia.

President Vladimir Putin has dismissed the leader of Dagestan, where an Islamist insurgency is raging. The region has taken over from neighboring Chechnya as Russia's most volatile province.

Salafist fighters, including some from al-Qaeda, fought in Chechnya in the 1990s; they may do so again. Syria and Chechnya are only five hundred miles apart.

If you looked at a map of Russia, you would see Dagestan’s seaports on the Caspian Sea can easily ferry arms and everything else to neighboring Iran and from there across the “Shiite Crescent” to Syria via Iraq.

The struggle for Syria is thus strategic, not tactical, for Russia and less so China. Both have a bigger stake now in the “jihadist” chapter of the Syria crisis as it impacts their respective home fronts.

That’s why the “Greater Syria” – i.e. an international and regional struggle with the following coordinates:

-- Longitude from Dagestan to Xinjiang via Peshawar, covering the Jihadist stretch

-- Latitude from South Lebanon’s Naqoura to Tehran, taking in the Shiite spread.

Obama and Putin: We remain at odds on Syria

Chilly body language on display

Prospects of agreement between the American and Russian presidents on how to end the Syria war dimmed dramatically at the G8 meeting in Northern Ireland.

Speaking after their face-to-face talks, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin said they failed to find common ground on Syria.

Correspondents say both leaders looked tense as they addressed journalists afterwards, with Putin staring at the floor as he spoke about Syria and Obama only glancing occasionally at the Russian leader.

Putin said:

"We also spoke about problem spots on the planet, including Syria. And, of course, our opinions do not coincide, but all of us have the intention to stop the violence in Syria, to stop the growth of victims, and to solve the situation peacefully, including by bringing the parties to the negotiations table in Geneva. We agreed to push the parties to the negotiations table."

In Obama's words:

"With respect to Syria, we do have differing perspectives on the problem, but we share an interest in reducing the violence; securing chemical weapons and ensuring that they're neither used nor are they subject to proliferation; and that we want to try to resolve the issue through political means, if possible. And so we have instructed our teams to continue to work on the potential of a Geneva follow-up to the first meeting."

The chilly bilateral meeting between the two leaders ended with a stiff exchange of diplomatic pleasantries.

Obama tried to lighten the mood by joking about their favorite sports. He cited Putin's expertise in judo and "my declining skills in basketball." Then he added, "And we both agree that as you get older, it takes more time to recover."

Putin cracked a brief smile before adding an awkward admission of the tension: "The president wants to relax me with his statement."

In a sign of the tensions, the French president, François Hollande, criticized Russia for sending weapons to Assad's forces and considering deliveries of a sophisticated missile system. "How can we allow that Russia continues to deliver arms to the Assad regime when the opposition receives very few – and is being massacred?" he asked.

BBC News posted today two excellent eye-openers on the G8 meeting and Syria.

Mark Mardell, the BBC’s North America editor, writing just as Obama and Putin prepared to meet, had this comment:

This was a tale of two President Barack Obamas, the one with high dreams and the one who must deal with grubby realities.

In the Belfast hall there was some of the old excitement. As the crowd waited for Mr. Obama to appear, the rather staid dignitaries in the upper gallery performed a Mexican wave, to the delight of the school children in the audience.

Here, he still has some lingering rock star status. His words were lofty, serious and inspirational. He told the young people that many around the world looked to Northern Ireland as an example of how to make peace.

He urged them not to rest there but to break down more walls, heal more wounds. There is a feeling here that peace has become so entrenched, so normal that many are content to accept the gains and not try to improve the two communities.

This is the president as the inspirer-in-chief.

It reminded me of his speech in Israel. That was a more important moment, but similar in that he was exhorting young people to reach for their better selves over the heads of bickering politicians, using his own background and America's civil rights struggle as an example of what can be achieved.

It is where cynics think, "What a president he would make! Oh, hang on, he already is."

For this was surely an opportunity missed.

He was talking about ending conflict and bringing peace, yet he still has not talked about the biggest conflict in the world today -- Syria.

He has made no attempt to explain his shift in policy. That is not to claim there are easy, glib answers, but he's good at complexity and this is a serious issue that needs grown-up debate.

He wants to avoid getting embroiled in another Middle East war and to avoid the U.S. dictating outcomes in the region, but he doesn't want Syria to spiral further into chaos or President Bashar al-Assad to continue in power.

His meeting with Vladimir Putin will be interesting, because the Russian president knows what he wants and says it.

At the moment the U.S. and the UK look irresolute -- talking about increasing help to the rebels without spelling out what they are doing, talking about a diplomatic solution when none is in sight.

Russia, on the other hand, appears firm, arguing a no-fly zone would be illegal, and that backing the legitimate government and selling arms to them should be behavior beyond reproach.

The president's rhetoric may inspire school children, but it is unlikely to melt Mr. Putin.

Nick Robinson, the BBC's political editor, wrote earlier:

What we used to call the West finds itself in a pretty strange place when it comes to Syria and Vladimir Putin knows it.

Speaking at Downing Street the Russian president was completely unapologetic for arming the Syrian government -- it was quite legal he said -- and looked unimpressed when his host, the prime minister, called President Assad a "murderous dictator".

The renewed talk of arming the rebels was meant to put pressure on Putin so that he would, in turn, pressurize the Syrian regime to agree to peace talks. Here's why that strategy may not work.

The U.S. president talks of supplying the rebels with arms but shows little sign of wanting to do so whilst the British prime minister sounds positively enthusiastic about sending weapons but cannot persuade his own government, let alone parliament, to do so.

There is a stark contrast in the way the U.S. and the UK have talked about this issue. Last week it fell to a relatively lowly U.S. figure to announce America's change of policy.

He did it in words so vague and ambiguous that some in the U.S. administration briefed that it might mean a no-fly zone and the supply of anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles whilst others suggested it meant only small arms and ammunition. We still don't know the answer. We still haven't heard from the president himself.

Compare that with the words of David Cameron almost two weeks ago. Speaking to the House of Commons on 3rd June the prime minister condemned "those who argue against ... doing more to support the opposition" as "making some of the same arguments used in the Bosnian conflict 20 years ago."

He went on "we were told then, as we are now, that taking action would have bad consequences, but not taking action is a decision too, and in Bosnia it led to the slaughter of up to 200,000 people and did not stop the growth of extremism and radicalization, but increased it. We should be clear, however, about the nature of what is happening in Syria today. It is not just a tragedy for Syria; it could end up being a tragedy for us, too, if we do not handle it properly."

For months Cameron has been trying to do to Obama what Tony Blair did to Bill Clinton over Bosnia in the late 90s -- to persuade America that it must intervene and that there can be no hope for peace talks if it doesn't.

The prime minister sees Bashar Assad as a modern day equivalent of Slobodan Milosevic -- in other words a dictator who must be shown that "he cannot fight his way to victory or use the talks to buy more time to slaughter (people) in their own homes and on their streets."

The irony is that Cameron, unlike Blair, cannot deliver military support himself. That's why the prime minister found himself having to strike a very different tone when he told SKY News: "I think where we can actually give the greatest assistance to the official proper Syrian opposition, is advice, is training and is technical support" - and not weapons.

His deputy Nick Clegg made the coalition's position plain when he told the BBC that "we don't believe it (arming the rebels) is the right thing to do at the moment."

No wonder the Russian president is not budging. He faces a British prime minister who cannot do what he believes in and an American president who doesn't show much sign of believing in what he's apparently committed to doing.

France holding the line on Syria in New York

Obama, Cameron and ping pong politics (AP photo)

The United States and United Kingdom are working in tandem on a UN Security Council draft resolution on Syria likely to placate Russia and China but infuriate France.

George Sassine, Paris correspondent for the Beirut daily al-Joumhouria, reports today that a Syria “breakthrough” at the Security Council is more likely “after Washington and London made a very significant (conciliatory) move toward Moscow and Beijing with the approval -- and on the insistence -- of both UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Kofi Annan, the joint UN-Arab League special envoy to Syria. But Paris is holding out, with Foreign Minister Alain Juppé saying France is against an ‘inglorious’ compromise resolution simply addressing the issue of humanitarian aid.”

The current chairman of the UN Security Council is Britain’s permanent UN representative, Sir Mark Lyall Grant.

Sassine suggests U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed at their recent stateside bilateral summit to do absolutely nothing on Syria, sufficing with talk of “humanitarian aid,” “keeping pressure” and “tightening sanctions.”

He says the draft resolution being hammered out in the behind the scenes consultations at UN headquarters in New York focuses on supporting Annan’s troubleshooting mission and delivering humanitarian aid but omits mention of the Arab League’s Jan. 22 Syria peace roadmap calling for the transfer of power by Assad to his second-in-command.

Alain Juppé (AFP photo in Le Monde)

Sassine substantiates his report by quoting from Juppé’s March 16 Q&A with French daily Le Monde, where he says in part:

“The Arab League peace plan does not call on Assad to step down. It calls on him to stand aside  -- or, more precisely, to empower his vice-president to negotiate and kick start the transition. That’s the bottom line.

“I acknowledge the dilemma. Should one block a humanitarian resolution bereft of any political dimension at the risk of letting the carnage continue? Or should we accept an inglorious compromise at the risk of perpetuating the regime’s lifespan? (The choice) is extremely difficult. Hence the strong pressure by Ban Ki-moon, the British and the Americans at the UN to go that route.

“I have two red lines. I cannot accept putting the oppressor and the victims on the same footing. The initiative to cease hostilities should first come from the regime. The second (red line): we cannot settle for a humanitarian and ceasefire pronouncement. We absolutely need to refer to a political settlement based on the Arab League proposal.”