Are U.S.-Taliban Talks Linked to Rebel Support?

Bloomberg is reporting this morning of a rebel car-bomb attack on the military airport in Aleppo:

The bomb killed at least 12 government loyalists and destroyed several buildings inside Minnigh Airport, which is partially under rebel control, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in an e-mail. Syrian government forces, backed by Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon, launched an offensive earlier this month to try to retake the strategic city, Syria’s largest. 

The attack on the airport came a day after the U.S. and 10 other nations pledged to increase support for rebel forces in Syria, without saying what specific steps they would take or how much firepower may be needed.

Sarah El Deeb reporting for The Associated Press says that the government has begun shelling rebel-held suburbs north of Damascus:

Activists, meanwhile, reported heavy shelling of many districts north of Damascus, apparently an attempt to cut links between rebel-held districts that have served as launching pads for operations against the capital. Three children, including two from the same family, have been killed in shelling of the outlying district of Qaboun since Friday, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on an extensive network of activists in Syria. 

The Lebanese TV station Al-Mayadeen, which had a reporter embedded with Syrian government forces in the offensive, quoted a military official as saying that the operation aims to cut rebel supply lines, separate one group from another and secure the northern entrances to the capital. The regime's forces have struggled for months to regain control of these suburbs.

Jeffrey Fleishman has an informative piece, despite a misleading headline, for the Los Angeles Times; he describes how the Arab states are using the Sunni-Shiite divide to distract their restive populations from government corruption and the lack of jobs:

"Arab states see Syria as a place to exhaust Iran's capabilities and keep it distracted from other issues it might be concerned with in the Arab world," said Rabha Alam, a researcher at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. "Hezbollah entering the equation has quickened the pace of sectarian rhetoric and turned it into a Sunni-Shiite conflict." 

Hezbollah embodies the fear that Sunni-led nations have of Iran, the preeminent Shiite voice, using the Syrian war to foment wider instability. Syria has become a struggle not just between Assad and the rebels, but for opposing Shiite and Sunni radical networks whose fighters come from as far away as Cairo and Tehran. 

"Hezbollah is part of the Iranian conspiracy which has a strategic objective in the region," said Mustafa Alani, a senior analyst at the Gulf Research Center in Geneva. "It has really changed the rules of the game." 

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah argues a counter-narrative: Before his men arrived in Syria, gulf state-funded Sunni militants, some with ties to Al Qaeda, infiltrated and are now commanding rebel factions. This scenario, he says, endangers Hezbollah's benefactor, Assad, and also threatens neighboring Lebanon with a volatile brand of Sunni extremism.

Political manipulations of Shiite-Sunni enmity, which dates back centuries to a struggle over a successor to the prophet Muhammad, may also be at work. Arab states, according to some analysts, may find it tempting to play on religious suspicion to deflect public attention from economic and social problems. 

Saudi Arabia is contending with a huge population of disillusioned, unemployed young people. Egypt's economy is faltering and political unrest is deepening ahead of demonstrations planned for Morsi's one-year anniversary as president on June 30. Across the Arab world, the broken promises of the uprisings have triggered despair and rising anger. 

Hezbollah's entry into the Syrian civil war "has led preachers and leaders in gulf states to adopt the discourse of 'victory for [Sunnis],'" said researcher Alam. "This keeps populations distracted from internal issues. This provides an important service to the gulf."

"This is happening in Egypt now," she said, as leaders and clerics try to siphon attention away from the government's failings. But there are consequences of rallying the region's young men around the fractious Syrian war and its dangerous religious implications.

"If we are sending our children to Syria, then which banner will they fight under ... what will they be armed with?" Alam said. "Or will we just be sending them off to die."

I'm surprised that so far there have been no stories linking negotiations with the Taliban, a Wahhabi political construct of the Gulf Arab monarchies, and the increased role of the United States in organizing the Syrian opposition. It seems obvious to me that there is a quid pro quo here. The U.S. promises to lead the effort to oust al-Assad as long as Saudi Arabia and Qatar exert influence on the Taliban to bargain with the Western puppet Karzai. But as Javid Ahmad argues on the AfPak Channel, "Peace talks only benefit Taliban." So the U.S. gets wet on both ends of the stick while the Wahhabis laugh all the way to the bank.

Hezbollah Fighter Talks Qusayr

For a good, brief description of the fighting on the ground to take Qusayr, check out the story, "Hezbollah fighter tells of Syria battle," by Alexandra Sandels and Jeffrey Fleishman in this morning's Los Angeles Times. A Hezbollah squad leader named Hassan tells of battling foreign-funded Islamist rebels of the Al Nusra Front, many from Libya and Tunisia, in door-to-door combat. There is no doubt after reading Hassan's account that this is an international conflict, and that so far the Shiite forces are much more motivated than the West and its Al Qaeda proxies. Interestingly -- because it is rarely if ever reported in the Western media -- the Hezbollah squad leader says that the fighting is heavy and daily around Sayyida Zainab, the Shiite shrine to Muhammad's granddaughter Zaynab:

"Hezbollah can't cover all of Syria," he said. "Those who say Hezbollah is all over [Syria] are stupid. You have some strategic places." 

One of those is the Shiite shrine Sayyida Zainab, which Hassan said he has been protecting on and off for months from Sunni militants who want to destroy it to ignite an Iraq-style sectarian war. He said the fighting was heavy each day he was stationed at the shrine. 

Hassan said that for him, the battle goes on "until the last breath." It is a fight, he said, that cannot be lost to Hezbollah's many enemies, including the United States. 

"I love the fighting," he said. "You are doing something you are convinced of. You are not being paid money to go. There is a difference."

The rebels don't have an answer for this level of commitment. The opposition's strategy at this point seems to be to do whatever it can to instigate direct military intervention by Israel and/or the West, thereby bringing superior firepower to bear on a fighting force that Sunni jihadists can't best in the field.

Michael Gordon is reporting this morning that "Syrian Opposition Won’t Attend Talks Unless Rebels Get Arms, Top Commander Says." The West is in a difficult spot:

“There is agreement on one point within opposition circles: the regime, Iran and Hezbollah, supported by Russia, aim to win; the U.S. aims for talks,” said Frederic C. Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former senior State Department official who worked on Syria transition issues. “This helps to explain the opposition’s reluctance to attend a Geneva conference and the difficulties it’s having organizing itself around a coherent goal.” 

At the State Department, Mr. Kerry and his aides have long said that it is vital to change Mr. Assad’s “calculation” about his ability to maintain his grip on power in order to facilitate a political transition. 

With Mr. Assad digging in and his forces making headway on the battlefield, any leverage the United States might be able to bring to bear on the Assad government appears to depend on the possibility that the British and French might send arms to the rebels later this summer, and the prospect that the United States might expand its assistance to the armed opposition, which has consisted of food rations and medical kits.

The Syrian opposition's position remains that talks can't begin unless Assad first agrees to step down. All more firepower will do is expand the conflict and guarantee world war in the Middle East. Even Cameron's bellicoseTory-led government is split over the wisdom of increasing arms traffic to the rebels.

The Syrian civil war roundup provided by Nick Cumming-Bruce and Rick Gladstone, "In Its Biggest Appeal Ever, U.N. Requests $5 Billion in Humanitarian Aid for Syria," in this morning's New York Times covers Putin's offer to supply replacement troops for Austrian members of the UN peace keeping force who are leaving the Golan Heights because of fighting between rebels and Syrian government forces at the Quneitra crossing. The Russian offer was promptly refused:

United Nations officials declined Mr. Putin’s offer. “We appreciate the consideration that the Russian Federation has given to provide troops to the Golan,” said Martin Nesirky, a spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. “However, the disengagement agreement and its protocol, which is between Syria and Israel, do not allow for the participation of permanent members of the Security Council in Undof.”

The Security Council issued a statement yesterday calling on Syria to allow humanitarian relief to reach Qusayr.

The World Food Program is feeding 2.5 million people in Syria, a number expected to increase to 4 million by the end of the year.