Does the FSyA exist?

It exists in same fashion it came into being: as a movement of very diverse groups scattered all over Syria.

Does the FSyA exist? As some sort of one, big unified alliance, at least something like McDonald’s- or Pizza Hut-style franchise— no.

It exists in same fashion it came into being: as a movement of very diverse groups scattered all over Syria.

Why does it then appear as if there is ‘so little’ to be seen of it?

For reasons nicely explained in articles like Foreign Backers and the Marginalization of the Free Syrian Army, or It’s Time to Stop Abandoning the Syrian Opposition. Indeed, the very reason why the ‘regime’ (read: IRGC, Hezbollah, Russians etc.) is currently ‘on advance’ is that the mass of the insurgency — and that is the FSyA — has been ‘frozen’ by its foreign backers: ordered ‘to stop fighting the regime’.

Now, one should keep in mind that these ‘foreign backers’ are doing this with the FSyA at least since October or November 2011 - when Turkey began issuing ultimatums upon the leadership of the FSyA to subject itself to the control of the (Syrian) Moslem Brotherhood. That didn’t work back then, and is not working until today, because majority of the FSyA is refusing to do so. That in turn is why then governments and private initiatives from countries like Qatar began supporting ‘other’ groups, i.e. causing rifts within the FSyA that resulted in a number of groups that used to declare themselves as such ‘defecting’ to Islamist groups — which in turn prevented establishment of something like unified command for the entire insurgency.

While these other groups — whether Ahrar ash-Sham, or Islamic Front, or whatever ‘Islamist’, ‘Salafist’ etc. movements there are — are ever since receiving ever more foreign support, groups that insist upon declaring themselves for FSyA do not.

Because supplies are the essence of every war, because Syria is generally a very poor country, in a prolonged conflict like this the result of this situation should be clear: the FSyA-groups are marginalized. They do not have the money to buy necessary arms and ammo, and thus can’t run bigger, longer, more intensive operations. This then has such consequences like they being unable to pay their combatants, not attracting public attention, suffering from defections etc.

But even more so: because the PR is nowadays more important than ever before, and because of such phenomena like the media considering activity and presence of Islamists and transnational jihadists for ‘story’; while such developments like 200 local councils in insurgent-held areas freely electing their own authorities for ‘no story’; impression is created that ‘there is no FSyA’.

Another reason for this situation is the very nature of the job ‘journalist’ nowadays: 99% of people exercising this profession do not have the time, nor interest, in finding out all the ‘millions’ of minute details so important for the situation in Syria. They’re reporting about traffic accidents in the morning, and in the afternoon are ordered to write an article about something in Syria.

Therefore, they lack the knowledge about what is going on there.

Because of this, and because there is never enough space to explain the story full, they are nearly always bunching all the armed opposition in Syria — regardless of its ideological orientation or actual nature — in Syria into ‘moderates’ or ‘FSyA’. For this reason, it’s pointless to expect the BBC or any similar mainstream-media outlet to go into discussing specific insurgent groups.

Even more importantly, hardly anybody knows about the fact that Syrians can organize and administrate themselves on their own, without Assad’s and without foreign dictate, in perfectly pluralist fashion — and without transforming into a gang of blood-thirsty jihadists. I.e. that the civilians in insurgent-held areas have organized their own, local councils/committees, most of which are even exercising control over local armed groups — and that more than half of these had their authorities elected in free, at least ‘primitively democratic’ elections, early this year. ‘Even’ such powerful groups like Islamic Front (and its military wing, Jaysh al-Islam) was forced to accept civilian authority over areas it controls.

Precisely this is the essence of the problem: contrary to the public in the West, Khamenei, Assad, and Putin (in order of their relevance for what the ‘regime’ in Syria is doing) know very well about all such details.

In turn, precisely that is the reason for Russian and Assadist/Loyalist bombardment of civilians in insurgent-held areas.

This is serving the very purpose of keeping the situation the way it is: unknown. Intentional destruction of the food-supply network, of civil defence facilities, or water-supply network, of schools and whatever is left of factories — makes the function and work of local authorities (such like organizing and running every-day life, law and order etc.) impossible.

Therefore, it’s not so as if Russians and Assadist/Loyalist bombardment is ‘hitting Islamists but Western media is not reporting about this’.

This bombardment is almost exclusively hitting civilian authorities and the FSyA groups, but the Western media is completely out of condition to explain why.