Syria War, 20 December 2024: Multiple Choice

Hello everybody!

It’s about a week since my last update on this conflict, and thus the time to check what’s new. Or what remained the same… which is particularly valid for the Israeli behaviour.

When not busy instigating another massacre in the Gaza Strip; when not pre-occupied with violating the ‘cease-fire’ with Hezbollah (actually: with all of Lebanon) by driving into villages it couldn’t reach ‘before the cease-fire’ because of Hezbollah resistance and blowing up lots of houses (like in Bani Hayan); or when not bombing ports and the last few remaining power plants in the Houthi-controlled northern Yemen, the peaceful, democratic, humanist and secular Israeli Defence Forces have continued to expand their invasion of Syria.

Back on 13-14 December - and despite protests even from Berlin and Paris (where the politicians usually can’t stress how much ‘right to self-defence’ Israel has) - they first attempted to seize Bayt Jinn. Alas, the locals refused to hand out their firearms: surprise, surprise, the Israelis withdrew from the town (even if retaining positions overlooking it). Netanyahu then announced everything possible: to the Israelis, he said that Israel is going to continue holding Jebel Sheikh/Mount Hermon until it has received (undisclosed) security guarantees; to the Westerners, he announced that Israel is going to maintain control over the mountain until the end of 2025.

How kind: now everybody has a multiple choice…

Except for genociding Palestinians, Netanyahu’s newest favourite hobby is posing for cameras atop of the Jebel Sheikh, in Syria. To his giant relief, his minister of defence has already announced that the IDF is going to construct extensive fortifications at Mount Hermon, ‘for the case it has to stay there for a while longer’….

….which is especially important for the USA, where the State Department promptly defended Netanyahu’s land grabs with ‘security concerns’ and the ‘need to stabilise the region’. Obviously, the US-Americans - always the best-informed party involved in the Middle East (as far as they can find it on any map) - have concluded that nobody else in the Middle East has security concerns, and everybody else is de-stabilising the region…

Thus, please, put yourself into Netanyahu’s shoes. What shall the poor guy do under such circumstances? He’s outright forced to continue grabbing yet more terrain from Syria. Though this time in the south: as of 17 December, the IDF has captured the villages of Jamla, Maaraba, Abedin, Koya, al-Maqriz, Saida, al-Maalaqa, and the al-Wehda Dam - all either on the eastern side of the UNDOF-Zone, and/or along the border to Jordan.

An Israeli Merkava main battle tank as seen while rolling down the streets of Saida, on 17 December.

And because the Israelis also continued driving out the local population - obviously in the interest of stabilising the region - the UNDOF then sent a convoy of vehicles to this area and announced that the Israelis would withdraw from the area.

Soon…

An angry Syrian woman waving her shoe at the UN envoy Geir Pedersen during his visit to the Sednaya Prison, outside Damacsus - in protest over the UN’s utmost failure in addressing the suffering of the Syrian population at the hands of the Assadist regime.

***

What also remained the same is the Russ…erm: Pudding’s position vis-a-vis Syria.

What, you mean: the Russians are evacuating their troops? Oh, yes, sure: they do. As of yesterday, they’ve flown out all the remaining air defence systems from the Hmeymim AB, for example. And, if they could now only find enough merchant ships that could reach Tartous, they would pick up all the troops and vehicles piling at the piers of that port, too. But, when asked about this issue during his 4-hours-long press conference, yesterday, Pudding made sure: no, no, and no, the collapse of the Assad regime was no defeat for Russia. That’s simply not true. (On the contrary:) Russia has achieved its goals in Syria, and no terrorists came to power there…

He merely couldn’t explain to what extent Russia needs its bases in the country…

Which… hand on heart.. means that everything is developing precisely along the plan.

Arguably, to an uniformed observer like me, this is imposing questions like: and why did he send the Russian troops to Syria at all? But, that’s Pudding and he knows better, which in turn means that there’s absolutely no point in thinking why is he doing what…

Waiting for their turn: Russian military vehicles and troops at the pier in the port of Tartous, waiting for their evacuation.

***

Central Syria (well, actually it’s northern part of central Syria): the US-supported PKK/PYD/YPG/SDF-conglomerate has evacuated its troops from Madan, Zur Shamar, and al-Sabkha, in the southern Raqqa Province, and - together with the Russians - seem to be in the process of withdrawing from the Tabqa AB. With other words: it appears to be in the process of withdrawing from its last positions west of the Euphrates River.

Is no surprise considering what’s looming further north: considering announcements from Ankara, the PKK/PYD/YPG/SDF-conglomerate is soon going to need its troops there.

***

Northern Syria… yesterday, Ankara has rejected the US-proposed extension of the cease-fire (which, nevertheless, is to last until Monday) and its armed forces began removing the border wall near Ayn al-Arab/Kobane. With other words: Türkiye is now poised to attack the conglomerate - at least along the international border. To underline this, I guess, Türkish UAVs flew another series of air strikes on PKK/PYD/YPG/SDF-positions in the Ayn al-Arab/Kobane area and, as everybody in the West knows, this is bad. Because, Türkiye is a predominantly Muslim country and thus - and especially in the light of latest terrorist attacks by the PKK on its soil - has no rights to have security concerns, nor to act in its own interests…

The Türkish media is already busy explaining what are the forces of the Türkiye-controlled Syrian National Army (SNA) about to do in the Ayn al-Arab/Kobane area.

In the aftermath of the Türkish intelligence service MIT assassinating the PKK’s regional commander Yayla Kazikaya (aka Nesrin Amed), the PKK’s ‘General’ Mazlum Abadi (aka Ferhat Abdi Sahin) - who, of course, is also in charge of the PKK/PYD/YPG/SDF-conglomerate - has meanwhile rushed to propose a ‘withdrawal of non-Syrian fighters, including PKK affiliates’ from Syria.

Why is that interesting?

Because, so far, Abadi has a 13-years-long-history of denying the PKK’s presence in Syria. Just like the US…erm… the Pentagon and the CENTCOM have denied it. Now he’s ‘suddenly discovered’ at least a bit of it…

…where this is reminding me that a day or so ago, the Pentagon has discovered that there are (at least) 2,000 US troops in the country, no 900, as usually claimed by the CENTCOM. Perhaps they have multiplied on their own, like field rabbits….or this is some sort of a Christmas Wonder?

***

Another thingy that remained the same were solemn declarations by different Western governments regarding Syria. They’re all into finding a political solution, and working with international partners, and standing ready to support, and are going to recognise and support the new government, and assume responsibility…

….because they couldn’t do anything of that over the last 13-61 years, but first had to let Assadism mass-murder people on industrial scale, or what?

BTW, after all the possible European governments have sent their representatives to Damascus - principally with the aim of checking if they can start de-facto deporting Syrian refugees - the State Department has announced it’s sending its diplomats (led by Barbara Leaf) to Syria, too. For negotiations with the ‘HTS’… probably because the USA are ‘never negotiating with terrorists’, except at every suitable opportunity…

***

What did not remain the same like before were few thingies related to what are the Syrians doing in their liberated country. For example: after freeing dozens of thousands of inmates of Assadists prisons and - whenever possible - taking care to re-unite them with their families; and after celebrating the downfall of the regime, the last Friday (and not only the last Friday: actually, Homs and Hama were in celebrations the entire week); many Syrians are meanwhile busy discovering ever additional mass graves of those murdered by the former regime. Alone the one discovered in the Qutayfa area is reportedly containing 100,000+ bodies of victims of torture and execution… the extensions of the one discovered in the Miltiary Academy of Aleppo, or the one discovered near the Baghdad Bridge on the Northern Ring Road outside Damascus, are not yet clear. Others are busy searching for kids of detainees, whose names have been changed by the former regime…

A scene of typical extremist Islamist terror in Syria of these days: in this case, in the centre of Homs, late on 18 December. Human rights activists are concerned that executions through forced listening to Christmas songs by Wham and Mariah Carey are to follow as next…

Bad times are looming for the Shi’a of Syria, too. The Khamenei Mosque in the Sayyida Zaynab district of Damascus was re-named the Sayyida Aysha Mosque. Pure, sectarianism-motivated terrorism there…

After having a few sleepless days, because - except to a handful of other, entirely unimportant things keeping him busy (like organising de-mining of dozens of former battlefields, or the re-establishment of public services like hospitals and garbage removal etc.) - he’s had to meet and talk with the chieftain of the Türkish MIT, then a Qatari delectation, the UN Special Envoy for Syria, representatives of the British Foreign Office, and the French and German Ministries of Foreign Affairs…

…Ahmed ash-Sharaa (aka Jowlani) issued a series of statements in the course of this week. Essentially, he’s announced that,

• Syria is going to be no threat to anybody;

• Syrian territory is not going to be used for attacks on Israel (indeed, that nifty Jihadist said, ‘we are committed to the 1974 agreement with Israel, and the international community must also ensure Israel’s commitment to that agreement’);

• Syria is seeking for the same state of development like (Arab) countries in the (Persian) Gulf;

• Syria is going to remain a unified country, without any kind of federalism,

• There is going to be one, unified army, and one police service (i.e. no ‘dozens of militias’, which is what ruined Libya), and

• Syria is going to have an inclusive government…

…and then scenes like when this Sheikh in a mosque is calling, ‘We’re all united! Alawite! Sunni! Druze! Christian! Shi’a! Ismaili! We are all one hand, united together!’…

Obviously, this is beyond disgusting. These are no noble Western politicians and other sorts of dignitaries promising peace, law and order, prosperity and coexistence for everybody, but some Syrians there, all speaking Arabic. And, how can that Jihadist Sharaa come to the idea that Syria is ruined, its people war-weary, and both want and need peace? I’m only surprised Israel didn’t launch additional air strikes - in retaliation, and to underline its right to self-defence, of course…

Another interesting bit was the CMO’s deployment of its troops and police to the Dera’a Province. Is something like an ‘official confirmation’ that the insurgents there have agreed to subject themselves to the control of the emerging central authorities. And that they are going to integrate their armed militias into the new army and police.

Negotiations for a similar process in the Suwayda Province (predominantly populated by the Druze), are underway since 18 December. BTW, the Ministry of Interior of the new government is busy recruiting and training additional police officers in Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and Latakia: is urgently necessary, simply because CMO’s own troops and the police service that originally administered western Idlib, and then Aleppo - are simply insufficient for all of Syria.

To make sure, Syrian revolutionaries are also carefully monitoring every single move of their new/temporary government. For example, when one of its members dared underestimating the role of women in the revolution and the future of the country, he promptly faced public protests.

But, don’t worry: the extremely-well-informed Western media has largely ignored all of this. Instead, it was primarily busy reporting about looting and theft all over Syria - especially of the returning IDPs and refugees - while skillfully managing to miss every single case where the CMO-troops and the new police were arresting the involved gangs. It is also ignoring reports about the growing shortage of fuels in the country. Over the last 13 years, the Assadist regime was constantly kept supplied by IRGC-sponsored shipments of crude. Of course, these were stopped, about 10 days ago. An unsurprising result is that the refinery of Banyas (the largest in Syria) was forced to stop operations.

Nevertheless, Damascus International was re-opened on 18 December - with a flight of the Syrian Airlines to Aleppo. Which in turn means that the latter airport is now open for traffic. The Turkish Airlines is already busy setting up flights to Aleppo and Damascus, too.

The landing of the first Syrian Air airliner (an Airbus) at the Aleppo IAP, following a flight from Damascus, on 18 December.

With this, I guess I’ll really ‘stop’ covering this conflict - at least until somebody provides a reason to change that. Sadly, the list of probable culprits is long… and including not only Israel and Türkiye, but especially the United Arab Emirates, where one of advisors to the regime has already announced that ‘we’ (UAE) are very displeased by the developments in Damascus…