Well laid out questions. Hope you don’t mind if I answer in similar, point-by-point fashion.

1.) Your impressions about the status of the FSyA in Idlib and Aleppo are perfectly understandable; indeed, they are ‘logical’. However…

Well laid out questions. Hope you don’t mind if I answer in similar, point-by-point fashion.

1.) Your impressions about the status of the FSyA in Idlib and Aleppo are perfectly understandable; indeed, they are ‘logical’. However, they are wrong too.

Reasons for this situation are nicely described by Lister in his latest work on the FSyA, The Free Syrian Army: A decentralized insurgent brand.

Namely, while FSyA groups still represent the biggest anti-Assad/IRGC/Russian force ‘even’ on battlefields in Idlib and Aleppo (not to talk about southern Syria, where they represent something like 90% of the insurgent force), they are over-dependent on foreign backers for any kind of serious operations. Ever since Turkey began doing that in November 2011, these foreign-backers are conditioning provision of aid to the FSyA on insurgents subjecting themselves to the control of the party in question. If they do not do so — and majority of the FSyA is of that kind — they are cut off from the aid.

Right now — i.e since November 2015 — most of the FSyA has ben cut off from that aid. Instead, Qatar and Turkey are wholeheartedly supporting the JFS, Ahrar and other Islamist groups (Turkey has ‘only’ bought a number of FSyA groups because it needs them for bolstering its operation in northern Aleppo).

Net result is: the JFS, Ahrar, Faylaq ash-Sham (FASH), Harakat Noureddin az-Zenghi (HNAZ) etc. have the money, have supplies and ammo necessary to run large-scale operations (indeed, they are so flush with money, they can buy themselves sympathies of lots of civilians too, because they are in condition to provide for most of supplies these need). FSyA groups lack these. Because of that, the situation is created where FSyA groups must ally with such ‘Islamist’ groups in order to take part in large-scale operations — and this is creating the impression that only such transnational jihadist, Salafist and Islamist groups, respectively, can run ‘any real offensives’.

EDIT: precisely the latest counteroffensive on Western Aleppo is a beautiful example for what I’m talking about. The JFS, Ahrar, FASH, HNAZ have got the money and supplies to run that operation. But, they couldn’t do so on their own: they lacked the troops to run such an operation, to hold the ground they’ve captured; they required support from about 20 different FSyA groups. As soon as military commanders of the latter (and they are all professional military officers that defected from the regime) have realized that the planning for this operation was unrealistic, they withdrew. Without them, Islamists couldn’t continue this offensive. And that was that: game over.

2.) Frankly (as always): not the least. Libyan revolutionaries were as disunited: what united them ‘for a while’ was Western support provided on condition of them following the orders of 2–3 specific reference points (provisional government in Benghazi and local authorities in Misurata and Zintan).

Indeed, Libya is a perfect example that this kind of organization of aid could have worked in Syria too.

Tragically, Libya is also a perfect example for what happens as soon as this incentive is (literally) replaced by bribing through Qatar and Turkey. Namely, while everybody is nowadays blaming ‘regime change’ and ‘NATO intervention’ for the civil war there, this is also entirely wrong.

The NATO did help remove Q, no doubt about this. But, what caused the civil war in Libya is what happened once that operation was over: immediately after Q was removed, the UN suggested deployment of a peace-keeping force that would help re-establish law and order, organize new police, new military etc. The provisional government in Benghazi refused.

Even then, everything was fine until Islamists were heavily defeated (really ‘destroyed’) in two local elections in Benghazi area. That sounded all sorts of alarm bells in Qatar and Turkey, and they began bribing specific parliamentaries, commanders of various militias etc. ‘All of a sudden’, militias from Misurata, Benghazi, Derna and few other places became ‘Islamists’.

To make matters worse: since Emiratis are fiercely against any such movements, and Egyptians got scared for their own reasons, they then began supporting Haftar (although his side is including a strong Salafist component) and he launched a military coup. That in turn provoked the civil war.

3.) The character of civilian authorities in insurgent-held areas is technocratic, first and foremost. People in question are local doctors, engineers, etc.; people proven as skilled in running the every-day life under given conditions. Their work in regards of organizing food supply, water supply, schooling system, organizing the Free Police etc. has nothing to do with ideology or religion.

In what sense do they have authority over armed groups is often disputed, and varies from case to case. Since there are about 400 such cases, it would be hard to generalize (and I hate to generalize). Fact is, even such big and strong armed groups like Jaysh al-Islam — which was fiercely opposing the elected local council of Eastern Ghouta — were eventually forced to accept and cooperate with such authorities. If for no other reason then because have proven unable to fight the war and administrate civilians at the same time (no surprise here: like majority of native insurgent groups, they are led by military officers, not by civilian administrators).

And yes, it’s obvious that such authorities have very serious chance of coalescing into viable civilian authorities: they have proven capable of skill-fully administrating over extended periods of time, despite immense problems, and despite ongoing bombardment. Precisely that is why they are so fiercely assaulted by Assadists and Russians: they are not only a direct- but also the major threat for legitimacy of Assad’s regime.

4.) What one expects from the mainstream media (MSM) in the West is a different pair of shoes from what that media is delivering. Sure, some of journos in question are incredibly obsessive with identifying and categorizing rebel ideologies (curiously, the very same people are giving all sorts of Shi’a jihadists deployed by the IRGC in Syria a free pass), but as you correctly concluded, generally they just bunch them all under ‘rebels’ — i.e. generalize - and that’s it.

Precisely that is one of crucial reasons why they’re consistently failing to inform the public, and why there are so many wrong impressions about this war (see examples listed above).

5.) Reasons are multiple and primarily related to Obama’s policy regarding Syria. He decided not to get involved against Assad, regardless the cost (primarily for Syrians, not to talk about the US position in the Arab world). Because the USA are refusing to get involved, other Western powers (UK, France), are reluctant to act on their own. Various Central- and Eastern European governments (see Germany) have their own reasons to support this policy (most of which are related to their economic ties with Russia, as much as direct bribing of specific politicians by Putin).

Finally, in cases like that of Qatar’s support for the ex-JAN, now JFS: they turn away and ignore what’s going on, because Qatar is a financial superpower and can force them to do so. Except in France, any politician complaining about Qatar’s support for a group with direct links to al-Qaida, is either forced to apologise (and that, ‘by the next morning’, literally), or to quit.

Therefore, especially Qatar — but Turkey and, to a certain degree: Saudi Arabia too — are left free to do whatever they like — even when this has direct and negative repercussions for the West.