Assad’s ruthless blitz before ‘ceasefire’
Syrians predict regime will ‘kill as many as possible’ ahead of deal led by US and Russia taking effect
THE Assad regime pounded rebel-held areas of Syria with air strikes yesterday as it tried to maximise its battlefield advantage before a new ceasefire deal brokered by the US and Russia comes into effect tomorrow.
Hours after Washington and Moscow announced they had reached an agreement to try to reduce violence in the war-torn country, Syrian regime aircraft reportedly struck a market in Idlib killing around 30 people.
Bashar al-Assad’s air force also carried out bombing raids in rebel-held east Aleppo, killing at least 11 people in an area where an estimated 300,000 are living under siege and cut off from supplies of food and medicine.
The flurry of violence appeared to confirm the worst fears of Syrians in opposition areas: that the ceasefire deadline would only encourage the regime to inflict maximum damage before tomorrow night.
“I will tell you my expectations for the coming two days,” said Abdelkafe al-Hamdo, an activist in Aleppo. “Assad will try to kill as many as possible before the claimed ceasefire.”
The agreement was announced early yesterday morning by John Kerry, the US secretary of state, and Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, after marathon talks.
“We believe that the plan as it is set forth has the ability to provide a turning point, a moment of change,” Mr Kerry said.
Under the terms of the deal, Russia would force the Assad regime to end its attacks on rebel-held areas, although it could continue to strike against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS), an al-Qaeda linked jihadist group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra.
Both the Assad regime and rebel groups would allow aid to reach besieged areas throughout Syria. According to the Siege Watch group, Mr Assad’s forces are laying siege to 51 areas while the rebels have surrounded three areas.
If the ceasefire holds for seven days, then the US would give Russia something it has long coveted: an agreement to carry out joint air strikes against both Isil and JFS.
The symbolism of joint US-Russia missions would be potent for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, who longs to present his country as an equal to the US on the world stage and a key power broker in the Middle East.
Syria analysts said the deal had the potential to be a turning point in its five-year civil war but warned that it could also collapse underneath the details of the multi-front conflict.
“The US and Russia have agreed a momentous deal on Syria, but whether it proves to be successfully implemented and to lead towards discernible progress on the political track is a huge question at this point,” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. The first question is whether Russia is able to force the Assad regime to abide by the terms it negotiated with the US. Regime forces flouted previous ceasefire agreements by continuing air strikes on rebel areas while claiming to be attacking jihadists.
The Syrian regime offered no official reaction to the deal agreed on its behalf but Mr Lavrov said in Geneva that Mr Assad had agreed to abide by its terms.
If the seven days of relative peace are achieved then the US will face its own difficult question: how can it convince Syrian rebel groups to separate themselves from JFS, a group that has jihadist views but has also proved one of the most effective forces fighting against the regime? Fighters from JFS were hailed as heroes by civilians in Aleppo after they broke a regime siege in early August. They have since lost much of the territory they gained, allowing the siege in east Aleppo to resume.
Mr Kerry warned rebel groups that had aligned themselves with JFS that “it would not be wise” to do so in the future. But in the complex battlefields around Damascus and Aleppo, where rebels and jihadists often mingle for practical military reasons rather than ideological sympathy, it is not clear that the groups can be separated.
Many rebels may be unwilling to retreat from hard-fought positions even if it means staying close to JFS and risking being caught up in joint US-Russian air strikes. “When you’re a fighter on the ground in Syria you look at JFS and say they’re pretty nasty but at least they are helping to fight the regime,” said Dr HA Hellyer, an associate fellow at Royal United Services Institute.
Many senior US military and intelligence officials have been sceptical about working with Russia and especially wary of sharing battlefield intelligence with the Kremlin. The Pentagon said both Russia and the regime must meet their commitments “before any potential military cooperation can occur”.
The US-Russia agreement was welcomed by Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, who said he hoped “it will create the necessary space for a credible political process” that could lead to a final peace deal. The High Negotiations Council, an umbrella political group representing the opposition, also offered a cautious endorsement.
“We welcome the deal if it is going to be enforced,” they said. It remained unclear what Iran, a key ally of Mr Assad, made of the deal. While the regime is heavily dependent on Russian air power, Iran is a source for much of its muscle on the ground and commanders from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard are playing a major role in regime operations in Aleppo.
While the Russian and American diplomats saluted their work in Switzerland, the potential ceasefire will come too late for the 30 people blown apart by a regime air strike in the city of Idlib.
Many of the dead were women and children who ventured out into the market to buy supplies for Eid al-Adha, the Muslim holiday that begins tomorrow just as the ceasefire is due to come into force.