NEW PLAYERS
US inaction in Syria opened door to others
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the eighth in a series of articles detailing the efforts and involvement of two Lakeside High School graduates in the Syrian Emergency Task Force, which advocates for the safety and well-being of Syrian civilians during the country’s ongoing civil war.
A power vacuum left by the United States’ inaction in the Syrian Civil War allowed extremists and allies of the president’s regime to flood into the country and subject civilians to new horrors.
Peaceful protests in opposition to Syrian President Bashar Hafez al-Assad began in early 2011 during the Arab Spring, in which civilians in north Africa and throughout the Middle East rose up against authoritar-
ian regimes. Violent pushback from government authorities and the military escalated the conflict.
Mouaz Moustafa, a graduate of Lakeside High School and the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, helped found the Syrian Emergency Task Force in 2012 to advocate in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the people in Syria rebelling against Assad. The organization later took more initiative on the ground inside the country to provide civilians with supplies, training and other forms of humanitarian aid.
The U.S. has yet to take leading military role in the conflict, aside from airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIS or ISIL. The civil war grew beyond the original government and rebel forces to include ISIS, Shi’a Islamist militant group Hezbollah, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Russian Air Force, various mercenary organizations and other militias.
“It’s difficult because this conflict is supposed to be simple,” Moustafa said. “It’s a dictator fighting against his own people. You insert in all of these other players and it becomes too dangerous and too complicated for people to comprehend and they run away from it.”
ISIS grew out of the terrorist organization al-Qaida in Iraq after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. Syrian citizens welcomed the group’s support for the rebellion against Assad in 2011.
Residents of cities and regions controlled by ISIS were soon subjected to the organization’s strict religious rule and violent methods. ISIS is known for killing dozens of people at a time and carrying out various forms of public executions. Its leaders aim to implement Sharia Law and establish an Islamic caliphate even beyond its territories in Iraq and Syria.
“They are not friends, but they have a mutual interest,” Moustafa said of Assad and ISIS. “They understand that the biggest threat to their survival are the Syrians.”
Rebels previously displayed the country’s flag during protests as a sign of their national pride, but photographs and video from the protests were used in propaganda for Assad’s regime. Opposition groups switched to a previous version of the Syrian flag in order to stifle the falsifications.
“Syrians are very nationalistic,” Moustafa said. “Both Assad and ISIS, due to that mutual interest, have focused their attacks on the rebels. It is our job to support the Syrian people and the pro-democracy people for their quest.”
The SETF established offices in the country to aid civilians. The 2014 documentary “Red Lines” followed Moustafa, executive director, and SETF field director Razan Shalab-al-Sham as they worked to provide aid.
SETF offices and workers were often attacked in the conflict. Moustafa said two workers were tortured and killed by Assad’s forces. He said two others were beheaded by ISIS.
Iranian leaders sent religious leaders into Syria to depict the conflict as a religious war. Reports indicate Iran’s forces in Syria have grown to outnumber Assad’s.
More than 1,100 soldiers deployed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been killed on the front lines in Syria. Iran also finances foreign mercenaries in the conflict. The Revolutionary Guard operates an industrial empire in Syria as the country becomes deeper indebted to Iran.
Hezbollah entered the conflict in 2012, but did not admit its involvement until fighting began in the Battle of al-Qusayr in May 2013. The successful offensive by Assad’s forces with Hezbollah is seen as a turning point in the war.
“The fact that these guys lasted this long is incredible,” Moustafa said. “The regime will never be able to control this country as it once did.”
The world’s deadliest chemical weapon attack in 25 years occurred three months later. Almost 1,500 people died when sarin, a deadly nerve gas, was deployed against civilians in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus. More than 400 children died in the attack.
U.S. intervention appeared imminent. Former President Barack Obama instead negotiated with Russia, Assad’s ally, and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a United Nations-backed agency, to dispose of Assad’s chemical weapons supply.
“This is a cowardly regime,” Moustafa said. “When we gave the credible threat of force after the chemical weapons attack — we moved a couple of warships in the Mediterranean — the guy declared he had chemical weapons he denied for years, even when his father was president, and gave up many of them.
“That’s how scared they were by just a little bit of fear that America was willing to act. That doesn’t take much. That doesn’t take American lives to be lost.”
Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention, implemented in 1993 and enforced by the OPCW, as part of an international agreement. The Convention outlaws sarin gas, but the agreement did not prohibit chlorine gas, which Assad has allegedly deployed against civilians many times.
Iran was critical in recruiting Russia to join the conflict. The Russian Air Force provides air support for their allied ground forces.
Moustafa said Assad’s forces routinely targeted hospitals, schools and residences. Attacks by Russia only added to the devastation with increased precision, including a successful bombing of an SETF office.
Natalie Larrison, also a graduate of Lakeside and UCA, joined the SETF more than a year ago and has helped to coordinate two of the group’s most recent humanitarian endeavors. The Wisdom House Project orphanage and school, managed by the task force for the past eight months, in the Idlib Governorate province recently moved underground for increased safety.
Larrison also helped launch the Letters of Hope campaign in which Americans can write letters of support for the students and teachers at the school. The letters are delivered directly to the school, but Larrison has not traveled to Syria because of safety concerns.
About 480,000 Syrians are estimated to have died during the civil war. An estimated 13.5 million people in Syria are in need of humanitarian aid. At least 11 million have been permanently displaced inside the country and another 4-6 million are now refugees outside of Syria.
Moustafa and Larrison recently presented information to groups of students at Lakeside High School throughout an entire school day. They described the Syrian Civil War as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.