[ANALYSIS] Unravelling Syria's house of horrors

The siege of Aleppo represents the latest chapter in a war which has already cost 400,000 lives – the equivalent of Malta’s population – in which the brutal regime of Bashar al Assad is pitted against a plethora of rebel groups ranging from former army generals to Al Qaeda affiliates.

Five years down the line Syria remains an open wound prone to infection by extremism and brutality. The conflict is fed by the rival geopolitical interests of regional powers; Turkey and Gulf States which back the rebels and Iran which backs the government. Even more decisive are Russian bombardments indiscriminately targeting rebels fighting against Assad on the pretext of destroying Isis.  Last Monday's assassination of the Russia ambassador in Ankara was a reminder of how explosive the Syrian quagmire can be.  Looming on the horizon is a Trump Presidency, which many fear will reinforce the Assad regime due to the new president’s bromance with the Russian strongman.

Is Bashar al Assad a villain or a bastion against Isis?

While the regime may be credited for preserving Syria’s religious diversity, which includes sizeable Druze and Christian minorities, the brutality of the regime and its secret police – the detested Makhabarat – is mostly to blame for setting the scene of a horror show, which commenced in the early 1980s.

On June 27, 1980, the day after the Syrian branch of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood narrowly failed in an attempt to assassinate the brother of President Hafez al Assad (President Bashar’s father), a group of Hafez al Assad soldiers, split into squads, were ordered to kill every prisoner in sight in the Tadmor prison. Rights groups estimate that between 500 and 800 inmates may have died in the bloody melee which took two weeks to clean up.

“Language cannot describe it. Fear is the internal sensation when you physically feel your heart between your feet and not in your chest; fear is the look on people’s faces, and their darting eyes when the time for the torture sessions nears, wrote Bara Sarraj, a Syrian dissident who was jailed in the same prison in 1984.

Two years after the Tadmor massacre Hafez al Assad razed the city of Hama to crush a Sunni rebellion, slaughtering an estimated 20,000 of his own people. Assad’s troops pounded Hama with artillery fire for 27 days and, with the city in ruins, his bulldozers moved in and flattened neighbourhoods. The 1982 massacre is regarded as the single bloodiest assault by an Arab ruler against his own people in modern times and remains a pivotal event in Syrian history. 

When the soft-spoken ophthalmologist Bashar, who is married to a British-born wife, succeeded his father in 2000, many in the west expressed hope that the country would start opening up. Moreover Syria came to be seen as a bastion of stability amidst the mayhem created by the American invasion of Iraq. Still with no tangible democratization, the tensions which had been accumulating for years erupted once again in 2011 and Bashar’s reaction was similar to that of his father’s 30 years before. 

It all started with protests in February 2011, after authorities arrested 15 schoolchildren for painting anti-government graffiti on the walls of a school in the city of Daraa. Initially protests were non-violent but the conflict was militarized after Syrian army tanks stormed several cities, including Hama and Daraa. At least 136 people were killed. This was the tipping point.

Who are the rebels?

It was army defectors who first organized an armed rebellion against al Assad. These rebels became known as the Free Syrian Army and consisted of thousands of volunteers, all with their own reasons for opposing Assad’s dictatorship. 

But as the conflict intensified on the ground it was al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra that emerged as the most potent fighting force opposed both to the regime and Isis. Its brutal track record includes the Adra massacre, which saw the killing of at least 32 Alawite, Christian, Druze and Ismailite civilians in the industrial town of Adra in December 2013. 

Earlier this year in what was seen as a bid to secure weapons from the west, Jabhat al-Nusra announced that it had split from al-Qaeda and changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham but there is little evidence that its ideology and tactics have changed. 

The Kurds have also proclaimed their own republic in the northern Syrian enclave of Rojova. This region may well be the most democratic and emancipated part of the Middle East, with a new constitution granting women full legal rights. 

While their fighters have fought tooth and nail against Isis in the heroic siege of Kobane, they have clashed both with government and rebel forces.

So far rebel groups, including Al Nusra have fought against Isis. One risk facing Syria now is that rebel groups pushed to the brink by Russian bombardments may be lured into an alliance with Isis against the common enemy Assad.

President Bashar al-Assad’s government forces are being fought by a loose alliance of (insignias appear in order of their mention) Sunni Arab rebel groups such as the Free Syrian Army, the majority Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and Salafi jihadist groups such as the al-Nusra Front, who often co-operate with the Sunni rebels.

The factions receive substantial support from foreign actors, such as Qatar and Turkey, apart from a proxy war that is being waged between Iran (which supports Assad) and Saudi Arabia (which supports rebels fighting Assad).

Over time, factions of the Syrian opposition split from their original moderate position to pursue an Islamist vision for Syria, as al-Nusra Front and ISIL. In the north, the theatre is shared by the FSA and the Kurdish YPG which leads the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Which powers have a finger in the Syrian pie?

One of the problems in Syria is that too many actors have a finger in the pie. This is partly because the conflict has degenerated into a sectarian one pitting Sunnis backed by the Gulf States and Shiites and Alawites backed by Iran. While Iran-sponsored Hezbollah militias have teamed up with Assad in attacking the rebels, Qatar has been accused on bankrolling Al Nusra. When a group of Christian nuns fell into Nusra hands in Syria in 2013, it was Qatar which helped to bail them out via Lebanon – at a reported price of more than $1m a nun. 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey also has a finger in the pie but while it has used Isis as a pretext for intervention, its main target have been the Syrian Kurds – who are allied with the PKK in Turkey itself, who have been at the forefront in the battle against Isis. 

Why has Putin intervened in Syria?

The ties between the Assad regime and Russia date back to the times of the Soviet Union when Syria leased them a military base in Tartus and an airbase in Latakia. This fulfilled a historical dream dating back to the times of the Czars; that of giving Russia a foothold in the Mediterranean Sea to do away with the natural disadvantage of having their main ports frozen during the Winter.

But for Putin Syria has also represented a unique opportunity to present himself as a leader of a great power with global ambitions. 

Influence in Syria puts him in a position to thwart an alternative supply of natural gas from the region which would give Europe an alternative to dependency on Russian gas.

Putin’s imperialism has so far boosted his popularity both at home and internationally, especially with the extreme right, as a standard bearer in the war against radical Islam. Surely he has driven a wedge in public opinion in Western countries, by presenting himself as an unscrupulous global strongmen bent on destroying “terrorism”, with no qualms about civilian casualties. 

By using Isis as a pretext to bombard rebel positions, Putin has also managed to turn the tide in favour of the Assad regime. But he may well be cultivating the seeds of resentment among his victims, which may ultimately catch up with him if Russia gets bogged down in a conflict in foreign soil in the same way as the Soviet Union was bogged down in Afghanistan.

Why did the US fail to intervene?

While Russia has intervened in favour of the Assad regime, the US and its western allies have been cautious, with their role being limited to striking against Isis and providing logistical support to a shrinking cohort of “moderate” rebels. 

Obama even failed to act after Assad crossed the red line of using chemical weapons against the rebels, Obama as a result sending a message of weakness. Some argue that it was the failure of decisive action against Assad at an earlier stage that has turned Syria into an open wound which since then has been irremediably infected by extremism. 

But weighing on Obama is the legacy of George Bush’s invasion of Iraq, another festering wound which ultimately produced Isis. And while intervention in Libya did stop Gaddafi from carrying out his threats to exterminate rebels in Benghazi, the aftermath was a failed state. Conflicting geo-political interests also thwarted US intervention. For example US air cover for the Kurds fighting Isis in Kobane put it at odds with its Turkish Nato ally. Ultimately limited western support for the rebels may have only served to prolong the agony but with Russia decisively intervening in favour of Assad, the end game may be in sight and it is not to the Obama’s liking. 

Obama’s best bet to resolve the crisis was the thawing of relations with Iran through the lifting of sanctions in return for Iran scrapping its nuclear programme. 

In the long term the rapprochement between what Khomeini called the Great Satan and Iran could have reshuffled the Middle East cards, making Assad more disposable. But with the unpredictable Trump winning office, American foreign policy is back on the drawing board.

What will a Trump presidency mean for Syria?

While finding time to meet rapper Kayne West, Trump was silent on what was happening in Aleppo. During the electoral campaign Trump had expressed his admiration for Putin and Russian hacking may have even had a role in putting him in the White House. 

But Trump has also placated the Republican right wing, promising to scrap the deal with Iran (a Russian ally) and to strengthen relations with Israeli hardliner Netanyahu who is also dead set against this agreement. It remains a mystery how Trump will continue to pursue US strategic interests without coming in conflict with Putin’s. The understanding between the two strongmen may well take the shape of respect for their respective spheres of influence, although it remains unclear whether Trump is even interested in engaging with the rest of the world. If that were the case, Trump may well have decided to give Putin a freehand in Syria while he concentrates on his domestic agenda. 

Why is Aleppo so important for Assad and the rebels?

Aleppo was once Syria’s largest city, with a population of about 2.3 million. It was also the country’s industrial and financial centre. During the conflict Aleppo ended up divided roughly in half – the opposition in control of the east, and the government the west. East Aleppo had a democratically elected council and independent civil society, now lost. After a campaign of concerted bombardments by government forces backed by Russia the balance tilted in favour of Assad. By 13 December, more than 90% of the city had fallen to the government. The UN warned that up to 100,000 people were trapped in “ever-shrinking” areas of eastern Aleppo, adding that rebels were also stopping people from leaving. Food and fuel in the rebel-held areas are running out, and basic infrastructure and health care facilities had been destroyed. 

At one point in November, all hospitals in eastern Aleppo were virtually out of action as a result of government air strikes. The UN says hundreds of civilians have died, but the government and Russia have denied targeting them. Rebel rocket and mortar fire has also killed dozens of people in the government-controlled west. 

Thousands of civilians are currently being evacuated from Aleppo to other rebel held areas where they may still end up being targeted by the regime. But in the absence of supervision by a UN peacekeeping force, the evacuation is constantly sabotaged by breaches of the agreed truce, by both sides.

For Assad the fall of Aleppo represents a major turnaround and while this may raise hopes of an end to the civil war, it also raises the prospect of more repression, the UN has reported.

What could the United Nations have done to avoid this?

Humanitarian intervention in Syria may take the shape of UN-supervised evacuation of civilians and sending White Helmet rescue teams to safe havens. 

But with Russia holding a permanent seat in the Security Council in which it has the power to veto any resolution, even such a limited intervention is unlikely. On Monday the UN agreed (with Russia's consent) to deploy UN observers to Aleppo to monitor evacuations and report on the fate of civilians who remain in the besieged Syrian city. The 15-member council resolution "demands all parties to provide these monitors with safe, immediate and unimpeded access".

Activists have also advocated humanitarian air drops to provide much needed help to civilians, something which western nations can do independently of the UN but which could be thwarted by Russia’s military presence.