Syria's War on Terror

"I think [the Syrian government] are finally realizing that their Machiavellian strategy of working with the Islamic State group against the moderates did not work so well and so they have started to fight it."
Andrew Tabler, senior fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy

"Assad would surely love to regain international acceptance via a 'war on terror' and maybe that is his long-term plan, in so far as he has one."
Aron Lund, Syria analyst

"They will stop at nothing. If thing continue the same way it's only a matter of time before the Islamic State seizes Aleppo."
Abu Thabet, Aleppo rebel commander

ISIS fighters in Aleppo, Syria -- Photo Hurriyet

A report released in the wake of the Federal Aviation Administration's notice to U.S. airlines banning flights in Syrian airspace, confirms that armed groups in Syria are in possession of portable anti-aircraft missiles, which should they fall into the hands of ISIS extremists can be used to destroy low-flying commercial planes.

Small Arms Survey, a Swiss-based research organization analyzing the global flow of weapons reported that armed extremists in Syria are "known to be equipped with a variety of anti-aircraft weapons which have the capability to threaten civilian aircraft." Launchers and missiles familiarly referred to as "man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS)", present a danger to low-altitude flights or planes taking off or landing.

The report estimates that several hundred anti-aircraft missile systems are now in rebel arsenals. They are mostly Russian and Chinese in origin, seized by Syrian opposition militias from government forces. The presence in Iraq and other neighbouring countries of Islamist extremists make it likely that these weapons could be funnelled through to other violent trouble spots.

"In the hands of trained terrorists with global reach, even a few missiles pose a potentially catastrophic threat to commercial aviation", explained the report's author, Matthew Schroeder. Militants who have been fired upon by U.S. drones and fighter jets posted an online video recently demonstrating a fighter who appeared to fire a Russian-made SA-7 missile system.

"Opposition groups have successfully shot down Syrian military aircraft using these anti-aircraft weapon systems during the course of the conflict", noted the Federal Aviation Administration in its "notice to airmen". Now, as the U.S. has engaged its fighter jets in Iraq, it seems that Bashar Al-Assad has instructed his military to do precisely what the Americans are doing; target ISIS from the air.

Up to now Damascus has seemed indifferent to the expansion of ISIS forces in Syria, and it has even been accused by the rebels of aiding ISIS in its conflict with the rebels to gain control of key Syrian towns. The latest focus of ISIS being on taking rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo for themselves.

The focus on attacks against the Western-backed Syrian rebels by ISIS has now expanded to carrying out attacks against Syrian army facilities in northeastern Syria. In the process, ISIS has captured and slaughtered hundreds of Syrian soldiers and pro-government militias. Closing in on the last government-held army base in Raqqa province, the Tabqa air base, led to the Syrian government loosing at lest 16 air strikes in the area for the purpose of halting the ISIS advance.

In Aleppo, an ISIS takeover of the parts of the city held by the rebels would spell disaster both to the rebels and the Syrian government troops who have, over the past months been gaining on the rebels. Analysts, deciphering the situation as it unfolds, feel that the regime's air strikes are meant to send a message that Syria is playing from the same gamebook as the United States; both making a strenuous effort to defeat terrorism, and bring extremist action to a halt.

The trouble here is that the Syrian regime's actions against its own people have registered on a similar scale of troubling viciousness as the atrocious actions of the ISIS Islamist lunatics.