Grounding the ISIS Advance

"As a movement, the SRF (Syrian Revolutionary Front) is effectively finished. Nusra has driven them out of their strongholds of Idlib and Hama."
"One of the conditions for giving Hawrakat Hazm weapons was that they did not work with Jabhat al-Nusra. The Western bolstering of these groups posed a threat to them."
Aymen al-Tammimi, Syrian analyst

Islamist Syrian rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra members pose on a tank in northern Idlib province   (Reuters)

The fears that Afghanistan redux would become a reality have now been realized. That reality has surfaced as many predicted it would. In the sectarian-based conflicts between Shiite and Sunni throughout the Middle East, the ground is forever shifting, primitive enmity roiling and boiling beneath the surface like an unruly volcano threatening to blow its top. The totalitarian rule of dictators within the Middle East managed to keep a lid on that volcano.

Their removal in the guise of freeing up Middle Eastern countries from the talons of merciless murderers has resulted in the freeing up of ancient animosities to surface and roil and incite the tamped-down hatreds to morph into bloodletting that even managed to surmount that of their previous dictators. Of course there's the example of Syrian President al-Bashar who remains in competition with the terrorists he warned the critical international community aghast at his unremitting violence against his own people, for which is capable of committing the worst atrocities.

They've arrived at a stalemate, it would seem, the regime's dreadful record of committing unspeakable acts against his own population as an Alawite Shiite leader compelled to tamp down an insurrection from among his majority Sunni population continues to offend the onlooking world with his ingenious inventiveness wreaking vengeance, whether delivered by chemical agent, barrel bombs, starvation and privation or insufferable torture leading to death.

In contrast, the militias that assembled out of the Sunni Syrian population representing tribal opposition to his rule have remained relatively unbesmirched by gruesome atrocities. Crimes at that level were left to the invading Islamist hordes that descended from all points of the Islamist compass. But none with the unrelenting cruelty of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham. Perhaps Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's Syrian arm, comes close.

In the event, the weapons that the United States reluctantly released to two rebel militias, Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front, that the Americans held high hopes would help form a ground force that could be relied upon to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham are now out of contention. Instead, the heavy weapons that the U.S.-led coalition have placed in their possession have been surrendered to Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamists.

Storming villages that Harakat Hazm controlled in northern Idlib province, Jabhat al-Nusra came into possession of Grad rockets and Tow anti-tank missiles. A day earlier al-Nusra had captured Deir Sinbal, headquarters of the SRF's leader, Jamal Marouf. Their surrender brought with it the reward of the American-provided stockpile of armaments. And so in one fell swoop as it were, the Western effort to aid moderate rebel factions has fallen into disarray.

The humiliation of Harakat Hazm surrendering their positions in Idlib to Jabhat al-Nusra "without firing a shot", along with some of their fighters defecting to the jihadists might serve as yet another lesson in the realities of the Middle East. Nothing is guaranteed to happen as logic and hope might suppose. Loyalties are shifting and never to be trusted. Jabhat al-Nusra, it seems, spurned by ISIS as a partner in its caliphate, is now determined to create a rival caliphate of its own.

How it will differ from ISIS is in the final manner of its disposition of those it conquers. Where the Islamic State doesn't blink a conscience-laden eye at murderous mass purges of those it considers un-Islamist enough to suit them, or of other religions, al-Nusra may be more forgiving in building its extended core of loyalist dependents. Islamic State sees great utility in removing all threats against its conquering spread.

Al-Nusra captured Deir Sinbel and also controls most of the other towns and villages in the Jabal al-Zawiya area. (File photo: AFP)

Those whom it considers were disloyal to brutal Islamism in the past by contesting al-Qaeda in collaboration with U.S. troops, and those whom they feel might present as a challenge to their supremacy in the present and the future, are immediately rounded up and killed. Loyalty must be seen to be practised; where it does not exist or where it wavers, those expressing doubts are simply dispatched to an early reconciliation with their maker.

All the caution that the U.S. initially displayed in its reluctance to arm the 'moderate' Syrian rebels that the international experts claimed had led to their gradual emasculation by the invading Islamist militias was lifted at the unspeakable atrocities committed by Islamic State, including the jeering beheading of four Western hostages. Now, where to turn, to disable and defeat the Islamists?

Look to their neighbours, fearful of their advance and their conquest of enlarging their territory in constructing an ever-greater caliphate? Suppose that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Turkey combined would feel obliged to protect their own geography by massing troops to the defence of their own borders? For their part, those noble and fearful Islamic entities patiently await what they feel is the inevitable: America back in action -- on the ground.