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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |
| Syrian Rebels Taunting U.S. Troops 'Publicity stunt' | |
| 2016-10-03 | |
| A video of the incident—which pitted the shouting partisans of an anti-Assad Islamist rebel group known as Ahrar al-Sharqiya against the passing convoy of a rival rebel brigade backed by the U.S.—was posted on YouTube on Sept. 17. It quickly got picked up in both English and Arabic language media. And it seemed to show the humiliation of the United States and its chosen paladins in the war against ISIS. The BBC, no less, wrote that “Free Syrian Army rebels” appeared “to chase U.S. special forces out of the northern Syrian town of al-Rai, calling them ‘infidels’ in Arabic.” There have been so many embarrassments for America’s proxy warfare in Syria, and this looked like another one. Given the overheated U.S. political season, and at a time when the Syrian war is sinking into ever deeper circles of hell, this smelled like a potent symbol of Obama administration failure. But a fortnight later, both U.S. Central Command and a rebel eyewitness in al-Rai have told The Daily Beast that, far from being run out of Dodge, the U.S. commandos were hardly even aware of the demonstration, much less threatened by it. And further analysis suggests it may have been a set-up with backing from Washington’s ostensible allies, the Turks. According to the eyewitness, the entire spectacle was staged to brand an American-backed Sunni Arab militia as hirelings of a despised superpower. “On the second day of the offensive, in the morning, we passed by one of the main streets of al-Rai,” said the Free Syrian Army fighter who saw the protest and has asked to be called “Abu Faris” for this article. ‘We are fighting ISIS,’ we said. ‘They are our biggest enemy.’ But it didn’t work. There is absolutely no trust of the Americans now.”
After the protest, [the rival brigade] Mutasim returned to the scene and asked Ahrar al-Sharqiya to leave. They did. Al-Rai, as of this writing, is held by multiple U.S.- and Turkish-backed rebel groups, including Mutasim, whose role is providing logistical support to Turkish tanks and target-scouting for U.S. warplanes. “Ahrar al-Sharqiya tried to get a lot of media attention,” Abu Faris told The Daily Beast. “And the Arab media helped them along. It’s just a game they’re playing.” Into this confusing morass of affiliations and multiple loyalties stalks the Obama administration, which, as Abu Faris put it, faces an inordinate amount of “hatred” in northern Syria from jihadist and non-jihadist Sunni Arabs owing to its empowerment of a Kurdish paramilitary force known as the People’s Defense Units, or YPG. Charles Lister, the Syria watcher, noted that Ahrar al-Sharqiya, which has headquartered itself in the Aleppo border town of Azaz, was one of the few “semi-Nusra” units to remain in the north after Nusra as a whole withdrew in 2015, in protest against impending Turkish plans to establish a safe zone. Their fitful presence in al-Rai therefore strongly suggests that Ahrar al-Shariqiya “has some level of a supportive relationship with Turkey,” Lister said, as all rebel factions enjoined in Operations Euphrates Shield are, in effect, Turkish proxies. And while there is no evidence that Ankara might be behind Ahrar al-Sharqiya’s provocation against U.S. forces in al-Rai, which can have been wholly spontaneous and organized by disgruntled jihadists, it would not be the first time since Turkey’s incursion into Aleppo put its own assets dangerously at odds with America’s. But this would be the first time that Turkish assets have directly threatened to kill American soldiers. An advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment. But the CENTCOM spokesman’s sanguine appraisal belies the animosity that still exists between Ankara and Washington. | |
| Posted by:Pappy |