#iran naval forces

[workersolidarity]

🇮🇷⚔️⛴️ 🚨

IRANIAN NAVY SEIZES GAS TANKER SAILING THROUGH THE PERSIAN GULF

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. (IRGC) announced it has seized a foreign gas tanker vessel shipping what Iranian authorities said was over 2-million litres of "smuggled" gas thorough the southern Persian Gulf Sunday.

Speaking with reporters, Iran's Commander of the IRGC's Second Naval Zone, Heidar Honarian Mojarad, stated that "this morning, a foreign vessel with the flag of a country from Oceania was identified with two million liters of smuggled diesel."

The naval Commander said that the vessel was seized by the IRGC "in accordance with a court order off the coast of the southern Iranian port city of Bushehr," adding that 14 crew members, two of whom were from Asian nations, had been detained and arrested by by local Iranian authorities.

Commander Mojarad also told reporters the confiscated vessel had been handed over to Iran's National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company in the Bushehr Province, adding that the Iranian Navy had used state-of-the-art detection tools to monitor all movement through the Persian Gulf.

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[afloweroutofstone]

The inevitable downfall of the violent, dictatorial, neoliberal government of Assad is itself a moment worthy of celebration; yet the future of Syria is now up in the air. The hopes of the Syrian people now depend on the answers to many questions that we cannot conclusively predict right now. These unknowns include:

How will HTS function as a national government? Has their signaling towards a more moderate strand of Islamism in recent years been sincere, or was it just a show to allow them to function as the center of power in a rebel movement ranging from jihadists to secular socialists? Are they either motivated to or capable of making good on their promises of reconstruction and national institution-building out of the ashes of what now constitutes Syrian politics? Will they be a theocratic monolith like the House of Saud, a weak pluralist semi-democracy like Lebanon, a diverse semi-autocracy like Turkey, something more reminiscent of Assad’s secular nationalism, something else entirely?

Will HTS be able to establish unified control of the security situation? There is currently a lack of centralized authority, a rapid formation of new organized criminal syndicates trying to either loot or establish control over slivers of territory, and dozens of ideologically-motivated armed rebel groups with only loose loyalties to the HTS government. The Taliban government in Afghanistan is still fighting Islamic State rebels for full territorial control to this day. How long will this fighting last in Syria, and what forms will it take?

If HTS can establish control, will they be willing to be restrained in their monopoly on violence, or will they attempt to rule purely by force? This can often be a make-or-break moment for the evolution of new post-war governments.

How will the interventionist powers with a vested interest in Syria react? Russia owns a naval base and just lost an ally; the US owns a chunk of Syrian territory; Israel is already making offensive moves; Turkey is now the closest ally and sponsor of the new government; and Iran has its own proxy forces in the conflict (not to mention supply lines to other proxies in the Middle East). Is Turkey getting its first puppet state in the region (besides Northern Cyprus)? Will the new Syria be pressed in from all sides? Is it even possible for an independent Syria to emerge from this?

How aggressively will Israel pursue control over the Golan Heights? What has long been a frozen conflict is already turning hot now that Israel's sending troops in to expand its effective lines of control and double down on its (illegitimate, illegal) occupation of the area. What does HTS do in response, and more generally, how do they deal with the fact that they're now neighbors with Israel?

There are already some early signs of refugee inflows returning from the diaspora-- how widespread will this be, how quick will it be, and how it we be distributed geographically? Will states with large refugee populations pressure them into returning? There are perhaps 10-15 million Syrian people living abroad, with more than five million just in the countries immediately surrounding the nation- what happens to all of them?

Will the Kurds be allowed to participate in the post-war political process? This might seem to imply some form of formal break with the PKK in order to appease Turkey enough to participate in the official deliberations on Syria’s future. I'd be interested to hear what kind of arrangement they might pursue- maybe some form of autonomous zone comparable to that of Iraqi Kurdistan?

Will there be retaliatory violence against the Alawite minority who were favored by Assad’s dictatorship? Against any of the other ethno-religious minorities who faced violence by virtually every side of this conflict? Wars of this intensity do not vanish overnight, especially in a nation like Syria which is fractured along ethnic, religious, and political lines. HTS has made a point of noting that they believe in protecting minorities in Syria, but the test will be in how they now treat Kurds, Yazidis, Alawites, Druze, etc., etc.

[stillnaomi]

10 points on the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria from Vijay Prashad

1. The Syrian state had been devastated by the war from 2011 to 2014, and then by the sanctions placed on the country by the United States and its allies. The Syrian Arab Army (the official state army) had never fully recovered in the aftermath of the major fighting and was incapable of taking back the main cities of Hama, Homs, and Aleppo.

2. The Israeli bombardment of Syrian military facilities had weakened the Syrian armed forces’ logistical and ordinance capabilities. These attacks had been sustained and painful for the Syrian armed forces.

3. Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the assassination of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had weakened the ability of Hezbollah to operate even within Lebanon’s south, which forced the recent ‘ceasefire’ agreement with Israel. This demonstrated that Hezbollah was not in any position to enter Syria again to defend the Syrian government against any armed incursion on the Hama to Damascus road (highway M5).

4. The attacks on Iranian supply depots and military facilities in Syria as well as the attacks by Israel on Iran had prevented any build up of Iranian forces to defend the Syrian government. The weakening of Hezbollah also weakened Iran’s role in the region.

5. The nearly three years of conflict in Ukraine had certainly denied Syria the ability to call upon further Russian assistance for the protection of Damascus or for the Russian naval base in Latakia.

6. Therefore, Syria’s government no longer had its Iranian and Russian military allies for assistance against the reinforced rebels.

7. The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formed in 2017 out of the al-Qaeda formations, drew together various military forces from Turkey to the Uyghurs – with a large number of other al-Qaeda influenced fighters – and built up its forces in Idlib over the past decade. HTS has received aid and support from Turkey, but also covertly from Israel (this information came to me from a highly placed intelligence official in Turkey).

8. What will the new HTS-led government do regarding the many social minorities in Syria? What will the new HTS-led government do regarding the Golan Heights and Israel? How will the new HTS-government regard the Israeli military incursion in Quneitra?

9. This story is not over yet. There will be much further unrest in the country led by ISIS as well as the Kurdish groups in the north; already Turkish-backed groups are in combat against the Kurdish YPG (People’s Defense Units) and PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) forces in Manbij; US forces are already in eastern Syria, where they say that they will remain as a buffer against ISIS (and will therefore retain control of the oil); Israel also announced that it took over the Golan buffer zone. There will be tension between the governments of Turkey and the US regarding what the new HTS-led government must, and must not do.

10. I hope very much that the statements made by Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, that retribution must not be the new culture, will come true. The real fear is regarding the treatment of the minority populations. There is no word yet if the militia groups in Iraq will enter Syria. Much of this depends on what happens to places such as the Sayyida Zaynab shrine in Damascus.

[mariacallous]

Russia—and China—had seemed to benefit from the Houthis’ attacks on shipping in the Red Sea because the militia spared their ships. But it turns out that Moscow has been more than a passive beneficiary. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, Russia has been providing the Houthis with targeting data for their attacks. Now that Russia has crossed this red line of actively aiding attacks on Western shipping, other hostile states may start sharing military-grade data with proxies of their choice.

One of the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members is actively supporting attacks on global shipping. It’s a stark violation of the maritime rules, which grant merchant vessels the freedom and right to sail not only on the high seas but also through other countries’ waters and through internationally recognized straits without having to fear, let alone experience, acts of aggression.

The Houthis, you’ll remember, began their campaign against merchant vessels in the Red Sea last November, when they struck a string of vessels linked to Israel, supposedly in support of the people of Gaza. When the United States and Britain, and then the European Union, intervened in support of shipping in the Red Sea by sending naval vessels to protect merchant ships (of all nationalities), the group began attacking ships linked to these countries, too.

And so it has continued. Each month, the group launches a handful of attacks against ships in the Red Sea. Mostly, the Western naval vessels manage to thwart the attacks, but several merchant ships have been struck, and two of them have sunk. But bar a Russian shadow vessel struck—probably accidentally—this May, Russian and Chinese vessels have been spared.

The group has been so successful thanks to missiles and sophisticated drones provided by Iran. Having high-performance weaponry, though, brings little benefit if one strikes the wrong target, and the Houthis lack the technology that would allow them to discern a ship’s coordinates. That’s where, it has now emerged, Russia has turned out to be a most useful ally.

Russian coordinates have thus helped the Houthis keep up their attacks even as Western naval vessels have been trying to foil them. “Targeting covers a wide range of complexity,” said Duncan Potts, a retired vice admiral in the U.K. Royal Navy. “Hitting a static target on land can be as easy as using information on Google Maps. At the other extreme, you have mobile entities like ships at sea. Hitting them requires much higher-grade, precise, real-time targeting data that uses information from different sources. Such targeting is quite complicated even for Western navies.”

Since ships are mobile, the targeting data typically needs real-time information. Though details of the data provided by the Russians are naturally unavailable, it’s highly likely that real-time data is included. Either way, Potts said, “this development is certainly significant and notable, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

The fact that Russia is giving the Houthis specific information about vessels’ exact presence in the Red Sea is making this strategic waterway even more dangerous for Western-linked ships. “If you’re a Western-linked merchant ship traveling through the Red Sea with whatever naval escort is available, you’ll not be signaling your position by using AIS [automatic identification systems, a maritime GPS],” said Nils Christian Wang, a retired rear admiral and former chief of the Danish Navy. “That means the Houthis would struggle to know what ships are arriving and where they are, so this data would be extremely useful.” (Western naval forces in the Red Sea escort vessels regardless of their flag registration and country of ownership.)

It’s not exactly clear what kind of targeting data the Russians have been providing. “The Russians might help the Houthis get the right maritime picture to make sure they don’t hit Russian ships, but they may also be providing data to help the Houthis hit Western targets,” Wang said. “It’s one thing to give data to help protect your own ships, another to give them data that help them attack Western ships.”

Either way, the group’s attacks have already caused a dramatic drop in traffic in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to the north. Between May 2023 and this May, traffic through the Suez Canal plummeted by 64.3 percent, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Mal reported. The number of ships transiting the canal monthly dropped from 2,396 in May 2023 to 1,111 this May.

Most Western-linked vessels instead sail around the Cape of Good Hope, but this entails an additional 10-12 days’ sailing and a 50 percent cost increase. Only a small number of Western shipping lines and insurers still dare to send their vessels through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea—but Western naval vessels have to remain there to provide some degree of order. In recent months, the Houthis have been attacking these ships, too.

Russia’s provision of targeting data may be followed by yet more support for the Houthis. According to Disruptive Industries (DI), a U.K. technology company that specializes in the closed-source discovery of global risks, there is extensive and unseen Russian activity in Houthi-held parts of Yemen, and there has been for some time. (Full disclosure: I’m a member of DI’s advisory board.)

Sharing targeting data is directly participating in a conflict. That’s why Western nations have refrained from sharing targeting data with Ukraine, a nation defending itself against an invader. In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin himself weighed in on the issue. Western approval for the use of Western-provided long-range missiles that could strike Russia would mean involvement in the conflict because Western military personnel would have to provide the targeting data. “It is a question of deciding whether or not NATO countries are directly involved in a military conflict,” Putin told Russian state television.

By that point, Russia was already sharing targeting data with the Houthis.

“The Houthis’ attacks are certainly in line with Russia’s desire to remove the world’s focus from Ukraine,” Wang said. “One almost gets the suspicion that this is part of a manuscript. It’s so much in Russia’s interest to have these attacks happen.”

Now that the Kremlin has crossed this red line in the Red Sea without being punished for it, it may decide to share targeting data with other nonstate outfits. So may other regimes. Imagine, say, a Chinese-linked militant group in Myanmar or Indonesia targeting merchant vessels in nearby waters aided by targeting data from the People’s Liberation Army Navy. Western governments, shipping companies, and underwriters will need to pay close attention.

For now, the continuing strikes against Western vessels present a massive risk for Western-linked merchant vessels in the Red Sea and the Western naval vessels that are there to protect shipping. And the discovery that Russia is providing targeting data could convince the few remaining Western shipping lines still sending vessels through the Red Sea to give up on it (and the Suez Canal) altogether. One of the oldest routes of modern shipping could be abandoned—until Russia and the Houthis are bought to heel.

[dostoyevsky-official]

Retreat of Syrian Forces Threatens ‘Saigon Moment’ for Russia

Syria has partly been an ideological project for Putin. The intervention in Syria became a way for Russia to extend its vision of a multipolar world opposed to the Western liberal order, said Nicole Grajewski, fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of a coming book on Russia’s relationship with Iran, including in Syria. “To see Russian planes leave Syria as rebel forces move onward towards their air bases, and their assets in Damascus fall, this would be so devastating for the Russian image of itself,” she said. “It would be akin to a Saigon moment for them.” Putin’s assistance was instrumental to Assad’s survival, and showed Moscow’s allies far beyond the Middle East that Russian intervention could help push back popular uprisings, said a former Russian official. African leaders began to invite Russia, and specifically contractors from the Wagner paramilitary group who also played a critical role in Syria, to help stabilize their regimes.  Syria holds significant strategic value for Russia as well. The Khmeimim air base near the coastal city of Latakia serves as a logistical hub for flights to Libya, the Central African Republic, and Sudan, where Russian private contractors and soldiers have operated for years.  A naval base in the port city of Tartus serves as the only replenishment and repair point for the Russian navy in the Mediterranean, where it has brought in goods by bulk through the Black Sea. Tartus has granted Putin access to a warm water port, something Russian rulers for centuries before him sought in the Middle East. The port could also potentially connect Russia to Libya—like Syria, a Soviet-era ally—where it seeks a naval base to extend its reach into sub-Saharan Africa. A rebel takeover of those Syrian coastal positions could jeopardize Russia’s global-power projection. “Syria provided so many advantages at a low cost,” said Anna Borshchevskaya, senior fellow at the Washington Institute think tank and author of a book on Putin’s war in Syria. “Losing Syria would be a big strategic defeat that would reverberate beyond the Middle East. It would have global repercussions.”

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Very Good Morning! Several Large Explosions and Fires are raging at the Port in the Crimean City of Feodosia on the Coast of the Black Sea, following Ukrainian Strikes against what is reported to be Russian and Iran Naval Vessels carrying Munitions; the Ukrainian Air Force is claiming to have Sunk the “Novocherkassk” (BDK-46), a Ropucha-Class Amphibious Landing Ship during the Attack.

P.S. While Trump and other idle talkers cool their mouths by engaging in lies and political demagoguery, Ukraine is effectively destroying - the military resources of the criminal regimes of Russia and Iran....The only way to achieve peace is to completely destroy the Russian army, navy and industrial resources throughout the territory of Russia....

[girlactionfigure]

🟦HOUSE OF HORRORS, ATTACK ANALYSIS - ISRAEL REALTIME 

Connecting to Israel in Realtime

⭕HIGH RISE APT BUILDING IN YAVNE.. apparently HIT by a SUICIDE DRONE from Yemen.  No alarms, the drone apparently flew under the radar - literally.  Significant damage to a penthouse apartment, no injuries.

🔹SYRIA’S HOUSE OF HORRORS.. The regime prison-torture center-slaughter house info has been coming out, including TODDLERS being held, mass torture facilities, mass body destruction and disposal facilities.  Commentators noting with HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS disappearing into the facility - there is NO UN CONDEMNATION, NO INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE indictment, no INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT warrants, no claims of genocide on a regime which both mass tortured and chemical weapon bombed its opponents.  Hmm.

🔹SYRIAN REBELS.. Some Syrian  rebels declare: this is just the beginning. Taking over Jerusalem and liberating Gaza are among the goals.  A reminder that among the rebel organizations are reformed Al Qaeda.

🔹IRAN.. The American administration expresses concern that the collapse of the Assad regime could increase the pressure on Khamenei, regarding giving the green light to the production of a nuclear bomb.

🔹RED ON RED.. JENIN - The Palestinian Authority announced yesterday an ultimatum to the terrorists of the five terrorist groups in the Jenin camp to hand themselves in and their weapons, by midnight last night.

This morning the Palestinian Authority sent many forces into the city, including forces from the "Commando Unit 101" and snipers, exchanges of fire have been going on for hours between the terrorists and the mechanisms.  PA snipers were deployed. The IDF is not involved.

🔹ANALYSIS - IDF ATTACKS ON SYRIA.. (The Arab Desk). The air force is in a blitz of airstrikes in the entire Syrian airspace from south to north, fighter jets in attack waves destroy strategic weapons that may be directed towards us, from ground-to-ground ballistic missile depots, chemical weapons, research laboratories, anti-aircraft systems, fighter planes and naval vessels, helicopters and more. The IDF is simply destroying very large chunks of the (former) Syrian army's capabilities.

🎗️HOSTAGE DEAL NEWS.. Report: Hamas handed over a list of hostages to be offered for trade / release, including 4 with American citizenship.  Noting some hostage advocacy organizations are demanding no deal that doesn’t include ALL live hostages.

[darkmaga-returns]

This is real. This is a cybersecurity, law, policy, and roles and missions of the Federal Government. This is not a technology issue on how to take them down - that's easy.

Oct 15, 2024

A complex swarm of drones wanders at will over the largest American National Security Joint Base cluster. Langley Air Force Base, Ft. Eustis (now a joint base with Langley), Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, Norfolk Naval Station, Norfolk Naval Air Station, Little Creek Amphibious Base, Oceana Naval Air Station, Dam Neck Annex (Seal Team 6), etc. etc. etc.

This cluster of bases in Virginia is the largest single concentration of U.S. Military resources, units, and equipment. And someone just flew a drone swarm for 17 days as the Department of Defense and the Inter-Agency process went bonkers.

Step 1 on any new, complex, national security issue is answering this question: Who will be the lead Department or Agency to address the developing crisis?

I’m sure the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the National Security Council, and the National Military Command Center were doing Cheetah Flips and Flap-Exs on steroids to answer this question. Well the threat actor flew for 17 days with no interruption.

Apparently they are inside our OODA-Loop and our inter-agency process is not fast or agile enough to take action.

Not good at all. Was it China or Iran? Likely

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

A recent study (sorry, some stuff I can only find in Hebrew, this is one of those articles) shows 83% of Israeli kids are experiencing psychological distress since Oct 7. Among the kids of the south, (the area which was hit the worst, and where even communities that were not massacred by Hamas, were evacuated following this massive invasion), the percentage is even higher, 93%. An important note is that the study sampled both Jewish and Arab kids based on the size of these populations (Arabs make up 21% of Israeli citizens).

The IDF published aerial footage of Hamas stealing humanitarian aid from regular Gazans, and beating them up. If there's a blog that claims to be sharing pro-Palestinian info, but doesn't share this kind of news, they're not really pro-Palestinian, they're just exploiting Palestinians as an excuse to be anti-Israel.

The leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is believed to have escaped from the northern Gaza City to the south, to Khan Younis, in a medical convoy. Just take in the cynical use of medical and humanitarian protections, to do anything which would prolong the fighting, no matter how many Palestinian lives it would cost. I'm trying hard to remember any other (real) liberation movement that was directly responsible for the deaths of so many of the people it seeked to liberate...

Five Israeli soldiers were pronounced dead yesterday, four were killed in Gaza, while one was badly wounded on Oct 7, and after over two months in hospital, passed away. The number of Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting in Gaza so far is 97. Up until number, the bloodiest battle Israel has had to wage in Gaza since withdrawing from it, was operation Protective Edge in 2014, with 70 Israeli soldiers killed.

The Palestinian Authority's Prime Minister said, when discussing plans for Gaza after the end of the war, that Hamas is an integral part of the Palestinian mosaic, and that dismantling Hamas is unacceptable to the Palestinian Authority.

Yesterday, an American base in Iraq was attacked by Hezbollah forces. You absolutely should ask yourself why the terrorist organization calling itself the "defender of Lebanon" has units in Iraq, and how is attacking American forces there helping Lebanon. Just a side note, Iran funds Hezbollah.

Also yesterday, the Yemenite terrorist group known as the Houthis announced that instead of going after Israeli ships only, they will target any ship that is headed for Israel through one of the most important naval routes in the world, and which is Israel's only connection to the far east. Essentially, it means they're placing Israel under a naval blockade. I'm looking forward to people condemning Yemen for occupying Israel. Just a side note, Iran funds the Houthis.

Today, it was published that in Cyprus, two Iranian political refugees, who entered the country with a fake passport, were arrested for collecting intel to carry out a terrorist attack against Israelis there. Just a side note, these refugees were in touch with Iran's political militarized force, IRGC. Stop me when you notice a theme here...

On the first even of Hanukkah, 138 hanukkiot were lit at the Kotel (the Western wall), one for each hostage. Since then, two of the hostages have been confirmed as murdered.

Following the Congress hearing where three presidents of prestigious universities couldn't explicitly say that a call for the genocide of the Jewish people constitutes bullying and harassment, UPenn's president resigned. That's good, but I wanna point out that, as their answers were obviously coordinated, down to repeating the exact same terms, there is no difference between UPenn's president and the ones of Harvard and MIT. They all need to go home. And the universities still have the burden of proof that this will be more than a cosmetic change in leadership.

I watched a TV interview with two married Israeli Harvard professors, who recounted how they went out and celebrated when Claudine Gay was elected as their university's president, and now they've chosen to leave Harvard and the US, to return to Israel, because the campus has become an environment that's just too toxic. I think if the amount of Jews who are moving to Israel, while the country is in a state of war, isn't a wake up call for the west, then nothing will be.

On the left is 25 years old Gal Eizenkott, the son of Israel's former Chief of Staff, and current minister, who is a part of the war cabinet, Gadi Eizenkott. I wrote about Gal in previous daily updates. Something I can add is that his father happened to be in an IDF command center, when they got the news of the incident in which Gal was killed. It took several minutes for the info to arrive at the command center, that one of those soldiers injured mortally was Gadi's son.

On the right is 19 years old Maor Cohen Eizenkott. Maor is Gal's cousin, and was a soccer player. He was killed a day after Gal, when an explosive device planted in a Gaza mosque blew up. Maor was buried today. May his memory be a blessing.

This is 53 years old Eitan Levi.

He was a taxi driver, who on Oct 7 took a lady to one of the kibbutzim on the border of Gaza. On his way back, he called his sister, telling her about the rocket barrages into Israel, and that he was scared. She stayed with him on the line as he was driving back from the south of Israel, but then he was stopped, his sister heard Arabic, shouts of "Allahu Akbar" and shots. Later, his phone was detected in Gaza, and he was considered kidnapped. Then Hamas released a video of its terrorists abusing a body. It was beyond recognition, but based on some accessories, the army finally determined it was Eitan, that he had been murdered on Oct 7, and it was his body that was kidnapped to Gaza. His sister watched the vid, but as the body is unrecognizable, she said in an interview, "He's the only family I have in this world. We don't even have a body to sit Shiva for. Until such time, I'm going to keep hoping he's alive, kidnapped and just injured."

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[adropofhumanity]

The US military says it has spent about $1 billion in an unsustainable campaign to fight the Ansarallah-led Yemeni Armed Forces in the Red Sea, the Wall Street Journal reported on 15 June.

Since November, Yemeni forces have targeted Israeli-linked commercial ships traveling through the Red Sea, the world's most important commercial sea route, in response to Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza.

After US and UK naval warships began carrying out attacks on the Yemeni navy and sites in the capital, Sanaa, Yemeni forces began targeting warships as well.

The US Navy has conducted more than 450 strikes and intercepted 200 drones and missiles, in an attempt to contain Yemen's operations, that US officials worry is not sustainable.

"Their supply of weapons from Iran is cheap and highly sustainable, but ours is expensive, our supply chains are crunched, and our logistics tails are long," said Emily Harding of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "We are playing whack-a-mole, and they are playing a long game."

The Wall Street Journal provided details of a Yemeni operation targeting a US naval destroyer on 9 January, one of 80 operations overall, which illustrated the difficulties US personnel face.

"It was just after 9 p.m. when radar operators aboard this U.S. Navy destroyer in the Red Sea spotted a tiny arrow on their screens: a missile hurtling toward them at five times the speed of sound," The Journal reported.

"The crew of the warship with 300 sailors aboard had just seconds to shoot it down. As the projectile closed in, the Laboon launched an interceptor from silos beneath its deck, destroying the incoming missile in flight."

Yemeni forces launched 18 drones and cruise missiles, along with the ballistic missile, at four American destroyers, a US aircraft carrier, and a UK warship throughout the 12-hour battle that day.

[usafphantom2]

A-10 Warthogs Escort Ballistic Missile Submarine USS Wyoming

For the second time in the last few months, A-10C jets escorted an Ohio-class nuclear submarine and also took part in a life fire exercise.

Stefano D'Urso

A-10 submarine

An A-10C Thunderbolt II maneuvers over the ballistic missile submarine USS Wyoming. (Image credit: U.S. Navy)

A formation of A-10C Thunderbolt II close-air support aircraft were employed once again to escort an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, the USS Wyoming (SSBN 742). The images, shared on social media by Submarine Group Ten, depict Wyoming and its escorts navigating in an undisclosed location in the United States, with six A-10Cs flying overhead.

The aircraft, assigned to Moody Air Force Base, escorted the submarine and were also involved in a live fire exercise with their GAU-8 30 mm gun and 70 mm rockets. The U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Force Protection Unit Kings Bay, USNS Black Powder (T-AGSE-1), and USNS Westwind (T-AGSE-2) also participated in the escort of the submarine.

The rare sighting is not unprecedented, as earlier this year the USS Nebraska was also escorted by a quartet of A-10 Warthogs while navigating the Strait of San Juan de Fuca. In that occasion, however, the A-10s did not take part in any life fire activity and flew without carrying external ordnance.

“Joint operations, such as this one which involved the Air Force, Coast Guard, and Navy, ensure the U.S. military is ready to meet its security commitments at home and abroad,” mentioned the statements on both occasions. The services did not further elaborate on the extend of the joint operations.

The A-10C and the maritime domain

While no other details were released, it appears the Warthogs practiced overwatch of the extremely high-value strategic asset during one of the most vulnerable phases of its navigation. The live fire exercise might have also been used to simulate the defense of the USS Wyoming from surface threats.

A-10s have been used to target swarms of boats and to strike small naval vessels in previous training exercises, demonstrating the attention that these types of asymmetric threats attracted following recent real word events, such the attacks in the Red Sea or the Black Sea.

Four A-10Cs fly over the USS Wyoming, while two other jets can be seen in the background. (Image credit: U.S. Navy)

The A-10, which was born as a pure Close Air Support and anti-tank platform, has never been employed to large extent in the maritime domain, seeing only limited use. One of the most notable episodes was in 2011 during Operation Unified Protector, when an A-10 and a P-3C Orion engaged together a patrol boat and several small attack craft in the port of Misrata, Libya.

Since the last two couple of years, the Warthog was part of multiple Maritime Surface Warfare exercises and conducted unit defense training. One of the exercises saw, in Sept. 2023, two A-10s engage simulated surface threats in the Gulf of Oman with the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem.

The A-10’s maneuverability at low airspeeds and altitude, highly accurate weapons-delivery capabilities, and extended loiter time are all key attributes that make it highly effective at providing aerial support to American and coalition forces on land and at sea, mentioned the U.S. Air Force after one of these exercises last year.

Asymmetric threats to maritime assets

The events in the Black Sea and Red Sea highlighted once again how asymmetric threats cannot be underestimated. In the past, the U.S. Navy had experience countering small fast attack crafts, especially in the Persian Gulf where Iran regularly harassed U.S. ships in the area.

More recently, Ukraine and the Houthis demonstrated the effectiveness and the danger posed by Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs), used in kamikaze attacks against larger ships. The small, unmanned boats, filled with explosives, can exploit their limited dimensions and high maneuverability to avoid detection and interception, with devastating effects on their targets.

An A-10C Thunderbolt II engages a simulated target with its GAU-8 30 mm gun. (Image credit: U.S. Navy)

Highly defended targets could be overwhelmed by coordinated swarms of USVs, challenging the traditional naval strategies. The presence of multiple, fast approaching and maneuvering targets against a limited number of weapon systems on a naval asset could confuse the defenses, which would be forced to prioritize targets as to maximize the hit probability and avoid wasting precious ammo.

And here is where overhead protection from and asset like the A-10C could come in handy, as it provides to naval commanders a number of options both for surveillance and kinetic effects.

About Stefano D'Urso

@TheAviationist.com

Stefano D'Urso is a freelance journalist and contributor to TheAviationist based in Lecce, Italy. A graduate in Industral Engineering he's also studying to achieve a Master Degree in Aerospace Engineering. Electronic Warfare, Loitering Munitions and OSINT techniques applied to the world of military operations and current conflicts are among his areas of expertise.

[nicklloydnow]

“The Syrian government fell early Sunday in a stunning end to the 50-year rule of the Assad family after a sudden rebel offensive sprinted across government-held territory and entered the capital in 10 days.

Syrian state television aired a video statement by a group of men saying that President Bashar Assad has been overthrown and all detainees in jails have been set free.

(…)

The statement emerged hours after the head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said Assad had left the country for an undisclosed location, fleeing ahead of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus following the remarkably swift advance across the country.

(…)

It was the first time opposition forces had reached Damascus since 2018, when Syrian troops recaptured areas on the outskirts of the capital following a yearslong siege.

(…)

The night before, opposition forces took the central city of Homs, Syria’s third largest, as government forces abandoned it. The city stands at an important intersection between Damascus, the capital, and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus — the Syrian leader’s base of support and home to a Russian strategic naval base.

The rebels had already seized the cities of Aleppo and Hama, as well as large parts of the south, in a lightning offensive that began Nov. 27. Analysts said rebel control of Homs would be a game-changer.

(…)

The advances in the past week were by far the largest in recent years by opposition factions, led by a group that has its origins in al-Qaida and is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the United Nations. In their push to overthrow Assad’s government, the insurgents, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, have met little resistance from the Syrian army.

(…)

Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali said Sunday he does not know where Assad or the defense minister are. He told Saudi television network Al-Arabiyya early Sunday that they lost communication Saturday night.

He has had little, if any, help from his allies. Russia is busy with its war in Ukraine. Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which at one point sent thousands of fighters to shore up Assad’s forces, has been weakened by a yearlong conflict with Israel. Iran has seen its proxies across the region degraded by regular Israeli airstrikes.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday posted on social media that the United States should avoid engaging militarily in Syria. Separately, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser said the Biden administration had no intention of intervening there.”

“A fast-advancing rebel offensive in Syria threatens to dislodge Russia from a strategic linchpin that Moscow has used for a decade to project power in the Middle East, in the Mediterranean and into the African continent.

It also challenges Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to portray Moscow as a flag bearer for an alternative global order to rival Western liberalism, and his defense of the Syrian regime as evidence of successful pushback against American dominance in the region.

(…)

Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015 to prop up President Bashar al-Assad against an armed uprising prompted by the Arab Spring, giving it a role as an influential foreign power in the Middle East. It sought to leverage its relations with rival powers such as Iran and Israel, as well as Turkey and Gulf states, to mediate conflicts and claim status as a regional power broker.

(…)

Syria has partly been an ideological project for Putin. The intervention in Syria became a way for Russia to extend its vision of a multipolar world opposed to the Western liberal order, said Nicole Grajewski, fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of a coming book on Russia’s relationship with Iran, including in Syria.

“To see Russian planes leave Syria as rebel forces move onward towards their air bases, and their assets in Damascus fall, this would be so devastating for the Russian image of itself,” she said. “It would be akin to a Saigon moment for them.”

Putin’s assistance was instrumental to Assad’s survival, and showed Moscow’s allies far beyond the Middle East that Russian intervention could help push back popular uprisings, said a former Russian official. African leaders began to invite Russia, and specifically contractors from the Wagner paramilitary group who also played a critical role in Syria, to help stabilize their regimes.

Syria holds significant strategic value for Russia as well. The Khmeimim air base near the coastal city of Latakia serves as a logistical hub for flights to Libya, the Central African Republic, and Sudan, where Russian private contractors and soldiers have operated for years.

A naval base in the port city of Tartus serves as the only replenishment and repair point for the Russian navy in the Mediterranean, where it has brought in goods by bulk through the Black Sea. Tartus has granted Putin access to a warm water port, something Russian rulers for centuries before him sought in the Middle East. The port could also potentially connect Russia to Libya—like Syria, a Soviet-era ally—where it seeks a naval base to extend its reach into sub-Saharan Africa. A rebel takeover of those Syrian coastal positions could jeopardize Russia’s global-power projection.

“Syria provided so many advantages at a low cost,” said Anna Borshchevskaya, senior fellow at the Washington Institute think tank and author of a book on Putin’s war in Syria. “Losing Syria would be a big strategic defeat that would reverberate beyond the Middle East. It would have global repercussions.”

(…)

“One way to see Putin’s ambition in Syria is as part of his larger imperial vision,” said Borshchevskaya. “That’s what Ukraine is, that’s what [the invasion of] Georgia was in 2008, and to some extent that’s what Syria was,” she said. “Now in 2024, Russia finally finds itself overstretched.”

(…)

The Russian intervention in the civil war turned the tide in Assad’s favor and helped Iran consolidate its military foothold all the way to the Israeli border. Western attempts to isolate Moscow and Tehran through sanctions have pushed them closer together.”

“For years, Syria’s complicated battlefields have been populated by shifting groups of militants battling a range of enemies, including each other, and proxies backed by outside powers. Iran and Russia have propped up the autocratic Assad regime for more than a decade, while Turkey and the United States have troops on the ground in areas outside government control, and each support local proxies.

News reports and videos posted on social media indicate U.S.-backed rebels, supported by American airstrikes, may now be battling Syrian government forces as part of renewed fighting in the east.

That U.S. backing means boots on the ground. Around 900 U.S. troops are deployed in Syria alongside private military contractors, in what one expert calls “arguably the most expansive abuse” of the war powers granted to the executive branch in the wake of 9/11 — and those troops have, on average, come under fire multiple times each week since last October, according to new Pentagon statistics obtained by The Intercept.

Since the war in Gaza began last year, U.S. forces have been under sustained attack by Iran-backed militants across the Middle East, with the Pentagon’s Syrian bases being the hardest hit. Since October 18, 2023, there have been at least 127 attacks on U.S. forces in Syria, according to Lt. Cmdr. Patricia Kreuzberger, a Pentagon spokesperson, and information supplied by U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM. On average, that’s about one attack every three days.

(…)

Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer now with the International Crisis Group, said the ongoing bombardment of U.S. bases should prompt hard questions in America’s halls of power. “Why are U.S. troops in Syria? What is the mission? What is the endgame? And is this legally authorized?” are the questions that need answers, he said. “The administration doesn’t want to have that debate. Congress also seems perfectly fine avoiding it. And so, the legislative and executive branches are content to muddle along, avoiding their constitutional responsibilities — the need for congressional authorization — and really debate the merits of this conflict.”

THE U.S. MILITARY has been conducting operations in Syria since 2014. America’s bases there and in neighboring Iraq ostensibly exist to conduct “counter-ISIS missions,” despite the fact that the Pentagon concluded in 2021 that the Islamic State in Syria “probably lacks the capability to target the U.S. homeland.”

Around 900 U.S. troops — including commandos from Combined Special Operations Joint Task Force-Levant — and an undisclosed number of private military contractors are operating in Syria. In 2022, The Intercept revealed the existence of a low-profile 127-echo counterterrorism program in Syria targeting Islamist militants. Under the 127e authority, U.S. Special Operations forces arm, train, and provide intelligence to small groups of elite foreign troops. But unlike traditional foreign assistance programs, which are primarily intended to build local capacity, 127e partners are dispatched on U.S.-directed missions, targeting U.S. enemies to achieve U.S. aims.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militant group based in the country’s northeast is America’s main proxy force in Syria. While the SDF fights Islamist extremists with U.S. support, it also battles Turkey and Turkish-backed militants. Turkey, America’s longtime NATO ally, opposes the SDF due to that group’s ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish nationalist militant group that both the Turkish and U.S. governments, among others, have designated a terrorist group.

(…)

The future of America’s escalating war in Syria may face renewed scrutiny early next year. President-elect Donald Trump showed antipathy to the U.S. war in Syria and withdrew U.S. forces from the north of the country in 2019, opening the door to a Turkish invasion.

“When Trump ordered the removal of U.S. forces from Syria in late 2018, there was a scramble within the government to try to figure out what that meant and whether there were ways to walk it back,” said Finucane, the former State Department lawyer. “The Pentagon was fine to pull out U.S. troops from al Tanf because there was really no counter-ISIS mission. But in his memoir, [Trump’s national security adviser] John Bolton said he wanted to keep troops there to counter Iran.”

For four years, experts say the Biden administration has continued this shadow effort aimed at Iran under the guise of a counter-ISIS mission, fending off several congressional efforts to force the removal of U.S. troops from Syria. Last year, a bid by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to compel the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Syria within 30 days also failed. “The American people have had enough of endless wars in the Middle East,” Paul told The Intercept at the time. “Yet, 900 U.S. troops remain in Syria with no vital U.S. interest at stake, no definition of victory, no exit strategy, and no congressional authorization to be there.” Those troops may be increasingly drawn into the Syrian civil war in support of their SDF allies.

“This is arguably the most expansive abuse of the 2001 AUMF in the history of the law,” said Erik Sperling of Just Foreign Policy, an advocacy group critical of mainstream Washington foreign policy, referring to the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, enacted in the wake of the September 11 attacks. “We know from Biden administration leaks that the U.S. presence in Syria was part of an anti-Iran proxy war strategy but after Congress started voting to remove troops, they cracked down on those leaks and they said it’s only about terrorism.”

(…)

U.S. troops have, however, been relentlessly attacked across the Middle East since last October. There have been at least 208 attacks against U.S. forces in the region — two in Jordan, 79 in Iraq, and 127 in Syria — according to Kreuzberger and CENTCOM. In addition to coming under fire about once every other day, U.S. troops have been killed or seriously injured in these attacks. In January, three U.S. soldiers were killed and more than 40 other personnel were injured in an attack on a base in Jordan near the Syrian border. Eight U.S. troops also suffered traumatic brain injuries and smoke inhalation from an August 9 drone attack on the Rumalyn Landing Zone in northeastern Syria.”

“Israeli ground forces advanced beyond the demilitarized zone on the Israel-Syria border over the weekend, marking their first overt entry into Syrian territory since the 1973 October War, according to two Israeli officials speaking anonymously to discuss sensitive developments.

(…)

Israeli forces took control of the mountain summit of Mount Hermon on the Syrian side of the border, as well as several other locations deemed essential for stabilizing control of the area.

Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military chief of staff, appeared to confirm on Saturday night that Israeli forces had gone beyond a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights, saying Israel had “deployed troops into Syrian territory,” although he did not elaborate further.

(…)

More recently, the Israeli military has been more explicit about striking sites and people there, saying it was targeting Hezbollah’s supply lines. But the deployment of ground troops beyond the demilitarized zone in Syria marks a significant shift in policy as the first overt entry of Israeli military forces into Syrian territory since the 1974 cease-fire agreement that officially ended the last war between Israel and Syria.

The Israeli Air Force over the weekend was also striking targets in Syria to destroy government military assets that could fall into the hands of rebel forces and are considered strategic threats by Israel, the two officials said.

(…)

The targets included small stockpiles of chemical weapons, primarily mustard gas and VX gas, which remained in Syrian possession despite prior agreements to disarm, according to the officials. The Israeli military also targeted radar-equipped batteries and vehicles of Russian-made air defense missiles, as well as stockpiles of Scud missiles, according to the two officials.

(…)

Israel captured the Golan Heights during the Middle East war of 1967 and annexed much of the territory in 1981. The rest is controlled by Syria. Most of the world views this area as Israeli-occupied Syrian territory, though Donald J. Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty there in 2019 during his first term as president.”

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Farley Weiss and Leonard Grunstein 

Israel is on the front lines of a war against the U.S. launched by Islamic radicals led by the Iranian regime and its proxies, including Hamas.

Hamas and its supporters are not only antisemites. They also hate all non-Muslims, the West in general and especially the U.S. Their ultimate goal is to conquer the world and kill or oppress all those who do not accept their interpretation of Islam.

In the U.S., supporters of Hamas and its sponsors have placed the country under siege. They shriek their support of the Houthis, who attack U.S. shipping and naval forces in the Red Sea. They violently disrupt or attempt to disrupt time-honored American celebrations and holidays, such as public Christmas tree-lighting ceremonies, the New York City Thanksgiving parade and the Times Square New Year’s Eve festivities. They close down bridges, tunnels and roads during rush hour. They pollute once-proud U.S. campuses with racist violence. At a recent violent “demonstration” in New York City, a Hamas supporter spewed the “n-word” at the police officers who arrested him. The anti-Americanism of these thugs is as strong as their antisemitism.

There have also been reports that these pro-terrorist “activists” are well-paid and coordinate their efforts, directly or indirectly, with Hamas and its cohorts. Hamas is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and materially supporting it or providing it with services is prohibited under the law (18 USC 2339). Local laws also apply, which accounts for some of the arrests that have been made.

These pro-terrorist campaigns have no legitimacy whatsoever and no place in the public square. This is obvious given the policies they support. For example, besides supporting the genocide of Jews, they are also viciously misogynistic. Women under the Hamas regime are legally second-class citizens. Domestic physical and emotional abuse is rampant and honor killings regularly occur.

In addition, Hamas is virulently racist. It still labels thousands of people of African origin “slaves.” They reportedly live in a ghetto area of Gaza called Al-Abeed, meaning “The Slaves.”

There is also rampant child abuse, child labor, sexual exploitation of children and slavery in Gaza.

In other words, Hamas supporters are projecting their own evil beliefs and practices onto others, such as their false accusations of genocide against Israel. While supporting genocide themselves—as well as racism, misogyny, slavery and child abuse—they spew blood libels at the Jewish state.

Thankfully, the American people have woken up to the danger posed by Hamas and its Iranian supporters. Recent polls report that an overwhelming majority of Americans support Israel in this war.

It is time for the Biden administration to stop pandering to Hamas’s American supporters. They may be strident and vocal in their demands for an unconditional ceasefire and the elimination of Israel, but they do not represent a majority of American voters.

The mistakes being made by the Biden administration are similar to those made by Jimmy Carter when he was running for reelection in 1980. Carter faced similar challenges and his weak response to the Iran hostage crisis and equivocal support of Israel because of his disdain for what he viewed as Menachem Begin’s right-wing government are eerily akin to the errors being made by the current administration.

The results of Carter’s folly speak for themselves: His share of the Jewish vote dropped from 71% to 45%. He lost decisively to Ronald Reagan and the rest is history.

Recent polling suggests that Biden should avoid Carter’s mistakes. For example, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) has seen his support rise since he disregarded concerns about alienating his progressive base and came out strongly in support of Israel.

This is the time for Reaganesque determination and action, not Carteresque appeasement. America’s military response to Houthi aggression was a good start, but more is necessary to prevent further attacks by the Iranian regime and its proxies. The U.S. must project its overwhelming power in order to reestablish deterrence.

Hamas and its cohorts must be prevented from committing any further atrocities and acts of aggression. The only way to do this is to unequivocally support total Israeli victory.

[workersolidarity]

[Iranian naval destroyer "Alborz" sailing in the Persian Gulf. The destroyer was sent with the 94th Flotilla through Bab el-Mandeb straight in the Red Sea Monday in a direct challenge to U.S. naval power in the region.]

🇮🇷⚔️🇺🇲 ⛴️ 🚨

IRAN SENDS FLOTILLA OF WARSHIPS INTO THE RED SEA IN DIRECT CHALLENGE OF U.S. NAVAL POWER IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The Islamic Republic of Iran has sent the Iranian Navy's 94th Flotilla of warships, including the Iranian destroyer Alborz, into the Red Sea Monday, passing through the Bab el-Mandeb straight in a direct challenge to U.S. naval power in the Middle East.

Since 2009, Iranian warships have been performing regular naval duties in the Red Sea, securing shipping lines and fighting piracy, among other routine operations.

The warship Alborz was recently upgraded with state-of-the-art systems, having joined the Iranian naval fleet in 2019.

The move comes just days after U.S. helicopters sank three Yemeni Armed Forces vessels attempting to board a vessel headed to ports in occupied Palestine. This after the Yemeni Armed Forces warned it would stop all Israeli vessels or other vessels headed to or from ports in the occupied territories.

In response, the United States formed a coalition naval taskforce to patrol the Red Sea and prevent the Yemeni Armed Forces from interfering with Israeli trade, and managing rope-in several Western countries into the taskforce.

No public statement has yet been forthcoming from U.S. authorities in response to the Iranian moves in the Red Sea.

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[mariacallous]

In the early hours of Dec. 8, the Assad dynasty’s more than half a century of brutal rule in Syria came to an end.

With Bashar al-Assad fleeing the country, not only did Syria’s domestic political order change overnight—so too did its geopolitical identity. It is no longer part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” or one of Russia’s longest-lasting allies in the Arab world, where Moscow had its most profound strategic footprint in the form of both air and naval bases.

Many are busy declaring winners and losers of this pivotal moment. Drawing a list of losers at this stage is relatively easy. The regime itself, Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah are among them. However, drawing a list of winners is not as straightforward. Although Assad’s fall has significantly boosted Turkey’s influence and stature in Syria and in broader regional geopolitics, HTS—Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel faction that led the offensive that toppled him—is not a Turkish proxy. That said, Ankara remained committed to the Syrian opposition groups during difficult times and now has significant influence over HTS and the ability to affect its actions and decisions.

That commitment ultimately bore fruit with the removal of Assad, marking a pivotal shift in the regional landscape. In northern Syria, opposition forces—bolstered by years of military and administrative experience and assistance from Turkey—emerged with enhanced governance capabilities.

This transformation became evident not only in the group’s cohesive execution of the operation that led to Assad’s downfall, but also in the disciplined and methodical approach that it adopted in the aftermath. These developments signal a substantive evolution in the Syrian opposition’s capacity to govern, reflecting both the dividends of sustained external support and the intrinsic adaptability of these actors in navigating Syria’s fraught and ever-shifting political terrain.

However, HTS and other rebel groups may soon discover that building a new Syria might prove more cumbersome and challenging than bringing it down. We know what collapsed in Syria, but we do not know what awaits it. A concerted effort by Syrian, regional, and international actors is needed to prevent further bloodshed, fragmentation, and proxy wars in the country.

That effort must begin with a nonsectarian interim government in Damascus and a new regional and international bloc to help with the political process, reconstruction, and rebuilding—a bloc that replaces the old pro-Assad power brokers in Moscow and Tehran with a group including Turkey, Syria’s Arab neighbors, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia—as well as the European Union and the United States.

Within Syria, one of the gravest dangers would be if regime collapse turns into a state collapse, as was the case in Libya. Such a collapse would only lead to more chaos and a bleak future for the country. Therefore, the Syrian state’s institutions and mechanisms need to be maintained.

Political transition and government formation are interlinked, but they can be separated. The political transition is an arduous and time-consuming process. Yet a new interim government is needed immediately to provide essential services, preserve state institutions and functions, and prevent a power vacuum and chaos from emerging.

In this respect, the recent decision by HTS to convene its first joint cabinet meeting with ministers from the Assad era suggests a commitment to a transition process and can be interpreted as a promising development. The attainment of stability in Syria is not merely a local imperative but a regional one as well.

Appointing a caretaker prime minister tasked with putting an interim government in place just one day after the fall of Damascus was a step in the right direction. As the group that led the march on the capital, HTS will have a significant say in the political transition and government formation. Yet, to gain societal legitimacy and international acceptance, this new government should be inclusive and reflect the country’s diversity. It cannot be HTS’s previously Idlib-based “salvation government” writ large.

Similarly, in a conflict context, grievances usually produce militias, violence, and radicalism—not least if these grievances are identity-based. Syria’s next-door neighbor, Iraq, is a textbook case of this. The toppling of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni regime in 2003 led to the emergence of a new power configuration in Baghdad that was led by Shiites and Kurds. Such exclusion and grudges toward the broader Sunni community fueled waves of extremism in Iraq and beyond, from the emergence of al Qaeda in Iraq to the Islamic State.

To fend off such a prospect in Syria, there must be no marginalization or criminalization of the Alawite or Shiite communities. Preventing communal grudges is not only crucial for an orderly political transition and more legitimate government in Damascus, but also crucial to curb Iran’s influence and communal networks in Syria.

At the regional and international levels, rather than the U.N.-led and Western-supported Geneva process, the Astana process—launched in the closing days of 2016 and led by Turkey, Russia, and Iran—has mainly charted the course of the conflict in Syria. The Astana format was effectively about freezing the conflict, not facilitating a political transition, while helping Ankara, Moscow, and Tehran manage their interests in Syria.

However, the Astana process has now run its course—not least because two of its major members backed a regime that no longer exists, and their presence in the country is now dramatically reduced. In other words, Moscow and Tehran no longer have the clout—or the legitimacy—to play a major role in Syria’s future. In the short term, Russia may maintain a degree of influence over developments in Syria. However, this influence will be on shaky ground. Iran’s position is even more precarious.

For some time, the Astana trio might want to maintain this platform not only for convenience, but also for Turkey to partially manage the discontent of Tehran and Moscow over the toppling of Assad. However, this platform is unsuitable for discussion and consensus on the internal political transition and process.

A political transition will require a different set of actors around the table. The new platform needs to include Syria’s key neighbors and have Arab ownership. Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are well-placed to join this bloc.

Their inclusion is vital for two reasons. First, the Astana trio was made up of non-Arab states. Since Syria is an Arab-majority state, the new format must have Arab ownership and agency. Second, as they watch what is unfolding in Syria, regional Arab autocrats are probably terrified. Despite the contextual differences, they see the two main features of the Arab uprisings being present in Syria: the regime being toppled and the main protagonists being Islamists. This will trigger paranoia and fear in these states about their own regime security.

Turkey and the Syrian opposition groups should aim to alleviate these leaders’ concerns and push them to cooperate more for an orderly political transition in Damascus by making them part of such an inclusive regional platform. Similarly, the EU and the United States should nudge Arab states to be cooperative, rather than disruptive, during this political transition.

Without a regional consensus, we are likely to see the emergence of a broad coalition of Arab states that will try to undermine any sort of democratic political transition—as was the case after the Arab Spring uprisings in the early 2010s—the Gulf-engineered coup in Egypt being a case in point. Unless well-managed, it would be no surprise to see Iran and many Arab states similarly opposing the new order in Damascus.

Syria could become a test for the regional normalization process that has unfolded in recent years, including between Turkey and the Arab states as well as Iran and the Gulf states. The Syrian transition should underpin rather than undermine the ongoing process of regional normalization.

Finally, the EU should not remain a bystander—as it has been—or indifferent to the transformation of Syria. Early engagement with HTS; rebel groups; and key regional actors, starting with Turkey, is essential to help the transition process. It should incentivize an orderly transition through different aid and reconstruction packages. To do this, Turkey, the EU, the United States, and key Arab states should hold regular and structured dialogue on the political transition, reconstruction, and rebuilding of Syria.

Most of the time, what many call the “new reality” is merely a snapshot of a moment in time. The dramatic scenes in Damascus could lead to a more chaotic situation—or they could create a new government that enjoys genuine legitimacy in Damascus. Close cooperation between Syria, Arab states, and international powers is essential to prevent a chaotic outcome and allow for the construction of a new, legitimate government in Damascus.

This is a watershed moment. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 broke the old Middle East, after which Iran and its regional axis were ascendant and the Arab powers were in retreat. The Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 further eviscerated this erstwhile regional order. In contrast, after the start of the Israel-Hamas war and Assad’s fall, Iran and its regional network are in decline, and the balance of power is shifting significantly.

Forging a consensus around Syria could serve as the foundation for a new regional order.

[dostoyevsky-official]

What the Fall of Aleppo Means for Russia

For Russia, the loss of regime control in Aleppo reveals deeper vulnerabilities in its Syrian strategy. [...] The naval base in Tartus secures Russia’s access to the Mediterranean, a critical geostrategic asset, while the Khmeimim air base near Latakia enables Moscow to project power across the region and maintain its role as a key player in Syria and beyond. [...] Beyond immediate military concerns, these developments expose Moscow’s growing challenges in preserving its influence in Syria. Since initiating its military intervention in 2015, Moscow’s influence in Syria has rested on several key elements: a partnership with Iran and its network of nonstate actors; coordination with Turkey, with a view to managing competing interests, such as Turkey’s concerns over Kurdish forces and Russia’s support for the Assad regime; a tenuous balancing act with Israel to prevent unintended military clashes and preserve deconfliction agreements; diplomatic outreach to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); and efforts to maintain a working deconfliction mechanism with the United States. However, each of these pillars has come under strain not only due to shifting realities in Syria but due to the spillover effects of Ukraine and Lebanon. The Russian-Iranian partnership has been particularly critical to Russia’s objectives in Syria. [...] Russia’s approach to Iran in Syria has shifted dramatically since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Moscow previously balanced between Iran and Israel, exemplified by its 2018 commitment to keep Iranian forces away from Israel’s border and its silence during Israeli strikes on Iranian assets. However, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and especially after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Moscow has aligned more closely with Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance. Meanwhile, Russia and Turkey have frequently clashed over their competing visions for Syria’s future. [...] Since the start of its war in Ukraine, Russia has sought to maintain close relations with Turkey, a NATO member and critical trade partner for Moscow. This effort, coupled with Russia’s diminished resources across various regions, has positioned Ankara in a place of relative advantage. This dynamic is particularly evident in the South Caucasus, where Turkey, through its support for Azerbaijan against Armenia, has assumed a more active role in shaping regional dynamics. The resurgence of HTS and Turkish-backed rebels will likely force Russia to reach new understandings with Turkey in Syria. While Moscow previously criticized Ankara sharply over rebel activities in Idlib, Russia’s current military constraints and need to maintain Turkish cooperation amid the Ukraine war—specifically for critical trade routes, access through the Bosporus for its naval operations, and to discourage Turkey from supplying Ukraine with advanced arms—have tempered its response. Instead of denouncing Turkey for failing to control HTS, Russian officials have emphasized the Astana format as a mechanism for stability, suggesting that Moscow seeks accommodation rather than confrontation with Ankara. [...] Moscow’s strategy in Syria going forward likely will involve a pragmatic adaptation rather than a withdrawal or a complete overhaul. This may require Russia to reconcile with the reality that its reduced military influence demands greater flexibility with regional powers. Rather than reevaluating its commitment to the Assad regime, Moscow appears determined to preserve its Syrian presence by recalibrating its methods.

2 December 2024