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While Turkey is likely to lend assistance to the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State, the recent parliamentary vote won’t trigger any military action by itself. For Turkey, the top priority is not to join the campaign but to leverage it for other purposes.
The “Khorasan Group,” a network affiliated with al-Qaeda, has been a target of recent U.S. bombing in Syria. The sudden flurry of revelations about the group in the past two weeks smacks of strategic leaks and political spin.
Ever since the Islamic State captured vast territories in northern Iraq in mid-June, no group has been more deeply affected by this jihadi civil war than the Nusra Front, which broke off from the Islamic State in April 2013 and has since emerged as Syria’s only official al-Qaeda franchise.
Obama’s strategy is a positive step forward after years of relative inaction on part of the United States, but it is far from comprehensive.
The killing of Ahrar al-Sham’s leadership will have major ripple effects in the opposition.
There are no indications that Assad is ready to let anyone not under his control join the new government in his third term as president. Genuine power sharing in Syria will remain as distant as ever.
To ask whether the June 3 Syrian presidential election results will lead to any change within the government betrays a misunderstanding of the situation: what just played out in Syria was not an election—it was a demonstration of power in which the presidency was the active subject, rather than the people.
Since the militarization of the Syrian uprising, Raqqa has been a strategically vital region for all armed groups. Now under the control of ISIS, Raqqa has become a hub where ISIS militants are gathered and dispatched to other battlegrounds across the country.
A key objective for Bashar al-Assad in his third presidential term is presenting his crackdown on Syrian opposition groups as a fight against jihadism. In doing so, Assad is betting on the eventual support of the international community in this new “war on terror,” which would secure his position in power.
As fighters join Al Nusra and ISIL at an alarming rate, the Jordanian government responds with new anti-terrorism measures.
The path towards U.S. recognition of the Syrian opposition has been long and tortuous, but the United States has recently taken several steps to signal increased support for the opposition.
The provisional governance structures that have emerged in the Syrian Kurdish-majority areas captured by the PYD have become more formalized, and much of the policies are inspired by the writings of Abdullah Öcalan.
As the armed conflict between jihadists groups and the Syrian Kurdish militia moves into Arab-majority territories, both sides have increasingly relied on support from local Arab tribes to tip the balance.
Divisions over the formation of the Syrian Islamic Council suggest that the Syrian opposition will have to wait to see the emergence of a unified Sunni religious authority within its ranks. However, these divisions are revealing of fault lines that may play a major role in Syria’s future.
The establishment of the Syrian Islamic Council may be an important step toward the goal of consolidating a moderate Islamic axis within the opposition in the face of the large Salafi military factions.
The upcoming presidential elections will be no different from previous elections under the Assad regime. Even if the elections were democratic and transparent, Bashar al-Assad would win based on his constitutional powers alone.
While the establishment of people's courts and peace councils in the Kurdish region of Syria are positive, the boundaries between party, civil society, and state structures have becomed blurred and could be problematic.
With its leadership elections officially due to take place in July 2014, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is bracing to overcome internal divisions in order to elect its new comptroller general on time.
Supporting schools inside Syria is essential. Education is particularly important for civil society to flourish, and strengthening civil society within the country may give students a sense of normality back.
The ceasefires in the Yarmouk refugee camp were imposed solutions. It would be a grave mistake to understand these agreements as an example of genuine reconciliation.