Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Fear And Loathing Descending On Latakia

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Fear And Loathing Descending On Latakia

    FEAR AND LOATHING DESCENDING ON LATAKIA

    The Daily Star (Lebanon)
    March 31, 2014 Monday

    by: Marlin Dick

    Northern Latakia province has become, seemingly all of a sudden, the
    latest location to host an episode of the Syrian uprising-turned-war.

    BEIRUT: Northern Latakia province has become, seemingly all of
    a sudden, the latest location to host an episode of the Syrian
    uprising-turned-war, with political, sectarian and other concerns
    outweighing for now the purely military moves on the ground.The
    province has seen periodic violence throughout the war, but mainly
    in the form of regime artillery and airstrikes on a number of
    opposition-held towns and summer resort areas in its mountainous
    interior.

    But the "Anfal" offensive, which was launched more than a week ago,
    targets the northwestern corner of the country in areas adjacent to
    Turkey and Idlib province, where rebels also hold territory.

    The campaign is being spearheaded by the Nusra Front, an Al-Qaeda
    affiliate, and two members of the Islamic Front, Ahrar al-Sham and
    Ansar al-Sham. They have been joined by the rebel Free Syrian Army,
    which is playing a very limited supporting role.

    The rebels appeared to have surprised the regime as they swiftly
    captured a string of villages and towns near the Turkish border, among
    them Kasab, an Armenian resort town of several thousand inhabitants.

    They also seized the tiny adjacent hamlet of Samra, which lies on a
    road leading to the Mediterranean.

    After they seized Samra, a video emerged of several jihadists at the
    isolated cove, where they took a short celebratory swim. They have
    posted several pieces of video footage of themselves at the site.

    It is an easy, exposed target for any government vessel, and is of
    little military significance, but the seizure of a toehold on the sea,
    though largely symbolic, is part of a wider campaign that is stirring
    up the sectarian and ethnic fears of reprisals and counter-reprisals.

    The fighting, which has also affected a number of Alawite villages
    in the area, has sent thousands of the community fleeing for the city
    of Latakia on the coast.

    Regime propaganda over the rebels' treatment of minorities,
    particularly Armenians, Christians and Alawites, has quickly moved into
    a higher gear, and the combustible mix is made even more explosive
    by the presence of a sizable Turkmen community in rural Latakia and
    the provincial capital.

    The National Syrian Turkmen Bloc, a member of the opposition-in-exile
    National Coalition, Sunday accused regime paramilitaries of murdering
    two Turkmen minors and dumping their bodies in a public park in
    Latakia's Ali Jamal neighborhood, home to members of the community.

    Reports differed as to whether one or both victims were decapitated.

    The group released a statement warning others to "not test the reaction
    of the Turkmen - our hostility is fiercer than our friendship."

    Activists noted over the weekend that regime supporters have taken
    to social media to call for supporters to expel Syria's Turkmen,
    referred to derisively as "agents of the Ottoman state" of Turkey,
    annihilate them, or commit human rights violations and other atrocities
    against the community's women.

    Latakia also contains a few majority-Sunni neighborhoods, where raids
    and arrests by the regime have reportedly been stepped up since the
    Anfal campaign began, as the authorities view these areas as supportive
    of the armed opposition.

    Activists say that the Anfal offensive has led to a huge jump in
    tension in the city, as the casualties from the campaign rise. The
    city is already host to refugees from other parts of Syria, and now
    mainly Alawite and Christian displaced have joined their ranks.

    An anti-regime activist, who requested anonymity because of the
    sensitivity of the situation, told The Daily Star that the move to
    "open the coast front" was a bad decision.

    "The Alawite community in Latakia, right before the campaign, was
    becoming increasingly fed up with the coffins returning every day"
    belonging to Alawite soldiers and paramilitaries fighting elsewhere
    in Syria, he said.

    "This offensive has shifted their anger - it is now being focused on
    the rebels, whom they fear are targeting them in their home villages,
    because of their sect."

    Meanwhile, some activists and the insurgents themselves have engaged
    in a counter-offensive, trying to prove that they have no intention
    of engaging in sectarian pogroms.

    After the Islamist rebels entered Kasab, several pieces of footage
    were circulated on social media. One YouTube video purports to show
    militants inside an Armenian church, completely intact, where they
    say they have posted a guard to protect the structure.

    Another shows fighters interacting with three civilians. They promise
    them safety and also give them the option of leaving safely.

    A fighter tries to calm an older woman, herself displaced from Latakia
    and wearing a hijab, when she begins to sob.

    "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid," he says.

    In a video statement issued last week by an Islamist fighter, summing
    up the first week of the Anfal campaign, the speaker denied charges
    of oppressing minorities, but spoke specifically of the Armenians
    of Kasab.

    He says that the Caliph Omar did not single out the Christians of
    Jerusalem for violence when he conquered the city in the seventh
    century, and that the insurgents would not pursue such a policy.

    Armenian political organizations have also split over Kasab, between
    those who talk about "ethnic cleansing" - although no such massacres
    have been reported - and those who maintain the Armenians are not
    being targeted for their ethnic affiliation.

    For now, the deaths have been largely military, at least in the Kasab
    region, but the insurgents have moved closer to Alawite villages
    and the city of Latakia, which they can target with artillery and
    rocket fire.

    For the regime, at stake is its ability to limit casualties and return
    the displaced, while for the rebels, it has provided a much-needed
    morale boost after the loss of the town of Yabroud near the Lebanese
    border earlier this month.

    It is also notable for a rare instance of public solidarity - the
    Islamist fighter also denied rumors that the FSA commander for Latakia
    had "betrayed" the Islamist factions during the campaign.

    The fighter says that the FSA provided what ammunition it could, and
    that it was both needed and appreciated. The rhetoric and actions of
    the FSA and the Islamic Front and Nusra Front toward each other has
    not been particularly warm in the past. But even if the rebels manage
    to hold territory, now largely depopulated, what would they accomplish?

    Whenever the insurgents seize an area, they only gain the dubious
    honor of becoming a target for regime artillery and aircraft.

    In Kasab and surrounding areas of Latakia, the violence is also
    destroying wooded areas, which are among Syria's most beautiful
    panoramas, as forests go up in smoke.

    Under all these conditions, particular to the Latakia front now
    opened by the rebels, one question that hangs over the Anfal campaign
    is whether it will turn out to be a fleeting achievement for the
    insurgents, prove an inconclusive stalemate, deal a significant blow
    to the regime and its allies or stir up a hornet's nest in response.

    Links:

    https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=B_ilaGKfcts

    A statement on the Anfal campaign

    https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=AEULEsqj5fE

    Armenian church in Kasab

    https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=hCzlSjKprFU

    An interview with an elderly resident of Kasab

Working...
X