Behind Regime Lines: Is ISIS Resurging Through Syria’s Strategic Weakness?

"If the terrorists raise their heads again, we will crush them with a force never seen before," said Vladimir Putin in his victory speech over ISIS in Syria on December 12, 2017.

Not only did the rebels raise their heads, but within less than two years, they breached the lines of the Syrian regime and carried out a series of attacks that extended geographically from Homs to Sweida and Deir Al-Zour. They even attacked strongholds of the regime itself and behind its lines, such as the mountains of Latakia, the historical stronghold of the regime, and its concentrations in the desert, until the quick attempts to reoccupy towns as small as Kabajib in the southern countryside of Deir Ezzor.

ISIS has also been active in SDF-controlled areas and has carried out attacks to maintain its ideological power among civilians. The worsening of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis has exacerbated the situation in the region, where preparations are reduced, and signs of a humanitarian crisis appear. According to some reports, this crisis may be exploited by ISIS to recruit more operatives in northeastern Syria.

In northwest Syria, there is a severe humanitarian crisis as refugee camps are crowded with one million displaced people on the Turkish border, fleeing the bombing of the regime and its allies. This exposes them to the risk of death either by the epidemic or by returning and facing renewed battles between the regime and the opposition. The humanitarian crisis is emerging as a fertile environment for recruiting rebel elements.

Recent attacks have killed hundreds of regime forces and even foreigners. On March 24, 410 regime forces were killed, including some foreigners, among them Russian military personnel and 75 Iranian-backed militias fighting in the ranks of the regime.

Perhaps some of the security vacuum resulting from the world's attention to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed ISIS to regain some of its momentum in northeast Syria, especially with the worsening crises and the lack of a horizon for a solution. However, the crisis seems to be larger than the pandemic, and perhaps the crisis lies in the fact that no one learns in the Syrian regime.

What are the structural causes that lead to Syria's strategic failure and the return of momentum for armed rebellion? These reasons can be summarized as follows:

1. The sect still rules

The equation of the state to serve the sect is still the dominant equation of the Syrian regime. It is possible to clearly monitor the increase in manifestations of Shiism among the pro-regime forces, especially those backed by Iran and their allies from the Lebanese Hezbollah. A sectarian militia has emerged on the front lines of the fighting, bearing names with Shiite connotations such as Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas Brigade, Zulfiqar Brigade, Kafil Brigade Zainab, Sayyid al-Shuhada Brigades, Imam Hussein Brigade, and Zainabiyoun Brigades. This suggests a Sunni-Shiite confrontation.

Additionally, the Assad regime has strengthened the sectarianism of its army, as Assad tightened the control of the Alawites over the army. More than 90% of Alawite officers control leadership positions in the Syrian army, making it an army for the sect and benefiting the sect more than the nation. To the Sunni community, this sectarian humiliation targets them not for a political dispute that can be negotiated, but for sectarian differences that cannot be bypassed. This makes the idea of reviving Salafi-Shiite anger and polarization likely to increase as the last means of resistance to defend the sanctities according to the concepts of both sides.

2. Revenge first

The Syrian regime does not act rationally enough to reassure its opponents, and it has not made any concessions in governance, even from a pragmatic point of view, to convince more opponents that there are spaces to retreat and save face. Even worse, the regime has unleashed feelings of revenge and threats, even from the dead, in scenes that provoke fear and facilitate the agglomeration of more angry people. 

The Syrian regime tried to give assurances to former rebels by announcing an amnesty for those who lay down arms and join the ranks of the regime. Despite the intelligence of this strategy, which may have been implemented under pressure from its Russian allies (because it is similar to what Russia did in Chechnya by recruiting fighters from the ranks of the opposition), the regime did not act intelligently with the smart plan. 

In an interview published in a study by George Waters on the Middle East Institute website, one of the Syrian army recruits explained why targeting rates increase among the ranks of repentant or returning recruits who joined the Syrian army after fighting in the ranks of the opposition. He said: "These men are sent to the desert to comb with very little support, and they rarely return. They are being sent again," indicating that the regime's desire to take revenge on anyone who raised weapons or opposed them seems much greater than its desire to rebuild the fabric of Syrian society.

3. Absence of the project

The Syrian regime suffers in its structure from the fact that the state is basically a clientelist state established to serve a narrow sector of those who control political and economic decision-making. These countries are often unable, if not a rentier state, to create a major development project that achieves the interests of broad sectors of people. The Syrian regime did not create a new customer network for its projects, nor did it expand the gains to larger sectors. 

The Syrian war created wealthy people who benefited from it, according to their position from the regime, such as Rami Makhlouf, the cousin of Bashar Al-Assad himself, who consolidated his gains after he thought he owned more than half of the Syrian economy before the war, according to the Financial Times report. 

Syria appears as the second most corrupt country in the world according to the 2018 Transparency International report, and its network of economic interests tends to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few so that a fairer distribution of wealth does not pose a threat to the interests of the regime based on the equation of concentration of power in its economic and political forms together, weakening any other centers of influence that may pose a competitive threat to it. 

In the absence of the structural imbalance of clientelism, Syria suffers from international economic sanctions that limit its maneuverability or ability to bring in foreign funds for reconstruction. 

Unlike the Egyptian regime, which has good relations with the Gulf countries, Europe, and America, the Syrian regime appears as an ally of less capable countries on the rapid injection of funds to create development projects, such as Russia and Iran. This is in addition to the war conditions that destroyed the structure and substratum and destroyed the regime's ability to present itself to the world as an economic partner that relies on it.

4. The structural weakness of the Syrian army

 The Syrian army appears as an institution sagging under the weight of enhancing the gains of its commanders more than developing its combat capabilities. The Syrian army suffers from a crisis of control, leadership, and weakness in training, and sectarian control over it.

 

According to a report published by the Carnegie Center on the efficiency of the Syrian Armed Forces, Russian officers have been appointed as advisers at all levels of the Syrian army. According to the same report, there are problems that the Russians have noted in the training, effectiveness, and combat motivation of the troops. 

A crisis in the motives for fighting appears because a large segment of recruits are unwilling to fight and have been forced to do so. This crisis was solved by hiring fighters for money, such as the Fifth Corps, which was formed entirely of volunteers, retirees, and former rebels, all earning a salary of between $200 and $300.

Conclusion

All these reasons and others confirm that the Syrian regime's ability to achieve a final victory is far away. The regime repeats the causes of rebellion and anger and helps recruit more angry people willing to do any act of resistance, even if it is to join ISIS. The regime still can't stand on its feet using its own abilities in any confrontation where its victories are shown as premature victories that cannot survive without Russian and Iranian recovery and resuscitation devices. 

The war in Syria seems to have no near end, and the Syrian regime looks like a fool shooting itself in the foot after its allies helped it not to die by the bullets of its opponents. Evidence of the crisis also confirms conventional wisdom: there is no victory in a war unless the causes of its ignition are removed. First, the Syrian regime seems unwilling to remove the causes of the war.

Translated from Arabic