Robin Yassin-Kassab and the Syrian Revolution

Father & Son - Bashir and Hafez al-Assad

Assad & the Vortex of Terror

I went to a meeting tonight at Sussex University to hear Robin Yassin-Kassab, who is of mixed Syrian and English parentage, speak about the Syrian revolution and what has gone wrong.  Sponsored by Sussex Friends of Syria society it was both illuminating and depressing.

Devastation in the Syrian civil war

Robin is the co-author of a new book Burning Country about the Syrian revolution.

Robin Yassin-Kassab

The problem with the meeting was the controlled nature of the ‘conversation’ whereby an interlocutor posed a number of questions throughout, leaving little time for genuine discussion. Unfortunately Robin chose to shield himself, via his interlocutor, from criticism.

Syria Anadolu

It is somewhat unfortunate that the Sussex Friends of Syria Society felt the need to protect Robin from criticism.  It suggests that he is not so confident of the case he makes when subject to challenge.  Despite criticism of him as a war-monger by a number of people, I went with an open mind.  I went  away with a number of doubts as to his motives and political position, not least in view of his repeated attack on 'leftists' - as if there was a unified left position on Syria and in particular his support for Turkey's attacks on the Kurds.

Damascus

Robin Yassin-Kassab clearly has an encyclopedic knowledge of Syria and the different groups.  His knowledge of the revolutionary councils and the Syrian civil society, the democratic formations that have been thrown up in the struggle against the Assad regime is impressive.  What is less than impressive is his political judgement.

Protests at death of 6 people in Egypt

Robin accurately described the grisly record of the Syrian regime of Bashir al-Assad and before that Haffez al-Assad.  It is a regime to which the United States rendered prisoners to be tortured [see Daraa protests are the spark Syria needed] like Maher Arar who was kidnapped at John F Kennedy airport by US security and deported to Syria rather than Canada, even though he was a dual Canadian-Syrian citizen.  He was tortured and detained for a year in Syria before being released back to Canada. The Canadian government compensated him for his terrible ordeal but it is noticeable that the US Courts refused to allow a challenge to the actions of the US government.

It is a regime which has used barrel bombs and poison gas against civilians and which has killed the vast majority of the 250,000 people estimated to have died in the civil war, which uses torture as a matter of course and which ‘disappears’ those it tortures and kidnaps.

No one should believe that the road to revolution or peace in the Middle East goes through the Assad regime.

Likewise I have no doubt that he is right to say that Assad deliberately stimulated the growth of the Jihadi groups in Syria, both as a means of confessionalising the struggle and as a way of painting himself as the bulwark against Islamic terrorism.  He did this by, amongst other things, releasing some 1,500 Islamists in 2011 at the same time as he was slaughtering demonstrators on the street.

There is also no doubt that the Russian intervention and bombing on the side of Assad has made the situation far worse and further that their intense bombing, which has primarily targeted the civilian resistance against Assad has caused mass civilian casualties.  The Russian bombing has been targeted at civilian structures – schools, clinics and homes – and as such they have been guilty of war crimes.  It is, in this context, a pity that Stop the War Coalition hasn’t been more outspoken in condemning the Russian attacks.  Propping up Assad is not an answer to the present conflict.

I can even accept that many people joined Islamist groups like Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar ash-Sham as a consequence of the oppressive qualities of the Assad regime.  There is no doubt that the Free Syrian Army or components thereof deserve support in their battles against both the Assad regime and Isis, although the FSA have also allied with the Al Qaeda group al-Nusra Front.

If this were all that Yassin-Kassab had to say about the struggle of the different groups in Syria, then he would be worth listening to. 

What Yassin-Kassab fails to perceive in what was often a rant against ‘leftists’ was that the Syrian revolution takes place in a context, viz. that Israel in particular wishes to see Syria split into its confessional parts – Sunni, Alawite, Kurdish.  A scenario that the United States will not be disappointed with.  In just the same way as the US attack on Iraq split the country into three and pitted Shi'ite against Sunni in a country where there had been little or no conflict between them before the invasion.

That is the context in which Hezbollah has come to the aid of the Assad regime.  It is also, to a lesser extent the reason why the Iranian regime has become involved in propping up Assad.

For Israel and the United States, Hezbollah is undoubtedly the key target, as it is the only force in the Arab world to have defeated Israel, in 2006.  The strengthening of imperialism will not, in the long terms, be of any comfort to the Syrian or the Iraq people. 

What I most took exception to was Yassin-Kassab’s support for Turkey’s shelling of the Kurdish PYD, on the grounds that they were operating in Arab areas and presumably because they were fighting some of the murderous Turkomen groups.  Yassin-Kassab also attacked the Kurdish PKK which is fighting against the genocidal Turkish regime of Erdogan in the South of Turkey.  The PKK was a nasty Marxist group from what I could ascertain rather than the self-defence group that is overwhelmingly supported by the Kurdish people.

Whilst professing support for Kurdish self-determination Yassin-Kassab also supports repression by the Turkish state, which is somewhat at odds with support for the self-determination of the Syrian people.  I wasn’t able to pursue the point because of the vigilance of Yassin-Kassab’s protectors at the meeting which suggests that this is rather a sore point.

I also interjected at the end of the meeting when Yassin-Kassab referred to fundamentalism in the region.  I pointed out that much of it was a product of a deliberate strategy by the West.  When I said that Saudi Arabia was the fount of fundamentalism in the region Yassin-Kassab demurred and when I pointed that the Saudi regime was a creation of British and then American imperialism he sought to locate the rise of the regime in the 17th century rather than as a product of the first world war and Britain’s sponsorship of Ibn Saud, which included both finance and weaponry, in his battles against his rivals in Arabia, in particular Sharif Hussein of Mecca [see Israel andSaudi Arabia - The Roots of a Special Relationship].  It is indicative of the fact that Yassin-Kassab fails to place the travails of the Syrian people in the context of Western imperialism.

Tony Greenstein

See After Tunisia: Robin Yassin-Kassab on Syria  and ‘I was terribly wrong’ - writers look back at the Arab spring five years on 

Members of Egyptian group Ultras Nahdawy during a demonstration against the death of six people at anti-regime protests west of Cairo, July 2015. Photograph: Belal Wagdy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images


Robin Yassin-Kassab’s book Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War, co‑written with Leila al-Shami, is published by Pluto.

Slaughter in Palmyra as Israel Cements Alliance with ISIS

Robert Fisk is the best Middle East correspondent by far.  He lives in Lebanon and writes for The Independent.  He was one of the few journalists not to be ‘embedded’ with US security forces in Iraq.

butchered by Isis

Here he is reporting from a town near to Palymyra where the Saudi sponsored IS (or Daesh) murdered 400 people with their butcher’s knives.  Until the people of Syria and Iraq are able to remove this group in totality then there will be no liberation anywhere in the Arab East.

Palmyra's Roman ruins are a target for IS

It is not surprising that as far as Israel is concerned IS are the good guys and the focus should be on the ‘Shi’ite Crescent’.

The savagery of IS - but Israel is happy to deal with the group

Global Research reported that 

‘Israel initially had maintained that it was treating only civilians. However, reports claimed that earlier last month members of Israel’s Druze minority protested the hospitalisation of wounded Syrian fighters from the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front in Israel.

A statement issued by a group of Druze activists accused the Israeli government of supporting radical Sunni factions such as the Islamic State (ISIS).

Replying to a question by i24News on whether Israel has given medical assistance to members of al-Nusra and Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State (ISIS), a Israeli military spokesman’s office said: “In the past two years the Israel Defence Forces have been engaged in humanitarian, life-saving aid to wounded Syrians, irrespective of their identity.”

The demolition of other priceless treasurers - the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia do likewise

The UN report also laid out instances where in Israeli army was seen interacting with armed rebels. In one incident, the report claimed that the IDF gave some boxes to the Syrian armed rebels.’

The Israeli Military themselves admit that they have taken in and treated hundreds of wounded Syrians.  Given that  most civilians have cleared out of the area they can only be IS or al-Nusra fighters.

Israel claims this is a humanitarian endeavour.  One wonders whether Israel would offer the same facilities to Hamas fighters, including repatriating them back to Gaza!

On October 31 2014 in Ha’aretz

West making big mistake in fighting ISIS, says senior Israeli officer

‘A senior Northern Command officer said Thursday that the Western coalition is making a big mistake in fighting against ISIS.

Israel's new found friends

The coalition forces' attacks against the Islamic State support the "radical Shi'ite axis," the unnamed officer said. "A strange situation has been created in which the United States, Canada and France are on the same side as Hezbollah, Iran and Assad. That doesn't make sense," he said.

In Hayan, an oil and gas town  (above) Robert Fisk hears from some of the few that escaped IS jihadis.

It was easier to deal with terrorism in its early stages [ISIS] than to face an Iranian threat and the Hezbollah, he said. "I believe the West intervened too early and not necessarily in the right direction.’

From the evidence gathered so far by the UN and Israeli Druze (one of whom was arrested) it is clear that there is a de-facto alliance between IS and Israel.  See 

Israel Secretly Arrests Golani Druze, Accusing Him of Exposing Rebel-IDF Collaboration 

Isis Slaughter in the Sacred Syrian City of Palmyra: The Survivors'Stories

We’ve heard about the threat to the monuments - but what about the human tragedy?

By Robert Fisk

June 07, 2015 

When the black-cowled gunmen of the 'Islamic State' infiltrated the suburbs of Palmyra on 20 May, half of Assad Sulieman’s oil and gas processing plant crews – 50 men in all - were manning their 12-hour shift at the Hayan oil field 28 miles away. They were the lucky ones. Their 50 off-duty colleagues were sleeping at their homes next to the ancient Roman city. Twenty-five of them would soon be dead, among up to 400 civilians – including women and children – who would die in the coming hours at the hands of the Islamist militia which every Syrian now calls by its self-styled acronym ‘Daesh’.

Oil engineer ‘Ahmed’ – he chose this name to protect his family in Palmyra – was, by chance, completing a course at Damascus University on the fatal day when Palmyra fell. “I was appalled,” he said. “I tried calling my family. It was still possible to get through on the phone. They said ‘Daesh’ (also known as Isis) wasn’t allowing anyone to leave their home. My brother later went onto the street. He took pictures of bodies. They had been decapitated, all men.

Destruction of the Jezaa gas and oil processing plant

“He managed to send the photographs out to me from [the Isis-controlled city of] Raqqa on the internet which is the only communications working there.”

Some of the photographs are too terrible to publish. They show heads lying several feet from torsos, blood running in streams across a city street. In one, a body lies on a roadway while two men cycle past on a bicycle. So soon after the capture of Palmyra were the men slaughtered that shop-fronts can still be seen in the photographs, painted in the two stars and colours of the red-white-and-black flag of the Syrian government.

“The Daesh forced the people to leave the bodies in the streets for three days,” Ahmed continued. “They were not allowed to pick up the bodies or bury them without permission. The corpses were all over the city. My family said the Daesh came to our house, two foreign men – one appeared to be an Afghan, the other from Tunisia or Morocco because he had a very heavy accent – and then they left. They killed three female nurses. One was killed in her home, another in her uncle’s house, a third on the street. Perhaps it was because they helped the army [as nurses]. Some said they were beheaded but my brother said they were shot in the head.”

In the panic to flee Palmyra, others perished when their cars drove over explosives planted on the roads by the Islamist gunmen. One was a retired Syrian general from the al-Daas family whose 40-year old pharmacist wife and 12-year old son were killed with him when their car’s wheels touched the explosives. Later reports spoke of executions in the old Roman theatre amid the Palmyra ruins.

The director of the Hayan gas and oil processing plant, Assad Sulieman, shook his head in near-disbelief as he recounted how word reached him of the execution of his off-duty staff. Some were, he believes, imprisoned in the gas fields which had fallen into the hands of the ‘Islamic State’. Others were merely taken from their homes and murdered because they were government employees. For months prior to the fall of Palmyra, he had received a series of terrifying phone calls from the Islamists, one of them when gunmen were besieging a neighbouring gas plant.

He said: “They came on my own phone, here in my office, and said: ‘We are coming for you.’ I said to them: ‘I will be waiting’. The army drove them off but my staff also received these phone calls here and they were very frightened. The army protected three of our fields then and drove them off.” Since the fall of Palmyra, the threatening phone calls have continued, even though 'Daesh' have cut all mobile and landlines in their newly-occupied city.

Another young engineer at Hayan was in Palmyra when the 'Islamic State' arrived. So fearful was he when he spoke that he even refused to volunteer a name for himself. “I had gone back to Palmyra two days before and everything seemed alright,” he said. “When my family told me they had arrived, I stayed at home and so did my mother and brother and sisters and we did not go out. Everyone knew that when these men come, things are not good. The electricity stopped for two days and then the gunmen restored it.  We had plenty of food – we were a well-off family. We stayed there a week, we had to sort out our affairs and they never searched our home.”

The man’s evidence proved the almost haphazard nature of Isis rule. A week after the occupation, the family made its way out of the house – the women in full Islamic covering – and caught a bus to the occupied city of Raqqa and from there to Damascus. “They looked at my ID but didn’t ask my job,” the man said. “The bus trip was normal. No-one stopped us leaving.” Like Ahmed, the young oil worker was a Sunni Muslim – the same religion as ‘Daesh’s’ followers – but he had no doubts about the nature of Palmyra’s occupiers. “When they arrive anywhere”, he said, “there is no more life”.

Syria’s own oil and gas lifeline now stretches across a hundred miles of desert from Homs in the midlands to the strategic oil fields across the broiling desert outside Palmyra. It took two hours to reach a point 28 miles from Palmyra; the last Syrian troops are stationed eight miles closer to the city.

To the west lies the great Syrian air base of Tiyas – codenamed ‘T-4’ after the old fourth pumping station of the Iraqi-Palestine oil pipeline – where I saw grey-painted twin-tailed Mig fighter bombers taking off into the dusk and settling back onto the runways. A canopy of radar dishes and concrete bunkers protect the base and Syrian troops can be seen inside a series of earthen fortresses on each side of the main road to Palmyra, defending their redoubts with heavy machine guns, long-range artillery and missiles.

Syrian troops patrol the highway every few minutes on pick-up trucks – and make no secret of their precautions. They pointed out the site of an improvised explosive device found a few hours earlier - more than 30 miles west of Palmyra. Further down the road was the wreckage of truck bombs which had been hit by Syrian rocket-fire. Assad Sulieman, the gas plant director, declares that his father named him after President Bashar al-Asasad’s father Hafez. He described how Islamist rebels had totally destroyed one gas plant close to Hayan last year, and how his crews had totally restored it to production within months by using cannibalized equipment from other facilities. His plant’s production capacity has been restored to three million cubic metres of gas per day for the country’s power stations and six thousand barrels of oil for the Homs refinery.

But the man who understands military risks is General Fouad – like everyone else in the area of Palmyra, he prefers to use only his first name – a professional officer whose greatest victory over the rebels on a nearby mountain range came at the moment his soldier-son was killed in battle in Homs. He makes no secret of “the big shock” he felt when Palmyra fell. He thinks that the soldiers had been fighting for a long time in defence of the city and did not expect the mass attack. Other military men – not the general – say that the ‘Islamic State’ advanced on a 50-mile front, overwhelming the army at the time.

“They will get no further,” General Fouad said. “We fought them off when they attacked three fields last year. Our soldiers stormed some of their local headquarters on the Shaer mountain. We found documents about our production facilities, we found religious books of Takfiri ideas. And we found lingerie.” 

What on earth, I asked, would the Islamic State be doing with lingerie? The general was not smiling. “We think that maybe they kept captured Yazidi women with them, the ones who were kidnapped in Iraq. When our soldiers reached their headquarters, we saw some of their senior men running away with some women.”

But the general, like almost every other Syrian officer I met on this visit to the desert – and every other civilian – had a thought on his mind. If the Americans were so keen to destroy Isis, did they not know from satellites that thousands of gunmen were massing to strike at Palmyra. Certainly they did not tell the Syrians of this? And they did not bomb them, either – though there must have been targets aplenty for the US air force in the days before the Palmyra attack, even if Washington does not like the Assad regime. A question, then, that still has to be answered.