Indian Defence Review

The Muslim Brotherhood

The SMB was established in 1945-46 by Mustafa as-Sibai as a branch of Hassan al- Banna’s Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Though favoring the establishment of an Islamic state in Syria, it participated in parliamentary elections after the country gained independence in 1946 (winning 4 seats in 1947, 3 seats in 1949, 5 seats in 1954, and 10 seats in 1961) and even had ministers in two governments.

In July 2010, the General Council of the SMB gathered in Istanbul and elected Muhammad Riad al-Shaqfa to succeed Bayanouni as supervisor general. Many expected Shaqfa to take a less compromising position toward Assad as he was from Hama and had played an active role in the SMB insurrection before leaving Syria in the late 1970s. His deputy, Muhammad Farouq Tayfor, is also from Hama and also took part in armed struggle during the 1970s. A month after being elected, however, the new general supervisor affirmed that the SMB would continue to suspend opposition activities against the Syrian regime.

After Shaqfa’s election, Muhammad Said Hawwa, son of the former SMB leader Said Hawwa (d. 1989), wrote a letter to the Brotherhood outlining a “road map” to rebuild its relations with the regime. He argued that in order to end this historical crisis, the SMB must “handle the consequences of its historical, political, philosophical, and military mistakes” and “the leaders who were involved in the past historical mistakes should give up all their posts since they led the SMB into the dark tunnel.” He stressed that the SMB should accept the regime’s offer to allow the return of some individuals without blood on their hands. Given the present political situation and the declining influence of the SMB, it should not expect more. Hawwa also noted that certain Muslim Brotherhood leaders demanded the impossible and attempted to impose their own conditions as if they were the victors. Instead, they should accept the regime’s offers as a starting point for negotiations between the two and later on expand them to include more SMB demands.

This view was endorsed by Kamal al-Halbawi, a London-based Muslim scholar and former SMB spokesman, who wrote an article in al- Quds al-Arabi calling on the new SMB leadership to work toward ending its historic dispute with the Assad regime. He urged the SMB to go back to working within Syrian social institutions, rather than letting new generations bear the brunt of a feud in which they had no part.

A more significant influence on Shaqfa’s thinking was the SMB’s increasingly close relations with Turkey’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), which also enjoyed warm ties with Assad. According to Shaqfa, there were several mediation attempts between them and the Syrian regime, but they all failed due to the regime’s refusal to fully lift restrictions on the SMB. “Bashar is softer than his father, and he talks to mediators… but he always says ‘now we are busy,'” remarked Shaqfa. “We would like the Turkish government to intervene to solve the problems,” he said in October 2010. In a November 2010 interview, Shaqfa said that the SMB was even willing to stop calling itself the Muslim Brotherhood if allowed to go back “home” and if the regime met its long- standing conditions.

The proliferation of popular protests across the Arab world during 2011 changed much. When initial calls for demonstrations in Syria in February fell flat, the SMB remained cautious in its statements about the regime. By March, however, the contagion had hit Syria with a vengeance, and its streets swelled with citizens calling for freedom and democracy. The regime accused the SMB of collaboration with Western countries in steering these demonstrations and fomenting armed attacks against the security forces.

Though the SMB openly declared its support for the protests, it denied responsibility for organizing them. The demonstrations “are not led by the SMB or any other party or group,” said Shaqfa. “We are supporters, not creators. The voice of the street is a spokesperson for itself,” explained SMB spokesman Zuhair Salim. The SMB might have been willing to reconcile with Assad had the Syrian president been willing to abolish Law No. 49 and lift other restrictions on the movement’s activities, but no such concessions were forthcoming. “If I go back to Syria, I could be arrested,” Shaqfa complained in June. Worldwide support for the uprisings and Assad’s recalcitrance led the SMB to fall back on its old demand for the toppling of the regime. Although Salim said that the Brotherhood “would consider dialogue with the Assad government, under certain conditions, if the violence against protesters were to stop,” he was surely aware that the Syrian president could not end the repression without inviting a tsunami of mass mobilization against the regime.

In October 2011, a Syrian National Council, comprising seven opposition factions including the SMB, was formed in Istanbul. Elected as council leader, Ghalioun reassured that there was no real chance of an Islamist takeover since the SMB’s thirty-year-long exile had deprived it of a solid domestic base.

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS)

ISIS was formed in April 2013 and grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). It has since been disavowed by al-Qaeda, but become one of the main jihadist groups fighting government forces in Syria and is making military gains in Iraq.

The final “S” in the acronym ISIS stems from the Arabic word “al-Sham”. This can mean the Levant, Syria or even Damascus but in the context of the global jihad it refers to the Levant.

Its precise size is unclear but it is thought to include thousands of fighters, including many foreign jihadists. Correspondents say it appears to be surpassing al-Qaeda as the world’s most dangerous jihadist group.

The organisation is led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Little is known about him, but it is believed he was born in Samarra, north of Baghdad, in 1971 and joined the insurgency that erupted in Iraq soon after the 2003 US-led invasion.

ISIS claims to have fighters from the UK, France, Germany and other European countries, as well as the US, the Arab world and the Caucasus. Unlike other rebel groups in Syria, ISIS is seen to be working towards an Islamic emirate that straddles Syria and Iraq.The group has seen considerable military success. In March 2013, it took over the Syrian city of Raqqa – the first provincial capital to fall under rebel control.

In January 2014, it capitalised on growing tension between Iraq’s Sunni minority and Shia-led government by taking control of the predominantly Sunni city of Fallujah, in the western province of Anbar.

It also seized large sections of the provincial capital, Ramadi, and has a presence in a number of towns near the Turkish and Syrian borders.

Chemical Weapons: The Current Situation

SYRIA’S response to the UN-set deadlines to remove its chemical weapons from the country has never been easy to read. At first, it co-operated. Then it appeared to stall, triggering concerns that as the regime became more confident of prevailing in the civil war, it would drag its feet. Those fears now seem to have been exaggerated. Though the complex and difficult process, overseen by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), of transporting toxic material from some 23 sites through a war-torn country to the port of Latakia has gone in fits and starts, the target for getting all the most dangerous stuff onto waiting cargo ships by April 27th may now be met.

On April 22nd the OPCW declared that 86.5% of all chemicals and 88.7% of the most deadly “Priority 1” substances on a revised list, such as sulphur mustard and precursors for sarin, a nerve gas, had been boarded and removed. Since early April six consignments have been delivered to Latakia, a “significant acceleration”, according to the OPCW, after a long gap when very little had happened.

The next destination for the chemicals is a container terminal at Gioia Tauro in southern Italy, from where most of it will transfer to an American ship, the MV Cape Ray, which is equipped with two mobile hydrolysis units for neutralizing the stuff. The Cape Ray, now in Spain, will then head for international waters with a ten-country security escort, and begin its work.

Rear-Admiral Bob Burke, director of American naval operations in Europe and Africa, says that if the sea is fairly calm it should take about 60 days of round-the-clock processing to neutralize the chemical agents, making it just possible that the June 30th deadline for destroying all Syria’s chemical weapons would be met.

Some worries linger, however. The first is continuing disagreement between Syria and the OPCW over the destruction of production and storage sites. All the weapons-producing equipment inside has been smashed, but the Syrians are arguing only for “destruction by inactivation”, which means just locking some doors. But Michael Luhan of the OPCW says that while there is no definition for destruction of such structures in the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), in OPCW “common law” it has come to mean “taken down to the foundations”. A compromise may be possible, but there is a danger of setting a bad precedent.

Second, Dina Esfandiary of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London says that a mechanism for future “challenge” inspections, something OPCW has never previously done, will be needed if Syria is to be certified as entirely free of chemical weapons. It remains possible that the regime has hidden stocks, which on past form it might use—and then blame the rebels for. The status of one chemical-weapons site, in an area the regime claims is too dangerous for removal operations, remains “unresolved”, says Mr Luhan.

Reports earlier this month that helicopters dropped bombs filled with industrial chlorine gas on the rebel-held village of Kfar Zita, injuring and terrifying dozens of civilians, suggest that the regime has not changed its ways. The attack was reported as a rebel atrocity on Syrian TV before it had even happened.

The use of chlorine gas is hard to prove. It is not banned under the CWC and it does not linger, making the extraction of evidence from soil samples almost impossible. That is one reason why no signatory to the convention has asked the OPCW to investigate. However, if use with intent to maim or kill could be established, it would be a clear breach of the convention.

A further requirement of the convention is that signatories give a full history of their chemical-weapons program, accounting for the scientists who worked on it and other countries that may have assisted it (in Syria’s case, probably Russia and Egypt). There are doubts that with the architect of the programme still in power, the regime would reveal anything that might incriminate it in the killing of more than 1,000 people by sarin gas in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on April 21st last year, a war crime for which it still denies all responsibility.

The Humanitarian Crisis

Syria’s armed conflict escalated as the government intensified its attacks and began using increasingly deadly and indiscriminate weapons, culminating in a chemical weapons attack on the Damascus countryside on August 21, 2013. Government forces and pro- government militias also continued to torture detainees and commit executions. Armed opposition forces, including a growing number of pro-opposition foreign fighters, also carried out serious abuses including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, executions, kidnapping, and torture. The spread and intensification of fighting led to a dire humanitarian crisis with millions internally displaced or seeking refuge in neighbouring countries.

Refugees

The country now leads the world in forced displacement, with more than 9 million people uprooted as a result of the conflict.

The total number of displaced people is comprised of over 2.5 million refugees who are living in neighbouring countries and 6.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) within Syria, according to the UNHCR. The number of people uprooted — half of which are children — equals 40 percent of the country’s pre-war population.

In crossing the 9 million mark, experts believe that Syria has overtaken Afghanistan as the world’s leader in forcibly displaced persons.

“It is unconscionable that a humanitarian catastrophe of this scale is unfolding before our eyes with no meaningful progress to stop the bloodshed,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. “No effort should be spared to forge peace. And no effort spared to ease the suffering of the innocent people caught up in the conflict and forced from their homes, communities, jobs and schools.

It is unconscionable that a humanitarian catastrophe of this scale is unfolding before our eyes with no meaningful progress to stop the bloodshed.

The unresolved conflict will see the number of displaced people rapidly rise in 2014, the U.N.-Arab League peace mediator Lakhdar Brahimi warned Thursday. And fragile peace talks could be suspended if the Syrian government goes ahead with holding an election that would all but guarantee a new presidential term for Bashar-Al Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for 44 years.

“There is, to my knowledge, no official declaration yet in Damascus that this election is going to take place, but there are a lot of activities that seem to indicate that there is an election,” Brahimi told reporters after briefing the U.N. Security Council.

“If there is an election,” he said, “then my suspicion is that the opposition, all the oppositions, will probably not be interested in talking to the government.” A Western diplomat inside Brahimi’s closed-door briefing for the Security Council said Brahimi told its 15 member nations that he doubted another 7-year term for Assad would put an end to the suffering of the Syrian people.

Assad has not yet announced whether he will stand for a third term in defiance of a collection of divergent rebel groups fighting to overthrow him and Western leaders who have demanded he abandon power to help end Syria’s civil war. But in state-controlled parts of the capital, preparations for his candidacy are unmistakable.

Syria’s parliament has set residency rules for presidential candidates, state media said on Friday, a move that would bar many of Assad’s foes who live in exile.

No one in the opposition has announced an intention to challenge Assad in elections that are due to be held by July. Many have lived outside of Syria since before the revolt began in March 2011, and more left in the ensuing security crackdown.

The Western-backed opposition Syrian National Coalition, whose leaders are outside Syria, maintains a provisional government for rebel-held areas based in Istanbul.

Two rounds of peace talks mediated by Brahimi in Geneva earlier this year failed to bring the sides closer to agreement on a transitional government or a halt to the fighting that has killed more than 146,000 people.