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Qatar has been accused of behind-the-scenes manoeuvring, following the 19 March election of Ghassan Hitto as prime minister of the opposition Syrian National Coalition’s interim government. Veteran Syrian dissident Kamal Al-Labwani told GSN Hitto was a Qatari “puppet”, complaining liberals had been sidelined since the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council negotiated more than a third of Coalition seats.
The US Department of Defence estimates that between $100m and $200m is channelled from Iran directly to Hizbollah each year. But Iran’s motivation goes beyond supporting Hizbollah – much of its strategy in Lebanon appears geared to defending its interests, should Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad eventually fall.
On 9 January, Syrian anti-government forces freed 48 Iranians who had been held since August, in exchange for the release of more than 2,000 detainees (GSN 934/5). The exchange was brokered by Iran, Turkey and Qatar.
Qatar was the first Arab country to ask Syria’s new opposition coalition to appoint an ambassador to its capital. The National Coalition for Syrian Opposition and Revolutionary Forces was formed in Doha in November, and was quickly recognised by the Gulf Co-operation Council.
The Kurdistan Regional Government has been at the forefront of efforts to unite Syria’s Kurdish parties, at a time when the latter are jostling for power in a post-Assad state
Politicians in Syria’s Kurdish areas say the secretive paramilitary People’s Defence Units (YPG) – which now controls the border with Iraqi Kurdistan – numbers around 1,500. Fighters with flatbed trucks mounted with DShK machine guns can be seen patrolling the expanses along the boundary, which are dotted with pumpjacks. Several sources told GSN the YPG was protecting the area’s gas fields.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is offering military training for Kurds who have defected from the Syrian army and fled to Iraq
At the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation summit, which began in Mecca on 14 August, King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz made a concerted effort to be seen extending an olive branch to his nation’s great rival Iran.
For several days, the Paris-based Voltaire Network/Réseau Voltaire has been running stories that say recently appointed General Intelligence Directorate (GID) head Prince Bandar Bin Sultan was the target of a bomb attack in Riyadh on 26 July, and has died from his injuries. The Saudi embassy in London told GSN it could not comment on the story, which has been spreading online.
On 18 July, a brazen attack which stateTV blamed on a suicide bomber killed defence minister Daoud Rajha and Assad’s brother-inlaw Assef Shawkat, who were at a meeting of ministers and senior security personnel in Damascus.
Saudi Arabia is increasingly active among Sunni Arab tribes in Iraq, accelerating their involvement in the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Gulf financiers – with some US support – are trying to outflank Baghdad’s own attempts to woo the tribes.
According to GSN’s interviews with cabinet level Iraqi leaders, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s policy on Syria is not a simple adoption of a pro-Assad and pro-Iranian position.
The presence of a major Al Qaeda affiliate to the east is another factor that could make a full-fledged jihad in Syria more likely. Yet there has been surprisingly little evidence of Iraqi involvement in the conflict.
The war in Syria is spreading to Lebanon and fitting increasingly neatly into the narrative of a broader Arab-Persian cold war, with Sunni fighters in Syria and Lebanon using the language of a sectarian ‘clash of civilisations’.
With UN envoy Kofi Annan’s peace effort on the verge of collapse, Sunni Arab and Turkoman opponents of the Assad regime are becoming ever more radicalised, and foreign jihadists are looking to add to Syria’s poisonous blend of communal and factional conflicts. A multifaceted conflict is unfolding which could push Syria into a full civil war, with the capacity to spread sectarian conflict that is filling an increasingly polarised region with alarm
