With the Nusra Front-led rebels in Aleppo still engaged in a major offensive against government forces in the western part of the city, they also found time to launch a whole separate offensive against another faction of rebels with which they used to be allied in the city.
Nusra and its still remaining allies attacked and overran a number of positions belonging to the Fastaqim force, which like the other Nusra allies, is presented as “moderates” who are nominally aligned with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as well as the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra.
Fighting was reported to have ended and there are negotiations ongoing among the factions, though some reports suggest Fastaqim lost the majority of their positions and that a large chunk of their fighters have been detained, though the group’s leadership downplayed the losses.
It’s unclear how significant the infighting will end up being in the context of ongoing fighting with government forces around Aleppo, though it certainly raises questions about the unity among the rebel coalition within the city, and whether the larger forces are going to turn on any other smaller allies in the meantime.
The only thing that is significant about this development is the fear of Al-Nusra that various groups will try to take advantage of exit offers, and join other under Turkish protection. Already, most of the Free Syria Army factions (there are hundreds of them, quite small), in the border region with Turkey have joined Turkish forces. The move of these groups that were funded by CIA was not unexpected. For one, US has shifted strategy, and by offering Kurds a large swath of land where they are not a majority, received in return a reliable ground force. However, the brazen nature of ethnic cleansing of villages and townships by Kurdish forces — affecting families of FSA in the region. Kurds, thus became enemy of FSA. As soon as Turkey entered, FSA flocked to join, giving Turkey what it needed, a local Syrian force to work with. The extent of ethnic cleansing has not been made known in Western press; one of the largest being the victory over ISIS with US air force help in the town of Manbij. But the town was majority Syrian Arab, as well as Turkmen. Kurds were minority. It is not clear how much local population was forced to leave. The next in line to push native population out is the town of Al-Bab. But Turkey threatened action if Kurds move further into town.
In Aleppo, it appears that Turkey and Russia are aiming at a longer period of cease fires to allow for the groups that want to leave — an opportunity to do so. What appears to be happening in this fight — is the suspicion that FSA associated group will abandon Aleppo for the safety of Turkish protection. Turkey must have good intelligence links inside Aleppo, and that could affect Al-Nusra. Russia’s call for the separation of “good” groups and pressure on US to accomplish this — may become irrelevant if groups start abandoning Al-Nusra. Al-Nusra is doing everything to provoke airstrikes by Russia — attacking civilians in West Aleppo, attacking Syrian Army positions with suicide bombers, all in effort to try to break the blockade. But they have been unsuccessful in military sense, even though they caused a substantial civilian casualties in West Aleppo. The system of cease fires, and opening corridors may work — with groups leaving. What is not acceptable is utter disregard of Al-Nusra for civilians. There are no military targets there. But Al-Nusra feels confident that it will not get condemned — or just slightly, and that the price of cease fires will get too high. Nonetheless, Russia is following Turkish plan at this point. Both countries just established working groups in all areas of Syrian crisis — so, they may need to adjust.
Basically, it’s the CIA’s jihadis fighting the Pentagon’s “moderate” cannibals. The most likely reason is that the Fastaqim wanted to surrender to the government. Most of the non-al Qaeda/jihadi headhunters are no longer enthusiastic about dying for the greater glory of Sultan Erdogan or the Wahhabi parasites in Riyadh and Doha.
I thought the only Pentagon factions were the Kurdish aligned SDF troops – none of whom are in Aleppo city. This looks like CIA factions cannibalising each other.
No, the Pentagon had that $500 million training thing going. According to US Army Special Forces in Jordan, they’ve been – spectacularly ineffectively – training these morons. The Special Forces trainers themselves are heartily sick of the whole lot of them, know them to be crooks and jihadis, and just go through the motions.