Intermittent fighting between Syria’s government and the al-Qaeda forces
in Idlib have turned into full-blown fighting Tuesday, with an al-Qaeda
counter-attacking hitting government forces in the area. Reports are
that 26 soldiers and 18 jihadists were slain in the fighting.
This fighting took place on the border between Idlib and Hama Provinces,
and likely will be the area where fighting continues to rage, as Syrian
forces build up to invade the neighboring territory held by al-Qaeda.
With fighting looking to come to al-Qaeda’s last stronghold in Syria, US
officials are threatening to get involved once again, accusing the Syrian military of a new chemical weapons attack, and threatening to retaliate again them. The State Department also condemned Russia over the matter.
Russia, on the other hand, accused the
al-Qaeda forces of trying to fake a chemical weapon attack, noting
al-Qaeda started the offensive, and saying captured al-Qaeda militants
confessed to staging attacks in Saraqib.
Al-Qaeda is known to be in possession of chemical agents, and at times
it has been suggested that such attacks might be faked to give the US a
pretext to strike. It’s not clear what happened here, though it’s not
clear any chemical attack, faked or otherwise, ever took place.
Meanwhile over at the Anti Neocon Report, Ryan Dawson and Andrew Carrington are doing some amazing reporting on the war in Syria. Worth checking out.
Ramping up the assault on Idlib may turn out to be problematic, if it gives the US or Israel some opportunity to use it to attack Hezbollah in Syria and then extend that into Lebanon, or vice versa. OTOH, Russia and Syria may want to clear out Idlib because they can see Israel and the US planning a “summer war” on Hezbollah and it would be wise to have the most serious concentration of Al Qaeda taken out before then. Hezbollah might want to withdraw its forces back into Lebanon as well to be ready. If the US attacks Hezbollah in Lebanon, as I expect, the US may well use Hezbollah presence in Syria to attack Syria.