Syria’s coming Jihadi Ascendancy? Part Two: Algerian Lessons

Summary: in newly-independent Algeria, a split between the political leaders of the government in exile and the armed brigades on the front lines led to a conflict between them –one which the military leaders easily one. Syria’s opposition appears to be following this model of a weak, vacillating political leadership outside the country coming to clash with a much stronger “opposition” military force inside Syria: the jihadis. If al-Assad is toppled from within, we may see a jihadi-led military alliance taking power in Syria at the expense of the political leadership.

The Setting

A once-powerful regime, with heavy support from overseas, despite its advanced weaponry, supremacy in the air and considerable power to win conventional battles, nevertheless found its control rapidly deteriorating to cover only a series of coastal enclaves. Its enemy called itself “mojahedin” and employed terrorist and guerrilla-style warfare. The regime decided to give up on the goal of keeping control of the country, and negotiated with the rebellion’s political leaders in exile. The members of the exile government, who spent years building the international alliances and legitimacy they believed their new regime would need, returned to their “liberated” country, only to find it themselves facing a new opponent. Most of the leaders of the fighting groups had no intention of allowing the returning politicos to assume power won by their blood and struggle. The two sides came to open conflict with each other, and the military leaders swiftly crushed the politicians, handing power to those with the best military connections, not necessarily to those with the widest public support.

The country was newly-independent Algeria –but it could just as easily be Syria, if the al-Assad regime falls to its armed internal enemies. In the previous instalment of Sharaabtoon, the coming split between the out-of-country Syrian National Council (SNC) and the armed opposition within Syria (especially the jihadis like the al-Nusra Front, but also the more hard-line Islamist elements of the Free Syrian Army –FSA) was explained. The military prowess, extensive funding and ‘uniting’ sectarian message of the jihadis will continue to draw fighters to them, and the SNC and more moderate FSA elements will have to shun and exclude the jihadis to keep receiving assistance from their Western allies.

If al-Assad falls, and these two sides fight for control of the new Syria, the result will likely be the same as was seen in Algeria. The fighting brigades, led by jihadis and their allies, will come to dominate the new Syrian political landscape.

How Algeria was Won

What doomed the Algerian Provisional Government (consisting largely of the political leaders who had waited out the war against the French in exile) was essentially its lack of sufficient firepower inside the country when the struggle with the military-led faction broke out. Only a minority of the National Liberation Front (FLN) fighters backed the Provisional Government, causing them to have little control outside of parts of the capitol city region, and one other area. Much of this lack of support can be attributed to the fact that the commanders of the military faction had far closer connections with the fighting brigades, and much deeper relationships with them after years of leading them against French forces. This was compounded by the “cult of the gun” that had emerged amongst the internal FLN fighters and supporters. France’s focus on defeating the Algerian rebellion with military means had its mirror in convincing the supporters of that revolt that only a military solution could end French rule. Hence the armed struggle was elevated above all other endeavours, and politicians were seen as weak and ineffectual.

Those same French military operations did the greatest damage to the kind of fighting brigades amongst which the future leaders of the Provisional Government had the most support, the ordinary maquis (guerrilla brands), especially in Algiers. Least affected had been the ‘Army of the Frontiers’ fighters, who enjoyed heavy backing from the Moroccan and Tunisian governments and who could move back and forth across the borders at will, giving them both greater arms and protection. This Army of the Frontiers was dominated by those FLN military leaders who refused to submit to the rule of politicians, and who would subsequently undertake the “March on Algiers” and oust the Provisional Government and its scattered supporters.


Syria’s Fighting Men

The current scenario in Syria has its differences, but the broad similarities are compelling, and the factors which favour a jihadi rise are even stronger than those which aided the rise of the military leaders in Algeria. Like French counterinsurgency operations, al-Assad’s forces have compelled Syria’s opposition politicians to largely reside abroad. The rising size and power of the jihadis, detailed in the previous instalment, is akin to the lopsided advantage the Army of the Frontiers enjoyed in Algeria, as is the jihadis’ comparatively generous foreign support. The more moderate FSA brigades have the “non-lethal” support of the West; the jihadis have arms and funds from the deep pockets of the pro-Islamist Gulf Arabs. The failure of the West to provide effectual assistance to the rebels has led many fighters who previously pinned their hope on NATO (as in Libya) to give this up, and lose any desire to make themselves acceptable to the West by shunning the jihadis. More and more Syrian rebels are asking “What has the West done for us? Now, we have only God." Al-Assad’s forces have so far been able to inflict greater defeats on the non-jihadi fighters than the jihadis (hence the admiration the other rebels feel for the jihadis’ “special forces” prowess), again weakening the forces most likely to ally themselves with the SNC in a post-al-Assad contest. 

Al-Assad’s air power continues to be formidable, and allows his regime to frustrate many conventional rebel offensives, giving an edge to those rebels skilled at non-conventional attacks on the regime, such as co-ordinated suicide bombings. Al Nusra and other jihadis’ alliances with al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) give them unique access to the necessary skills. The jihadis also enjoy an implicit ally in the government of Jordan. The Hashemite Kingdom has witnessed horrific violence resulting from large militarized refugee populations residing within its borders before, and so is keen to see the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees already within its borders return home as soon as possible. More likely than not, that means a military solution by those rebels who are currently strongest, giving the Jordanian government an incentive to let arms and supplies move across its borders to the rebels. Much of the same is true of the Turkish government. All this is to say nothing of the public services the jihadis run, which builds their support amongst the Syrian population daily. At present the jihadis and their allies in Syria remain a minority of rebel fighters, albeit a sizeable one, but all these factors will cause them to quickly grow the longer the conflict continues. Not only will a “cult of the gun” emerge, but as the most effective wielders of the gun, a “cult of jihad” is likely to take hold of much of Syria’s internal opposition.


Syria’s Forlorn Political Hopes

The successes of the jihadis on the battlefield are only mirrored by the vacillation and squabbling in the halls of politics. The SNC has been seen as consumed by infighting and ineffectual on the ground almost since it was formed in October 2011. Many of its members are long-standing exiles and opponents of the al-Assad regime, seen by many within Syria as disconnected from recent events and the on-going struggle.

These weaknesses caused another body, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, to be set up in November 2012 as an alternative. Despite the recognition and diplomatic support the National Coalition has subsequently enjoyed from other nations (especially Western democracies), it has received little more than lip-service support from the armed brigades within Syria, and what little influence it enjoys largely stems from the fact that the SNC controls twenty-two of its seventy council seats. The National Coalition as a whole has firmly shunned Syria’s jihadis, comparatively to the limited links the SNC maintains with them. This is a poor omen for its ability to influence events on the ground. Significantly, it was the jihadis who initiated the recent rebel offensives in Aleppo, Damascus and Raqqa province, which were not sanctioned by the local leaders linked to the National Coalition. The al-Tawhid Brigade (كتائب التوحيد‎), a prominent and powerful Islamist unit of the FSA, refused to join the National Coalition when the latter was founded, even though this brigade actively supports the SNC.

The first leader of the National Coalition, Moaz al-Khatib (a Sunni cleric, seen as a unifying figure in Syria) resigned in March this year, complaining of too much Western interference and rule-setting. He was replaced by the President of the SNC, George Sabra. Just before al-Khatib’s resignation, an interim government with a SNC-linked Islamist Prime Minister, Ghassan Hitto. Hitto, however, is a joint Syrian and American citizen, having lived in the USA since 1980 –longer than many of the rebel fighters have even been alive. President Sabra has insisted that the SNC will not be “subsumed under anybody.” The National Coalition is further hampered by its failure to provide meaningful services to civilians inside Syria. Essentially, the National Coalition has significant weaknesses of its own, and only enjoys influence on the ground through the SNC politicians who increasingly dominate it. At best, it is becoming a weak appendage of the SNC it was meant to replace.

The political opposition is further divided by the refusal of the National Co-ordination Committee (NCC) to work with either the National Coalition or the SNC. Formed in November 2011, the NCC is made up largely of left-leaning, Kurdish and independent non-Islamist political parties and activists. It calls for dialogue with the al-Assad regime rather than its military ouster, and vociferously opposes Western intervention or diplomatic pressure. Although its influence is limited, the fact that even the political exiles cannot be united against al-Assad is a severe sign of weakness.

But perhaps the greatest indictment of all against these political leaders is that even the Western democracies that were initially so keen to embrace these councils are now beginning to side-line them. In late February this year, the US government announced that it was stepping up with another $60 million in aid to the Syrian rebels –but this aid is to be provided directly to the FSA’s military groups inside Syrian. The SNC will continue to be involved and consulted on the distribution, but the sense that the internal actors are those most significant to the outcome of the struggle is undeniable.


What can be done?

All of these factors indicate that, if al-Assad falls or retreats with his forces to an Alawite-majority rump state on the coast, the contest for who will control newly “liberated” areas of Syria will be won by the jihadis, not the SNC or National Coalition, just as the Army of the Frontiers won control in Algeria.

It is possible that foreign intervention could change this internal equation, but it would depend highly on the form that intervention takes. The simple enforcement of a “no fly zone” against regime air power, or the creation of safe “humanitarian corridors” to ensure safe movement of refugees (and implicitly also of rebel forces), would do little to truly change the outcome. These actions would only amplify the on-going military trends without shifting the balance between the different armed wings of the opposition. The provision of “lethal” aid (meaning weapons) by the West to their preferred armed groups could help them win greater success and prominence on the battlefield, but potentially these weapons could simply end up flowing to those who already have the most power to control territory and distribution: the jihadis. Direct Western intervention with troops could certainly win the war and allow the West to choose the new regime, at least in the immediate sense, but this course of action is fraught with its own series of complications, especially the fact that most of the aforementioned political groups oppose Western troops entering Syria. Most importantly, however, no amount of arms or funds, or even direct intervention, can rectify the weak and fractured nature of the exiled political leadership itself –and a political alternative is needed to exclude the jihadis from power.

The flailing and non-co-operation of Syria’s self-proclaimed political leaders empowers the armed brigades inside Syria, and especially so the jihadis, who draw their arms from their rich Gulf Arab backers, not from the flailing councils, who are now not even the sole conduit for what little Western non-lethal aid is available. If the war continues its current course, and al-Assad falls to his internal military opponents, the most powerful of these armed brigades will dominate the new Syria –and that means a very large slice for the violent jihadis. That means significant power and resources for the jihadis to put to use everywhere else they wish to spread conflict.

In Part 3: Syria’s jihadis and the wider world.