In a “no questions asked” deal, President Bashar al-Assad not only agreed to destroy the machinery used to produce chemical weapons, but also time-table the destruction of secret stockpiles of 1,000 metric tons of deadly chemicals. The question remains if this is enough for the U.S. to turn a blind eye to the killing of civilians in Syria, regardless of which side is guilty?
This week the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemicals Weapons says it “is now satisfied that it has verified — and seen destroyed — all of Syria’s declared critical production and mixing/filling equipment.” But according to Human Rights watch, Assad isn’t alone in killing and torturing hundreds of civilians. In this brutal Syrian conflict there are many factions and rebel groups vying for control of regions.
Fighting among the rebel groups has escalated and is threatening to spill the conflict across the borders of Iraq, Turkey and Lebanon.
According to The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in recent days, the Committees for the Protection of the Kurdish People (YPJ), a Kurdish militia in Syria battled other rebel groups to gain control of the region in the northeast of Syria — in Hasake province, where the Assad forces are no longer deployed. The week before, YPJ captured a key Iraqi border crossing.
An activist working for SOHR reported that “Jihadists have been trying to regroup their fighters to reclaim lost ground,” referring to fighters from Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Al-Nusra Front. Both groups are hardliners linked to Al-Qaeda.
The Kurdish and jihadist fighters have long been battling for control of the northeastern Hasake, which is rich in oil and borders Turkey and Iraq. According to SOHR observers, the latest clashes came a week after Kurdish fighters seized the Yaarubiyeh crossing on the Iraq border, which had been a key transit point for arms and jihadist fighters carrying out attacks in both countries.
In Lebanon new waves of Syrian refugees are destabilizing and overwhelming the country. Now there are fears that hundreds of thousands of newcomers will never want to leave as the sectarian conflict worsens.
In Turkey there are emerging reports that authorities have seized a large quantity of chemicals from a convoy trying to illegally enter the country from Syria, which “could be transformed into weapons”, the Turkish army says.
Paramilitary police were forced to shoot out the tyres of the convoy’s vehicles to stop them, and three drivers jumped out and fled in the direction of Syria.
With more reports of atrocities from both Bashar Assad’s forces and rebel groups, does the US have a clear mandate to intervene?
In May the Obama Administration first approved military aid to moderate forces in Syria. But at last week’s Senate hearing of the Foreign Relation Committee, the failure to increase action was attacked. Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, said he was appalled by the lack of progress for military training aid and called the U.S. support for the opposition an “embarrassment.”
Corker said Russia’s hands are “now on the steering wheel” in Syria, and the U.S. lacks a strategy for resolving the conflict or for the region as whole, which is causing America’s allies to question U.S. “reliability.”
Other witnesses at the hearing noted problems in Syria can’t be solved by arms control alone and explained the consequences of the lack of a U.S. strategy, which they say threatens to drag out the conflict.On August 10, Corker met in Turkey with Syrian opposition commander Brigadier General Salim Idris. At that meeting, Idris anticipated the delivery of trucks promised by the U.S.. More than two months later, the trucks arrived, according to Ambassador to Syria Robert Stephen Ford.
Ambassador Frederic C. Hof, senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, said:
“The problem of Syria at its root is not an arms control problem. Chemicals are the tip of a very deep and very deadly iceberg, one that will surely, if left unattended, kill all attempts to create a political path, a negotiated settlement to this problem. The iceberg itself is a deliberate, systematic policy and practice of the Assad regime to target civilians with artillery, rockets, aircraft, and missiles for murder, mayhem, terror, and flight,”
The U.S. has aligned itself with rebel forces and given military training to opposition groups, but in recent reports from organizations like Human Rights Watch have questioned that policy.
In its report, HRW exposed that armed opposition groups in Syria have killed at least 190 civilians and seized over 200 hostages during a military offensive that began in rural Latakia province on August 4. HRW said that 67 of the victims were executed or unlawfully killed in the operation around pro-government Alawite villages.
The report revealed that five rebel groups were responsible for human rights abuses. These groups were key fundraisers, organizers, and executors of the attacks on August 4: Ahrar al-Sham, Islamic State of Iraq and Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra, Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, and Suquor al-Izz.
The investigation of the killings on August 4 showed that civilians had experienced multiple gunshot or stabbing wounds — and the mass killing of 43 women, children and elderly together indicate that opposition forces either intentionally or indiscriminately killed victims.
“The scale and pattern of the serious abuses carried out by opposition groups during the operation indicate that they were systematic and planned as part of an attack on a civilian population,” reads the report. “The evidence strongly suggests that the killings, hostage taking, and other abuses committed by opposition forces on and after August 4 rise to the level of crimes against humanity.”
With the news that the U.S negotiation with Assad has brought about the destruction of chemical weapon production, can the U.S administration also bring rebel forces in line and stop human rights abuses and war crimes?