When Raqqa was the Capital of a Real Caliph: Harun al-Rashid

The glories of Baghdad during the reign of the ‘Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid have been much celebrated and elaborated upon in the tales of the 1001 Nights, so his reign is generally identified with the great period of Baghdad's glories. Yet of the 23 solar years, 786-809 AD, of Harun's Caliphate, for 13 of those he reigned not from Baghdad, but from Raqqa on the Euphrates. Long before Raqqa served as the capital of ISIS' self-declared "Caliphate," it was the capital of the ‘Abbasids when they ruled most of the Islamic world (except Umayyad Spain).

With the announcement today that Raqqa has fallen to the Syrian Democratic Forces (mainly the Kurdish YPG), it may be worth remembering Raqqa's previous glories. The Islamic State most likely chose Raqqa as its capital because it was one of the few cities it controlled, but it was surely aware of its role as a onetime Caliphal capital.

Raqqa was an ancient foundation, known in classical times as Kallinikos. Harun was the fifth ‘Abbasid Caliph. His grandfather the second ‘Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur (Harun's father and brother had reigned between the two), who was the real founder of Baghdad, noticed the attractive elements of Raqqa and founded a suburb he named al-Rafiqa ("the companion"). Though proud of his great new Round City of Baghdad, al-Mansur adopted Rafiqa as the ‘Abbasid summer capital. (For the nitpickers: I know Mansur did not found "Baghdad," the Persian name for the village on the Tigris which preceded Mansur's city, which was officially named Madinat al-Salam, the City of Peace. But everyone called it by the older name. Al-Mansur's Round City, until destroyed by the Mongols in 1258, lay where the al-Mansur neighborhood of modern Baghdad is today.)

In 796 AD, ten solar years into his Caliphate, Harun moved his administrative capital to Raqqa, though the state bureaucracy mostly remained in Baghdad. Many of the descriptions (mostly anachronistic) of the glories of Harun's Baghdad refer to Raqqa, where outside the view of the religious establishment and the Baghdad populace, Harun was more free to indulge his penchants for horse-racing, wine, and other pleasures. Some of the songs/poems in the Kitab al-Aghani refer to the pleasures of Harun's place at Raqqa.

Not much remains of ‘Abbasid-era Raqqa, even before ISIS and the fight to retake the city. Some ancient walls and the Baghdad Gate at left, less whatever damage ISIS and the air and artillery assaults on the city may have destroyed.

War Crime at Khan Shaykhun

In certain circles, it has become almost fashionable to defend the Bashar al-Asad regime; oddly in the US the temptation seems to seduce not only the ideological right but also the ideological left. Outside of Syria's Russian, Iranian, and Hizbullah enablers, it is time for the scales to fall from their eyes. The chemical weapons attack on the town of Khan Shaykhun in Idlib province.

It is true that the Syrian regime denies it was behind the attack and claims it is a "false flag"operation by the opposition. Notwithstanding the fact that witnesses said the attack was delivered by a Sukhoi Su-22 with Arabic markings. The only air forces in Syria flying Su-22s are Syria's and Russia's, and I doubt the Russians would do the dirty work themselves.

The death toll is said to be somewhere in the 80s, including at least 25 children. Most accounts say the gas was Sarin, but those are preliminary reads, and chlorine, which Syria also has used.an have similar symptoms.

But wait! Didn't Syria agree in 2013 to surrender all its chemical weapons? Well, yes, it did.

The world has responded as usual, with massive denunciations. (Though the US Trump Administration said it was the result of President Obama's failure to carry through on his "red line" threats in 2013, which it characterized as weakness, but it offered no prospect of strong action now.

Six years of war in Syria has produced nearly five million external refugees and over six million internally displaced persons. This is a humanitarian disaster of historic proportions. The Asad regime is not solely responsible, but an internationally recognized government systematically gassing its own people deserves no international tolerance.

I am not advocating American boots on the ground, since that almost always backfires, but instead of Russia and some in this country defending Asad, it is time to brand this regime a pariah like North Korea, and treat it as the renegade it has become. If the world cannot find a way, or the will, to stop the atrocities, it should end any pretense of toleration. My language may offend, but the far greater offense is Asad's; this is fucking barbarism, and it is time to call it by its proper name.

Conquest of Western Mosul Gathers Speed

In the past two days, Iraqi Security Forces and their allies have made significant advances against Islamic State forces in western Mosul. Reports suggest senior IS leaders have already left Mosul for Raqqa. Although there is a sense of collapsing resistance, the narrow streets of the old city could still provide ample opportunity for hard fighting.

As the two maps below indicate, after crossing the Tigris and seizing the airport, Iraqi forces have steadily advanced northward, and have now taken the government center. Though the advance may slow in the old city, a key symbolic target will likely be the Great Mosque, where IS "Caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was proclaimed. Baghdadi is believed to have fled, perhaps to Raqqa, where allied forces are already maneuvering for the final assault.

Institute for the Study of War

Iraqi Joint Operations Command

Tonight East Aleppo May Fall. There are no Winners; only Losers.

No one is innocent here. Both the regime and the rebels behaved as if the civilian population was invisible. Hospitals were systematically targeted. A great world city has been destroyed as the world watched and deplored. The Syrian people were the losers. There are no winners.

The End is Near, and it Will Be Bloody

Reportedly, Syrian regime forces now control at least 75% of eastern Aleppo, and their jihadist opponents appear determined to fight to the end unless the regime offers them an escape route, which no longer appears to be an option.

Fighting is raging in and around the ancient Citadel itself, now badly damaged. The regime and the jihadists bear shared responsibility, though the Russian and Syrian Air Forces have made it an uneven fight.

Though for obvious reasons, the US press does not like to draw comparisons between the Syrian regime and the situation developing right now in Mosul, since in Mosul the US is supporting the Iraqi forces against ISIS, despite the presence of sectarian militias and Iran as virtual allies. But the fight for Mosul has bogged down, and once again, a regime and jihadi forces confront each other, The tragedy deepens.

End Game in Aleppo?

The sudden and unprecedented advance of Syrian regime forces into northeastern Aleppo in recent days seems to mark the collapse of the anti-Asad rebel groups that have been holding out there, especially Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra). A victory by the regime and its allies is likely to come at great cost; eastern Aleppo has already suffered horribly from bombing and the systematic targeting of hospitals. And while Syrian forces have been de facto cooperating with the Kurdish YPG and Turkish backed elements, he very different end games envisioned by those three elements may lead to new conflicts.

Once the regime recovers the ruins of this once great city, it will control the major cities of Syria, the "useful Syria" it considers sufficient to assure its survival. It will have recovered Aleppo through the unchallenged and unrestrained application of Syrian and Soviet air power. The chimaera of a no-fly zone is long since moot, rendered so by direct Russian intervention. There will be plenty of guilt to go around for the destruction of a great city; the West is hardly free of guilt, but the Asad regime and its Russian and other allies have the largest amount of blood on their hands.

Maybe the Admiral Kuznetzov is Not the Russian Ship We Should Be Watching

The European and Russian media have been tracking Russia's only carrier, the Admiral Kuznetzov, from the Baltic, through the English Channel and the Strait of Gibraltar, and currently steaming eastward across the Mediterranean. The theme is generally presented as Russia's dispatching its flagship, its only true aircraft carrier, to reinforce its forces prior to the final assault on eastern Aleppo. In terms of timing, it is obviously meant to signal increased Russia's military profile off Syria. But its propaganda influence is likely to be far more effective than its military impact.

Admiral Kuznetzov

In the first place, the Kuznetzov has had a checkered history. Originally named the Riga, it was renamed the Leonid Brezhnev as the Soviet Union began to come apart, then the Tbilisi, and finally the Admiral Kuznetzov. Its sister ship, unfinished when the USSR collapsed, was taken over by the Ukraine and eventually sold to China. So the Kuznetzov is the only true carrier in the Russian fleet (though officially classed as an heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser) and its flagship, but it must travel with a repair tender because it breaks down so frequently.

But those making the assumption that the carrier will contribute to a final bombing campaign to retake East Aleppo, are likely to be disappointed. The carrier's air complement is only about half that of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, also on station off Syria, and its Su-33s are air superiority fighters, of no use for bombing. It's MiG-29s are multi-role, but mainly intended for combat air patrol.

The Kuznetzov and its accompanying cruiser Peter the Great may merely be showing the flag, but the frigate Admiral Grigorovich, which exited the Black Sea quietly while the Kuznetzov battle group was getting all the attention. Only commissioned in March, Admiral Grigorovich is the lead ship of a new class of heavy cruise-missile frigates.

Admiral Grigorovich

It is equipped with vertically-launched Kalibr cruise missiles, which have a supersonic terminal velocity. The Kalibr has been extensively used in Syria, launched from vessels in the Caspian and Black Seas, or a submarine in the Mediterranean, but positioning a Kalibr-equipped frigate directly off the Syrian coast will greatly intensify Russian firepower around Aleppo. There also reports that three Russian cruise missile submarines have recently joined at least one already in the Med.

Cruise missiles of course avoid risk to Russian (or Syrian) pilots, but can deliver considerable destruction on the ground

Now that Dabiq Has Fallen, Will ISIS Change the Name of its Magazine?

What with the launching of the campaign against Mosul and the US preoccupation with the election, many may have overlooked the loss by ISIS of a tiny town in northern Syria with only a few thousand inhabitants. But it did get some attention, because the town was Dabiq.

It looks as if the end times may be postponed for a while. You may recall that two years ago I did a post discussing the role pf Dabiq in Islamic apocalyptic thought, and quoted at length a hadith attributed to the Prophet to the effect that in the last days a great final battle between the Muslims and "the Romans" (that is, the Byzantines), which would lead to a Muslim victory the fall of Constantinople and the onset of the last days.

Yes, Islam conquered Constantinople back in 1453, but in the centuries of struggle preceding that, the boundary between Byzantium and Islam frequently ran roughly along the present Turkish border; as, later, did the boundary between the Ottomans and Mamluk Syria. Over the centuries two battles were fought at Marj Dabiq (the Meadow of Dabiq) near the town: one in 717 AD between the Umayyads and the Byzantines, and the other in 1516 in which the Ottomans defeated the Mamluks and opened their conquest of Syria and Egypt. Dabiq was in the sort of location where battles have occurred several times. rather like the hill and pass at Megiddo in Palestine has been the scene of battles from ancient times to World War I. Just as the biblical Book of Revelation places the final battle at Armageddon (Greek for har-Megiddo), so some Islamic traditions place a similar battle at Dabiq.

And of course, ISIS named its English-language magazine Dabiq.

Unlike Aleppo or Mosul, the loss of Dabiq by ISIS to the Sultan Murad militia (a Syrian Turkmen militia backed by Turkey) has little effect on the military situation, but it clearly undercuts ISIS' claim to be bringing the apocalypse.

For more on the subject, ISIS expert at Brookings Will McCants has a good piece at Jihadica, "Apocalypse Delayed,"  (also available from the Brookings website).

Bassam Haddad: Syria Debate has Reached a Dead End

The debate over the rights and wrongs of the war in Syria and what the policy of the US and other powers should be has sometimes seemed as endless as the war itself. Let me commend to you an incisive, if sobering, analysis by Bassam Haddad at The Nation: "The Debate Over Syria Has Reached a Dead End."

What is Aleppo? Once One of the World's Great Cities, Until the World Abandoned it

The Citadel of Aleppo

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."

                                                                        —Ambrose Bierce

Five years of war in Syria may not have taught Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson what Aleppo is, and there is no doubt many other Americans who couldn't find Syria's largest city on a map. As another fragile ceasefire takes tenuous hold, I thought it might be a suitable time to talk a bit about a once magnificent city now reduced to rubble.

Before the civil war produced a huge outflow of refugees, Aleppo's population of over two million made Aleppo the largest city in Syria, larger than the capital, Damascus. In Ottoman times it was the third-largest city in the Empire, after Constantinople and Cairo.

Aleppo is an ancient city, very ancient. The Temple of Hadad inside Aleppo's spectacular citadel shows the site has been occupied since the Third Millennium BC, and perhaps much earlier. Archaeological exploration has been limited by the presence of the modern city, but like several other cities in the region it has a claim to being one of the earliest human settlements. It is mentioned as a key city in the tablets from Ebla and Mari.

The Arabic name for the city, Halab, is also very ancient, and seems to refer to whiteness. Its location at the curve of the Fertile Crescent, between the Euphrates and Orontes valleys, made it a center of trade from ancient times. With Antioch (and later Alexandretta) providing outlets for Mediterranean trade, and the evolution of the Silk Road to the East, on which Aleppo was a major entrepot, Aleppo became and until recently remained, one of the key trading centers of the Middle East. Its archaeological museum, now closed and with damage from artillery, was once a gem.

Like other ancient  cities, prewar Aleppo was a palimpsest of ancient cultures: Amorite, Hittite, Seleucid, Roman, and in the Islamic era Hamdanid, Seljuq, Zangid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk. The great Arab poet al-Mutanabbi wrote some of his best work at the Hamdanid  court of Saif sal-Dawla in Aleppo. In Ottoman times it was a richly cosmopolitan city populated by Arabs, Armenians, Turks, Turcomans, Kurds, and Jews.

In the early modern era, Aleppo became well known in Europe. The English Levant Company, one of the main Tudor trading companies, founded n 1592, had a headquarters at Aleppo. Shakespeare mentions the city at least twice:

Set you down this;
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduc'd the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him thus.

 Othello, Act 5, Scene 2 (just before stabbing himself)

 First witch: A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap,

And munched, and munched, and munched. “Give me,”

     quoth I.

“Aroint thee, witch!” the rump-fed runnion cries.

Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o' th' Tiger;

But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,

And like a rat without a tail,

I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.

Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3

Though politically eclipsed by Damascus, Aleppo was a major center under the French Mandate, and in independent Syria. Its most famous European hotel, the Armenian-owned Hotel Baron, boasted a clientele of almost every famous figure in 19th and 20th century Middle Eastern history, including various kings and Presidents from de Gaulle to Nasser, and had a framed unpaid bar bill of T.E. Lawrence's on display. Sadly, though it stayed open through several years of the civil war, I understand the Baron stopped taking guests in 2014, by which time it was almost on the front lines. I never stayed there, but I did once have a drink at the bar. Unlike Lawrence, I paid my tab.

The old city of Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has suffered terribly. The famous Suq was burned several years ago; numerous mosques, the Archaeological Museum, and even the awesome Citadel have suffered damage. Perhaps the question should be, not "What is Aleppo?" but rather "What was Aleppo?"

Memo to Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson: This is Aleppo

Backfires in Hamadan: Russia's Deployment of Strategic Bombers in Iran is Unprecedented

The photo at left dominated he Internet today: a five-year-old child pulled from the rubble of a building collapsed by Russian or Syrian regime bombs in Aleppo. It is indeed a powerful symbol.

But the bombing of Aleppo just became even more intense this week with word that Russia was flying bombing missions using Tu-22MR Backfire strategic bombers from Iran's Hamadan Air Base, some miles north of the city of Hamadan.

Some hasty accounts described the bombers as Tu-22s, but the Tu-22 (NATO reporting name Blinder) is a very different aircraft than the Tu-22MR (NATO reporting name Backfire). The former was a subsonic bomber that proved ineffective in service in Soviet days; the latter is a supersonic, intercontinental strategic bomber, rarely deployed outside Russia. The precedent deserves attention.

Even at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union, after the end of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, almost ever deployed strategic bombers outside the Soviet Union, its Warsaw Pact allies in Eastern Europe, and Afghanistan. The deployment of Russian fighters and ground attack aircraft at the Hmeymim airbase near Latakia in Syria was itself a break with precedent. But operating from Iran, a country whose 1979 Revolution denounced foreign influences, is a dramatic departure for both countries.

Russia says the Backfires are too heavy to use bases like Hmeymim in Syria, and that flying from Hamadan is much shorter an thus more efficient than flying from southern Russia, with greater tie over target, but the real news is that Iran permitted it. There may be implications in Iran's domestic politics; it also indicates that despite international criticism, Russia is prepared to increase the bombloads it is dropping on Syria.

Below: map, and two Russian propaganda clips.

İncirlik Under Pressure Again: Will US Keep its Nukes There?

Yesterday, more than two weeks after Turkey's failed coup, Turkish troops and demonstrators again surrounded the joint NATO base at İncirlik. After the July 15 coup attempt, Turkey had surrounded the base and cut power. After nearly a week since the coup with external power cut off, the US confirmed that power had been restored to the base on July 22. The power had been cut at the time of the coup, after at least one Turkish KC-135 was used to refuel Air Force aircraft used to attack Ankara. The Turkish commander at İncirlik was arrested (photo at left).

As the purges (no other word quite works) have deepened, Turkish rancor towards the United States has deepened, as demands for extradition of Fethullah Gülen and vague accusations of US responsibility for the coup have accelerated, and President Erdoğan has been saying NATO and the US are not Turkey's friends. But İncirlik is a NATO base, and is home to a store of nuclear weapons, the only US nukes permanently deployed in the Middle East. The weapons are part of a nuclear sharing program under which NATO deployed weapons in allied countries, under full US control in peacetime, but which would be available to the allied power in a nuclear war. of some 200 weapons still stored with NATO allies in Europe, the largest number, estimated somewhere between 50 and 90, are at İncirlik.

The weapons are stored in storage bunkers under the control of the US Air Force and are equipped with Permissive Action Links (PALs), which prevent their use without express authorization by US National Command Authority. How secure are the PALs in an age of cyberhacking of secure computer networks? The US Air force assures that they are foolproof, but if a hostile power came into possession of the weapons, some observers are not sure how unbreakable the codes may be?

When the Turkish Army sealed off the base and cut off electrical power, USAF raised the Force Protection Condition to FPCON Delta, the highest possible. But with continuing threatening gestures from Turkey, like yesterday's on the eve of a visit by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Joseph Dunford, a certain jitters about the security of the nuclear arsenal seems appropriate.

The weapons are B61 thermonuclear gravity bombs with a variable adjustable yield with an upper limit of an estimated 340 kilotons, two to three times the yield of the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombs, which means they are now classed as tactical rather than strategic weapons, though it has long been assumed that the use of tactical nukes would inevitably escalate to the use of multi-megaton strategic weapons.

The B61s are aging and only tactical, but they could still destroy a city. The number at İncirlik is estimated at 50 to 90, increasingly outdated or even obsolete. That's between 50 and 90 goddamn fucking H-bombs.

If Turkey were to leave NATO the US would presumably withdraw these weapons, but what if the coup had succeeded and a hostile force gained control of the weapons. Or if Erdoğan quit NATO and seized the base? How confident are we the PALs cannot be compromised. Many voices are warning the nukes are in some jeopardy, They are unlikely to be used for their original purpose, to defend Turkey. Is it time to get them out?

Bear in mind where İncirlik is located. It is just outside Adana in southeastern Turkey.

The larger map below emphasizes the importance of this. The base is perhaps 100 miles from the Syrian border, In the map below, Adana is the conurbation in southeastern Turkey at the upper left; the city in the lower right is Aleppo. Of all the places in Turkey to store nuclear weapons, we store ours as close to the ISIS front lines as possible. I suspect the US is having second thoughts about this deployment.

How Involved is the US in the Manbij Campaign?

Since the first of June the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) have made major advances into the so-calleed Manbij Pocket along the Syrian-Turkish border, occupying hundreds of square kilometers west of the Euphrates and threatening to cut off one of the Islamic State's remaining outlets to the Turkish border.

Though the Manbij campaign has received less attention than the advance on Falluja i,n Iraq, it is a major success for US-backed forces. In fact there is reason to believe that US Special Forces are embedded with and possibly directing the advance.

Although about 60% of the SDF consist of YPG fighters. the US has sought to emphasize the Arab components in the SDF, in order to persuade Turkey that it is not primarily a Kurdish force advancing along its border. The SDF also includes Arab groups as well as Assyrian, Turkmen, Circassian and other minority groups. It's been reported that the YPG is leading the advance and capturing territory, and then handing control over to non-Kurdish forces.

The SDF says it is refraining from entering Manbij city to avoid civilian casualties,  but appears intent on cutting the routes from Manbij to the Turkish border.

Nusra, ISIS Push Back in Aleppo and Deir al-Zor

Although the pro-regime alliance have declared completing the encirclement of Aleppo and the lifting of the siege of the garrison at Deir al-Zor as its primary military objectives, in the past few days Jabhat al-Nusra and its allies counterattacked in Aleppo and set off a tunnel bomb under several regime controlled buildings, a tactic the the rebels have used previously, having bombed Air Force Intelligence in Aleppo in March 2015 using a tunnel bomb; some accounts suggest this bomb was under or near the ruins of that building.

Meanwhile, in the east, ISIS sought to expand its control in Deir al-Zor by pushing back the regime defenders there; ISIS presumably hopes to gain control of Deir al-Zor airfield, which has been essential to Syrian regime and Russian resupply of the besieged garrison.

Although regime reports suggest that both offensives has been pushed back, today's announcement that the partial troop has been extended to Aleppo mat be a sign that the offensives had some effect. Regime and Russian news reports that were touting both the Aleppo and Deir al-Zor advances seem more muted.

Below is a pro0-regime video of drone footage purporting to show the latest tunnel bomb damage.

Frederic Hof on Syria in Oslo

The Atlantic Council has posted the transcript of an address by Atlantic Council Resident Senior Fellow Ambassador Frederic C. Hof opening the Aspen Ministers' Forum in Oslo, addressing the Syrian peace process and refugee issues. It's a concise and incisive analysis and I recommend you read it. As I have noted previously for full disclosure, I have known Fred since undergraduate days and consider him extremely well-informed on Syrian (and Lebanese) issues, so I acknowledge a certain bias.

France24 English Documentary on YPG Victory in Shaddadi

The Kurdish YPG and its allies in the Syrian Democratic Forces recovered the northeastern city of al-Shaddadi from ISIS at the end of February. France24 English has broadcast this week a documentary by its journalists accompanying the YPG. There are clearly Western special forces accompanying the Kurds.

Why Is Syrian Regime Shifting Priorities Back to Aleppo?

 Institute for the Study of War

Last month, after regime forces captured Palmyra from ISIS, I speculated that the regime forces would proceed from there to lift the siege of Deir al-Zor, which could cut ISIS communications between its capital at Raqqa and its territories in Iraq.

Another option could be to move directly on Raqqa from the north and south, coordinating between regime and YPG forces. The Wilson Center's Henri Barkey made the case for the US and its allies targeting Raqqa ahead of the campaign against Mosul.

But it now seems clear that the Asad government and its allies, which now include Special Forces units of the Regular Iranian Army (Artesh) in addition to the long-present IRGC, have decided on a different priority: completing the encirclement of Aleppo and recapturing the city. An assessment here.

Asad's Prime Minister, Wa'el al-Halaqi, has explicitly said that the regime and the Russian Air Force  are now determined to complete he encirclement of Aleppo. Many of the elite Syrian and Iranian forces that spearheaded the recapture of Palmyra have now been moved to southern Aleppo province, and the Syrian Army's elite Tiger Forces and its commander, Maj. Gen. Suheil al-Hasan, have reportedly been assigned the task of closing the ring around Aleppo.

Retaking Syria's most populous city (as it was before the civil war) would be a great symbolic victory for the Asad regime, but the intermingling of armed groups in the Aleppo fight makes a campaign there much more dangerous, with the potential of undermining the remaining elements of the cessation of hostilities, in place since February, with the new round of Geneva talks due this week. In Palmyra the only enemy was ISIS, which is not covered by the truce, but in Aleppo Jabhat al-Nusra, also not covered, is closely intertwined with Free Syrian Army forces, which are. So the Aleppo campaign could risk the fragile truce.

But it is worth noting that the capture of Aleppo is unlikely to be as simple as the capture of Palmyra. The Russian Air Force already faces criticism for striking civilian targets, and if Aleppo is completely cut off (there is currently only one road open), mass starvation could be a possibility. So there are clear dangers: of failure, of increased humanitarian suffering, of undermining the peace talks. There is a real possibility that, instead of following up its success at Palmyra with rapid further progress against ISIS, the rebimeand its patrons are choosing a potentially costly gamble they might well lose.

Syria Claims to Have Retaken al-‘Eis After Several Days, Loss of Aircraft

Syrian regime reports say that they have now recovered the strategic town of al-‘Eis several days after it was taken by Jabhat al-Nusra. Nusra launched a major offensive south of Aleppo as fighting has intensified and the cessation of hostilities has been unraveling. Al-‘Eis, about 12 miles south of Aleppo, and its adjacent hill are well positioned to control the M5 highway just to the west, the main motorway connecting Aleppo to Damascus via Hama and Homs, and thus the urban spine of Syria. The M5 is still in rebel hands in several places.

Pro-regime media say the town and hill were retaken after heavy fighting, by Syrian Army troops and the 65th Iranian Special Forces Brigade with support from National Defense Forces militia, Hizbullah, and elements of the Iraqi al-Nujaba' Shi‘ite militia.

Do the Rebels have Shoulder-Launched SAMs?

Assuming the reports of the recovery of al-‘Eis are confirmed, it was recovered in about three days after heavy fighting, according to both sides. Yesterday (April 5) both sides confirmed (and multiple videos documented) the downing of a Syrian Air Force Su-22 fighter-bomber over al-‘Eis. Although Nusra said it was shot down by anti-aircraft fire, but the Syrian Government said it was a missile. Shoulder-launched SAMs have not been confirmed to be in rebel hands, particularly jihadi groups like al-Nusra. If confirmed it could represent a significant escalation.

The pilot elected (video below) and is now held by al-Nusra.

Assessing the Damage at Palmyra after a Week

A week after the recapture of Palmyra from the Islamic State, considerably more information is emerging about the degree of damage to the antiquities in the UNESCO World Heritage Site. My initial assessment last week seems to still hold true: the destruction is not complete, but it's bad enough.

ASOR, the American Schools of Oriental Research, today released their detailed assessment, based on journalists' reports, the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM),  and military sources. In addition to the videos I posted last week, there are links to many more by Russian and Syrian media and an AFP photographer. You can read the ASOR report online here, or download the PDF here. This is probably the best overview I've seen to date,

You can also find extensive photographs at the DGAM web page, including photos of the damage to the ruins  (English; Arabic here) and to the museum (English; Arabic here); a more recent report here. (Arabic here).

DGAM also posted a Tribute to Khaled Assad, the octogenarian archaeologist  and Director of the site, who was executed last year by ISIS.

The Gates of Nineveh website also has a good survey with links, photos, and videos.

Not all sites have been fully investigated as mines are still being cleared.

Here's an overview video among many:

The museum was extensively damaged; however some reports say that many key exhibits were moved to Damascus and replaced by casts before the fall to ISIS.