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Syrie : Un raid aérien attribué à la Russie fait près de 80 tués parmi des rebelles pro-turcs

par Laurent Lagneau · 26 octobre 2020



En mars, après plusieurs semaines de combats ayant impliqué les rebelles pro-Ankara et les forces gouvernementales syriennes dans la province d’Idleb et le lancement de l’opération turque « Bouclier de printemps », le président russe, Vladimir Poutine, et son homologue turc, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, s’étaient mis d’accord sur le principe d’un cessez-le-feu ainsi que sur la mise en place de patrouilles communes russo-turques le long de l’autoroute M4 et de l’instauration d’un « couloir de sécurité ».

Depuis, il règne un calme relatif dans cette province d’Idleb, contrôlée en grande partie par des groupes jihadistes, dont le Hayat Tahrir al-Sham [HTS] et le Tanzim Hurras ad-Din. Dans le même temps, la Turquie a recruté des combattants parmi les groupes armés qu’elle soutient pour les envoyer ensuite en Libye et, plus récemment, au Haut Karabakh, théâtre d’un conflit entre l’Azerbaïdjan [soutenu par Ankara] et les forces arméniennes.

En Libye, ces mercenaires syriens s’opposent à ceux de la société militaire privée [SMP] russe « Wagner ». Et leur implication au Haut-Karabakh met Moscou dans l’embarras, en raison de ses accords de défense avec Erevan et ses bonnes relations avec Bakou.

Mais, a priori, et alors qu’elle soutient Damas, la Russie a voulu envoyer un message aux autorités turques, ce 26 octobre. En effet, un camp d’entraînement du groupe armé pro-turc Faylaq al-Sham a été visé par des raids aériens qui ont fait 78 tués et une centaine de blessés, selon un dernier bilan.

Le camp visé est situé dans la région de Jabal al-Douayli, dans le nord de la province d’Idleb, près de la frontière turque. Selon l’Observatoire syrien des droits de l’Homme [OSDH], ces frappes auraient été effectuées par les forces aériennes russes. Ce qu’a confirmé Seif al-Raad, un porte-parole du Front national de libération, une coalition rebelle à laquelle est affilié le Faylaq al-Sham. Cependant, Moscou n’a encore officiellement rien dit au sujet de ce raid aérien.

Cité par l’AFP, Nicholas Heras, analyste à l’Institute for the Study of War, Moscou a voulu envoyer un « message » à la Turquie, les « deux pays soutenant également des camps rivaux en Libye et au Nagorny-Karabakh. »

Et d’ajouter que la Russie « montre qu’elle peut frapper les supplétifs syriens d’Ankara autant qu’elle le souhaite, si la Turquie n’engage pas une désescalade des activités militaires allant à l’encontre des intérêts russes en Libye, en Syrie et dans Nagorny-Karabakh. »

Photo : Su-34 « Fullback » / Archive Ministère russe de la Défense

http://www.opex360.com/2020/10/26/syrie-un-raid-aerien-attribue-a-la-russie-fait-pres-de-80-tues-parmi-des-rebelles-pro-turcs/

Citation :

Israeli jets fly over Beirut, explosions reported in Syria

Fri, December 25, 2020, 12:49 AM GMT+1
BEIRUT (AP) — Israeli jets flew very low over parts of Lebanon early Friday, terrifying residents on Christmas Eve, some of whom reported seeing missiles in the skies over Beirut.

Minutes later, Syria's official news agency reported explosions in the central Syrian town of Masyaf. Other Syrian media said Syrian air defenses responded to an Israeli attack near the town in the Hama province.

The Syrian Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying Israel “launched an aggression by directing a barrage of rockets” from the north of the Lebanese city of Tripoli towards the Masyaf area. It said Syrian air defense “confronted the enemy missiles and intercepted most of them.”

There was no immediate word on what the target was or whether there were any casualties.

Israeli jets regularly violate Lebanese airspace and have often struck inside Syria from Lebanese territory. But the Christmas Eve flights were louder than usual, frightening residents of Beirut who have endured multiple crises in the past year, including the catastrophic Aug. 4 explosion at the city's port that killed over 200 people and destroyed parts of the capital. That explosion resulted from the detonation of a stockpile of ammonium nitrates that was improperly stored at the facility.

There was no immediate word from Israel on Friday's flights and alleged attacks on Syria.

In the past few years, Israel has acknowledged carrying out dozens of airstrikes in Syria, most of them aimed at suspected Iranian weapons shipments believed to be bound for Hezbollah. In recent months, Israeli officials have expressed concern that Hezbollah is trying to establish production facilities to make precision guided missiles.

Masyaf is a significant military area for Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime that includes a military academy and a scientific research center. Israel has struck targets there several times in the past.

The Diplomat a écrit:

The Fatemiyoun Army: Iran’s Afghan Crusaders in Syria

Loyal proxy groups, like the Fatemiyoun Army, provide Tehran with a cost-effective means to confront its stronger foes.

The Iranian regime has long used Islamist groups as proxies to advance its objectives in the Middle East. Its notorious sponsorship of the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas since the 1980s, for instance, is well documented. What is less known, however, is Tehran’s more recent spiraling proxy warfare with the establishment of a transnational network of Shia militant groups, deployed to confront its adversaries across a variety of battlefields in the wider region. The Fatemiyoun Army is one of these newer proxies, composed entirely of Afghan Shia fighters, deployed to defend Iranian interests in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. This new, transnational aspect of Iran’s traditional proxy warfare can have broad regional implications, threatening U.S. interests, as well as its allies, across the Middle East and South Asia.  

I began monitoring the Fatemiyoun in early 2015 as part of my portfolio in the Afghan National Security Council, although the group had been created two years earlier amid the violent upheavals that swept across the Middle East in the aftermath of the “Arab Spring.” Reacting to the regional turmoil, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, responsible for unconventional warfare and military intelligence, established four new Shia militant groups – Fatemiyoun, Zainabiyoun, Aliyoun, and Haidariyoun – named after Prophet Mohammad’s family members, and composed of fighters from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria, respectively. They were all to fight on various battlefields in the Middle East, but the Fatemiyoun grew to be the largest and most formidable, backing Tehran’s ally Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war and later the Houthis in Yemen.

The origins of the Fatemiyoun traces to the now defunct “Mohammad Corp” and the “Abuzar Division,” both Afghan Shia militant groups commissioned by Iran to fight in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and later against the Taliban in the ’90s. A handful of veterans from these groups, led by Ali Reza Tavassoli, formed the core of the Fatemiyoun in 2013 from which the Quds Force amassed an army of more than 20,000 militants over the next three years. Fighters were predominantly recruited from among Shia Afghan refugees in Iran, enticed with the mission of “safeguarding the shrines of the Prophet’s granddaughters in Damascus.” Beside religious inducement, the Quds Force also offered a host of material incentives, including legal residency, free schooling for children, health insurance, monthly payments of up to $1,500, and social status upon return. Some were even coerced into joining with threats of arrest and deportation if they refused. Most of the approximately 3 million Afghan refugees in Iran live a precarious existence, pressed by extreme economic hardship on the one hand, and harsh xenophobic discrimination on the other, making such incentives extremely appealing.

As the fighting intensified in Syria, the Quds Force began reaching out to the Shia Hazara population inside Afghanistan too, establishing recruiting networks in multiple provinces, including the capital Kabul. Recruits were transported under the guise of pilgrimage trips to holy shrines in Syria and Iraq, using travel agencies with close connections to the Iranian Embassy in Kabul. Once in Iran, the recruits would undergo a fortnight of training in tactical guerrilla moves and basic weapons handling, run in complete secrecy by the Quds Force. The men were then shipped to Syria, raced to the shrine of Zainab bint Ali for a quick visit, and then immediately deployed to the battlefields. Viewed as “cannon fodder,” Fatemiyoun fighters were sent to some of the toughest fronts, including Latakia, Hama, Idlib, Aleppo, Damascus, and Daraa, resulting in outsized casualty rates. Estimates suggest that between 2013 and 2019, over 50,000 Fatemiyoun militants fought in the Middle East, suffering a staggering casualty rate of over 5,000 deaths and 4,000 wounded. The dead included the group’s original leader, Ali Reza Tavassoli, and several of his successors.

With the dwindling of the war in Syria, a number of these fighters were deployed to Yemen to support the Iranian Houthi allies, some returned to Iran, and many relocated to Afghanistan. The Quds Force, nevertheless, keeps an active division of about 8,000 Fatemiyoun fighters in Syria, and maintains contact with those in Afghanistan. In the face of consistent attacks by Sunni militants, as well as the increasing possibility of the Taliban’s return to power, Afghan Shias feel extremely vulnerable, warranting the emergence of the Fatemiyoun as a Shia defense force.

Recent events, though small in scope, confirm this prediction: Last month, for instance, militiamen belonging to a local Hazara commander, Ali Pur, who is allegedly connected to the Fatemiyoun, shot down an Afghan army helicopter, resulting in the death of nine security personnel and bloody retaliatory action by the army. Two weeks later, another group of Hazara Shias, purported to be the first active face of the Fatemiyoun in Afghanistan, announced the establishment of a military division to “defend the Shias against widespread attack and systematic discrimination” in central Afghanistan. This is but the tip of a large iceberg that could surface as ethnic and sectarian tensions among Afghans are on the rise in the face of the impending U.S. troop withdrawal.

The problem does not end with Afghanistan, however. The Fatemiyoun is but one of the many actors within Iran’s new transnational network of Shia groups that operate on an ideology of “pan-Shia militancy” in a region riddled with conflict. As the self-declared custodian of Shia Islam, the Iranian regime faces numerous adversaries, including the Sunni Gulf states, Israel, and, of course ,the United States. In the face of this presumed “existential threat,” Iran seeks to utilize any and all means to ensure its survival and advance its interests. Loyal proxy groups, like the Fatemiyoun Army, provide Tehran with a cost-effective means to confront its stronger foes, and wield substantial leverage over the region’s affairs. Most security agencies, including those of the Afghan government in which I served, have thus far downplayed the group’s significance. But my five-year close study of the group leads me to believe that the Fatemiyoun is poised to become a second Hezbollah within Tehran’s proxy arsenal.

[ ÉTATS-UNIS | TURQUIE ]

Durant l'opération un F-16 américain a abattu un drone Anka-S turc après qu'il ait été considéré comme une menace pour les forces américaines.

Un responsable américain a déclaré qu'il savait qu'il s'agissait d'un drone turc. https://t.co/lGmGBfNnGk pic.twitter.com/wjoDlCA8Ut

— (Little) Think Tank (@L_ThinkTank) October 5, 2023

D'importantes frappes aériennes turques ont eu lieu dans le nord de la Syrie. On reste dans l'attente des manifestations, des condamnations de l'ONU pour crimes de guerre et des multiples ONG, mais pour l'instant, le silence persiste. https://t.co/1BOCUdmJFb

— Christophe Tymowski (@Christophe_Tymo) December 24, 2023