Golan
© AFP 2016/ JALAA MAREY Golan Heights, June 2016.
The first 48 hours of the ceasefire have been largely successful, and the Russian General Staff is calling for the first 48-hour extension. This despite the fact that, according to them, "the total number of violations by militants increased to 60... We also note that some armed groups controlled by the United States, such as Ahrar Al-Sham, announced directly their unwillingness to cease fire. The biggest number of violations is linked to these groups." If these next 48 hours hold, and the 72 after that, the U.S. and Russia will presumably team up to coordinate attacks on Daesh and Nusra. (Though Washington will continue to support any "moderate opposition" that uphold the ceasefire, according to Kerry.)

As we covered yesterday, Russian FM Lavrov is saying that Russia has nothing to hide regarding the details of the Syrian ceasefire, the details of which have been kept secret, presumably at the U.S.'s urging. As Leonid Bershidsky wrote in a Bloomberg article after the press conference last week, "The agreements, five separate documents, won't be published, ostensibly to prevent Islamist groups from disrupting the humanitarian effort that should follow the deal."

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner responded to Lavrov's statement, confirming that it is the U.S. that wants it to stay secret: "[T]here are some operational details, areas of sensitivity, we do not believe would be in the interest of the agreement, or in anyone's interest, to share." Of course, this raises the question as to what the U.S. considers so "sensitive". Maybe the rumors of a dozen or so U.S. special forces troops embedded with the al-Nusra and stuck in encircled east Aleppo are true - and the agreement ensures their safe passage. Maybe the agreement has the U.S. selling out some of their terrorist groups in writing. Impossible to know. Just watch the following video:


Kirby essentially acknowledged - without doing so explicitly - that the U.S. supports and is in "constant contact" with groups like Ahrar al-Sham, which is one of dozens of groups that have explicitly rejected the ceasefire deal. That's how much control Washington has over its 'rebels'.

We have to say, judging by what has been released to the public, it's hard to see how this agreement is any different than the last one. But there are hints that something is different. The U.S. and its allies do seem to be more vocal about their demand that the so-called moderates separate from Nusra, even issuing threats to cut off their support if they don't. There is widespread support for the deal, naturally (e.g., from UK PM Theresa May; Obama is "intent" on upholding the agreement; UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura hailed the "significant drop in violence with no airstrikes" in Aleppo). The provision for joint U.S.-Russia strikes is new. And it's unlikely the negotiations would have lasted so long, with so much hemming and hawing from Washington before the deal was signed, if there weren't some disagreements and eventual concessions. Moscow does seem to have the upper hand here, even if it isn't clear as yet what that actually is. Additionally, Iran and Hezbollah have been very supportive, considering that they were not pleased at all with the previous ceasefire, which allowed Nusra to regroup and rearm.

In fact, the old ceasefire is still largely working. The reconciliation center that was set up by the Russians to negotiate agreements between the Syrian government and militant groups (including village-based defense groups) has resulted in 616 separate settlements so far, and new agreements are reached practically every day. Such towns and villages, and the forces that sprung up to defend them against any outside attackers (whether "rebel", "terrorist", or government) are the only real "moderate" opposition in Syria, and the fact that they have successfully been negotiating truces since February says a lot. The big issue in this latest ceasefire is mostly cosmetic: the U.S.'s terrorist groups and how to rebrand them as moderate in order to get the Russians and Syrians to stop killing them.


The implementation of the deal should be relatively simple. As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today, "The key task is to wait for the separation of moderate opposition from the terrorist groups. It is the principle objective without which further advancement is barely possible." That's it. It would be easy enough for Washington's groups to take off their al-Qaeda badges, put on some FSA ones, abide by the ceasefire, and thus avoid being targeted by Russian and Syrian airstrikes. It's a perfect opportunity to save face and avoid destruction. Why not take the olive branch? Aram Mirzael offers some suggestions:
... the Russian demand for "moderate rebels" to disassociate themselves from jihadist camps won't be met. I say this for two reasons; firstly because there are no moderate rebels, there are only radical jihadists who want to overthrow the Syrian government, one of the last truly secular governments left in the region, and turn Syria into a Levantine Emirate. Secondly, in the unlikely event that there are any moderate rebels among the jihadist coalitions such as Jaysh Al-Fateh and Fatah Halab, any such group leaving these jihadist coalitions would commit both political and military suicide as they would lose any leverage they have over the Syrian government, as the jihadists know they are stronger if they remain united, furthermore any such group leaving the jihadist coalitions would most likely be turned into targets by the other jihadist groups who would deem them to be traitors. We are all too familiar with what terrorist groups such as ISIL and Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham (formerly Jabhat Al-Nusra) do to those that they deem to be traitors.
In other words, Washington has created another Frankenstein: a proxy group it could not control even if it wanted to.

John Kerry had an interesting discussion with NPR about the process: "As they [Nusra and moderates] separate, or as we work to know better exactly who's where, there are refined ways that we can have to actually make sure we're taking on Nusra and not taking on the legitimate opposition." He didn't expand on those "refined ways" (presumably they do not entail dinner etiquette). According to Kerry, opposition sponsors like Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia will encourage their proxies to make "common-sense decisions" (presumably of the "burn your Nusra flags" variety). And at the same time, Kerry exposed what is really the agenda for some U.S. policy hawks using some typical doublespeak:
"If you fail to get a cessation in place now and we cannot get to the table, then the fighting is going to increase significantly... You'll have massive potential increased sectarian conflicts — Sunni-Shia, Iran," Kerry said. ... "You could wind up with enclaves, conceivably a Kurd area, a Sunni and maybe even Sunni extremist area, a moderate-slash-whatever you want to call the western enclave that [Syrian President Bashar] Assad controls," Kerry noted. Moreover, such a failure would add up to the current refugees' flow to Europe, Kerry warned. It can further raise the level of extremism in the European countries and Russia, "where you have 2,000 [Chechens] who are fighting in Syria now, and they're worried about them coming home."
Unless the entire U.S. leadership is insane, there have to be some that see the folly of exactly this policy: more war, stoked sectarianism, enclaves, more refugees, more terrorism. In other words, some probably want the deal to work, but they are up against powerful forces who want the deal to fail. The Pentagon, for example, has suggested they are not willing to uphold the deal and won't work with Russia if it lasts seven days. The CIA probably wants to continue the fight too via their proxy jihadi terrorist, unless they have finally realized its futility.

Naturally, some groups rejected the agreement. Simply reading their justifications should be enough to have these groups listed as terrorist organizations along with Nusra, as the reasons they cite are their links and support for Nusra. If Washington can't control its proxy forces, that is Washington's fault and it shouldn't negate the deal for all the groups (including the Syrians and their allies) who do abide by the agreements terms. These groups should be legitimate targets. There needs to be monitoring and consequences for violations and refusal to sign on to the agreement

Yesterday, civilian and government positions in Damascus, Hama, Idlib, Darayya, and the province of Aleppo were hit 21 times by strikes from various terrorist groups. The Russian Defense Ministry points out the obvious: they are trying to derail the peace process by their non-compliance. Meanwhile, humanitarian aid is expected to start being delivered today, including to Aleppo, as the ceasefire is largely holding. And the Israeli Air Force continues to provide air cover for al-Nusra terrorists in the Golan Heights, targeting Syrian artillery positions.

Keeping true to form, the U.S. bombed alleged Daesh positions in Syria over the last week, and had this to add:
"A total of three strikes within the past 6 days on [Daesh] targets in Syria may have resulted in civilian casualties," the [CENTCOM] statement read. Two strikes on IS targets on September 7 and September 10 hit what appeared to be non-military vehicles as they drove into the target area after the missile was fired from the jet, CENTCOM said. On September 10, a group of civilians could have been hit by a strike on a nearby Daesh target.
Elsewhere in Syria, Russian airstrikes targeted a convoy of 15 Daesh machine-gun-mounted vehicles planning an offensive on Palmyra, killing some 250 Daesh militants.

As usual, South Front has a great summary of yesterday's developments:


The rest of the world

Here are a few headlines that caught our eye today:

U.S. Democratic Committee Hacked Again By 'Russian Agents'
The Democratic National Committee reported the organization was hacked again by Russian agents who it says are trying to influence the U.S. presidential election. A link to the documents was posted on WikiLeaks' Twitter account on September 13 and attributed to a hacker named Guccifer 2.0.

"There's one person who stands to benefit from these criminal acts and that's [Republican presidential nominee] Donald Trump," the committee's interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile said. "Not only has Trump embraced [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, he publicly encouraged further Russian espionage to help his campaign," she said. ...

"We have been anticipating that an additional batch of documents stolen by Russian agents would be released," said Brazile.
America launched more than 60 airstrikes in 6 countries last weekend alone: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. Alleged targets: the Islamic State (in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria), al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (in Yemen), al Shabab (in Somalia), and the Taliban (also in Afghanistan).

India Pledges $1 Billion In Aid To Afghanistan
A joint statement by the two leaders said the aid would be used for building capacity in education, health, agriculture, energy, and infrastructure in Afghanistan. The two leaders also denounced the sponsorship of terrorism in the region, a thinly veiled dig at Pakistan.
Kyrgyzstan Jails Two Women Convicted Of Recruiting For IS
A court in the southern region of Jalal-Abad on September 14 sentenced local residents Mokhirakhon Akimzhanova, 55, and Nargizakhon Raimzhanova, 30, to six and seven years in prison, respectively. The court said that Akimzhanova and Raimzhanova tried to persuade another Kyrgyz woman via the Internet to join IS extremists in Syria. Investigators said that Raimzhanova's brother is fighting alongside IS militants in Syria.
SOTT Round-up

If our readers haven't checked out these articles yet, we recommend doing so. They blow apart the Western reporting on three topics of interest of late, namely Olympic doping, Russian society, and the Philippines' president Duterte. Worth the time checking out: Four stories we covered yesterday make for an interesting snapshot of contemporary Western society, all involving four-year-olds: Is this what the West has been fighting for these last 15 years? Presumably it is, since things have only gotten worse in that time...