“a Middle Eastern Karla”

From Dexter Filkins’ highly readable New Yorker splash on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani – who “appears to exist in a special category, an enemy both hated and admired: a Middle Eastern equivalent of Karla”:

Worse, Assad’s soldiers wouldn’t fight—or, when they did, they mostly butchered civilians, driving the populace to the rebels. “The Syrian Army is useless!” Suleimani told an Iraqi politician. He longed for the Basij, the Iranian militia whose fighters crushed the popular uprisings against the regime in 2009. “Give me one brigade of the Basij, and I could conquer the whole country,” he said … Finally, Suleimani began flying into Damascus frequently so that he could assume personal control of the Iranian intervention. “He’s running the war himself,” an American defense official told me … The Middle Eastern security official said that the number of Quds Force operatives, along with the Iraqi Shiite militiamen they brought with them, reached into the thousands. “They’re spread out across the entire country,” he told me.

On the rise and fall of US-Iran cooperation in Afghanistan:

Before the bombing began, Crocker sensed that the Iranians were growing impatient with the Bush Administration, thinking that it was taking too long to attack the Taliban. At a meeting in early October, 2001, the lead Iranian negotiator stood up and slammed a sheaf of papers on the table. “If you guys don’t stop building these fairy-tale governments in the sky, and actually start doing some shooting on the ground, none of this is ever going to happen!” he shouted. “When you’re ready to talk about serious fighting, you know where to find me.” He stomped out of the room. “It was a great moment,” Crocker said.

The coöperation between the two countries lasted through the initial phase of the war. At one point, the lead negotiator handed Crocker a map detailing the disposition of Taliban forces. “Here’s our advice: hit them here first, and then hit them over here. And here’s the logic.” Stunned, Crocker asked, “Can I take notes?” The negotiator replied, “You can keep the map.” The flow of information went both ways. On one occasion, Crocker said, he gave his counterparts the location of an Al Qaeda facilitator living in the eastern city of Mashhad. The Iranians detained him and brought him to Afghanistan’s new leaders, who, Crocker believes, turned him over to the U.S. The negotiator told Crocker, “Haji Qassem is very pleased with our coöperation.”

The good will didn’t last. In January, 2002, Crocker, who was by then the deputy chief of the American Embassy in Kabul, was awakened one night by aides, who told him that President George W. Bush, in his State of the Union Address, had named Iran as part of an “Axis of Evil.” Like many senior diplomats, Crocker was caught off guard. He saw the negotiator the next day at the U.N. compound in Kabul, and he was furious. “You completely damaged me,” Crocker recalled him saying. “Suleimani is in a tearing rage. He feels compromised.” The negotiator told Crocker that, at great political risk, Suleimani had been contemplating a complete reëvaluation of the United States, saying, “Maybe it’s time to rethink our relationship with the Americans.” The Axis of Evil speech brought the meetings to an end. Reformers inside the government, who had advocated a rapprochement with the United States, were put on the defensive. Recalling that time, Crocker shook his head. “We were just that close,” he said. “One word in one speech changed history.”

On the Iranian reaction to the Iraq War:

After Saddam’s regime collapsed, Crocker was dispatched to Baghdad to organize a fledgling government, called the Iraqi Governing Council. He realized that many Iraqi politicians were flying to Tehran for consultations, and he jumped at the chance to negotiate indirectly with Suleimani. In the course of the summer, Crocker passed him the names of prospective Shiite candidates, and the two men vetted each one. Crocker did not offer veto power, but he abandoned candidates whom Suleimani found especially objectionable. “The formation of the governing council was in its essence a negotiation between Tehran and Washington,” he said. That exchange was the high point of Iranian-American coöperation. “After we formed the governing council, everything collapsed,” Crocker said.

On the Suleimani-Petraeus correspondence:

Around the same time, Suleimani struck up a correspondence with senior American officials, sending messages through intermediaries—sometimes seeking to reassure the Americans, sometimes to extract something. One of the first came in early 2008, when the Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, handed a cell phone with a text message to General David Petraeus, who had taken over the year before as the commander of American forces. “Dear General Petraeus,” the text read, “you should know that I, Qassem Suleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan. And indeed, the ambassador in Baghdad is a Quds Force member. The individual who’s going to replace him is a Quds Force member.” After the five American soldiers were killed in Karbala, Suleimani sent a message to the American Ambassador. “I swear on the grave of Khomeini I haven’t authorized a bullet against the U.S.,” Suleimani said. None of the Americans believed him.

In a report to the White House, Petraeus wrote that Suleimani was “truly evil.” Yet at times the two men were all but negotiating. According to diplomatic cables revealed by WikiLeaks, Petraeus sent messages through Iraqi officials to Suleimani, asking him to call off rocket attacks on the American Embassy and on U.S. bases. In 2008, the Americans and the Iraqi Army were pressing an offensive against the Mahdi Army—Moqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite militia—and, in retribution, the militia was bombarding the Green Zone regularly. Suleimani, who sensed a political opening, sent Petraeus a message lamenting the situation and saying that he had assigned men to apprehend the attackers. Petraeus replied, “I was born on a Sunday, but it wasn’t last Sunday.” Eventually, Suleimani brokered a ceasefire between Sadr and the government.

At times, Suleimani seemed to take pleasure in taunting his American counterparts, and stories of his exploits spread. In the summer of 2006, during the thirty-four-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the violence in Baghdad appeared to ebb. When the fighting ended, the Iraqi politician told me, Suleimani supposedly sent a message to the American command. “I hope you have been enjoying the peace and quiet in Baghdad,” it read. “I’ve been busy in Beirut!”

On Iran’s attitude to Syria’s chemical weapons use:

Last December, when Assad’s regime appeared close to collapse, American officials spotted Syrian technicians preparing bombs carrying the nerve agent sarin to be loaded onto aircraft. All indications were that they were plotting an enormous chemical attack. Frantic, the Americans called leaders in Russia, who called their counterparts in Tehran. According to the American defense official, Suleimani appeared to be instrumental in persuading Assad to refrain from using the weapons.

Suleimani’s sentiments about the ethics of chemical weapons are unknown. During the Iran-Iraq War, thousands of Iranian soldiers suffered from chemical attacks, and the survivors still speak publicly of the trauma. But some American officials believe that his efforts to restrain Assad had a more pragmatic inspiration: the fear of provoking American military intervention. “Both the Russians and the Iranians have said to Assad, ‘We can’t support you in the court of world opinion if you use this stuff,’ ” a former senior American military official said.

Iran-Iraq cooperation over Syria:

Suleimani’s greatest achievement may be persuading his proxies in the Iraqi government to allow Iran to use its airspace to fly men and munitions to Damascus. General James Mattis, who until March was the commander of all American military forces in the Middle East, told me that without this aid the Assad regime would have collapsed months ago. The flights are overseen by the Iraqi transportation minister, Hadi al-Amri, who is an old ally of Suleimani’s—the former head of the Badr Brigade, and a soldier on the Iranian side in the Iran-Iraq War. In an interview in Baghdad, Amri denied that the Iranians were using Iraqi airspace to send weapons. But he made clear his affection for his former commander. “I love Qassem Suleimani!” he said, pounding the table. “He is my dearest friend.” … “Maliki dislikes the Iranians, and he loathes Assad, but he hates Al Nusra,” Crocker told me. “He doesn’t want an Al Qaeda government in Damascus.”

What to read on the Russian proposal for Syria’s chemical weapons II

Another roundup:

James Fearon (Monkey Cage):

Flash forward to now, and a major part of the Serious Commentary by the President, the Secretary of State, members of Congress, and members of the commentariat is all about Whether we can trust the Russians and Assad, Whether it’s technically feasible to disassemble and dispose of Syria’s stockpiles, Whether Russia and Assad are “stalling” or “playing Obama for time”, and Whether any deal will be sufficiently “verifiable.”

What?  Those questions might make sense if the original aim had been to actually disarm Assad of chemical weapons, but that’s definitely not what the administration or, I think, practically anyone was imagining.  The concern was about his and others use of the weapons.  So on that score the question should not be whether you can implement and verify disarmament in a civil war zone—which doesn’t sound likely, or not in the short run anyway – but rather whether you can verify that he hasn’t undertaken more attacks with chemical weapons.  For some scale of attack, that’s obviously feasible, as the events of August 21 show …

So what’s with this worry about Russia and Assad tricking Obama by “stalling” and “playing for time”?  Stalling for what purpose?  So he can keep carrying out massive chemical weapons attacks while the Security Council negotiates?  If his regime is saying “we’ll disarm, accept monitors, and sign the CWC,” does it seem likely that he would then continue to carry out massive gas attacks traceable to his military?  If he did this, Obama would be in a better position than ever to get support for punitive strikes.  Basically, this reflex “I’m nobody’s fool” reaction misses the point that the Russian proposal and Assad’s apparent acceptance of the approach is already a probable win on the question of continued use of poison gas by the Assad regime.

Politico:

Former weapons inspectors warned that the process could take a long time to complete — perhaps so long it could continue long after Obama leaves office. “It can be done. You are going to break a lot of crockery in doing it,” former U.N. Iraq weapons inspector David Kay said Tuesday on CNN. “If you try to do it by the book, you won’t get it done in a decade. That’s too long. You need to take this opportunity to test and see if the Syrians and the Russians are real.” Kay also described a scope for such a dismantling operation that sounded unwieldy, particularly in the midst of a civil war. “To establish inventory and positive control, using all the technical devices, seals, automatic cameras and all that you would want to, you’re talking well over 1,000 people,” he added.

Reuters:

The U.S. secretary of state is accompanied by a large delegation of State and Pentagon nonproliferation experts, and a representative of the U.S. intelligence community, in anticipation of detailed, arms control-style talks on how to turn the Russian offer into a concrete disarmament plan. Kerry’s delegation will present the Russians with U.S. intelligence agencies’ assessment of the scope of Syria’s chemical weapons infrastructure, believed to be among the world’s largest, said the official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. Inspecting, securing and neutralizing them in the midst of a civil war that has killed over 100,000 people will be a stiff challenge, officials acknowledge. “It is doable, but difficult and complicated,” the first official said.

Al Monitor:

If Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to take Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons out of Syria, Yadlin, the former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) intelligence chief [Amos Yadlin] told Israel’s Channel 2 late last month, “that would be an offer that could stop the attack,” the Times of Israel reported August 31. “It would be a ‘genuine achievement’ for President Obama,” the Times cited Yadlin … “Second, the timeline is important: don’t let the Syrians drag it [out] for years,” he said. “And then a very well defined mechanism: who is going to be on the ground to take care of it. UN forces, NATO forces, Russian forces…It must be a military force which is very professional, well protected, but with determination to complete the job.”

FP’s The Cable:

[UN inspectors’ report] will provide a strong circumstantial case — based on an examination of spent rocket casings, ammunition, and laboratory tests of soil, blood, and urine samples — that points strongly in the direction of Syrian government culpability. “I know they have gotten very rich samples — biomedical and environmental — and they have interviewed victims, doctors and nurses,” said the Western official. “It seems they are very happy with the wealth of evidence they got.” The official, who declined to speak on the record because of the secrecy surrounding the U.N. investigation, could not identify the specific agents detected by the inspector team, but said, “You can conclude from the type of evidence the [identity of the] author.”

NYT:

American officials said the Syria debate would now unfold largely in Geneva, where the United States wants the talks to focus not only on Syria’s chemical weapons but also on securing munitions like bombs or warheads that are designed for chemical attacks. The officials acknowledged that securing the delivery systems for attacks goes far beyond what Mr. Lavrov has offered or is likely to agree to in Geneva this week … On Wednesday, White House officials refused to set a timeline for any agreement in Geneva or for a subsequent action by the United Nations on a resolution to enforce the deal. The Russians in the meantime have sent the Americans a written proposal on how to handle Mr. Assad’s chemical weapons, but administration officials said it lacked detail on how the stockpiles would be secured, verified and destroyed.

Fareed Zakaria (WaPo):

So, Obama’s aim is solely to affirm an international norm. To this end, he already has achieved something important. He has mobilized world attention, and there is now a chance, albeit small, that he might get a process in place that monitors and even destroys Syrian chemical weapons. Almost certainly he has ensured that such weapons won’t be used again by the Assad regime. That’s more than he could have achieved through airstrikes — which are unlikely to have destroyed such weapons.

David Gardner (FT):

[W]hy would Bashar al-Assad, a dictator who gasses his people to break a stalemate in a war he and his clan regard as existential and almost certainly cannot win, voluntarily surrender an arsenal he has been holding largely in reserve? Furthermore, Syria’s rationale for possessing chemical weapons the regime does not acknowledge, is to counter Israel’s stockpile of nuclear warheads that the Israelis do not acknowledge. While Syria has never signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) it now says it wants to join, Israel signed but never ratified the treaty. Israel has bombed Syria three times already this year … The Assads were schooled in a vicious academy of power, yet this initiative almost treats them as naughty boys caught doing something wrong. It is of a piece with last summer’s UN Geneva peace plan, which rests ultimately on the proposition that the Assads will volunteer for early retirement. The Geneva delusion was partly about keeping the Russians in the game. With this initiative, they look to be taking the game over.

 Borzou Daragahi (FT):

Western observers were stunned by Libya’s openness about its programme. Within weeks of a deal, western intelligence agents were allowed into the country and spent hours with Libyan scientists “who were prepared to disclose all aspects of their WMD programmes” … In contrast, weapons inspectors attempting to clear up questions about Syria’s nuclear programme were given the runaround for years. “Syria has not co-operated with the agency since June 2008 in connection with the unresolved issues related to the Deir Ezzour site and the other three locations allegedly functionally related to it,” an IAEA report concluded in November 2010. “As a consequence, the agency has not been able to make progress towards resolving the outstanding issues related to those sites.” … [T]he western notion of transparency, grounded in the Libyan experience, will clash with the Syrian regime’s vision of consistently stalling and manipulating international watchdogs.

 

 

What to read on the Russian proposal for Syria’s chemical weapons

Roundup of articles and analysis on the Russian proposal for Syrian disarmament. Other suggestions welcome.

WSJ:

[O]ne year ago Mr. Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin met at a Group of 20 summit in Mexico and talked about the idea of Syria turning over its chemical weapons supply to international control, an administration official said. The two leaders couldn’t strike a deal. Over the past year, Obama administration officials and their Russian counterparts have discussed ways to neutralize Syria’s chemical weapons. In April, Mr. Kerry made his first trip to Moscow as secretary of state and took part in a dinner with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, that lasted until 2:30 a.m. They discussed a model for eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons, much as Libya agreed to give up its nuclear program a decade ago, the administration official said.

NYT:

[Obama] administration officials said they were swayed by the level of detail in the Russian proposal, which grew out of an impromptu conversation between Mr. Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin on the sidelines of a summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, last week. “The Lavrov statement was quite comprehensive,” a senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Frankly, it exceeded expectations in the level of detail it went into.” On Capitol Hill, where opposition to a strike was hardening, senators emerged from lunchtime meetings with Mr. Obama optimistic that Congress could shift from a resolution authorizing force to one that would give diplomacy more time.

Yochi Dreazen (FP):

The decades-long U.S. push to eliminate its own chemical weapons stockpiles illustrates the tough road ahead if Washington and Damascus come to a deal. The Army organization responsible for destroying America’s massive quantities of munitions says the effort will take two years longer than initially planned and cost $2 billion more than its last estimate. The delay means an effort that got underway in the 1990s will continue until roughly 2023 and ultimately cost approximately $35 billion …

Libya, the most recent country to embark on a chemical weapon destruction effort, offers another cautionary tale. Tripoli declared its possession of the weapons in January 2004 and voluntarily promised to get rid of them. In November 2011, the Libyan government abruptly declared that it had found a “previously undeclared chemical weapons stockpile” that included several hundred munitions loaded with mustard gas. The destruction of those weapons was halted because of a technical malfunction at the disposal facility and is still not complete. Nine years after vowing to get rid of its weapons, Libya has destroyed barely half of its total mustard gas stockpile and just 40% of its stores of chemical weapons precursor elements.

NYT:

Syria would first have to provide specifics about all aspects of its chemical weapons program. But even that step would require negotiation to determine exactly what should be declared and whether certain systems would be covered, because many delivery systems for chemical weapons — including artillery, mortars and multiple-rocket launchers — can also fire conventional weapons … A central issue is the question of accounting for the specific rockets used in the attack that the United States said had killed more than 1,400 people last month. Apparently newly made and never seen before, they have so far proved to be untraceable to a particular factory or chemical-productions plant, and Syria insists that it neither made nor fired the weapons. Some military experts, therefore, said they foresaw a flaw in any accord: If the rockets used in the highly publicized attack are not declared, then the international proposal will exclude the very weapons that prompted Mr. Obama to call for a military strike on Syria.

Washington Post:

Assuming that the inspections get off the ground, a first order of business would be conducting an exhaustive inventory to ensure that all chemical munitions are accounted for. With solid numbers in hand, U.N. officials would probably seek to consolidate the arsenal into the lowest possible number of storage sites. Zanders, the arms-control expert, suggested that the weapons could be best stored near the port city of Tartus, where Russia maintains a naval base. Zanders also argued for heavy involvement not only of Russia but also of Iran, another close Assad ally. Both countries are signatories to the treaty on chemical arms control, and he said their presence, despite Western suspicions, could help ensure Syria’s cooperation.

Julian Borger (Guardian):

Syria is thought to have up to 40 sites where either chemical weapons or precursors for mustard gas and nerve agents such as sarin and possibly VX are stored. As the civil war has intensified it is possible that the weapons have been dispersed even further. Elleman said there were some reports that the binary precursors for nerve agents were being mixed in the field by the military units responsible for them. That would complicate any accounting and verification exercise – and make their removal and destruction a logistical nightmare.

“It could be done but if you are going to try to transport the weapons there would be all sorts of practicalities,” said Richard Guthrie, a British expert on chemical and biological warfare. “You would have to put UN troops in and feed and water them, and protect them. If you move these weapons, they could leak. If you destroy them in situ, it depends where they are. You could create a buffer zone around them, but these weapons are likely to be in military bases, and is the regime going to agree that nothing can happen in a 10km radius including those bases?”

Jean Pascal Zanders and Ralf Trapp (The Trench) via Brian Whitaker:

No legal framework exists to organise the type of activity that is being proposed for Syria. It may require a foundational document in the form of a UN Resolution (General Assembly or Security Council), similar to UNGA Resolution 37/98D (13 December 1982), which, building on the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use in warfare of chemical and biological weapons (CBW), gave the UN Secretary-General (UNSG) the authority to launch an investigation into alleged violations of the Protocol with the help of national experts. Its application during the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq war led to the creation of the UN Secretary-General’s Investigative Mechanism, which was activated in March 2013 with regard to the Syrian civil war …

Secure the CW in as few places as possible: for reasons of security and safety, as well as reducing the logistics to destroy them, CW should be moved to the lowest possible number of storage sites. An idea to concentrate them all at or near Tartus where Russia still maintains important naval infrastructure should be considered seriously from a cost-benefit angle. Russia may have to allow multinational personnel or observers to the area in order to ensure that the international community remains convinced of the full integrity of the proposed arrangements …

Ask countries with mobile chemical waste or CW destruction technology immediately to see which (types of) installations are available at short notice and under which circumstances they could be deployed to Syria. Such installations are available in Germany, Japan and the USA, and probably in a number of other states too …

The proposed operations will be complex, costly and time-consuming. However, they are technologically and humanly possible, provided all energy of the international community can be directed towards problem-solving rather than raising all kinds of theoretical or conceptual problems.

Jeffrey Lewis (FP):

We have an opportunity here, if the Obama administration can think beyond the next off-the-cuff sentence. The president should announce a dual-track policy: He will accept Syria’s offer to negotiate a verifiable renunciation of Syria’s WMD programs, while at the same time seeking authorization from Congress in response to the massacre at Ghouta. As commander-in-chief, he can hold strikes in abeyance, giving the diplomatic track with Syria and the United Nations enough time to succeed. If negotiations collapse, the United States will have forces in place and legal authorization for a prompt effort to degrade Syria’s capabilities and punish the Assad regime. Operation Steadfast Caucus might not be a total goat rodeo after all … And, of course, it might actually work. I’ve posted a slightly longer discussion of the modalities at ArmsControlWonk.com, but the outlines of an agreement are relatively clear: Syria would sign and ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and publicly state that the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibits the use of chemical weapons in internal conflicts. Under the Chemical Weapons Convention, Syria would be obligated to declare its chemical weapons holdings within 30 days and destroy them within 10 years. The United States should insist that Syria accept an expedited schedule under the auspices of an international team that would help secure and remove Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons and precursors.

The mechanics are not impossible, although the work of inspectors will be slowed by the security situation. It would probably take about two months for technical personnel to begin their activities. In 1991, the United Nations was able to commence its first chemical weapons inspection in Iraq about two months after Iraq accepted U.N. Security Council Resolution 687. Similarly, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which has an inspectorate of about 200 personnel, was on the ground in Libya overseeing the destruction of chemical agents about two months after Muammar al-Qaddafi renounced weapons of mass destruction in December 2003 …

If Assad surrenders the larger portion of his chemical weapons stockpile and refrains from further large-scale gas attacks, that outcome is far preferable to what we might achieve through force alone — to say nothing of what happens if the president suffers a humiliation at the hands of Congress. If the deal completely collapses in six months or a year, the president will still be in a better position than he is today.

Jeffrey Goldberg (Bloomberg):

Here are a few bad things: All Assad has to do to forever stave off a punitive strike is to keep promising that he’s in the middle of giving up his chemical weapons. (No one, by the way, has addressed the fate of his biological weapons.) This is a process that could go on for months, or even years. Yes, that’s right — we might be reading stories soon about United Nations weapons inspectors roaming Syria (a war zone, it should be noted) in a hunt for missing WMD. There are hundreds of tons of chemical munitions in Syria, and very few people think Assad would part with all of them. Why would he? Chemical weapons are a major deterrent to those outside Syria who seek his demise … And if Putin and Kerry have indeed constructed, intentionally or not, an offramp for Obama, Assad can continue — with real impunity now — to slaughter civilians without foreign interference. He may be Hitler, as administration officials and their surrogates keep suggesting, but a Hitler we’re content to see remain in power. The opposition in Syria will see all of this as a betrayal, and could become further radicalized as a result.

Ivo Daalder (FT):

But the details will matter. Getting international inspectors into Syria will require either massive armed protection or an end to the raging conflict – neither of which is likely any time soon. And, so long as the weapons remain under the regime’s control, their use remains a distinct possibility. Of course, the same would be true following the kind of limited strike the administration has contemplated … Nevertheless, Moscow’s idea is worth pursuing. Persuading Russia to co-operate in getting rid of Syrian chemical weapons is in everyone’s interest. If the end result is a Syria with no chemical weapons, the world will be better off. We need to examine the details of the plan, and to establish a very clear timeline – days or weeks, not months – to gaining Damascus’ full agreement on such a plan.

Jonathan Freedland (Guardian):

Amid the current relief, two points are worth stressing. First, though hardcore anti-interventionists will not be keen to admit it, this breakthrough – if that’s what it proves to be – only came about because of the threat of US force. It will be very hard to pretend that Assad would have agreed to such a move under any other circumstances; Russia did not propose it until it suspected American missiles were on the way. For all the opposition Obama’s threatened action has generated at home and abroad, that fact surely deserves to be recognised.

Second, there is no reason this initiative should end with the decommissioning of chemical weapons. If the US and Russia can make this scheme work, why can’t they work together not just to prevent killing by poison gas but on a diplomatic solution that will end all the killing in Syria? If Iran is, even tacitly, brought into the circle on this process, why not keep that country involved in the wider political negotiation that is surely the only way this conflict will ever end?

 Cheryl Rofer (Nuclear Diner):

If Russia and the United States have been coordinating, they may already have worked out elements of this. Both have specialists in handling chemical warfare agents, who would be called upon for this duty. Ground units would be needed to secure the sites.

There will be attempts to reconcile what is found on the ground with what Assad has declared. The numbers will not match. The size of the discrepancy will determine what actions are taken next; too large will slow things down in a search for reasons, while a small discrepancy can be expected. The closest disposal facilities are in Russia. Methods of transporting the stocks of munitions and agents would have to be worked out. Russia and the United States, which has provided funding for the Russian facility, may be discussing this already.

What to read on Syria and chemical weapons, Part II

Following yesterday’s post, another roundup:

Reuters:

[President Obama:] “That is going to be a game changer. We have to act prudently. We have to make these assessments deliberately. But I think all of us … recognize how we cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations,” he said.

McClatchy:

CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency assessments agreed that there was insufficient evidence from tissue and soil samples to conclude concretely that forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad had launched sarin against civilians, someone who’s familiar with the issue told McClatchy. “There are these tiny little data points, none of which are conclusive,” said the person, who asked not to be further identified because of the issue’s sensitivity. U.S. intelligence agencies “can’t say anything conclusively about this right now,” he said.

Steve Hynd:

But what about the blood and soil samples supposedly obtained by various intelligence agencies that have tested positive for sarin? Well, in the first place – they probably did not test positive for sarin because such tests don’t usually test for sarin itself, they test for the down-stream products of sarin breaking down in the body or in the environment(PDF). Sarin breaks down very quickly – within minutes – in the body, leaving behind various derivative compounds all of which are variants on methylphosphoric acid. Many of these chemicals are already present in the environment or easily available for accidental exposure – in pesticides, fertilizers, rust removers and in textile- and paper-processing compounds. The presence of such compounds in samples means squat unless there is a clear chain of custody for the samples.

Michael Weiss:

Might the rebels have attacked a regime chemical weapon in transit? (This is what the White House intended in its letter by referring to the indeterminate “chain of custody” of Assad’s chemical arsenal.) An unintentional hit might have happened once, but if it did so repeatedly, then that would strongly suggest that many chemical stockpiles are now in transit throughout Syria, which would also constitute a clear violation of Obama’s “red line.” And if by referring to the movement of “a whole bunch” of WMD, the president made his policy contingent on the proportion of chemical mobilization, at what point does multiple instances of “small scale” attacks become a worrying size-matters problem for his administration?

Could the regime have “accidentally” launched one or more chemical warheads that were wrongly labeled conventional artillery rounds or surface-to-surface rockets or other types of munitions? That seems unlikely, but if the regime is so careless with the cataloging of its own arsenal, then more accidents are bound to happen. As it happens, the Syrian military has had some bad experiences with trying to fill conventional artillery rounds with chemical compounds. In the 1970s, soldiers “experimented” in just this way, only to have the results literally explode in their faces. What if the next time Assad makes a mistake, he accidentally sends a VX warhead to Hezbollah? If the regime has not learned to be more careful since, then should it not be alleviated of the overtaxing burden of having to differentiate between WMD and mere W?

All of this academic speculation ignores obvious intentionality. Wired magazine reported last December that the Syrian military had already outfitted rockets with chemical warheads. “Physically, they’ve gotten to the point where the can load it up on a plane and drop it,” one quoted intelligence official said, and he did not add that these were in any way errors of judgment or categorization.

Joseph Holliday at FP:

This subtle introduction of chemical weapons fits the Assad regime’s established model for military escalation. Over the course of the conflict, each regime escalation has started with military necessity and expanded to brutal punishment of the Syrian population. Assad has established a clear modus operandi for ramping up the battle without triggering international intervention: toe the line, confirm Western inaction, and then ratchet up the violence further. At each step Washington’s hollow “we strongly condemn” rhetoric has validated the approach […] Much like the strategy employed with artillery, air power, and ballistic missiles, Assad’s introduction of weapons of mass destruction intends to pave the way for more lethal and wide-ranging chemical attacks against the Syrian people in the future […] Assad’s approach to the conflict has been the inverse of what Western militaries call population-centric counterinsurgency: rather than clear insurgents out of population centers, Assad has sought to clear populations out of insurgent-held areas.

FT:

American and British officials said the initial response would be to use the evidence to put more pressure on Russia, which has prevented action at the UN against the Syrian regime. Officials believe the potential use of chemical weapons could provide a way to break the diplomatic deadlock over the Syrian civil war […] In the near term, the most likely option is increased support for groups of opposition fighters considered moderate, which the US is currently supplying with non-lethal military aid but not weapons. “What we are trying to do is get the sensible moderates among the rebels leading this fight,” said a UK official. “The trouble is that the EU arms embargo ensures that the moderates like Salem Idriss [the leader of moderate rebels] are the only ones that don’t get weapons, while the extremists do get them.” The official added: “We have to help Idriss and show he can supply arms and be a source of weapons in the fight against Assad. That will ensure that Syrians rally around him.”

NYT:

Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists. Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government. Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of […] Although led by an army defector, Gen. Salim Idris, the council has taken in the leaders of many overtly Islamist battalions. One called the Syrian Liberation Front has been integrated nearly wholesale into the council; many of its members coordinate closely with the Syrian Islamic Front, a group that includes the extremist Ahrar al-Sham, according to a recent report by Ms. O’Bagy, of the Institute for the Study of War.

Guardian:

Congressmen briefed by secretary of state John Kerry on Friday in Washington say the most likely option Kerry outlined would involve joining other countries in arming specific rebel groups. The imposition of a no-fly zone is also being considered but is deemed unattractive by the administration because chemical weapons do not require aircraft to be used – and because the high quality of Syrian air defences would put US lives at risk. There was also discussion of special forces use and specially designed ordnance designed to safely incinerate chemical weapons facilities, but there was scepticism that either would address the problem, which is thought to be widely dispersed.

Washington Post:

Despite military gains by the rebels in some parts of Syria, Jordanian intelligence officials see potential for a protracted struggle lasting many more months or even longer, with neither side capable of a decisive victory. Left on its current trajectory, the conflict will result in “a Taliban-style failed state, or a series of small mini-states,” said a senior Jordanian official, insisting on anonymity in discussing intelligence assessments. “We’re looking at the potential for sectarian spillover, threatening the whole region.”

What to read on Syrian chemical weapons

(Updated)

1. The Times (£):

An investigation by The Times inside Syria into the April attack in Aleppo, including interviews with survivors and doctors who treated the casualties, along with an examination of video footage shot in the immediate aftermath, suggests that nerve gas is being used in Syria’s war. [note: see Borger piece below]

2. The Financial Times (£):

According to a senior western diplomat, the evidence of the use of sarin is based on two separate samples taken from victims of the attacks. One sample has been analysed by the US authorities, while the second has been examined by Britain’s Defence Science Technology Laboratory.

According to this diplomat, both the US and UK samples were taken from victims at separate locations and on separate dates in the conflict.

A senior British official said: “When you put everything together, both in terms of the hard evidence we have and the circumstantial evidence, then it is increasingly likely that sarin was used by the Assad regime.”

However the official added: “What the evidence does not tell us is things like the scale of use, the precise location and whether the sarin was weaponised. We do not yet have that hard information which allows us to make a categorical statement that would be unchallengeable in the court of international public opinion.”

3. Wired:

The blood samples were taken by Syrian opposition groups from alleged victims of that strike. But American analysts can’t be entirely sure where the blood came from or when the precisely exposure took place.

“This is more than one organization representing that they have more than one sample from more than one attack,” the source tells Danger Room. “But we can’t confirm anything because no is really sure what’s going on in country.”

What’s clear is that the samples are authentic, and that the weapons were almost certainly employed by the Assad regime, which began mixing up quantities of sarin’s chemical precursors months ago for an potential attack, as Danger Room first reported.

4. McClatchy:

Another person familiar with the issue, who asked not to be further identified because of its sensitivity, said that only a minuscule trace of a “byproduct”– a toxic residue left behind after use of a nerve agent, and which he did not identify – had been found in a soil sample.

“They found trace amounts of a byproduct in soil, but there are also fertilizers that give out the same byproduct,” the person said. “It’s far from conclusive.”

5. The New York Times:

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who is chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the [intelligence] agencies actually expressed more certainty about the use of these weapons than the White House indicated in its letter. She said Thursday that they voiced medium to high confidence in their assessment […] While several officials said the intelligence agencies expressed medium to high confidence about its overall assessment, two intelligence officials noted that there were components of the assessment about which the agencies were less certain. They did not offer details.

6. The Wall Street Journal:

“If the evidence is really fragmentary, then it is hard to say what you do militarily,” said Steve Simon, who served as a White House adviser on Syria in 2011 and 2012. “If you don’t know which units were responsible for the deployment of the weapons, you don’t really know who to hit, if you were inclined to hit anyone.” […] More likely, he said, is a diplomatic response through the U.N., possibly by asking for Mr. Assad to allow international inspectors into the country to investigate what happened more fully. “A military approach to the chemical-weapons problem is not anyone’s favorite option. It’s highly dangerous, so people are not going to want to go down that road, at least now.”

7. Arms Control Wonk:

One can immediately see the problem: The samples show sarin exposure, but they are not linked to specific, credible events […] Suddenly the constant references to the “small scale” use becomes more clear — we don’t have multiple victims in a single use, as might be expected if the Syrians gassed a military unit or a local community.  At most, we have two events in which only one person was exposed.

For all we know, these two poor souls stumbled into sarin canisters while ransacking a liberated Syrian military sites.  I don’t say that to be callous, but rather because strange things happen on the battlefield.  Remember, in 1991, US troops detonated a pit of munitions at Khamisiyah in Iraq only to discover that the munitions contained Sarin. The image atop the post is one of a series showing US forces detonating the munitions at Khamisiyah, exposing thousands of US service personnel to low-levels of sarin.  This was the worst event, but not the only potential exposure of US forces in 1991 to nerve agents. There are many ways that FSA fighters might find themselves exposed to Sarin.  I still think caution is important.

8. Nuclear Diner:

Chain of custody means assurance that the samples are what they are said to be. The sample is taken and sealed in a tamper-proof manner. The sample-taker signs off on a paper that accompanies the sample. Each person to whom the sample is transferred signs off on that paper. The reason is that samples can be faked from the start or adulterated somewhere along the line. Given the chaos in Syria, however, I doubt that a credible chain of custody can be produced, even if a piece of paper with signatures exists. You have to be able to believe all the people who signed off.

A quick Google search suggests that gas chromatography is the method of choice for analyzing sarin in blood. There seem to be at least two methods, both fairly involved. The more direct method is affected by the amount of time between exposure and analysis. We don’t know what that was in this case. I find the writeup of the other method confusing, but the paper lays out exactly how a sample could be faked. All that would be needed would be a very small amount of sarin, which might be, say, stolen from a laboratory, and someone’s (anyone’s) blood. Was the blood tested to show it was human?

9. Peter Beaumont in The Guardian:

The history of the allegations made about Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction requires that proof is offered on public forums that can be adequately cross-examined. In this case, if it is true that the UK and French governments have soil samples that show sarin has been used, they should not only be shared with UN investigators but the chain of evidence showing how they came to have the samples must made public.

Until then, the caution of Chuck Hagel is the only appropriate response. He said last week that Washington will not be rushed into intervention by foreign intelligence reports, even those from allies. “Suspicions are one thing;” he declared, “evidence is another”. Given the history of British officials’ behaviour in the run up to war in Iraq, they should either do the right thing – disclose what evidence they have – or let the UN investigating team reach its own conclusion.

10. Arms Control Now:

Now, the international community must unite in efforts to achieve a full investigation of the evidence. In particular, the UN Security Council should meet to outline a course of action to prevent any further use of chemical weapons, including ensuring that the Syrian Government permits and facilitates access by the OPCW team the UN Secretary General has called on to conduct the investigation.

Despite having requested that UN investigate a possible chemical weapons attack that took place on March 19, Syria is currently refusing to allow inspectors to enter the country, unless the UN agrees to confine its investigations to that single incident.

All states, particularly Syrian allies such as Russia and Iran, should urge Syrian strongman Bashir al Assad to allow the UN investigation into the past use of chemical weapons to go forward unhindered and reiterate that the use of chemical weapons by any party in the Syrian conflict is unacceptable and individuals involved will be held accountable.  Iran, as a victim of massive Iraqi chemical attacks in the past, has a particular responsibility to condemn chemical weapons use.

11. Julian Borger in the Guardian:

Some of the videos in circulation online show alleged victims foaming at the mouth, but that is not listed as a sarin symptom on the website of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Richard Guthrie, a British chemical weapons expert and former head of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said: “That [foaming at the mouth] would not be indicative of use of nerve agents but is more likely to be a sign of a choking agent such as phosgene being used, if anything were used. Phosgene is a widely used industrial chemical as well as being a first world war-era chemical weapon.”

Jean-Pascal Zanders, an expert at the EU Institute for Strategic Studies, said: “It’s not possible that what is being shown to the public is a chemical weapons attack. The video from Aleppo showing foaming at the mouth does not look like a nerve agent. I’m wholly unconvinced.”

And, on a related note, my  co-authored RUSI paper, Iran: Red Lines and Grey Areas (PDF) on the concept of deterrent red lines, released today:

But any red line that allows for such post-hoc or ad-hoc re-interpretation is unavoidably ambiguous and correspondingly more prone to being tested […] As Scott Sagan notes, ‘risk and deterrence go hand-in-hand as a consequence of commitment: a state cannot get the extra measure of deterrence that comes from making threats without also accepting some extra risk of having to implement that threat if deterrence fails’. Diluting that risk also dilutes deterrence.

Arms to Syria: attempt #2

Then:

‘We reached a point in the fighting, in spring 2012, when we needed proper support. We needed heavy machine guns, real weapons. Money was never an issue: how much do you want? Fifty million dollars, a hundred million dollars – not a problem. But heavy weapons were becoming hard to find: the Turks – and without them this revolution wouldn’t have started – wanted the Americans to give them the green light before they would allow us to ship the weapons. We had to persuade Saad al-Hariri, Rafic Hariri’s son and a former prime minister, to go to put pressure on the Saudis, to tell them: “You abandoned the Sunnis of Iraq and you lost a country to Iran. If you do the same thing again you won’t only lose Syria, but Lebanon with it.”’ The idea was that the Saudis in turn would pressure the Americans to give the Turks the green light to allow proper weapons into the country.

‘The Americans gave their blessing,’ Abu Abdullah said, ‘and all the players converged and formed an operations room. It had the Qataris, the Saudis, the Turks and Hariri.’ In their infinite wisdom the players decided to entrust the running of the room – known as the Armament Room or the Istanbul Room after the city where it was based – to a Lebanese politician called Okab Sakr, a member of Hariri’s party who was widely seen as divisive and autocratic. The plan was to form military councils to be led and dominated by defectors from the Syrian army – this in order to appease the Americans, who were getting worried about the rising influence of the Islamists. All the fighting groups, it was assumed, would eventually agree to answer to the military councils because they were the main source of weapons.

At first, the plan seemed to be working […] A few weeks later, though, the plan started to collapse. In Deir al-Zour, an army defector accused the military council of being dominated by a single tribe and village. He set up a rival council. In Idlib and Homs the council was seen as too weak as rival battalions grew in influence. The Istanbul Room was accused of favouritism. By mid-July it was only in Aleppo that the council seemed to be working and the rebels pushed towards the city […]

‘Why are the Americans doing this to us? They told us they wouldn’t send us weapons until we united. So we united in Doha. Now what’s their excuse? They say it’s because of the jihadis but it’s the jihadis who are gaining ground. Abu Abdullah is $400,000 in debt and no one is sending him money anymore. It’s all going to the jihadis. They have just bought a former military camp from a battalion that was fighting the government. They went to them, gave them I don’t know how many millions and bought the camp. Maybe we should all become jihadis. Maybe then we’ll get money and support.’

Now:

Saudi Arabia has financed a large purchase of infantry weapons from Croatia and quietly funneled them to antigovernment fighters in Syria […] The weapons began reaching rebels in December via shipments shuttled through Jordan, officials said, and have been a factor in the rebels’ small tactical gains this winter against the army and militias loyal to Mr. Assad […] officials said the decision to send in more weapons is aimed at another fear in the West about the role of jihadist groups in the opposition […]

Officials familiar with the transfers said the arms were part of an undeclared surplus in Croatia remaining from the 1990s Balkan wars. One Western official said the shipments included “thousands of rifles and hundreds of machine guns” and an unknown quantity of ammunition […] An official in Washington said the possibility of the transfers from the Balkans was broached last summer, when a senior Croatian official visited Washington and suggested to American officials that Croatia had many weapons available should anyone be interested in moving them to Syria’s rebels. […] Jutarnji list, a Croatian daily newspaper, reported Saturday that in recent months there had been an unusually high number of sightings of Jordanian cargo planes at Pleso Airport in Zagreb […]  four sightings at Pleso Airport of Ilyushin 76 aircraft owned by Jordan International Air Cargo. It said such aircraft had been seen on Dec. 14 and 23, Jan. 6 and Feb. 18 […]

One Western official familiar with the transfers said that participants are hesitant to discuss the transfers because Saudi Arabia, which the official said has financed the purchases, has insisted on secrecy.

The not-so-secret war in Syria, part two

A follow-up to the last compendium of not-very-secret manoeuvrings in and around Syria, in response to a flurry of new reports. Suggested additions welcome.

Sunday Times, Dec 9:

The United States is launching a covert operation to send weapons to Syrian rebels for the first time as it ramps up military efforts to oust President Bashar al-Assad. Mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles will be sent through friendly Middle Eastern countries already supplying the rebels, according to well-placed diplomatic sources. The Americans have bought some of the weapons from the stockpiles of Muammar Gadaffi, the Libyan dictator killed last year. They include SA-7 missiles, which can be used to shoot down aircraft.

US State Department officials are in regular contact with rebel field commanders, talking to them on Skype for hours every day. President Barack Obama authorised clandestine CIA support earlier this year and both the US and Britain have had special forces and intelligence officers on the ground for some time. The US will send in more advisers to help with tactics and manage weapons supplies. British advisers are also expected to be sent. America and Britain are already training Jordanian and Turkish advisers to support the rebels.

Sunday Times, Dec 9:

Israeli special forces are operating in Syria as spotters to track the regime’s stocks of chemical and biological weapons. The cross-border operation is part of a secret war to trail Syria’s non-conventional armaments and sabotage their development … “For years we’ve known the exact location of Syria’s chemical and biological munitions,” an Israeli source said, referring to the country’s spy satellites and drones. “But in the past week we’ve got signs that munitions have been moved to new locations.”

NYT, Dec 7:

Military commanders of the main Free Syrian Army units from all over Syria agreed Friday to a unified command structure … Rebel commanders said that three representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency — one from headquarters, one from Turkey and another from Jordan — attended their discussions here but did not comment.

Guardian, Dec 7:

Large sums of cash have been delivered by French government proxies across the Turkish border to rebel commanders in the past month, diplomatic sources have confirmed. The money has been used to buy weapons inside Syria and to fund armed operations against loyalist forces … One such group, Liwa al-Tawhid, an 8,000-strong militia that fights under the Free Syria Army banner, said it had been able to buy ammunition for the first time since late in the summer, a development that would help it resume military operations without the support of implacable jihadi organisations, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, which is now playing a lead role in northern Syria.

Haaretz quoting Le Figaro, Dec 6:

The French agents had held face-to-face talks with a Free Syrian Army leader “in the area between Damascus and Lebanon,” the paper quoted an unnamed leader of the Syrian opposition as saying … The source was also quoted as saying that U.S. and British agents had also held meetings on Syrian soil with rebels fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime.

NYT, Dec 5:

The Obama administration did not initially raise objections when Qatar began shipping arms to opposition groups in Syria, even if it did not offer encouragement, according to current and former administration officials. But they said the United States has growing concerns that, just as in Libya, the Qataris are equipping some of the wrong militants.

 

Chemical crescendo

Updated December 7

A round-up of where we stand on Syrian chemical weapons, and who is claiming what:

Reuters, November 29:

The U.S. has collected what has been described as highly classified intelligence information demonstrating that Syria is making what could be construed as preparations to use elements of its extensive chemical weapons arsenal, two U.S. government sources briefed on the issue said.

NYT, December 1:

Western intelligence officials say they are picking up new signs of activity at sites in Syria that are used to store chemical weapons. … “It’s in some ways similar to what they’ve done before,” a senior American official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. “But they’re doing some things that suggest they intend to use the weapons. It’s not just moving stuff around. These are different kind of activities.” … The official said, however, that the Syrians had not carried out the most blatant steps toward using the chemical weapons, such as preparing them to be fired by artillery batteries or loaded in bombs to be dropped from warplanes.

NYT, December 2:

One American official provided the most specific description yet of what has been detected, saying that “the activity we are seeing suggests some potential chemical weapon preparation,” which goes beyond the mere movement of stockpiles among Syria’s several dozen known sites. But the official declined to offer more specifics of what those preparations entailed.

Washington Post, December 3:

U.S. intelligence officials also intercepted one communication within the last six months they believe was between Iran’s infamous Quds Force, urging Syrian regime members to use its supplies of toxic Sarin gas against rebels and the civilians supporting them in the besieged city of Homs, the former U.S. official said. That report was not matched by other intelligence agencies, and other intelligence officials have said Iran also does not want the Syrians to use their chemical weapons.

AFP, December 4:

Syria has begun mixing chemicals that can be used to make deadly sarin gas, a US official told AFP Monday, amid fears that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces could attack rebels with chemical weapons … “We’ve picked up several indications which lead us to believe that they’re combining chemical precursors,” the official said, on condition of anonymity, adding that the operation was apparently aimed at making sarin.

NBC, December 5:

The Syrian military is prepared to use chemical weapons against its own people and is awaiting final orders from President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday. The military has loaded the precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into aerial bombs that could be dropped onto the Syrian people from dozens of fighter-bombers, the officials said. As recently as Tuesday, officials had said there was as yet no evidence that the process of mixing the “precursor” chemicals had begun. But Wednesday, they said their worst fears had been confirmed: The nerve agents were locked and loaded inside the bombs … U.S. officials said this week that the [Syrian] government had ordered its Chemical Weapons Corps to “be prepared,” which Washington interpreted as a directive to begin bringing together the components needed to weaponize Syria’s chemical stockpile

And, concurrently, ABC, December 5:

Alarming intelligence about Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile earlier this week had to do with the apparent loading of elements of dangerous sarin nerve gas into bombs at Syrian airfields, a senior U.S. official said … American officials remain concerned by the Syrians’ intent behind the move, though their concerns have eased in the past 48 hours since the move became public … U.S officials stressed that over the past 48 hours there have not been any major movements at the chemical weapons sites that were of concern.

And, finally, The Times, also December 5:

A no-fly zone, ground troops and special forces form the main planks of British-American contingency plans drawn up over recent months in anticipation of a Syrian chemical attack … Special operations forces would be deployed, backed by a substantial number of support troops — perhaps as many as 75,000 — to seize or safeguard the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons facilities … “We have [US] special operations forces at the right posture, they don’t have to be sent,” a US official said, suggesting that those troops are already in the region.

Updates:

NYT, December 6:

The White House says the president has not changed his position at all — it is all in the definition of the word “moving.” Tommy Vietor, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said Thursday that “ ‘moving around’ means proliferation,” as in allowing extremist groups like Hezbollah, which has training camps near the weapons sites, to obtain the material …  The chief limitation, American and Israeli officials say, is that chemical weapons sites cannot be safely bombed. “That could create the exact situation we are trying to avoid,” said one senior American military official, who like several others interviewed would speak only on the condition of anonymity … Making things worse, many of the storage sites are near the border with Jordan, raising the possibility that any plume of chemicals created by an attack could drift over the territory of an American ally. Putting troops on the ground has never been a serious option, American officials say.

CNN, December 7:

CNN has learned that U.S. military options for a potential strike against Syria have been updated in the last few days after intelligence showed that the regime has filled aerial bombs with deadly sarin gas at at least two locations near military airfields … A senior U.S. official confirmed the details but declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the information. There has been no movement to put the bombs on aircraft and no significant additional movement of chemical materials as far as the U.S. knows, he said … The first intelligence on the chemical weapons movement in Syria came to light to the administration in the last week, when satellite imagery showed the movement of trucks and vehicles at sites where chemicals and weapons were stored. “We assume the aircraft are in close proximity to the munitions,” the official said … The U.S. also believes the order to fill the bombs was issued and carried out through the Syrian military chain of command, but it’s not certain if al-Assad was directly involved.

A military option could involve dropping bombs on runways to keep airplanes from taking off. Also, communications sites could be struck to cut al-Assad’s links to his troops so orders for a chemical attack cannot be issued.

Social divisions, insurgent cohesion, and Syrian rebels

The most recent issue of International Security  (Summer 2012, Vol. 37, No. 1) features an interesting article by Paul Staniland, Organizing Insurgency: Networks, Resources, and Rebellion in South Asia. It asks why external support sometimes makes insurgents stronger (as with the Taliban in the 1990s) and sometimes weaker (as with Sierra Leone’s RUF).

His answer:

Social divisions and cleavages that existed at the time of organizational founding create enduring internal fissures and indiscipline, whereas overlapping social networks makes it possible to create new institutions able to control violence … fragmented groups tend to be unaffected or undermined by resource wealth, whereas integrated groups tend to be helped. (p.148)

What this actually means:

Overlapping social bases are preexisting networks that combine strong horizontal links that pull together organizers across localities with vertical ties that embed them in local communities. A classic example is a cadre-based political party … divided social bases are characterized by weak horizontal ties across organizers (as in a religious party with a collection of parochial power centers), weak vertical embeddedness within communities (as in a group of urban students trying to mobilize socially distinct rural peasants), or both.

When horizontal linkages are weak, central control will be lacking and elite feuding and splits thus more likely. When prewar vertical linkages are weak, leaders struggle to establish consistent discipline and control on the ground. Fragmented, fragile organizations will emerge that reflect the divided social bases on which they were built. (pp.150-151)

When resources – like smuggling revenue or foreign weaponry – flow into divided organizations, “over time they can exacerbate preexisting conflicts over control and distribution that lead to unrest and indiscipline within the group” (p.151).

This theory is tested by looking at the divergent fates of Kashmiri groups which received Pakistani funding – the argument is that each either splintered (e.g. JKLF) or flourished (e.g. Hizbul Mujahideen) based on the strength of such horizontal and vertical linkages. But it seems Syria would also be a useful testing ground for these arguments. See this paragraph in particular:

Organizations are often built with weak horizontal or vertical ties or both: combining urban intellectuals with socially distant peasants; aggregating localized pockets of collective action under a loose organizational umbrella; mobilizing populations with little in common beyond ideological preferences; or brokering mergers among distinct linguistic, caste, or class factions. (p.154)

Now, see this story in the FT:

Now a military council brings the weapons into Aleppo and [rebel commander] Mr Bello says those running it are refusing to supply him. He is unfazed by the setback: he buys from dealers inside Syria instead.

The circumstances surrounding Mr Bello’s shooting may not be clear, but his story highlights the tensions between rebel groups in Syria as the 19-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad drags on with no end in sight.

Despite a recent push to unify the disparate armed opposition groups under a single command, rebels are struggling to form stable alliances even at a local level, a problem opposition sources say is exacerbated by the array of different donors competing for influence in Syria … According to another rebel who has been fighting in Aleppo, some people have already started to stockpile ammunition for “after the revolution”.

See also the excellent report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Rebel Groups in Northern Aleppo Province, and its assessment of the Tawhid Brigade, an amalgamation of multiple rebel groups under a province-wide command:

The Tawhid Brigade incorporates a broad spectrum of political and religious ideologies, including Islamic extremists. Any effort to assess the Tawhid Brigade’s overarching ideology must also consider the actions and rhetoric of its individual component battalions. Religious affiliation appears to vary from battalion to battalion. (p.5)

Putting aside the troubling jihadist affiliations of some of the Brigade’s constituent parts, these seem to be exactly the sort of weak horizontal ties that render an insurgent group vulnerable to being splintered by resource flows. Look at the sprawling organizational chart on p.5 of the ISW report:

Aleppo Military Council, depicted in Jeffrey Bolling, ‘Rebel Groups in Northern Aleppo’, ISW, 29 August 2012

It is strongly indicative of what Staniland calls “localized pockets of collective action under a loose organizational umbrella”. Others fear that rival donors will exacerbate this process further, by sponsoring favored clients and driving wedges between those localized pockets.

As for their vertical ties, Aleppo’s rebels are predominantly “poor, religiously conservative and usually come from the underdeveloped countryside nearby” i.e. weakly embedded in the urban environment that is their primary target.

Granted, that’s just one slice of a nationwide uprising – and the theoretical argument is about individual rebel groups rather than entire rebel movements. Nonetheless, it seems likely that external support for Syrian rebels will start growing again after the US elections, and that the implications of this will depend not just on how the money/arms are distributed (as David Ignatius talks about) but also the social bases of the insurgent groups getting the help.

(Note: Paul Staniland also wrote a guest post for The Monkey Cage in February, critiquing Anne-Marie Slaughter’s call for a “no-kill zone” in Syria)

The not-so-secret war in Syria

Post updated, most recently on 23 August

Below, a quick collection of recent articles on covert action and intelligence collection in and against Syria, for reference. Feel free to suggest others.

Martin Chulov and Ewen MacAskill in the Guardian in June, on Saudi Arabia bankrolling rebels and CIA officers in Homs:

Saudi officials are preparing to pay the salaries of the Free Syrian Army as a means of encouraging mass defections from the military and increasing pressure on the Assad regime … The plan centres on paying the FSA in either US dollars or euros, meaning their salaries would be restored to their pre-revolution levels, or possibly increased.

Officials in the Saudi capital embraced the idea when it was put to them by Arab officials in May, according to sources in three Arab states, around the same time that weapons started to flow across the southern Turkish border into the hands of Free Syria Army leaders.

Turkey has also allowed the establishment of a command centre in Istanbul which is co-ordinating supply lines in consultation with FSA leaders inside Syria. The centre is believed to be staffed by up to 22 people, most of them Syrian nationals.

Diplomatic sources have told the Guardian two US intelligence officers were in Syria’s third city of Homs between December and early February, trying to establish command and control within rebel ranks.

Eric Schmitt in the NYT in June, on CIA officers helping to allocate weapons:

The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said … By helping to vet rebel groups, American intelligence operatives in Turkey hope to learn more about a growing, changing opposition network inside of Syria and to establish new ties. “C.I.A. officers are there and they are trying to make new sources and recruit people,” said one Arab intelligence official who is briefed regularly by American counterparts.

Barbara Starr for CNN in June, on US-Jordan cooperation:

U.S. special forces are training and advising Jordanian troops on a range of specific military tasks they might need to undertake if unrest in Syria spills over into Jordan or poses a threat to that country, three Defense Department officials told CNN. The officials declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the training. Jordanian officials also are refusing to publicly confirm details, but a senior Middle Eastern government official also confirmed details to CNN.

The U.S. has been training in Jordan using mainly special operations forces under a program called Joint Combined Exchange Training, which sends troops overseas to train foreign soldiers and units in specific missions. Jordan’s major security concern is that if the Syrian regime were to suddenly collapse, then it would face unrest on its northern border, as well as the possibility of large refugee flows, weapons smuggling into Jordan, and potential disarray in Syria’s chemical and biological weapons complex. Jordan also is considering how and where to potentially set up humanitarian assistance bases inside its borders, another matter the U.S. is advising it on.

Ruth Sherlock in the Telegraph in July, on the FSA’s own preparations regarding chemical weapons:

“We have a group just to deal with chemical weapons. They are already trained to secure sites,” said Gen Adnan Silou, the most senior ranking member of Bashar al-Assad’s regime to defect and join the FSA.Until 2008 Gen Silou was charged with the task of drafting emergency response plans should any of Syria’s terrifying array of weapons fall out of the government’s control.Working around Damascus and Latakia he trained thousands of troops in how to secure what analysts believe are the largest chemical weapons stores in the world, consisting principally of sarin, mustard gas and cyanide.“We trained them in securing stores, in reconnaissance of possible threats, in how to purge supplies and in treatment should Syria come under attack a chemical or biological attack,” said Silou.

Regan Docherty and Amena Bakr for Reuters in July, on Turkey’s command centre in Adana, the use of Russian weaponry, and ubiquitous Qatar’s role:

Turkey has set up a secret base with allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar to direct vital military and communications aid to Syria’s rebels from a city  near the border … The centre in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 100 km (60 miles) from the Syrian border, was set up after Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Saud visited Turkey and requested it, a source in the Gulf said. The Turks liked the idea of having the base in Adana so that they could supervise its operations, he added … Former officials said there is reason to believe the Turks stepped up their support for anti-Assad forces after Syria shot down a Turkish plane which had made several passes over border areas.

“All weaponry is Russian. The obvious reason is that these guys (the Syrian rebels) are trained to use Russian weapons, also because the Americans don’t want their hands on it. All weapons are from the black market. The other way they get weapons is to steal them from the Syrian army. They raid weapons stores.”

Sources in Qatar said the Gulf state is providing training and supplies to the Syrian rebels. “The Qataris mobilized their special forces team two weeks ago. Their remit is to train and help logistically, not to fight,” said a Doha-based source with ties to the FSA.

Ken Dilanian in the LA Times in July, on the CIA’s light footprint in Syria (note contrast with the Guardian’s claims about CIA officers in Homs, a warzone):

 CIA officers largely have avoided entering Syria or traveling to the battle zones since February, when the U.S. Embassy in Damascus was shuttered for security reasons after threats by groups allied with the Assad government …  Some current and former officials said the dearth of American intelligence agents in Syria stemmed from the administration’s unwillingness to risk having a CIA officer captured or wounded with little hope of rescue. They also spoke of a hypersensitivity in Congress and among the public to the prospect of U.S. casualties, citing the criticism leveled at the CIA after seven officers were killed by a double agent-turned-suicide bomber in Khowst, Afghanistan, in December 2009

A few CIA officers in recent weeks have met with opposition leaders in Turkey near the Syrian border, officials said. They communicate by secure links with paid informers in Syria.

Greg Miller and Joby Warrick in the Washington Post in July, making a similar point:

U.S. spy agencies have expanded their efforts to gather intelligence on rebel forces and Assad’s regime in recent months, but they are still largely confined to monitoring intercepted communications and observing the conflict from a distance, officials said.

Interviews with U.S. and foreign intelligence officials revealed that the CIA has been unable to establish a presence in Syria, in contrast with the agency’s prominent role gathering intelligence from inside Egypt and Libya during revolts in those countries … With no CIA operatives on the ground in Syria and only a handful stationed at key border posts, the agency has been heavily dependent on its counterparts in Jordan and Turkey and on other regional allies.

Reuters in July, on Obama’s presidential “finding” authorising help for the rebels:

Reuters has learned that the White House has crafted a presidential directive, called a “finding,” that would authorize greater covert assistance for the rebels, while still stopping short of arming them. … It is not clear whether Obama has signed the document, and U.S. officials declined to comment on the finding, which is a highly classified authorization for covert activity. But in recent days, the Obama administration has signalled publicly it plans more help for the rebels.

Thomas Donilon, Obama’s national security adviser, is a meticulous policy planner who asks for exhaustive studies of any issue before drawing conclusions, aides say privately. Syria is no exception. He has kept his staff busy for months reviewing Syria policy options, should the president ask for a list of alternatives. One U.S. government source said the new presidential finding had been on Donilon’s desk for quite some time without further action.

***

Update. It occurs to me to add a passage from Colonel Richard Kemp’s contribution (PDF) to last week’s RUSI briefing on Syria (Kemp was commander of British forces in Afghanistan, and also worked at the Joint Intelligence Committee):

There have been reports in the media of British, French and American Special Forces already operating inside Syria. This would certainly make sense, and it is highly likely that some Western Special Forces and intelligence resources have been in Syria for a considerable time. (p.7)

Update 2. On 1 August, Reuters‘ Mark Hosenball reports on the presidential finding mentioned above:

President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said … A U.S. government source acknowledged that under provisions of the presidential finding, the United States was collaborating with a secret command center [see above] operated by Turkey and its allies.

Indications are that U.S. agencies have not been involved in providing weapons to Assad’s opponents. In order to do so, Obama would have to approve a supplement, known as a “memorandum of notification, to his initial broad intelligence finding … Further such memoranda would have to be signed by Obama to authorize other specific clandestine operations to support Syrian rebels.

The State Department said on Wednesday the U.S. government had set aside a total of $25 million for “non-lethal” assistance to the Syrian opposition. A U.S. official said that was mostly for communications equipment, including encrypted radios.

Update 3: Ruth Sherlock in The Telegraph (3 August) says Qatar and the FSA have fallen out:

But the FSA, dominated by defectors from the regime’s army, has fallen out with the SNC, whose leaders are in exile. It now has its own political front, the Syrian Support Group (SSG). This split has divided the revolution’s main international backers, with Saudi Arabia supporting the FSA and Qatar moving closer to the SNC and the Islamist militias …  At one point Saudi Arabia and Qatar were both funding the FSA, with the command centre receiving up to $3 million in cash every month. But the operative said the situation had changed. “Now we are not working with the Qataris because they made so many mistakes supporting other groups.”

Update 4: German newspaper Bild (19 August) says the Germans are where it’s at:

Agents from Germany’s foreign intelligence service (BND) are operating on ships off the coast with technology allowing them to observe troop movements 600 kilometres (400 miles) inside the country, said the Bild am Sonntag weekly … They pass their findings onto US and British officers who then supply the rebels with the information, Bild said.

The paper quoted an unnamed US official as saying that “no Western intelligence service has such good sources inside Syria” as Germany’s BND. German agents are also active in the Syrian conflict from the NATO base in the Turkish city of Adana, according to Bild. “We can be proud of the significant contribution we are making to the fall of the Assad regime,” a BND official told Bild.

Update 5: Actually, says the Sunday Times (19 August), it’s all about the Brits:

British intelligence on Syrian troop movements has enabled rebels to launch devastating attacks, including an ambush on a column of 40 army tanks. The [Syrian opposition] official said the British authorities “know about and approve 100%” signals intelligence from their Cyprus bases being passed through Turkey to the rebel troops of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). “British intelligence is observing things closely from Cyprus. It’s very useful because they find out a great deal … The British are giving the information to the Turks and the Americans and we are getting it from the Turks … The British monitor communications about movements of the government army and we got information about reinforcements being on their way to Aleppo. We hit at the government troops in Idlib and Saraqib [southwest of Aleppo], with success,” the official said.

Britain has two sovereign military bases in Cyprus at Dhekelia and Akrotiri. They draw intelligence from the airwaves for GCHQ, Britain’s listening post in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. The opposition official said rebel forces in Aleppo had also received US satellite imagery, which the Turks had passed on from the CIA. “We’ve had access to it for more than a month now. What the Turks give us is limited but it’s made a difference in Aleppo,” the official said.

Update 6: The Kuwait News Agency (23 August) says France, presumably eager not to be left out of this pan-European festival of spooks, is running a field hospital:

France, for some time now, has been supplying opposition fighters with logistical aid, including communications equipment, intelligence and also medical supplies and humanitarian aid … The French have also set up a military-run field hospital on the Syrian-Jordanian border and are treating wounded rebel fighters and refugees fleeing across the border from Syria.