US Raqqa operation is aimed at denying Syria peace

The US is trying to fish in troubled waters in Syria as is indicative with the recent announcement of what it calls a ‘counter-terrorism’ operation against Takfiri terrorists, also known as Daesh, who are entrenched in Raqqa, which they call the capital of the so-called Islamic caliphate.

It is clear that Washington, along with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the illegal Zionist entity, does not intend to provide any relief to the Syrian people from the terrible civil war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of life, but is plotting to prolong their plight by meddling in their affairs when no invitation has been extended to the US and its partners by the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Here is a thought-provoking analysis in this regard by Salman Rafi Sheikh, a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.

The US has announced operation “Euphrates Anger”, to be conducted by the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of different US-backed militias, to re-take the city of Raqqa, the capital of the self-styled Islamic State or Daesh in Syria. While the announcement has come just three weeks after the beginning of the operation to liberate the city of Mosul, the  Daesh stronghold in Iraq and seems a ‘logical’ development, there is much more to the Raqqa operation than simply meets the eye. On the surface, this operation is purely anti-Daesh and is aimed at symbolically defeating the group by capturing its so-called ‘capital’. In reality, however, this operation is aimed at strengthening the US-backed forces in Syria and thereby to disturb the Syrian army’s battle for Aleppo.

This is evident from the contradiction that has been inserted in this operation from the very beginning. Consider this: according to Brett McGurk, US President Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism envoy, the main idea behind the re-taking of Raqqa is: “When it comes to Raqqa we want a force that ultimately liberates Raqqa that is primarily from the local area, Arabs from the area, and so we have trained many of these fighters and that force will continue to grow as we get to the subsequent phases of the campaign.”

A pertinent question that arises here is this: If the US was really serious about engaging a local force to liberate the city of Raqqa, which other force could have been better and more “local”, having a legitimate local base, than Syria’s own army, which is currently battling Daesh and other groups in the city of Aleppo?   Of course, the US and its allies would not want to have the Syrian army as its ally, nor would they want it to appear as the liberator. Their objective of keeping Syria immersed in conflict, and the ultimate objective of destroying Syrian army and displacing Assad as president, can be met only when the Syrian army remains engaged in battles either against Daesh or against the US-backed SDF. Therefore, placement of SDF as the leading fighting force in Raqqa is a very calculated move to deny the Syrian or Russian militaries the chance to actually liberate the city from the clutches of sponsored-terrorism.

While the stage was already being set for an operation to ‘liberate’ Raqqa from Daesh, this is strange enough to note that this operation has come at a time when these terrorists were easily shifting from Mosul to Raqqa and when the West was already aware of it. A Kurdish intelligence officer told Fox News recently that Daesh fighters are “running away massively” in the direction of Raqqa. The report said, “According to multiple insiders familiar with the Mosul-to-Raqqa route and Daesh tactics, the group takes abandoned roads and moves through friendly villages that provide not only cover, but potential safe haven.”

Interestingly enough, the West was aware of this movement of Daesh fighters. French president Francois Hollande said last month there was evidence that the terrorists were fleeing to Raqqa, and that everything must be done to stop them regrouping there. While this ‘transportation’ of Daesh does raise question, first and foremost, about the efficiency and effectiveness of the battle for Mosul, it also signifies that the real target of the US and its allies remains Syria and, by default, Russia. Instead of blocking the route from Mosul to Raqqa, Daesh fighters were deliberately allowed to shift to Raqqa in order to create the necessary excuse to allow the US to revamp its extremely weak position in Syria, where the Syrian army, being backed by Russia, has achieved considerable success against Daesh and other West supported terror groups. It means Raqqa is important for the US to stay alive in Syria. The US clearly estimates that the Syrian military and its Russian allies are sooner than later going to liberate Raqqa. Given this, the US does not want to suffer another public relations setback, the kind of which it had earlier suffered at the time of liberation of Palmyra and the kind of which they are suffering now when Aleppo is heading towards an eventual fall at the hands of Syrian and Russian forces. The US, therefore, wants to have its own “victory” in Raqqa before the Syrians and the Russians can have theirs. As one analyst has put it aptly, “If the SDF is able to “take” Raqqa, the US will then be able to shout from the rooftops that America has liberated Raqqa and defeated Daesh in its own capital.”

However, this situation is setting a dangerous stage, likely to cause more harm than good to the people of Syria. For them the situation would qualitatively remain the same if they are subdued by Daesh or by the US-backed so-called “local forces” i.e. the SDF. Militarily and ideologically trained on the same lines as Daesh, there is little in it to doubt that SDF would not impose its own ‘fanaticism’ on the people of Raqqa, creating an essential context for the Syrian army to move towards Raqqa to liberate its territory and its people from these terror forces. It means a prolonged crisis looms large for the Syrian people. With Syrian forces, backed by the Russian Air Force and Russian Special Forces heading east to Raqqa, and with SDF, backed by the US-led coalition forces rushing to capture Raqqa, an explosive situation is developing that might leave widespread regional and international ramifications. In other words, there is a distinct potential that, in the race for Raqqa, the Syrian/Russian alliance might find itself face to face with the possibility of direct military conflict with the US/SDF alliance. Clearly Moscow is sensing such a situation and has accordingly, making a sound strategic move to maintain balance, deployed its aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov off the cost of Syria. Even if a big battle does not take place, which is by all means unlikely to happen, the US is certainly preparing to complicate the Syrian crisis. While the US has been trying its best to stall the defeat of “rebels” in Aleppo by doing persistent propaganda against Moscow for the alleged committing of “war crimes”, control of Raqqa would further allow the US to keep a direct covert influence on Aleppo, and co-ordinate SDF with those “rebels” now trapped in Aleppo.

The choice of Raqqa is, in this context, a strategic move on the part of US as its main interest clearly lies in delaying as far as possible the capture of Aleppo and Raqqa by Syrian government forces. However, were this to happen, it would be only a matter of time before Syria will eventually be cleared off all terrorists, whether moderate or not-so-moderate, and force the US out of the region. Therefore, operation “Euphrates Anger” is neither about defeating terrorism in the region nor about denying Daesh, what French authorities say, a territorial base that it uses to launch attacks in Europe and elsewhere. For all practical purposes and given the nature of US objectives, if the SDF succeeds in imposing control over the city and the province, the US will be successful in cementing control over the area and pass it to the hands of its proxy terrorists once again and keep the ‘war’ alive and deny peace.

That is the reason the US and its accomplices in the crimes against the Syrian and Iraqi people, especially Turkey and Saudi Arabia, are opposing the move of Iraq’s popular militia forces, the Hashed ash-Sha’bi to take positions around Tal Affar for blocking the routes of Daesh terrorists fleeing Mosul towards the Syrian border.

AS/SS