As the US military strikes the Islamic State group in Iraq, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have significantly stepped up their own campaign against militant strongholds in Syria, carrying out dozens of airstrikes against the group’s headquarters in the past two days.
While the government in Damascus has long turned a blind eye to the expansion of the group in Syria — in some cases even facilitating its offensive against mainstream rebels — the group’s rapid march on towns and villages in northern and eastern Syria is now threatening to overturn recent gains by government forces.
While the Islamic State, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, has so far concentrated its attacks against the Western-backed fighters seeking to topple al-Assad, in the past month its fighters have carried out a major onslaught against Syrian army facilities in northeastern Syria, capturing and slaughtering hundreds of Syrian soldiers and pro-government militiamen in the process.
On Monday, Islamic State fighters were closing in on the last government-held army base in the northeastern Raqqa Province, the Tabqa air base, prompting at least 16 Syrian government airstrikes in the area in an attempt to halt their advance.
In the northern city of Aleppo, there is a sense of impending defeat among mainstream rebels as Islamic militants systematically routed them last week in towns and villages only a few kilometers north of the city.
An Islamic State takeover of rebel-held parts of Aleppo also would be disastrous for Syrian government troops who have been gaining ground in the city in past months.
“I think they [Syrian government] are finally realizing that their Machiavellian strategy of working with the Islamic State group against the moderates did not work so well, and so they have started to fight it,” said Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
However, in hitting hard against the Islamic State group, al-Assad has another motive.
His aerial bombardment of militant strongholds in Syria in a way mirrors that of the US military’s airstrikes against extremists across the border in Iraq.
Analysts say al-Assad’s strikes aim at sending a message that he is on the same side as the Americans, reinforcing the Syrian government’s longstanding claim that it is a partner in the fight against terrorism and a counterbalance to extremists. That comes after the US itself nearly bombed Syria after it blamed al-Assad’s forces for a chemical weapons attack on rebel-held areas near Damascus in August last year.
“[Al-]Assad would surely love to regain international acceptance via a ‘war on terror’ and maybe that is his long-term plan, in so far as he has one,” Syria analyst Aron Lund said.
Even while going against the Islamic State in Iraq, US officials have shown little appetite for striking at the same militants in Syria.
Asked about Syrian government airstrikes targeting the militants, US Department of State Deputy Spokeswoman Marie Harf rejected the notion that Washington and Damascus are “on the same page” in their fight against the Islamic State as a common enemy.
“While we may be looking at some of the same targets, I think the fact ... that the [al-]Assad regime has allowed ISIS to flourish and grow in the way it has is really one of the main reasons they have grown so strong,’’ she said, using one of the acronyms for the Islamic State.
Most of all, however, al-Assad can simply no longer afford to ignore the growing threat of the Islamic State now that it has started attacking his own forces.
Since last month, following their blitz in Iraq and after they declared a self-styled caliphate straddling the Iraq-Syria border, Islamic State fighters have methodically gone after isolated government bases in northern and eastern Syria, killing and decapitating army commanders and pro-government militiamen.
The attacks started with a devastating onslaught on the al-Shaer gas field in Homs Province in which more than 270 Syrian soldiers, security guards and workers were killed.
Last month, the jihadis overran the sprawling Division 17 military base in Raqqa Province, killing at least 85 soldiers. Two weeks later, Islamic State fighters seized the nearby Brigade 93 base after days of heavy fighting.
They now are closing in on Tabqa air base.
Activists on Monday reported intense clashes between government troops and Islamic State fighters on the edge of the villages of Ajil and Khazna near Tabqa.
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