ALBA-TCP expresses support for Syria
Who are the opposition groups? Are they rebels or terrorists?
On December 1, 2024, ALBA-TCP emitted the following communique.
The Member States of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples' Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) express their solidarity with Syria, as well as express their categorical rejection and condemn the violent events reported in Aleppo and other areas of the country, promoted by terrorist groups seeking to attack the constitutional government of President Bashar Al-Assad.
ALBA-TCP calls on the international community to firmly reject – unequivocally and without hesitation – these criminal events that seek to divide and destroy a millenary multicultural society in a country that has had to face and endure a war for over 13 years, fueled by external interests.
The Bolivarian Alliance demands full respect for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of this sister Arab nation and the self-determination of the Syrian people, as well as their will and right to live in peace under the system of government of their choice, in strict adherence to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and International Law. The unacceptable imperialist interventions in Syria and the entire region have only resulted in death and destruction.
The member countries of the Alliance reiterate their confidence on the capability of the Syrian people and government to sovereignly build its destiny, without foreign interference and where peace and justice prevail.
The Bolivarian Alliance was established on December 14, 2004, through an agreement between Cuba and Venezuela. It currently has ten member states, all of which are socialist or social democratic states in Latin America and the Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela. Haiti, Iran, and Syria are observer members.
The founding declaration of 2004 maintained that integration in Latin America historically “has served as a mechanism for deepening dependency and foreign domination.” It proposed an alternative form of integration: “Only an integration based on cooperation, solidarity, and the common will to advance together with one accord toward the highest levels of development can satisfy the needs and desires of the Latin American and Caribbean countries, and at the same time preserve their independence, sovereignty, and identity.” The declaration proclaimed that “ALBA has as its objective the transformation of Latin American societies, making them more just, cultured, participatory, and characterized by solidarity.”
For a review of the founding of ALBA and its subsequent development, see:
“ALBA-TCP seeks alternative integration: The voice that US imperialism cannot silence,” December 17, 2021.
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Who are the Syrian rebels?
On November 27, a coalition of Syrian rebels, who had control of territory in the province of Idlib in northwestern Syria, launch an assault and seized Aleppo, the country’s second largest city, as well as towns in the provinces of Idlib and Hama. Prior to the initiative launched by the Syrian rebels, Israel had been escalating air attacks on Syria, as was reported by The New York Times. Israel has carried out deadly attacks against Syria for years, saying that its targets are Iran-backed militants. Such attacks have escalated since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and they have included a deadly Israel attack on the Iranian Embassy in Damascus in April.
In an article published on December 4, The Dissident maintains that the conflict in Syria is rooted in a U.S. project of regime change with respect to the Arab nation. It cites American general Wesley Clark, who reported that after 9/11, the Pentagon informed him that the USA planned to “take out seven countries in five years . . . starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” As is evident, a good part of this agenda has been attempted, often supported by bogus claims.
The Dissident reports that, in the case of Syria, protests concerning human rights and economic conditions began in 2011, fueled in part by a long drought that caused 75% of farms to fail and 86% of livestock to die from 2006 to 2011. The article stresses that by 2012, sectarian and extremist elements—such as Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Al-Queda—had taken control of the rebellion.
For the USA, The Dissident maintains, the situation provided an opportunity to implement the long-standing goal of regime change in Syria. The CIA arranged for the transfer of weapons stockpiled in Libya to the opposition in Syria, which were available following the overthrow of Gaddafi. Although the CIA claimed that the weapons were going to “moderate rebels,” in fact groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda were receiving weapons from the CIA, as The New York Times has recognized.
Although the arms transfer program officially ended in 2017, the U.S. project of regime change with respect to Syria continued in other ways, The Dissident notes. The U.S. military occupies one-third of Syrian territory, ostensibly to protect the Kurdish minority from ISIS. But a Defense Department official has acknowledged that the occupied territory includes important economic, agricultural, and oil resources, so that the occupation functions to weaken the Syrian state. The USA also imposes brutal sanctions on Syria, like those imposed on Cuba.
The Dissident reports that Western journalists who have traveled to Syria have found that many of the people in the zones occupied by the rebels believed that the initial 2011 protests had legitimate demands, but “the demonstrations were quickly hijacked by foreign backed jihadists.” Many of the people are strongly opposed to the rule of the rebel groups.
An article published on December 2 in The New York Times by Vivian Yee, Alissa J. Rubin and Raja Abdulrahim, “Who Are the Rebels Leading the Offensive in Syria?”, maintains that the rebels are united under the leadership of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Organization for the Liberation of the Levant). It was formed in 2011, when civil war broke out, following violent repression of anti-government protests. As the conflict intensified, jihadists linked to groups in Iraq that would become the Islamic State entered Syria and formed what they called the Al Nusra Front in opposition to the government. It grew into one of the largest rebel factions, “mounting hundreds of insurgent and suicide attacks against government targets.” It seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate in Syria, using violent means.
In 2013, the Al-Nusra Front split with its parent group in Iraq and pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda. However, in spite of its connection to Al-Qaeda, it did not adopt a globalist agenda of attacking the West, focusing instead on removing al-Assad from power. Yee, Rubin and Abdulrahim assert that “its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, built the Nusra Front into a robust organization with a growing force of fighters and territory in northern Syria. It started acting like a de facto government on the land it held, collecting taxes and providing some public services.”
In 2016, the Nusra Front publicly cut its ties with Al-Qaeda and adopted a new name, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, which was interpreted by Western observers as an effort to attain international legitimacy. In early 2017, the group joined with other factions, mostly Islamist, to establish Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
The New York Times article maintains that the group is still considered a terrorist group by the United States and other Western countries. Experts doubt that it has abandoned its radical beliefs, although it has become more pragmatic than most radical groups. It has been less brutal and dogmatic, for example, than the Islamic State. It gives priority to governing territory under its control, but it remains unpopular among residents in territories that it controls, who have reported arbitrary arrests, taxation, and intolerance of dissent.
Turkish bases in Idlib and Turkish artillery on the Turkish side of the border have functioned to buffer the group’s territory from the Syrian Army. A cease-fire in 2020 was brokered by Russia and Türkiye, which established an uneasy calm in Northwestern Syria, prior to the group’s advance on Aleppo on November 27. At the same time, Türkiye and Syria have engaged in negotiations with respect to the return of Syrian refugees in Türkiye.
Yee, Rubin and Abdulrahim conclude The New York Times article with the observation that “it is not clear whether Hayat Tahrir al-Sham can capture more territory or hold on to what it already has.” If it manages to hold on to Aleppo, it would have to govern more flexibly, because the people of Aleppo are less conservative, and even in more conservative Idlib, there was pushback from the people with respect to Islamic regulations.
Sputnik reports that Seyed Mohammad Marandi, political analyst and professor at Tehran University, believes that the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham military initiative is backed by foreign powers, including Israel and the United States. It has been undertaken with the intention of disrupting Iranian overland supply routes through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The breaking of the “Axis of Resistance” formed by Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah has been the goal of the U.S. backing of opposition groups since 2011. A similar interpretation was expressed by Syrian military expert Mahmoud Abdel Salyam. The USA and Israel desire a government in Syria that would block the transportation of goods and money crossing the land corridor connecting Iran to Hezbollah.
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What is the situation now?
Russia Today reported on December 1 that the Syrian Army had reinforced its positions and had recuperated control of various zones occupied by the terrorists, and the Russian air forces had undertaken attacks against control points, warehouses, and artillery positions of the terrorist group. NBC News also reported that the Syrian Defense Ministry had stated that the Syrian armed forces were repelling attacks and had been able to regain control over some areas. Similarly, the Cuban outlet Cubadebate reported on December 1 that the Syrian Minister of Defense had announced that the Syrian Army had expelled dozens of terrorists from two localities located in the northern part of the central province of Hama. And the Cuban daily Granma reported on December 1 that Syrian television claimed that one thousand members of terrorist groups had been eliminated in the last three days.
The Cuban news daily further noted that the thirteen-year-old civil war has taken the lives of more than 600,000 persons. The United States justifies its involvement, Granma observes, with the pretext of ending the terrorism of the so-called Islamic State, but its actual purpose is ending the government of Bashar al-Assad.
On December 5, the Cuban news outlet Juventud Rebelde reported that the Syrian Army has announced its withdrawal from the city of Hama, in order to protect civilians from the fierce fighting that had broken out between the Syrian army and the terrorist insurgents. Both sides in the conflict have suffered heavy losses, according to the Syrian military command. In spite of the withdrawal from Hama, the Syrian Army reaffirmed its commitment to recapture territory controlled by terrorist groups.
Juventud Rebelde stressed that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is considered a jihadist terrorist organization by the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States. Its goal is the overthrow of the Syrian government and the establishment of a regime based on its particular interpretation of Islamic law. It is financed by income from oil wells that are owned by the Syrian state but are controlled by the USA, through its illegal military occupation of the territory where the wells are located.
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Further considerations
Are the opposition groups rebels, or are they terrorists? I am not sure. In my view, the essential defining characteristic of terrorism is the deliberate indiscriminate killing of civilians in order to attain a political objective, whether it be undertaken by an individual, group, organization, or state. Based on the available information, it is not clear if the opposition groups are engaging in such indiscriminate killing of civilians.
We do know that the opposition groups are supported by foreign powers for the purpose of overthrowing the legitimate and constitutional government of Syria through illegitimate means. This policy violates the UN Charter and the principles that have been put forth by the nations of the Global South and East since the 1950s. It reflects the decadence of Western imperialism, which takes as given a world of competing imperialisms in an age in which imperialism is no longer a productive force. Accordingly, the interventionist policy with respect to Syria ought to be opposed, and the government of Syria ought to be supported, as Iran, Russia, and ALBA-TCP are doing.
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