Is the Armed Rebellion in Syria on the Wane?

Is the Armed Rebellion in Syria on the Wane?

Yezid Sayigh

April 24, 2014 | http://carnegie-mec.org/2014/04/24/is-armed-rebellion-in-syria-on-wane/h8z6#
 

Summary

The armed rebellion in Syria has not lost its sting, but it remains considerably less than the sum of its parts.

Syria’s armed rebellion has undergone visible consolidation both in the field and at the command level since September 2013. Long overdue, this is a highly positive development. Still, it is unlikely to be enough to best the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. While the armed rebellion is far from being defeated, it has plateaued, both militarily and politically. 

Fragmentation and dysfunctional competition among the rebel groups persist, and new rebel alliances have not yet demonstrated a notable increase in operational effectiveness. Credible estimates, moreover, indicate that overall rebel strength has not increased over the past year, suggesting that the rebellion has a “shrinking population of potential new recruits,” as a Carter Center report based on exhaustive field data noted in March 2014.

The critical problem is political. The interface of class and sectarian conflict that has characterized the entire Syrian crisis is leading to greater compartmentalization of the opposition. Each kind of political or military actor is consolidating within a narrowing social and geographical sphere. This is especially true of the growing number of rebel groups declaring an Islamist or Salafi orientation.  These trends point to a growing disjointedness between the distinct components of the Syrian revolution: the formal political opposition, the armed rebellion, and the grassroots movement of activists, local administrators in liberated areas, and relief providers. Major parts of the armed rebellion are either unwilling or unable to integrate into this wider structure, opting instead to attempt to supplant it. Unless the rebels can overcome their internal fragmentation and become part of the broader opposition, their ability to reverse trends on the battlefield and survive in the longer term will be in question.