Daily Report for Wednesday, December 28, 2016
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Report for
Wednesday,
December 28, 2016 Dey 8, 1395
Highlights, Page 2 News Briefs, Page 3 Other Stories, Page 3
Why Iran sees Aleppo as chance to get in rather than out. Page 5
Daily Report for Wednesday, December 28, 2016
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Rather than seeing the victory in Aleppo as an opportunity to wind down
operations, the Syrian government’s Iranian ally appears to be preparing to push ahead with new offensives. (See Page 5)
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News Briefs
* Ebtekar newspaper reports that Iran’s Organization for Civil Registration says that 1,159,000 births were in the first nine months of current Iranian year [started March]
* Mardom Salari newspaper reports that Tehran Province environmental office will carry out unannounced monitoring of more than 900 industrial units in Tehran to check whether they are observing pollution standards.
* Ebtekar newspaper reports that there are about 50,000 illiterate Iranians in Tehran city.
* Aftab News website reports that a young woman lodged a complaint with a court in Tehran, alleging that her suitor had thrown Whitex on her face after she refused his marriage proposal.
* Mardom Salari newspaper reports that a pickup truck in Abadan exploded while the driver was filling up the petrol tank. At least five persons were injured.
* Aftab News website reports that eight persons have died and 20 persons have been injured in various car accidents across Iran.
Other stories
Jafari: “Aleppo is the frontline of the Islamic Revolution”
State-owned newspaper Iran reports that IRGC Commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari hailed the
“liberation” of Aleppo as the “frontline of the Islamic Revolution” and stated that the fall of Aleppo marks
“one of the greatest defeats to our enemies led by America and Israel.” Jafari also noted that the task of
“ensuring [Iran’s] security has surpassed our borders.”
IRGC Deputy Commander Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami commented on the cooperation among the Russian Air Force, Iran-backed “resistance forces,” and the Syrian Army during a televised interview. He stated, “There is natural harmony between the allies of Syria on an operational level...Each power acts in concert with the other forces.”
Salami also accused the U.S. of “interfering” in the Syrian civil war in order to curtail Iran’s regional influence.
Hardliners criticize Zarif over nuclear deal comment
Reformist newspaper Shargh writes that Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy (NSFP) Commission released a statement condemning the actions of hardline parliamentarian Javad Karimi Ghodousi, who circulated a controversial remark allegedly made by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during a closed session of the commission.
The NSFP Commission’s statement calls the circulation of Zarif’s comment an “unforgivable sin”.
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Ghodousi had claimed that Zarif told the commission that he made a “mistake”
during the nuclear negotiations by trusting the U.S., specifically Secretary of State John Kerry’s alleged promise to prevent the renewal of the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA).
Ghodousi also claimed that Zarif refused to meet with Kerry after Congress renewed the ISA.
The Foreign Ministry denied that Zarif made the comment, although hardline news outlets reported on and later published the transcript of Zarif’s remarks.
Conservative Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani defended the nuclear deal by stating that the controversy over the ISA does not affect the deal’s integrity as a whole, however.
Other prominent moderate-conservative figures, including Ali Motahari, criticized Ghodousi and hardline news outlets for disclosing “classified” material.
Ayatollah Khamenei on 2009 election protests
Etemad newspaper reports that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei commented on the disputed 2009 presidential election.
Ayatollah Khamenei praised pro-regime demonstrations on December 30, 2009 as indicative of the regime’s strength.
He also denied that the demonstrations were organized, despite evidence that the
government arranged for transportation and food for Iranians attending the rally.
Ayatollah Khamenei also briefly commented on nuclear weapons during his remarks.
He stated, “The ban on nuclear weapons is based on very important logical and jurisprudential foundations, but it is possible for the government and nation to work toward other types of power.”
New IRGC Intelligence
Organization deputy appointed
Asr-e Iran news website writes that IRGC Commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari appointed IRGC Brig. Gen.
Mohammad Hossein Nejat as second-in- command of the IRGC Intelligence Organization.
He was previously the IRGC cultural deputy and the commander of the IRGC Vali-ye Amr Security unit, which is an elite IRGC protection unit tasked with protecting the Supreme Leader and his family.
Hossein Nejat commented on the 2009 Green Movement protests and the detention of Karroubi, Mousavi, and Rahnavard during a conference with security officials.
He claimed that their continued detention is “not related to the 2009 protests” but rather due to their expressed support for 2011 protests in Syria.
Daily Report for Wednesday, December 28, 2016
5 Why Iran sees Aleppo as chance
to get in rather than out
Al-Monitor news website. Ali Hashem. Ali Hashem is a journalist with a focus on Iran. He is the former Tehran bureau chief for the Arab news network Al Mayadeen, and a former reporter for Al Jazeera and the BBC. He writes extensively on Iran for Al-Monitor and Al Mayadeen and his articles have appeared in The Guardian, The Sunday Times, the Huffington Post, The National and Tokyo’s Facta, among others.
On December 22, the same day the Syrian government announced that Aleppo was under its control, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari was in Damascus to meet President Bashar al-Assad. Ansari was in fact in the Syrian capital to congratulate his country’s prime regional ally for retaking Syria’s largest city and one of the main strongholds of the armed opposition. But Aleppo isn’t only a military target for Assad and the coalition fighting on his side, and retaking it isn’t an ordinary victory in the long route of the crisis. Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, just a few hours after meeting Ansari on December 23 in Beirut, said the triumph is a milestone to be invested in, representative of “a tough war that foiled all attempts to topple the Syrian government.”
Over four years of fighting in Aleppo depleted the Iranian-led axis more than clashes in any other area in Syria. Without any accurate count, it’s enough to say that hundreds of pro-Iranian fighters were killed in the battles; among those who died were high-ranking officers in both Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Hezbollah. Iranian Gen. Hussein Hamadani and Hezbollah Cmdr. Ali Fayyad — aka Alaa of Bosnia — were both killed near the Athrya-Khanaser road. Hamadani was killed Oct. 9, 2015, and Fayyad on Feb. 26 of this year while executing the plan for the retaking of Aleppo.
An officer who asked to only be identified as a senior military commander from the forces allied with the Syrian government told Al-Monitor, “Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, the armed groups dreamed of taking control of Aleppo due to its strategic importance.” According to the commander, when the battle started, “There was a solid strategy: first, opening the road to Aleppo [Athrya-Khanaser and al-Sfira], then retaking the southern countryside and part of the northern countryside, and finally fighting the battle for the city. This strategy was set from the beginning, and without it there would have been no victory.”
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The Iranian-led axis’ strategy involved nibbling forward from outside the city toward areas of opposition groups’ dominance; this meant separating opposition areas with several corridors. The corridors, when finally connected with each other, constituted a complete siege. The armed opposition groups attempted during the last few weeks to reconnect eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo to areas they controlled in the outskirts of the city, but found this wasn’t possible. These attempts were confronted by tightening the siege, which entailed tough battles. The two sides saw the international and regional political moment as critical and decisive: The perceived vacuum was damaging to the opposition and an opportunity for those siding with the Syrian government.
To the coalition fighting on the side of Assad, there were no concerns about game- changing decisions with respect to the international community. The United States is busy with the presidential transition and about all it could do was issue statements of condemnation. Turkey is on bad terms with the West and has started investing in new relationships with Russia and Iran; this brought about the possibility of involving Ankara in the final solution to the Aleppo dilemma and later in efforts to reach a nationwide cease-fire that could help stabilize the situation. On the opposition side, the same givens clearly mean that a defeat in Aleppo will have dire implications on the status and morale of Syrians opposed to the regime. Regional countries backing the opposition kept their distance while waiting to see what the new administration in Washington was going to do in terms of the Syrian crisis. This doesn’t mean a total withdrawal from the scene, but rather that there is a moment to reassess and later decide whether to be part of an overall strategy or to start a separate strategy.
“The recapture of Aleppo will have a long-term strategic impact on the war in Syria,”
the military source told Al-Monitor. He said, “Taking back Aleppo means to allies of Syria what it means to the Syrian government itself. First, it thwarts all political plans by powers backing the [anti-government] militants to take the city as a capital for the opposition. Second, there will be no autonomous region in northern Syria similar to the Benghazi model in Libya. Third, Syria is going to stay unified and plans to divide it are going to fail. Fourth, it will add a major city to the main cities in Syria away from militant control.”
The fall of Aleppo doesn’t mean the end of the war in Syria for Assad and his allies — but that’s not a matter of debate, as there are still other battles to be fought. “The regime controls Damascus and Aleppo, the two largest cities in Syria, with the largest populations, along with Homs, Hama, Latakia, Tartus and Sweida. This regime is
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strong and active and can’t be ignored or no one can claim it’s fallen or finished,”
Nasrallah said December 23. “This doesn’t mean the project to destroy Syria is over and the war on Syria is over. It’s still on, but we are heading to a new chapter — our front is advancing but the responsibility is bigger; our duty now is to secure the city of Aleppo and the areas around it, because the armed groups are going to [launch another] attempt on the city and its surroundings.”
The military source said that the new chapter Nasrallah was referring to will involve
“the war on takfiri terrorism to the last breath, continuing the support to the Syrian government and backing its decisions, supporting the Syrian people until they fulfill their ambitions, confronting all attempts to divide Syria, helping Syria get out of this crisis stronger and preserving it as a state of resistance, and finally, helping using all means to rebuild the country.”
Despite the above statements, it is not clear what the next military step the forces allied with Assad will take. Some analysts suggested the opposition-held city of Idlib could be next, but this doesn’t appear to be realistic. It seems more likely, with Turkey, Iran and Russia unifying efforts, that the new chapter might involve more words and fewer bullets, where politics will be the tool to transform the anti-Assad struggle into a much weaker insurgency. Assad perhaps should thank his adversaries
— inside and outside Syria — for having been so divided in a battle that seemed, at the beginning, to have been a rare opportunity to unite all those against him.
The only element that shouldn’t be ignored is the Islamic State (IS). IS isn’t weak, as many might think, and its surprises in Syria still might be coming. Its battle to the north of Aleppo for the city of al-Bab with Turkish forces, who have been badly bruised, tells a lot. So does IS’ retaking of the historic city of Palmyra, which should be an alarm for all parties involved in the Syrian war.
