Fall of Syrian town of symbolic importance to Daesh both strategic and moral victory for FSA

Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) captured the northern Syrian town of Dabiq from Daesh on Sunday, a victory of symbolic importance because of a prophecy in one of the Hadith about an apocalyptic battle that will take there between Muslim and non-Muslim armies before the end of the world.

The FSA is an umbrella group for rebels seeking to overthrow President Bashar Assad in a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions, dragging in regional and global powers and creating room for jihadists.
The loss of Dabiq, which featured greatly in Daesh propaganda, underscores the group’s declining fortunes; this year it suffered defeats on the battlefield in both Syria and Iraq, and lost a series of senior leaders in targeted air strikes.
The group, whose lightning advances through swathes of these two countries and declaration that it had established a new caliphate stunned world leaders in 2014, is now bracing itself for an offensive in Mosul, Iraq, its most prized possession.
The FSA fighters, backed by Turkish tanks and warplanes, took Dabiq and neighboring Soran after clashes on Sunday morning, according to Ahmed Osman, head of the Sultan Murad group, one of the FSA factions involved in the fighting.
Speaking to Arab News about the importance of this new development, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashogji said when Daesh was created in 2013, it promoted the idea that it was empowered by divinity to defeat evil on earth, misguiding its followers and making them believe it is on a holy mission to fulfill God's will.
“They tried to make their supporters and loyalists buy their propaganda that their so-called Islamic State will survive to see all Muslim nations unified under their banners,” he said.
“The Daesh myth of the great battle of Dabiq is finished,” said Khashogji, adding that Daesh believed that with the few thousand fighters who responded to its deviant ideology, it will be able to defeat superpowers and nuclear nations.
“ They managed to recruit children and individuals from different societies who are less educated and have almost no knowledge of the reality and the true image of Islam,” he said.
Strategically, said Khashogji, the Turkish project to create a buffer zone is still going on. The Turkish government said that it will work on setting up a 5,000-square-km buffer zone extending from east Aleppo to the west of the Euphrates, inside the Syrian territories, in order to provide a safe haven for Syrian refugees who flee the battles.
The liberation of Dabiq, added to previously liberated lands by the Turkish-backed FSA, gives a strong push to the Turks to move forward with their plans.
Turkey’s campaign has cut the jihadist group off from the Turkish border, long its most reliable entry point for supplies and foreign fighters.
The village of Dabiq, at the foot of a small hill in the fertile plains in northwestern Syria, about 14 km (9 miles) from the Turkish border and 33 km north of Aleppo, has little strategic significance in its own
right.
But Khashogji believes this latest military development is important, as it could restore some balance on the ground as opposed to territories that fall under the Sunni Free Syrian army’s control.
“On the one hand, the Russians are strongly backing Assad regime and bombarding Aleppo, with no worry about civilian causalities, and on the other, the Turkish government does not want to see the US-backed Syrian Kurds making more gains and taking more land under their control. Hence, they opted to support FSA, who have shown so far that they can make progress in fighting Daesh and make progress further inside Syria, winning more lands,” he said.
“No doubt this represents a big blow to ISIS [Daesh] plans and ideologies, as it projects itself as the savior of the Islamic nation and the defender of its principles to its followers in its narrative ever since it emerged, over two years ago,” Amer Sabaileh, a Jordanian geopolitical expert and director of the Mempsi think tank, told Arab News.
“However, losing this city to the Free Syrian Army and the Turkish forces my encourage other extreme ideologies active on the Syrian territories to attempt to fill the void ISIS may leave behind after its complete collapse and continuous loss of cities and towns it still controls,” he added.
Nabil Al-Sharif, Jordan’s former minister of media affairs and communications, told Arab News that many of those who had been brainwashed and fooled by Daesh propaganda and the group's exploitation of religion will definitely revise their support to this extreme terrorist group.
“Not only those who have joined ranks with them and fighting for them, but also those located in other parts of the world who still sympathize with them. The fall of Dabiq will shake the morale of the fighters and it is very possible to see many Daesh members flee and defect,” Al-Sharif said.

Source: Arab News