Syrian regime reaps the benefits of ‘third forces’

By the end of this year, the Syrian rebels will probably lose control of all the major population areas they currently hold. The insurgency might resemble the state it was in before the summer of 2012, when the rebels contested and did not hold populous strongholds.
The problem for the opposition is that the realities today are different from those in 2012. The rebels’ most committed backers are largely out of the picture. The regime’s sponsors increasingly dictate the rules and the rise of the war’s "third forces" – from ISIL and Al Qaeda to the Kurdish militia YPG – is providing Bashar Al Assad with new opportunities.
First, consider the rebels’ performance over the past three years. They lost Raqqa, Deir Ezzor and Hasaka to ISIL and Homs and Aleppo to the regime. They expanded their territory in 2015 after a string of gains against the government forces in Idlib.
The rebels’ remaining populated strongholds, Idlib and Deraa, face uncertainty in the coming months.
In Idlib, foreign aid to the non-jihadist rebels was cut off three weeks ago after Al Qaeda launched a campaign of consolidation, which involved fighting rivals and confiscating their weapons. The purpose of the campaign by the group, now known as Hay’at Tahrir Al Sham, was to pre-empt any fighting against it and to weaken potential rivals in the only province where it holds sway.
Al Qaeda is poised to further tighten its control of Idlib at the expense of the rebels, for three reasons. Any organised effort against it from inside Idlib has become much more problematic after the group’s pre-emptive campaign, the fragmentation of the rebels there and the cessation of military support. Previously, the United States sought to separate the rebels from Al Qaeda in the north-west. The effort failed due to deep military integration and dependency between the two sides, and there is no reason to believe it is possible now.
The second factor that favours Al Qaeda’s continued consolidation is that Turkey, the most capable country to confront the group due to border proximity and its relationship with the rebels, cannot afford to divert its attention from a far more important fight. Any support for a fight between the rebels and Al Qaeda in Idlib will distract from its attempts to check the rising influence of the YPG. Indeed, pressure against the rebels in Idlib could push them to join the Turkish-backed Euphrates Shield against ISIL and the Kurds.
Third, the regime does not have the resources to launch a campaign to retake Idlib. The regime needed significant support from Hizbollah and Iran, with Russian and American air power, to retake Palmyra a week ago.
Deraa faces a unique fate. The rebels continue to control two thirds of the province, with relatively quiet frontiers except against a resurgent ISIL in the south-west. Al Qaeda is a capable force and proved able to mobilise forces against the regime in the province. Neither ISIL nor Al Qaeda is projected to become dominant players in Deraa. Instead, the military status quo in Deraa will either persist or the regime retakes key areas to secure the city centre and the border crossings near Jordan.
In either scenario, Deraa will cease to be a viable stronghold for challenging the regime. Which brings us to how the regime will benefit, more than how the opposition suffers, as the rebels lose control of major strongholds. This year might be when the regime reaps the benefit of the rise of the "third forces" in the war.

Source: The National