In this post we shall finish investigating the second level of analysis of the Kantian framework, i.e. how states in their relationships with one another and also with their citizens should behave in their pursuit of democracy and if this leads to war or not, as could happen in the case of Syria, and finally look at the third level, humankind.
The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No118, 19 September 2013
If the situation in the Middle East definitely requires to be paid attention to, the East and the Far East deserve no less, as Japan seeks to change its constitution, India continues to try asserting and expanding its role, and Central Asia is increasingly entrenched as a crucial geopolitical node. Meanwhile, news and studies regarding the adverse impact of climate change are at odds with some trends in energy security and with the tale according to which “rich countries” will be less hurt, while monetary policies, notably quantitative easing, remain controversial.
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Democracy: the Key to Avoiding Future Wars? (2)
In the Kantian framework, different kinds of agents pursue democracy at three levels: the individuals within a nation, the states in their relationships with one another and also with their citizens, and humankind. In this article, we shall look at how individuals within a nation should behave if they want to truly abide by democratic principles.
Should they rebel and when? Should they support war, and which type of war if any?
This article is the second part of a series reflecting upon Democracy, especially its link to war, in the framework of events, notably regarding Syria, Egypt and the “Arab Awakening” but also the 2010s European and American opposition movements. The first article can be read here, and the next and final one here.
The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No117, 12 September 2013
While a violent battle to win the minds through information, misinformation, manipulation, and deception is at work around Syria, the international order is changing out of the interactions between players. Will the post-1945 order prove resilient enough or are we heading towards a system that will look more like a 19th century Europe, or shall we see emerging something more complex including elements of “Middle-Age geopolitics and geostrategy”? The dire state of public finances across many countries, poverty and inequality, which have not disappeared far from it, the widespread distrust in governments existing in many Western countries, on the one hand, the evolution of the war in Syria, on the ground, on the other, are elements that should not be forgotten but, on the contrary, integrated to take any informed decision in the present and to attempt any judgement on the future.
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Democracy: the Key to Avoiding Future Wars? (1)
Increasingly, the world seems to be fertile in war, upheavals and violent events, surrounded by heated controversies and very often by an absence of neutrality in the media.
The international community is divided. As a result, informed and balanced judgements are difficult to achieve. Taking political decisions is thus even harsher than usual, bringing to the fore the cruel dilemma that are so often at the core of international politics.
In 2013, the Tamarod (Tamarrud) movement in Egypt rose and succeeded, ushering real-life battles and a corresponding debate regarding the democratic or non-democratic credentials of the resulting Egyptian government, with considerable impacts in terms of international perceptions, alliances and actions. Ukraine saw domestic protests with then unforeseen consequences.
In the same year, the battle of ideas and principles surrounding the use of chemical weapons in Syria and the international responses that ought to follow was bitter, embedded in psychological warfare.
In this light, it is useful – and necessary – to stop, think and reflect on the idea of democracy and its relationship to violence and ultimately war. What is a democracy? What does it mean to behave and act according to its principles? What does it mean for a citizen and what does it mean for a state? Are democracies more peaceful than other regimes? How should democracies act and react in the international world?
Henri Kissinger wrote that “The idea that peace depends above all on promoting democratic institutions has remained a staple of American thought to the present day. Conventional American wisdom has consistently maintained that democracies do not make war against each other.”[0] The idea according to which “democracies almost never fight each other” has been studied from different theoretical perspectives by many scholars in International Relations. For example, Singer and Small used an empirical framework in 1976 and 1982, Doyle reintroduced the Kantian philosophy for its explanatory and predictive power in 1983, Lake attempted to use a model of micro-economy in 1991, and a host or articles followed suite in the 1990s.[1] Multiple explanatory reasons have been given, which are never completely satisfying.
We shall first review the concepts involved and define a theoretical framework. We shall then analyze and answer the question according to the different levels where democracy is practiced: the individuals within a nation, the states in their relationships with one another and also with their citizens, and humankind.[2]
Concepts and Theoretical Framework
First, what is Democracy? Empirically, it is a relative concept, changing with time and space: for example, the American Democracy of the beginning of the 19th century, accepting slavery, or France, before 1945, when women were forbidden to vote, would not be considered nowadays as democracies. Democracy is a social construct and does not exist per se.
Second, the adjective “future” refers to something that is neither present nor past, to something that does not exist yet, if we place ourselves in the western linear definition of time. Even by restricting in such a way the concept of future, to which future are we referring? Do we think about tomorrow, to the next ten years or to what will happen in a millennium?
Third, the concept of war is equally difficult to define. Do we take into consideration any “direct, somatic violence between states?”[3] Do we include economic warfare? Do we consider domestic warfare such as rebellion, revolution? Do we include asymmetric warfare and conflicts between different categories of actors (states and would-be state actors for example)?
Do we introduce the quantitative threshold criteria often used of “at least 1000 battle fatalities?”[4] Or shall we prefer the criteria used by the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset (1946 – 2012, v.4-2013 – see version history), according to which “A conflict, both state-based and non-state, is deemed to be active if there are at least 25 battle-related deaths per calendar year in one of the conflict’s dyads.”
Alternatively, shall we prefer a definition that focuses on process and conflict dynamics, as chosen by the Conflict Barometer of the University of Heidelberg, and according to which “a political conflict is a positional difference, regarding values relevant to a society (the conflict items), between at least two decisive and directly involved actors, which is being carried out using observable and interrelated conflict measures that lie outside established regulatory procedures and threaten core state functions, the international order or hold out the prospect to do so” (2012: 120).
The difficulty is increased by the presence of the adjective future: Future wars may take a form we are unable to imagine nowadays.
Finally, an action implies in turn an agent. Which agent tries to reach or abide by democracy? Is it the individual, some group of individuals, the state, the international system?
Our theoretical framework must allow us to define our concepts while taking into account evolution, change and progress. Thus, rather than focusing on forms that are relative, we must strive to identify the core principle, the idea behind the multiple and contingent forms.
Following on Doyle, Kantian philosophy answers best our criteria: first, by distinguishing between the phenomenal and the noumenal world, Kant answers the problem of relativity and change.[5] Second Kant takes into account the notion of progress and of dynamism. Third, as most non-realist scholars recognize, Kant best explains – and predicts – the linkage between democracy (as a representative republic) and war.[6] In this framework we can now redefine our question.
The political system “Democracy” is based upon the principle of universal right, itself
“an application of the universal principle of morality.”[7]
It believes in morally autonomous equal in rights, and free individuals. It is defined as
A constitution allowing the greatest possible freedom in accordance with laws, which ensure that the freedom of each can coexist with the freedom of all the others.[8]
From those principles come the political institutions toward which a democracy should tend: a representative republic allowing for the separation of the legislative, executive and judiciary powers.
Thus to live in a democracy and to be democratic, or to become a democracy, cannot only be about a form. This means, among others, that the current focus on elections is inadequate. It demands to adopt and practice the democratic principles. This, in turn, can only be made if adherence to the universal principles of rights and morality is practiced. It is meant to be an ongoing effort and pursuit because, whatever the agent (individual, movement, party, group, state) considered, this agent is every day confronted to new choices when s/he can decide – as a free agent – to act democratically or not.
The definition we shall retain for “war” stems from the previous principles. It will be any kind of violence that threatens the principle of universal right and thus the external freedom of human beings (“freedom from any constraint except coercion by law, a freedom which allows each individual to pursue his own ends, whatever they may be, provided that this pursuit leaves the same kind of freedom to all others” Reiss: 22). Domestically, civil strive and internecine violence, the very reasons why human beings entered Democracy as they wanted to avoid them, are thus included. At the level of states, we have interstate wars.
This definition also allows us to include economic warfare. If the economic actions of one state toward another imply violence and are such that they deny external freedom to the members of the other state, this may be considered as an act of economic warfare. For example, we could “imagine” a state (or a powerful economic actor) A pushing a state B by means of tied bilateral aid to abandon its survival traditional agriculture for the monoculture of a product interesting A. The condition of self-dependency into which B would be reduced by accepting such a proposal would already question the external freedom of its citizens. Nevertheless, let us assume that B genuinely believes in cooperation. Now, if A decides for any reason not to buy anymore from B, this decision might be considered as economic warfare: the citizens of B are exposed to the violence of starvation and death. Their external freedom has been denied. We can point out too that A has respected neither the principles of universal right nor the categorical imperative. This questions obviously directly the use of GMOs and the practice of companies such as Monsanto, as well as the patents on traditional medicines. Ecological warfare can be examined in the same manner. Similarly, conflicts across levels can be included.
Now that our concepts are defined, we shall analyze the question through the different kinds of agents who pursue democracy: the individuals within a nation, the states in their relationships with one another and also with their citizens, and humankind.[9]
To be followed here…
Notes
[0] Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, (New York: Touchstone, 1994), p.44.
[1] Singer and Small quoted in Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War Order, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), Michael Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs” Part I and II, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1983, vol. 12, Nos. 3 & 4, pp. 205-235 & pp. 323-353; David Lake, “Powerful Pacifists: Democratic States and War,” American Political Science Review, March 1992, Vol. 86, No. 1, pp. 24-37; James Lee Ray, “Does Democracy cause Peace?”, Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 1998. 1:27-46.
[2] See Immanuel Kant “Perpetual Peace: a Philosophical Sketch,” in Kant: Political Writings edited by Hans Reiss, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), note p.98. Each level corresponds respectively to the civil right (ius civitatis), the international right (ius gentium) and the cosmopolitan right (ius cosmopoliticum). Note that these levels are very similar to the classical three levels of analysis of international relations. I added the relationship of the state with its citizens to the second level, although not specifically mentioned by Kant, because the agent “state” acts domestically as well as internationally.
[3] Graham Evans & Jeffrey Newham, The Dictionary of World Politics: a Reference Guide to Concepts, Ideas and Institutions, (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992), p. 339.
[4] Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace referring to Small and Singer, p.12.
[5] Doyle, Ibid. For the phenomenal and noumenal worlds, see Hans Reiss, “Introduction,” in Kant: Political Writings edited by Hans Reiss, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 17. The relativity of core values should be studied in broader debates, such as cosmopolitan versus communitarian. The deep beliefs concerning “the permanent nature of man” as writes Pierre Hassner play an important role in the elaboration of theories and should be an interesting axis of research. Yet, this does not imply the validity of theses such as “The Clash of Civilizations” by Huntington: for example, in the Chinese philosophy, it may be interesting to study if Taoism versus Confucianism can be considered as a version of Cosmopolitanism versus Communitarianism. Similarities can be found between religions (compare for example the 40 days Jesus Christ spent in the desert and the temptation he had to fight with the meditation of Gautama (future Bouddha) and the way Mâra (Evil) tried to tempt him or compare again the messianic dimension of Vishnou with the concept of Boddhisatva, with the judeo-christian Messiah, and with the Islam concept of prophetes). Correspondances exist between mythologies (compare for example the Egyptian Thot with the Latin/Greek Hermes/Mercury and with the Norse Odin) and folktales. See also the astonishing similarities of the Kantian and the Buddhist cosmologies. All these similarities are contrary to irreconcilable differences of values between civilizations.
[6] Kant, Perpetual Peace, First Definitive Article, pp. 100-101.
[7] Reiss, ibid. p. 23.
[8] Ibid., quoting Kant, p.23.
[9] See [2] above.
The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No110, 25 July 2013
Horizon Scanning for National Security
Over the summer the Weekly will not be edited. Click on the image or on the link to read the full version on Paper.Li.
The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No109, 18 July 2013
Horizon Scanning for National Security
Over the summer the Weekly will not be edited. Click on the image or on the link to read the full version on Paper.Li.
Report – Potential Futures for Syria in the Fog of War
Besides being a humanitarian disaster, the Syrian war is redrawing the strategic outlook of the region and presents serious and rising challenges to regional and global peace and stability. Meanwhile, the fog of war makes foresight and warning more difficult.
This 2013 report presents three main scenarios (leading to ten sub-scenarios) for the future of Syria and prospects for peace within the next five years, after describing the state of play and the actors on the Syrian battlefield. To consider the fog of war, it identifies indicators to monitor that impact the likelihood of each scenario and sees the scenarios as a dynamic set, where one potential future can morph into another out of an evolving state of play.
The series of posts on Syria, published between 15 April and 8 July 2013, were revised and adapted to constitute this report.
The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No108, 11 July 2013
A glimpse into the future? As expected last week, the Egyptian events have already started impacting the world. Influence is rising and falling not only within the Arab World but also internationally, with what appears to be an American struggle to make sense of the events and respond adequately and a steadfast Russian foreign policy. Tension also rises with attacks in the Sinai, while a new outlook for the Syrian opposition could well be emerging. Domestically, the Tamarod approach reaches not only Tunisia but also Libya. Meanwhile, on twitter, the connection has started being made between Turkey and Egypt, each side supporting its counterpart in the other country.
Things seem however far from being settled in Egypt, as in the rest of the world. If the choice of El-Beblawi as Prime Minister is to mean also IMF remedies resembling the structural reforms that were applied in the 1980s or more recently what was done to Greece, then the likelihood to see further uprisings and unrest in Egypt would increase. Meanwhile, Greek citizens could very well turn to Egypt as model and reinterpret the Tamarod movement and what followed according to their own needs. The never-ending economic crisis, heightened by rising security issues linked to climate change could also spread unrest to more countries, now that a way forward in agreement with Democratic values has been found. Meanwhile, the religious approach and movements could also be strengthened and radicalized by the same causes.
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Evaluating Forces on the Syrian Battlefield
Having an idea of the forces fighting on the battlefield in Syria is crucial to understand the state of play, to follow the course of the war, to evaluate the impact of the decisions taken by external players, and to estimate the likelihood to see one scenario (or one of its variations) happening. To obtain the best possible understanding of the theater of war other elements such as training, armament*, command and control situation, etc. should ideally also be considered. Yet, fighting women and men remain a crucial and foremost component.
Here is a synthesis of the various estimates found for each warring group, as it is only when they are seen together that they take their full meaning. Before to enter into details for each group, the graphics below (click on an image to enlarge) aim first at summarizing and representing visually the relative scale of the various forces. Second, those forces are seen in the light of a Syrian population that would have grown increasingly divided along sectarian lines by the war, with consequences in terms of creating a future peace as well as in terms of strategies of mobilization and “population control”.
How many fighters belong to the Supreme Joint Military Command Council (SJMCC or SMC)?
Moderates or all opposition forces
This is a crucial question, however a very difficult one. If we use David Ignatius estimates for the Washington Post, we read that “Idriss and his Free Syrian Army command about 50,000 more fighters, rebel sources say” (Ignatius, 3 April 2013). Lund (4 April 2013), in his comment on Ignatius’ article for Syria Comment, questions this estimates, considering the complexity and fluidity of the situation on the ground. O’Bagy, in her detailed report on the FSA does not include a global estimate.
Lund in his article on the FSA (16 March 2013) underlines that “If all the factions which have declared in favor of Idriss were added up, they’d count at least 50,000 men, perhaps many more.” However, as he stresses, those groups include some that belong too to other nexus, such as Suqour el-Sham that is part of the Syria Liberation Front (SLF) also known as the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (SILF). Thus, if we are looking at the number of fighters who are “moderate,” then one should substract from the 50.000 all those men who fight first for other groups, and thus are only very loosely affiliated with the SMC.
Keeping this in mind, the International Center for the Study of Radicalisation (ICRS) gives the figure of 60,000 men as “the most conservative estimate for the current [April 2013] size of rebel forces” in his Insight: European Foreign Fighters in Syria. At the opposite end of the spectrum, one finds an AFP article (13 April 2013) emphasizing that “experts say the Free Syrian Army comprises some 140,000 fighters”, but without mention of any source.
We should also consider all those small groups that are mainly local (see here), as it is not clear from given estimates if they are counted or not.
What happened to the defectors?
When trying to find estimates for the FSA and the SMC, counting forces seems to have proceeded according to two stages.
At the beginning of the war, during 2011 and part of 2012, observers and students of the Syrian war were focusing on defectors from the Syrian Army, who led the creation of the Free Syrian Army on 23 September 2011, under the leadership of Colonel Reyad Mousa Al-As’ad. Defectors, both soldiers and officers, were meant to join the FSA, which would constitute the core of the new security forces after the fall of the Al-Assad regime.
However, as underlined by O’Bagy (Ibid: 10-11), using a New York Times article (Liam Stack, 27 October 2011), one of the many problems the FSA had to face was that the command group led by Reyad Mousa Al-As’ad defecting officers were kept in an “officer’s camp” in Turkey that was located far away from the Syrian battlefield. This led to a disconnect between fighting troops and command. Meanwhile, most probably, many soldiers and officers defecting must have joined the forces on the ground. In the same New York Times article, Colonel Al-As’ad “would not specify the number of fighters, saying only that it was more than 10,000, and he was unwilling to disclose the number of battalions, claiming that the group had 18 “announced” battalions and an unspecified number of secret ones. None of his claims could be independently verified.”
This figure of 10,000 would correspond to the estimated number of defectors given by “an American official” on 26 October 2011 (Nada Bakri, Defectors Claim Attack That Killed Syria Soldiers, NYT) and by “sources” (“Western Intelligence agencies”?) in a Haaretz’ article by Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel on 21 December 2011. However, by December 2011, Colonel Al-As’ad claimed that the FSA now counted 20,000 fighters (Safak Timur, AFP, Dec 1, 2011). The uncertainty regarding numbers is well summarized by a 2 December 2011 AlJazeera article: “The group is now believed to number between 1,000 and 25,000 divided over 22 battalions spread across the country.”
Then, observers stopped focusing on defectors and tried to give estimates for the troops fighting more or less loosely under the SMC, the FSA or as “opposition forces”.
Defectors, whatever their number, most probably joined not only the FSA or the SMC according to the time of defection, but also mobilizing or fighting groups according to their family, geographical and religious allegiances and to the fate of the overall force. The less the “structuring” command and control “center” has to offer (including in material terms, such as weapons, logistics etc.), the less it can show its power and strength, the more likely fighters will join or rather give a stronger allegiance to other factions. For example, as reported by Mona Mahmood and Ian Black for the Guardian (8 May 2013), FSA troops have increasingly defected to Al-Nusra during the first part of 2013 (note that defections to salafi-jihadis may be both real and hyped as bargaining chip to obtain more from external support).
Pro Al-Assad regime Forces
Syrian Forces
The pro-Assad Syrian fighting groups are composed of the regular Army and the Republican Guards, as well as pro-Assad militias (both Alawite and composite – Sunni, Christian, Druze), all backed up by the Security Forces and the Police Force. All Alawites should not be considered as supporting the Assad regime, as shows the conference organised in Cairo on 23 March 2013 by Alawites promoting a “democratic alternative” (Reuters).
The details below are summarized from the excellent report by Joseph Holliday, The Assad Regime: from Counterinsurgency to Civil War (March 2013 for the ISW).
Regular Army and Republican Guards
According to Holliday, Al-Assad has a policy of only “electively deploying [t]his loyal core of military supporters.” As a result ”a working estimate of 65,000 to 75,000 loyal, deployable Syrian regime troops emerges” out of “the Syrian Armed Forces, a basis that includes over 300,000 troops (including Air Force and Air defense personnel)” (p.27). From this figure should be removed casualties, estimated by Holliday at 7620 killed and 30500 wounded by end of December 2012 (see table p.28), which represents approximatively half of the regime estimated deployed troops, partially or completely compensated by recruitment (p.29). As underlined by Holliday and the Interntaional Crisis Group, those men are however a “hardcore nucleus of regime supporters”(p.29). A decentralization of command and control, allowing for flexibility and initiative by low- and mid-level officers, according to local conditions, was implemented during the Summer 2012 (Ibid).
Security Forces: The Mukhabarat
(For a more detailed and clear explanation, read Holliday, Appendix 3) They are constituted of four intelligence services, whose “primary mission was to ‘monitor and intervene aggressively against potential domestic threats to the regime’ (Campbell, 2009).” (p.54) However, they are now acting more like militias than like intelligence services (p.30). In addition, each operates its own prisons. Each service is present throughout the whole territory with a branch in each province. Using an interview he realized, Holliday writes that “one former regime insider suggested it [The Mukhabarat] could be as large as 200,000 security officers and personnel, but this figure could include administrative personnel and informants and cannot be verified” (p. 55), and, most probably, not all of them are fighters. (p.30).
Militias or paramilitary forces
- The shabiha: A network of “Mafia-like organizations,” “made up of mostly Alawite criminal smuggling networks led by members of the extended Assad family” (p. 16), but also from other communities origins, when in areas without an Alawite population (p.17).
- Popular Committees, or Lijan sha‘biya becoming the National Defense Forces, or Quwat ad-Difa‘a al-Watani: “Minority populations who have armed themselves to protect their towns and neighborhoods from anti-government fighters” (p.16). They started being trained and ”formalized” as The National defense Forces, or Quwat ad-Difa‘a al-Watani, in early 2013, with Iran’s support (p.31).
- The “People’s Army” or Jaysh al-Sha‘bi: “Institutional militias” have existed in Syria since the early 1980s (then named munazzamat sha‘biya before it became Jaysh al-Sha‘bi in the mid-1980s) (p.16). The “People’s Army” is composed of the best and most trustworthy fighters found in the previous two groups. It has been “trained and supported by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRCG-QF) and Lebanese Hezbollah” (p. 30). It was estimated to include 100.000 fighters at the end of 2011 (Holliday using van Dam, 2011, and IISS Military balance 2011). However, Holliday also mentions that Iranian Commander Mohammed Ali Jafari referred to “50.000 popular forces” in September 2012 (p. 30).
As underlined by Holliday, fear, reprisals, massacres and atrocities of minorities at the hand of extremists may only increase the number of people joining the various militias.
Iran’s action with the militias would support Smyth‘s point (2013), according to which Iran is also preparing for a post al-Assad situation by creating sub-networks within the Syrian Shia community, as well as by supporting other (Sunni) militiamen. Holliday suggested a similar Iranian role in a post al-Assad Syria (p.32).
To the Syrian forces must be added foreign groups such as the Lebanese Hezbollah, groups coming from Iraq with Iranian support such the Mahdi Army (Muqtada al-Sadr’s Liwa al-Yom al-Mauwud), Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force (Ammar Abdulhamid, 2013; Smyth, 2013).
The Hezbollah
At the end of May 2013, the Hezbollah fighters in Syria have been estimated to reach between 3000 to 4000 troops by the French foreign minister and 7000 troops according to General Idriss (Hezbollah fighters ‘invading’ Syria – rebel chief, BBC News, 30 May 2013).
Meanwhile, the leader of the Lebanese Forces (LF) party, Samir Geagea, estimates that the overall number of Hezbollah fighters does “not exceed 5000 soldiers”, as reported by Elie Hajj (Rethinking Hezbollah’s Role in Syria, 18 June 2013, Al-Monitor Lebanon Pulse). According to IRIB World Service (Iran English Radio), that would be using a NATO report (title and link not mentioned), “the Lebanese resistance group maintains a 65,000-strong army, which is difficult to confront.” (NATO concerned over Hezbollah’s might, 13 January 2013, IRIB).
Those fighters constitute a well trained and serious force. As underlined by Nasser Chararah (Hezbollah’s Youth Strategy, 18 June, 2013, Al-Monitor Lebanon Pulse), “”Hezbollah had gone beyond being a huge militia, becoming a large military and professional force that follows a creative organizational and combat approach. This approach combines organizational conduct subjected to tight control and communications, and elite forces with a rich experience in the various types of guerilla fighting. The most prominent characteristic of this force is that a high percentage of its ranks consist of youth with specialized degrees, making it an educated army.”
Iranian forces
As we saw previously, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRCG-QF) have been training the People’s Forces since 2011 and most probably used as advisers. Mid-June 2013, according to Robert Fisk, Iran would have decided “to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad’s forces” (Robert Fisk, 16 June 2013, The Independent on Sunday).
Other groups (mainly Shia)
Abu Fadl al-Abbas Brigade
According to Mona Mahmood, and Martin Chulov, “interviews with serving and former members of Abu Fadl al-Abbas (Facebook Page) suggest that upwards of 10,000 volunteers – all of them Shia Muslims, and many from outside Syria – have joined their ranks in the past year alone.” (Syrian war widens Sunni-Shia schism as foreign jihadis join fight for shrines, 4 June 2013, The Guardian).
Iraq’s main Shia militias: Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah and fighters from the Mahdi Army (Muqtada al-Sadr’s Liwa al-Yom al-Mauwud).
Unknown numbers.
The Forces of the Syrian Kurds
The YPG, People’s Protection Committee, counts between 10000 (interview of Kurdish leader Salih Muslim for the Frankfurter Rundschau, 1 December 2012) and 15000 fighters (“Strategiewechsel der FSA und der islamistischen Kräfte: Krieg gegen Kurden” – no source quoted – 27 May 2013, Die Kurden), according to Wikipedia.
Syrian Sunni factions intending to install an Islamist state in Syria
The Syria Liberation Front (SLF) also known as the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (SILF) factions (Jabhat Tahrir Souriya or Jabhat al-Tahrir al-Souriya al-Islamiya) would count an estimated 37.000 fighters (Ignatius, 2 Avril 2013; see also Lund’s related comment, 3 April 2013).
The Syrian Islamic Front (SIF) (Al-Jabha al-Islamiya al-Souriya) would count between 10.000 and 30.000 fighters (Lund, 2013: 23).
To those figures should be added the unknown number of fighters belonging to other groups.
Sunni extremist factions with a global jihadi agenda
In November 2012, Washington Post David Ignatius, using sources from the FSA, considered Jahbat Al-Nosra or Al-Nusra (JAN) included “between 6,000 and 10,000 fighters.”
However, other groups fighting in Syria have a global Jihadi agenda. Are those other groups actually included within the count for JAN or not? Furthermore we know of the presence of many foreign fighters. Are the latter counted within the figures given for JAN or not? Most importantly, are those figures increasing or decreasing, and if they are increasing, which populations are mobilized?
This is notably important considering the latest arrival of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and its coexisting relationship with JAN (see for a summary Lund, 4 May 2013). Aymen Jawad Al Tamimi evaluates the relationships between JAN and ISIS, where they sometimes designate the same entity, but not always, through a meticulous and thorough regional analyses:
- Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham: Deir ez-Zor and the wider east of Syria;
- Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham in Raqqah: Demonstrations and Counter-Demonstrations;
- Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham: Deraa Governorate.
Unfortunately, no estimates of forces that would be specific to ISIS, according to cases are included. It might be very difficult if not impossible to evaluate them.
* as far as weapons and armament are concerned see notably the incredible research work done on Brown Moses ‘s blog.
