In Syria, a ruthless dictator is under siege. Will anyone step up to save him?
Across northern and central Syria this week, families who’ve been torn apart by more than a decade of civil war have been holding joyous reunions.
“I didn’t believe it, it was very emotional,” said Ismail Alabullah, a volunteer with the Syrian NGO the White Helmets, as he described returning to the city of Aleppo for the first time since 2013 and reuniting with his sister.
“I couldn’t believe I was seeing her again,” he told CBC News from northern Syria. “I lost my brother, my mother and father over the past two years — I couldn’t say goodbye to any of them. Now, it’s just me and my sister.”
The White Helmets, a first responders’ group best-known for rescuing and evacuating civilians from active war zones, are considered arch enemies of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Since 2016, Assad’s forces have controlled Aleppo. But with his army now retreating from territory where just days ago it seemed to be firmly in charge, families stranded on opposite sides of the front lines are able to be together again.
Dynamic situation
After years of stalemate, Syria’s map of control is being redrawn almost by the hour.
First, Aleppo — a city of more than 2.3 million people and the second-largest in the country — fell to opposition forces on Nov. 27. In the days that followed, so did many towns to the south.
On Thursday, Assad’s forces abandoned the strategic centre of Hama when rebel forces pushed in.
Most observers expect an assault on a key Assad power base — the city of Homs, 40 kilometres to the south of Hama — is only hours away.
If opposition forces are successful, the move would cut off Assad’s strongholds along the Syrian coast from the capital, Damascus.
“It’s clear that the regime itself cannot defend these territories,” said Haid Haid, a Syria analyst with Chatham House, a London-based think-tank.
Damaged army vehicles rested on roadsides in Hama, Syria, on Friday after Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham rebels captured the city.
This conclusion leads to inevitable speculation over whether Assad’s government may be hurtling faster than almost anyone expected toward its demise, after surviving years of intense fighting in a civil war.
“No one can give any absolute answers,” Haid told CBC News from Istanbul. “I think it’s safe to say that Assad is not 100 per cent secure, but no one knows when and if the regime will collapse completely.”
Political dynasty
Assad and his family have ruled Syria with an iron fist for more than 50 years. Since he took over as president in 2000 after his father’s death, the UN says Assad’s forces have killed more than 350,000 opponents, jailed and tortured countless thousands more and used banned nerve gas on opposition towns to deter any challengers to his rule.
In 2011, Syria was rocked by anti-Assad protests, inspired by anti-regime demonstrations across the wider region, known as the Arab Spring.
Assad responded with a violent crackdown that evolved into a full-scale civil war. By 2015, opposition groups — and forces of the Islamic State (IS) — had seized vast swaths of the country. But intervention from Russia turned the tide.
A devastating aerial bombing campaign by Vladimir Putin’s forces secured Assad’s position, but at a horrendous cost. Humanitarian groups accused Russia and Syria of war crimes for indiscriminately bombing civilians using cluster munitions.
After a concerted effort led by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces in the east — and with help from Russia — IS was eventually pushed back into a few pockets in the desert.
Since 2016, the battle lines of the conflict have remained largely in stasis, with Assad’s Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in control of most of the country’s major cities.
Major successes
In Idlib province, next to Turkey, forces belonging to a one-time al-Qaeda spinoff, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have controlled most of the territory. And the group has spearheaded most of the battlefield successes over the past 10 days.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has been listed as a terrorist entity by Canada since 2013. But more recently, its 42-year-old leader, Abu Muhammed al-Jolani, has disavowed any connection with the group or its radical ideology.
In a social media post on Thursday, HTS unusually referred to him by his given name — Ahmad al-Shara — rather than al-Jolani, which he uses in military settings. This appeared to showcase him as a statesman or politician rather than the leader of a banned militia.
Al-Jolani also gave a rare interview to a Western media outlet, telling CNN his goal is to overthrow Assad’s regime and replace it with a new government for all Syrians.
The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think-tank that studies global conflict zones, noted that a major reason HTS has gained territory so rapidly has been its willingness to negotiate deals with local communities to avoid fighting.
ISW said two majority-Christian towns and one largely Shia city had all come to agreements with HTS, allowing the group’s fighters to avoid costly combat in rural areas.
Longtime Syria watcher Charles Lister, who publishes a weekly newsletter on the Syrian conflict, has written that HTS has built a formidable diplomatic presence beyond its base in Idlib province, by engaging with local Syrian tribes and other social bodies to improve the group’s outreach.
Lister says as a result, there have been few clashes with other Syrian opposition groups — particularly the powerful Kurds — as HTS’s forces have moved rapidly through the countryside.
Finally, Lister says al-Jolani has attempted to “replicate a sovereign government” in Idlib province, with HTS issuing ID cards, administering the banking system and taking on many of the functions usually performed by municipalities.
Nonetheless, HTS’s listing as a terror entity has put NGOs and Western governments in a challenging position, with most unwilling to directly help the group, resulting in a worsening humanitarian situation in places such as Aleppo.
Ismail Alabduallah, the White Helmet worker, told CBC News the city is already seeing food shortages.
“The situation is very difficult. Some NGOs we co-ordinate with have this responsibility, and now no one is distributing bread every day in Aleppo,” he said. “They are working to make the bakeries operate again as before.”
Foreign actors
With the city of Homs, another key power base for Assad, just a half-hour drive away from advancing HTS forces, the key question is whether any of the regime’s allies will intervene militarily to stop the latest opposition push.
The Iranian government has reportedly ordered some of the militias it controls in neighbouring Iraq to cross the border to help its ally Assad. But their presence on the battlefield has yet to be felt.
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said Thursday that his group will help Assad, and there reports that what the group calls “supervising forces” arrived in Syria overnight.
Until recently, Iran-backed Hezbollah was arguably the most powerful militia in the Middle East. But Israeli assassinations of its top leadership and an immense aerial campaign against its fighters in southern Lebanon have severely weakened the group.
One neighbour Assad won’t be able to count on is Turkey. Its government has been a major supplier of weapons and money to several opposition groups, and on Friday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he hopes the Syrian opposition forces continue to make gains.
That leaves Vladimir Putin, who most observers credit with saving Assad the last time opposition forces encroached in 2016.
“It’s not clear where Moscow is heading or what its main priority is at this point,” said Chatham House’s Haid Haid.
Russian bombing of the Aleppo area and of the key approaches to Homs has resumed in recent days, but with Putin’s war in Ukraine a drain on its combat resources, Russia’s options for intervention may be limited.
Russia has leased a naval base in the Syrian city of Tartus since the 1970s. It also has a sizeable airbase outside Latakia, further to the north.
Both could be vulnerable to opposition forces if Assad’s lines continue to collapse.
Haid Haid says even if Assad manages to fend off the opposition advances, Russia has already emerged as one of major losers of renewed fighting.
“Russia’s past victories have been forgotten now because of the recent defeat of regime forces,” he said. “It means Russia has not been able to support its allies.”
Published at Tue, 03 Dec 2024 01:04:24 +0000
TikTok loses bid in appeal court to halt law that could lead to U.S. ban
A U.S. federal appeals court panel on Friday unanimously upheld a law that could lead to a ban of TikTok in a few short months, handing a resounding defeat to the popular social media platform as it fights for its survival in the U.S.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied TikTok’s petition to overturn the law — which requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned by mid-January — and rebuffed the company’s challenge of the statute, which it argued had ran afoul of the First Amendment.
“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” said the court’s opinion, which was written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.”
TikTok and ByteDance — another plaintiff in the lawsuit — are expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, though it’s unclear whether the court will take up the case.
“The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue,” TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” Hughes said.
Unless stopped, Hughes argued the statute “will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025.”
Trump could offer a lifeline
Though the case is squarely in the court system, its also possible the two companies might be thrown some sort of a lifeline by U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok during his first term but said during the most recent presidential campaign that he is now against doing so.
The law, signed by U.S. President Joe Biden in April, was the culmination of a years-long saga in Washington over the short-form video-sharing app, which the government sees as a national security threat due to its connections to China.
The U.S. has said it’s concerned about TikTok collecting vast swaths of user data, including sensitive information on viewing habits, that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion.
Officials have also warned the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who they say can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect — a concern mirrored by the European Union on Friday as it scrutinizes the video-sharing app’s role in the Romanian elections.
TikTok, which sued the U.S. government over the law in May, has long denied it could be used by Beijing to spy on or manipulate Americans. Its attorneys have accurately pointed out that the U.S. hasn’t provided evidence to show that the company handed over user data to the Chinese government, or manipulated content for Beijing’s benefit in the U.S.
They have also argued the law is predicated on future risks, which the U.S. Department of Justice has emphasized pointing in part to unspecified action it claims the two companies have taken in the past due to demands from the Chinese government.
TikTok has also faced increasing hurdles on this side of the border, with Canada’s own government — citing national security concerns — recently forcing the company to shutter its Canadian operations, though usage of the app is still allowed. In response, TikTok said it would challenge the order in court.
Prior to that, Ottawa banned the app from federal government devices in 2023. Similar bans have occurred at the provincial and territorial government levels.
Two years ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Canada’s electronic spy agency was watching for security threats from the app.
Court heard oral arguments in September
Friday’s ruling came after the appeals court panel, composed of two Republican and one Democrat appointed judges, heard oral arguments in September.
TikTok has lost its bid to strike down a ruling that could result in the platform being banned in the United States.
In the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, the panel appeared to grapple with how TikTok’s foreign ownership affects its rights under the Constitution and how far the government could go to curtail potential influence from abroad on a foreign-owned platform. On Friday, all three of them denied TikTok’s petition.
In the court’s ruling, Ginsburg, a Republican appointee, rejected TikTok’s main legal arguments against the law, including that the statute was an unlawful bill of attainder or a taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
He also said the law did not violate the First Amendment because the government is not looking to “suppress content or require a certain mix of content” on TikTok.
“Content on the platform could in principle remain unchanged after divestiture, and people in the United States would remain free to read and share as much PRC propaganda (or any other content) as they desire on TikTok or any other platform of their choosing,” Ginsburg wrote, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China.
Judge Sri Srinivasan, the chief judge on the court, issued a concurring opinion.
Some U.S. lawmakers celebrate ruling
TikTok’s lawsuit was consolidated with a second legal challenge brought by several content creators — for which the company is covering legal costs — as well as a third one filed on behalf of conservative creators who work with a nonprofit called BASED Politics Inc. Other organizations, including the Knight First Amendment Institute, had also filed amicus briefs supporting TikTok.
“This is a deeply misguided ruling that reads important First Amendment precedents too narrowly and gives the government sweeping power to restrict Americans’ access to information, ideas, and media from abroad,” said Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the organization. “We hope that the appeals court’s ruling won’t be the last word.”
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, lawmakers who had pushed for the legislation celebrated the court’s ruling.
“I am optimistic that President Trump will facilitate an American takeover of TikTok to allow its continued use in the United States and I look forward to welcoming the app in America under new ownership,” said Republican Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, chair of the House Select Committee on China.
Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who co-authored the law, said “it’s time for ByteDance to accept” the law.
To assuage concerns about the company’s owners, TikTok says it has invested more than $2 billion US to bolster protections around U.S. user data.
The company has also argued the government’s broader concerns could have been resolved in a draft agreement it provided the Biden administration more than two years ago during talks between the two sides. It has blamed the government for walking away from further negotiations on the agreement, which the Justice Department argues is insufficient.
Attorneys for the two companies have claimed it’s impossible to divest the platform commercially and technologically. They also say any sale of TikTok without the coveted algorithm — the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities would likely block under any divestiture plan — would turn the U.S. version of TikTok into an island disconnected from other global content.
Published at Fri, 06 Dec 2024 21:21:19 +0000
