Will Aleppo Become the Capital of a New Caliphate? (Christians and Other Minorities in Peril)
Will Aleppo Become the Capital of a New Caliphate?
byEdward Dark MEE's Aleppo-based columnist who writes under a pseudonym.
Partitioning Syria
This is what the nations who claim to back the Syrian people’s aspirations for freedom and a democratic inclusive state have deemed fit to unleash upon us. After failing to topple the Syrian regime for four years and realising there would never be any political compromise that would fit their goals, they have now decided to partition Syria and facilitate its partial takeover by jihadists.
It doesn’t seem that previous lessons have been learned, with Afghanistan being the prime precedent. You simply cannot deal with and hope to control the jihadi proxies that you are using to fulfil your military ambitions. Quite simply those groups don’t play by the rules, and will turn on you the first chance they get and follow their own ideologically motivated agendas. The repercussions of doing so have always been, and will continue to be, extremely dangerous and profound.
Al-Qaeda was first spawned by backing the same sort of Islamists against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The destabilising fallout is still being felt today, with subsequent manifestations becoming even more violent and extreme, culminating in the Islamic State. Let’s not forget that for many months at the beginning of the Syrian conflict, the precursor to what was to form the Islamic State’s Syrian division was an integral part of the Syrian insurgency named, yes you guessed it, Jabhat al-Nusra. When the “bad al-Qaeda” went rogue, the very powers that today back the “good al-Qaeda” started to bomb it, and to little effect. It is now just a question of when, not if, Nusra becomes the “bad guys” and have to be bombed.
Needless to say, the majority of Syrians refuse the partitioning of their nation and its takeover by extremists under any pretexts. But that this pretext should be “freeing them from tyranny and oppression” is yet another sad little irony in the black comedy that is Syria’s conflict.
This is felt especially acutely in Aleppo, whose helpless people have endured years of a deadly stalemated war that has killed many of them and destroyed all they held precious. It now seems they must again dread the day they will be “conquered” and “liberated” as it would likely mean the loss of what little they still have left of their city, and what little hope they still hold for the future.
Exodus of Minorities
In all likelihood, Aleppo becoming the capital of yet another caliphate would see the majority of its inhabitants abandoning it in droves, and the complete loss of its religious minorities, hence its unique character and identity.
CONTINUED AT:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41975.htm
Crossposted from: The Middle East Eye