Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria and allied rebel groups have taken control of two key army bases in the northern province of Idlib, activists say.Members of al-Nusra Front, Jund al-Aqsa and units of the Free Syria Army (FSA), captured Wadi al-Deif base on Monday after launching an offensive on Sunday.Ahrar al-Sham later joined their assault on the nearby Hamidiya base.Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad had until now managed to repel a number of assaults on the facilities.Situated outside the town of Maarat al-Numan and next to the country's main north-south motorway, they have been surrounded since 2012.
Consider the overall scenario: al-Nusra had that meeting last month in the northern Syrian farmhouse at which it set aside its differences with ISIS to cooperate in pursuit of their common goal. Moderate anti-Assad forces have been pretty much put out of business. And the Assad regime is, as we know, allied with Iran.
In other words, there seems to be no chance that anything other than a Sunni jihadist alliance or a, Iranian-led Shiite jihadist alliance will prevail in Syria. And further consider that post-America is going through the central Baghdad government in Iraq to get weapons and training to anti-ISIS forces - such as the Kurds - in Iraq, a policy that greatly hampers the ability of actual forces on the ground to make any headway against ISIS in that country.
There is, of course, the "let-those-two-knuclehead-sides-pummel-each-other-it's-not-our-fight" foreign policy view among some of the post-American masses. The problem is that each side - the Sunni jihadists and the Shiite jihadists - has destruction of the West as its ultimate aim. Both have well-armed and well-financed terror networks.
There are ways to prevent what each of them wants to do, but, at this late date, it requires measures that are pretty dire compared to the array of options we had a few years ago.
Have a nice day.
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