What is Russia’s Strategy in Syria & Why does Egypt Approve?

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http://www.juancole.com/2015/10/russias-strategy-approve.html

What is Russia’s Strategy in Syria & Why does Egypt Approve?
By Juan Cole | Oct. 8, 2015

Russian MiGs for the first time on Wednesday gave close air support to the Syrian Arab Army as it attacked rebels north of Homs. The Russians also continued their airstrikes against rebel-held Idlib Province. And, the Russians for the first time launched cruise missiles from warships in the Caspian Sea on rebel targets. Over the past week and a half, Russian strategy is becoming apparent.



The US State Department says it is bewildered by Egypt’s support for the Russian airstrikes on rebels in Syria. But virtually all the rebel groups who amount to anything militarily in Syria are hard line fundamentalists, and Egypt’s generals made a coup against Egypt’s own Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. So the officers are not sympathetic to Syrian Muslim Brethren who have become more radical and are trying to overthrow a government. Since Saudi Arabia and its allies on the Gulf Cooperation Council bankroll the regime in Egypt and since they fund the Salafi hardliners in Syria, there may be some friction between Cairo and Riyadh over this difference. But the Saudis also did want the officers to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Saudis see as a populist loose cannon, so the situation is very complex. Probably the Saudis don’t mind if the Russians bomb the Muslim Brotherhood groups, but do mind if they bomb the Salafis, who model themselves on Saudi Wahhabism and are loyal to the monarchy.

The Russian intervention was not provoked by Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) but by the al-Qaeda-led coalition ‘the Army of Conquest’. It groups The Support Front or al-Qaeda in Syria– which reports to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the mastermind of 9/11 — with other hard line Salafi fundamentalist groups such as the Freemen of Syria (Ahrar al-Sham). The latter rejects democracy and is willing to turn over religious minorities like the Druze to al-Qaeda, with predictable results.

Al-Qaeda and its allies took the northern province of Idlib away from more moderate rebels last November, and then this spring took the key cities of Idlib (the provincial capital) and Jisr al-Shughour, the town that serves as a gateway to Latakia to the West.

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1. KnR. nt