What Do Syrian Rebels Think of the Cease-Fire?

[eridani]

http://www.thenation.com/article/what-do-syrian-rebels-think-of-the-cease-fire/

? “The Russians will continue to bomb us and claim they are hitting ISIS or Nusra,” the battlefield leader in the Islamist-leaning armed coalition tells The Nation. His group has received training from Saudi Arabia and is supported by Turkey but has been losing ground and taking heavy casualties, flanked by regime forces to the south and ISIS to the east. “The regime can’t be trusted,” he says bitterly, about the proposed agreement.

He says no decision has been taken by his military and political leadership on whether to sign on to the truce, but he believes they will do so because of the desperation of their situation in Aleppo. The province was a key political, military, and strategic stronghold of the uprising against the Assad regime. As the popular revolt of 2011 turned into a regional conflict, Aleppo became essential for NATO and Gulf countries to supply their Syrian proxies with weapons and other supplies.

? Now, Abu Aziz warns that Aleppo, Syria’s most populous governorate and its second-largest city, is on the verge of falling, with much of it having been retaken by Assad’s forces and part of it by jihadi groups, including ISIS. His description sounds like an ideal situation for Assad, who in the early days of the revolution released jihadists from government prisons as his regime cracked down on mass anti-authoritarian protests. Since then, Assad has deliberately denied the existence of the popular, non-jihadi opposition and labeled all opponents as terrorists.

The Syrian Kurdish nationalist forces, called the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, nominally oppose Assad but have also engaged in hostilities with anti-regime as well as jihadi groups. They have taken advantage of the vacuum created by the Russian air assault to seize border areas. For the Kurds, it is seen as an opportunity to expand their autonomous zones in Syria even as Turkey has started shelling the YPG as its forces advance in Aleppo. At the same time, Turkish government and security forces continue a brutal crackdown on Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Kurdish population in southeastern Turkey, which are closely allied with but separately organized from the YPG.

[delrem]

1. Listen up USA: what you are doing is disgraceful.

Nobody believes that your mercenary armies are "moderate", and benign.

All of what you've done to the middle east over the past decade and more is a crime.

Stop it.