Iraqi militia
fighters are pouring into Syria to reinforce the Assad regime’s siege of rebels
in Aleppo, further complicating the tangled web of alliances the U.S. relies on
to
fight Islamic State, which can turn an ally on one side of the border into
an enemy on the other.
The Shiite militias,
who have fought alongside U.S.-backed Iraqi government forces against Islamic
State in Iraq, are now fighting Syrian Sunni rebels, some of them armed and
trained by the U.S.
More than 1,000
Iraqi Shiite militants have traveled from Iraq since early September, joining
the ranks of as many as 4,000 others already on the ground near Aleppo, the
militia leaders and Syrian rebels said. They make up about half of the regime’s
estimated ground force of 10,000.
The siege they are
helping to enforce has tilted the battle there in favor of President Bashar
al-Assad, whose ruling Alawite sect has drawn on fellow Shiite powers to shore
up government forces depleted by deaths, defections and attrition over five
years of war: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia
and Afghan Shiite fighters.
The regime, along
with its ally Russia, has been heavily bombarding rebel areas of the divided
city over the past few weeks. The offensive has killed hundreds, including
scores of children, and caused the collapse this week of joint U.S.-Russian
efforts to forge a lasting cease-fire and restart talks on a political solution
In an update on the
Aleppo situation published on Tuesday, the United Nations Office for
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said living conditions for the roughly
quarter of a million people in besieged neighborhoods of eastern Aleppo have
deteriorated, and “an assessment conducted in eastern Aleppo city concluded
that 50% of the inhabitants expressed willingness to leave if they can.”
Hashem al-Mosawwi, a
commander of the Iraqi Shiite militia Al Nujaba, or “The Noble Ones,” said his
group deployed 1,000 fighters to Aleppo in September—the latest influx of Shiite
fighters in recent weeks—and that he sees their involvement as part of a larger
regional struggle against terrorism. Other militia leaders said they also sent
fighters recently, without giving numbers.
Mr. Mosawwi claimed
the rebels in Aleppo are part of an extremist Sunni axis sponsored by Saudi
Arabia and the U.S.
“Those…terrorist
groups cause all problems in the region and the world and they should be
stopped,” he said, naming several Sunni opposition groups in Syria he deems
synonymous with the Sunni extremists of Islamic State. The Syrian opposition is
dominated by the country’s Sunni majority.
Fox News
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