End of Week Update on Syria

By David Schenker

Yesterday, the Asad regime organized a mass protest in response to Sunday’s US cross-border raid into Syria targeting a high value Al Qaida figure. The Syrian Government continues to protest the incident. Meanwhile, the US has shuttered the embassy in Damascus based on security concerns.

Five years after the US invasion of Iraq, the US raid in Syria highlights the ongoing problem of Syrian support for Al Qaida. Although numbers of insurgents entering Iraq from Syria have diminished of late—a development related to both modest measures taken by Damascus and the inhospitable environment generated by the Sahwa on the Iraqi side of the border—Syrian Government efforts to stem the flow remain deficient.

I published an article in the Weekly Standard online about Syria and Al Qaida this morning.

In other news, on 16 October, the United Nations issued its 8th semi-annual report on the implementation of UNSCR 1559. Among other points, the report highlighted the continued “porosity” of the Syrian-Lebanese borders that makes it easily penetrable. It cited growing concerns that “weapons and [Al Qaida] fighters continue to flow across the Syrian-Lebanese border.”

In a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar al Jaafri issued a perfunctory denial of the reports’ findings, and—surprise, surprise—dismissed the information underpinning the UN report as supplied by Israel.

TrackBack