Global SITREP B2-13: Syria Phase III

UPDATE 24 October 2013: The full-blown international war described in the original 2 October post below has effectively moved into Lebanon where open sectarian warfare between Sunni and Shi'a neighborhoods in Tripoli, Lebanon have raged out of control all week long. Saudi Arabia is warning of full-blown civil war erupting in Lebanon and has directly threatened the Lebanese homes and loved ones of Hezbollah's troops in Syria with "great cost" to be borne if it does not withdraw its forces from supporting Bashar al-Assad's army. Saudi Arabia is now directly targeting Hezbollah in its war against Iran in both the Syrian and Lebanese fields of battle.

8 October 2013: Two or more brigades of Bashar al-Assad's armored divisions were detected moving south from Damascus to assembly areas anticipated to be along the M5 highway. Another armored force appears poised on Highway 7 opposite al-Quneitra. The first battle was engaged at rebel-held Khan Ar-Nabeh, a town 2 miles from the Golan Heights 1974 cease-fire "Line Alpha" of disengagement and no-man's land, and 4 miles from the main highway interchange before al-Quneitra. Not much will remain of Khan Ar-Nabeh after this battle, the southern edge of which lies on the 1974 cease-fire "Line Bravo."

The objective of the Syrian force appears to be to sever the rebels from their Jordanian supply corridors through Dara'a and from medical treatment of its wounded across the Golan in Israel.  This maneuver will present the Syrian army with a "kill box" from the Jordanian border to the mountainous Lebanese frontier in which rebel forces will be trapped and exterminated. Once the maneuvering is completed, and short of any significant foreign intervention, the Syrian force appears likely to achieve this objective and be in a position to deal far more effectively with the newly created Liwa al-Islam put together by Saudi Arabia.

2 October 2013: The war in Syria has finally morphed into the full-blown international war most had hoped would not take shape in the wake of recent U.S. threats of direct intervention and the Russian Federation's military and diplomatic countermeasures against it. 

Now the war has become a battlefield directly pitting Sunni Saudi Arabia against the apocalyptic Shi'a Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran versus Riyadh. It's the same Sunni versus Shi'a inter-Islamic war, but more defined than ever before. The immediate objective of the new Sandi-controlled rebel formations will be full control of the city of Damascus and all of southern and eastern Syria. The central front is headquartered in the Ghouta/Jobar areas of eastern Damascus where the chemical attack of 21 August occurred. The theological and eschatological ramifications of a great battle between the armed forces of Sunni and Shi'a Islam over the city of Damascus and Aram/Syria will be immense among all parties involved. This will be a defining battle for them.

On one side is Iran and its IRGC controlling Syrian government forces and Lebanese Hezbollah. On the other is Saudi Arabia and its newly created Liwa al-Islam or Brigade of Islam. Riyadh's Army of Islam is a confederation of many thousands of jihadist fighters from 43 to 50 different "brigades" that have been in operation in and around Damascus without any higher headquarters directing their operations or unity of purpose. This force is now under the direct command of Zahran Alloush and his father Abdallah Alloush, a Syrian Salafist based in Saudi Arabia. Salafists are the theological fundamentalist brethren of the Wahhabists of the Saudi Royal family. The ultimate goal here is the Saudi-funded formation of an opposition Syrian National Army.

Left out in the cold in this realignment of rebel forces without any foreign government backing are the Al Qaeda-aligned jihadists of Jabhat al-Nusra and their Iraqi cousins of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). These formations will be marginalized or absorbed by the now better equipped, organized and commanded Brigade of Islam.

So begins what may well be a final battle for control of Damascus and southern Syria, a head-on collision between Saudi Arabian and Iranian aligned forces with the prospect for escalation to direct conflict between the two regional rivals facing each other across the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf. How this all manifests itself in the prophecies of Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49 remains to be seen, but it does appear that the Sunni's will prove to be the superior force before biting off more than they can chew in taking on Israel in the fulfillment of Psalm 83.