This is interesting news from The Independent which I have not yet seen mentioned in U.S. media.
Once a rebel stronghold, the town of Tal Kalakh on the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon changed sides at the week-end and is now controlled by the Syrian army.
After the Syrian Arab Army cleaned Al Qusayr of insurgents, the area at the eastern border of Lebanon was closed for insurgency logistics. Control of Tal Kalakh now closes the way through the northern Lebanese border and secures the M1 road from the port city of Tartus to Homs.
The insurgents in Homs city and Homs governorate are now cut off from resupplies. It is only a question of time until they will have to give up. There is more success in that area:
#SAA says it now controls Al-Sha’er oil field in #Homs governerate after days of fighting with Islamic rebels who took control of it #Syria
That the town of Al Kalakh fell through negotiations and without a fight is another positive sign for the Syrian government. The continuing radicalization of the insurgency as well as the rampant warlordism lets even people who somewhat dislike the government seek its protection.
Meanwhile a Saudi/Qatari attempt to widen the war into Lebanon largely failed.
There are two more interesting items in the Independent piece. The first is the – again – proven falsehood of insurgency propaganda:
The Syrian opposition denied that the town had fallen, saying that there was still fighting going on there. In a three-hour visit, I saw no sign of it. Soldiers and civilians looked relaxed and there were no indications of recent destruction, though there are plenty of buildings damaged by shellfire or pockmarked with bullet holes from fighting in 2011 or 2012. The pro-rebel Al-Jazeera Arabic satellite television channel claimed smoke was rising from the town. I did not see or smell any.
The second issue is the so far seldom mentioned facts that the insurgents are paid mercenaries:
Soldiers or guerrillas who have switched sides are often an unreliable source of information about their former colleagues because they denigrate them in a bid to impress their new masters. But Khalid al-Eid did say that his men were “paid $1,300 a month and we got an extra $1,000 if we carried out an operation”. He described how he would make Youtube films – “sometimes they show us firing when there was nothing to shoot at” – which would later be shown on al-Arabiya and al-Jazeera satellite television.
Payment for the insurgents will be the largest single cost in the insurgency’s budget, collected in, as described here, or paid directly by the western Persian Gulf countries like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. That last link also includes this short sentence:
Qatar also provides instructions on battlefield techniques.
That line suggests that Qatari forces, who are mostly recruited from Pakistan (pdf), are on the ground in Syria or at least near its borders. The same folks that trained the Mujahedin and Taliban in Afghanistan are now training the insurgents in Syria. It is then no wonder that one sees the same brutal tactics, suicide bombing and beheading, employed in Syria as one can see in Afghanistan.