If you are a policymaker in Washington; it has to be a difficult week for you, as the U.S. backed “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) and their Islamist allies fight the U.S. backed “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF) in the northern Aleppo countryside.
Perhaps, what is even more odd about the U.S. backed rebels fighting the U.S. backed rebels in northern Aleppo is the fact that at least two parties from the opposing sides are factions of the Free Syrian Army; this means the rebels combatting both the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) are actually fighting one another with the same weapons transported to them from the Gulf States and the west.
Instead of fighting ISIS in northern Aleppo like they were originally propagated to do, the SDF and the FSA are fighting one another, while ISIS attempts to regroup and relaunch their offensive on the rural city of Mar’e.
On Saturday morning, the SDF declared they control 9 new villages in northern Aleppo after a series of firefights with the Islamist rebels of the FSA, the Syrian Al-Qaeda group “Jabhat Al-Nusra”, and Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham.
The villages captured by the SDF in the last 48 hours are the following:
– Al-Faysal
– Al-Malkiyah
– Al-Kashta’ar
– Tanab
– Maryamayn
– Mirash
– Maryamayn Inab
– Shawarss
– Al-Shawarighat