Assyrian International News Agency - Daily News Digest

AINA News Digest

001 08/04/2014 Leader of Iraq's Yazidis Issues Distress Call, Appeals for Help Against ISIS
002 08/04/2014 UN Warns of 'Tragedy' As Militants Take Over Iraq Towns
003 08/04/2014 Why Sunni Extremists Are Destroying Ancient Religious Sites in Mosul
004 08/03/2014 ISIS Beats Back Kurds to Take Mosul Dam and Three Towns
005 08/03/2014 Facts on Iraq's Yazidi Minority
006 08/03/2014 For Iraq's Assyrians, the Second Holocaust
007 08/03/2014 Assessing the State of the Syrian Army As ISIS Advances


AINA News Digest

001 08/04/2014 Leader of Iraq's Yazidis Issues Distress Call, Appeals for Help Against ISIS
The world leader of the Yazidis, Prince Tahseen Said (photo: Jehad Nga/New York Times). (AINA) -- The world leader of the Yazidis, Prince Tahseen Said, has issued a distress call to the world after ISIS captured the towns of Sinjar and Zumar in Iraq and began to brutally terrorize their residents, nearly all of whom are Yazidis. Nearly 40,000 Yazidis have fled from their homes and thousands have been killed.
In a letter posted on ankawa.com, Prince Said appeals to world leaders to come to the aid of his people. Here is the text of the letter.

August 3, 2014

Urgent distress call from the Prince of Yazidis
I appeal to Mr. Massoud Barzani, President of Kurdistan Region, and Mr. Fuad Masum, President of the Federal Republic of Iraq, and the Iraqi Government, and the Iraqi Parliament, and the Parliament of the Kurdistan Region, and the Arab League, and Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Mr. Barack Obama President of the United States, and the European Union and international community in general, and organizations and relevant international bodies:
I ask for aid and to lend a hand and help the people of Sinjar areas and its affiliates and villages and complexes which are home to the people of the Yazidi religion. I invite them to assume their humanitarian and nationalistic responsibilities towards them and help them in their plight and the difficult conditions in which they live today
Citizens of this religion are peaceful people who acknowledge all principles and humanitarian values and respect all religions, and never had enmity against any of their countrymen, and in the near past they even had a major humanitarian stand with their fellow residence of Mosul and Tal Afar, and today they desperately need their brethren's help.
This humanitarian appeal I make on my behalf and on behalf of the people of this religion to come to their assistance and help the Yazidi people as soon as possible.
Prince Tahseen Said
Prince of the People of the Yazidi Religion in Iraq and the world


002 08/04/2014 UN Warns of 'Tragedy' As Militants Take Over Iraq Towns
(BBC) -- The UN has warned that up to 200,000 people have been forced to flee their homes after militants took over more towns in northern Iraq.
Islamic State (formerly known as Isis) militants are reported to have taken over the town of Sinjar near Syria.
It follows the IS takeover of the town of Zumar and two nearby oilfields from Kurdish Peshmerga forces on Saturday.
IS seized large parts northern Iraq from government control in a major offensive in June.
The UN special envoy to Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, said that a "humanitarian tragedy is unfolding in Sinjar".
"The United Nations has grave concerns for the physical safety of these civilians" he said.
"The humanitarian situation of these civilians is reported as dire, and they are in urgent need of basic items including food, water and medicine" he added.
The UN said many of those who fled are in exposed areas in mountains near the town.
Many of those in Sinjar are believed to have fled from earlier IS advances in northern Iraq.
The town is home to a large community of Kurdish Yazidis, whom IS consider heretical.
Two Yazidi shrines have reportedly been destroyed in the town.
Peshmerga retreat Kurdish military forces, known as the Peshmerga, were also forced to retreat from the nearby town of Zumar on Saturday after a militant offensive.
Kurdish forces had held the town since the Iraqi army retreated from the are in June.
Eyewitnesses said militants also seized control of two small oilfields near Zumar.
IS already controls several other oil installations in northern Iraq, which are believed to fund its activities.
Iraqi state television reported that the militants also took control of Mosul Dam on Sunday after the withdrawal of Kurdish forces.
The dam is the largest in Iraq and provides much of Mosul's electricity.
Further south, clashes between the Iraqi army and sunni militants continued near the town of Jufr al-Sakhar, military officials said.
The Iraqi army said it conducted several airstrikes on militants in the centre of the town, which lies about 60 km south-west of Baghdad.
The town was captured by the militants last week.
The fighting this summer has been one of the worst crises to hit Iraq since the withdrawal of US forces in 2011.


003 08/04/2014 Why Sunni Extremists Are Destroying Ancient Religious Sites in Mosul
Mar Mattai, one of the oldest monasteries in the world, is in danger from the Islamic State's systematic attack on religious sites (Photograph By Michael Runkel, Imagebroker Via Corbis).Mosul has long been known for its religious diversity. Iraq's second largest city has been home to Persians, Arabs, Turks, and Christians of all denominations since it was first believed to have been settled in 6000 B.C. The ruins of Ninevah, one of the greatest cities in antiquity and former seat of the Assyrian Empire, lie within its modern city limits.
But now the Islamic State (IS) has arrived.
The Sunni extremists of the IS, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), have been working to erase evidence of that diverse history since they seized the ancient city on June 10. (Related: "Iraq: 1,200 Years of Turbulent History in Five Maps.")
By some estimates 60,000 Christians lived in Mosul a decade ago, a number that may have been halved over the past decade of turmoil but could now be close to zero following an order by the IS to convert, leave, or die. This month reportedly marks the first time in 1,600 years in Mosul that no Sunday Mass has been held. (Related: "Iraq Crisis: 'Ancient Hatreds Turning Into Modern Realities.'")
The IS is also trying to eradicate visual evidence of belief systems that don't follow its strict interpretation of Islam. The Sunni extremist fighters have removed or destroyed more than a dozen tombs, statues, mosques, and shrines--including shrines that hold meaning for Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike--such as the site believed to be the tomb of the biblical prophet Jonah, which was wired with explosives and detonated last week. The shrine of Prophet Seth, considered to be the third son of Adam and Eve, has also been demolished.
Archaeologists, historians, and many in the local populace are distraught. Iraqi-British archaeologist Lamia Al-Gailani Werr is an honorary senior research associate at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and a senior researcher with the Department of the Languages and Culture of Near and Middle East at the University of London. Born in Baghdad and educated in Britain, Al-Gailani Werr has worked extensively in Iraq, previously serving as a consultant to Iraq's Ministry of Culture for Baghdad's Iraq Museum.
She spoke with National Geographic about the physical and spiritual heritage being lost in Mosul today.
Were you at the Baghdad museum when it was looted in 2003, and are there similarities between then and what is happening now in Mosul?
I went to Baghdad in June of 2003, after the looting. There is a difference between what happened then in Baghdad and now in Mosul--no standing building was destroyed in 2003. Back then it was the looting of antiquities from the Iraq Museum and the illegal looting of ancient sites. In Mosul, it is standing and mostly religious buildings that are the targets, and many of are of great archaeological heritage value.
Mosul is one of the oldest cities in Iraq. Ninevah is now part of the city; it used to be just outside Mosul. During the 9th century onward, Mosul was the seat for all the Christian religious movements and studies. Just outside the city is one of perhaps the oldest monasteries in the world--Mar Mattai, or St. Matthews.
Is that monastery safe so far?
I have not heard anything about Mar Mattai, so it could be still safe. Some say it dates back earlier than the fourth century, to the second century.
The Assyrian Empire dates to the first millennium B.C., but there are a lot of sites within the area that go back 10,000 years. Mosul is absolutely rich with archaeological sites. Rich with people too: The people there count themselves as being in the center of the world. The people of Mosul are very proud of their city. For Christianity, the Eastern Church in Mosul was really the church that spread Christianity to the east. Islam was also there from the beginning, when it came through Iraq in the seventh century.
Did Mosul change significantly after the U.S. intervention in Iraq?
Mosul was always diverse. There are several sects living there, different offshoots of Islam or Christianity. One is called Shabak, which is an offshoot of Shiite Islam; they've been living there quite freely, quite peacefully together. But in 2003 the fundamentalists did start having a foot in Mosul.
I remember when I was in Baghdad in 2003 and 2004, I heard there were streets in Mosul that people called Kandahar [the religious and political base of the Taliban in Afghanistan] because there were all these people who were fundamentalists and were dressing in that Islamic style.
Have you visited the sites that have been destroyed?
I went to visit the archaeological sites in 2001. We saw Nabi Yunus [the tomb of Jonah], which has a mosque that has been renewed again and again. The minaret of Nabi Yunus was only from 1924 because the old one fell down. Nabi Yunus has been renewed quite often--during Saddam's time they did a lot of renovations. Mosul has a number of these shrines that go back to the 9th, 10th century, especially 12th and 13th century.
The shrine of Jonah, isn't that something of value not just to Jews and Christians but also to Muslims?
Yes, it has--or it had--a mosque over it. It's difficult to say when it was built, but Nabi Yunus stands on top of a mound that was probably an Assyrian temple. After the Assyrians it became a Zoroastrian temple. Then it became a church, and afterwards it became a mosque. In the 1990s, the State Board of Antiquity and Heritage did excavate at the bottom of this mound and they found the gates from an Assyrian palace.
Why is the IS destroying places that are also important to Islam?
They are shrines. The IS, or the fundamentalist Salafist people, don't think that it is right to go and worship a dead person. They are absolutely against that. So what they've been doing literally is destroying any shrine. Not mosques, but shrines. They did destroy mosques or smaller mosques that belong to the Shiites, but they consider the Shiites as not religious, as not Islamic.
The Shiite mosques are called husseiniya. The IS has been destroying them systematically, not only in Mosul but also other places. But then the minute they got to Mosul, they demolished a shrine which is from the 12th century. It was that of Ali ibn al-Athir, a historian and writer from that period who was accused even then of being an apostate.
Aren't they also, like the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, attacking relics that depict a human face or form?
We don't have that in these sort of shrines in Iraq, these human forms. That's mostly in Christian places. But they could destroy these in Christian places if they get to them.
The extremists also tried--and so far have failed--to destroy the crooked minaret of Mosul, which is said to be 840 years old.
Yes, it is still standing. Next to it there's another shrine, and they presumably were intending to destroy it. I heard that they put all these explosives around it and asked the people who live around it to evacuate their houses.
But the local people have shown complete opposition to them, and there's another militia that came in and surrounded the place so the IS people left. So it's been spared for the time being. We don't know what will happen next. This is the most frightening thing, that minaret.
Why is that so frightening?
Because it really is more iconic to Mosul than even the tomb of Jonah. It's like the leaning tower of Pisa. All the Iraqis and the people of Mosul are so proud of it. It's a beautiful minaret. The Hadba Minaret is built of brick, which is all intricately decorated and is from about the 12th-13th century.
Why is the minaret crooked?
It is something to do with the geological ground--a structural fault. Most minarets in Iraq, and especially in Mosul, tend with time to lean slightly. That is one reason why minarets are always being replaced. However, the Hadba is still standing after so many centuries and has become the icon of Mosul.
What is the cultural value of these minarets and shrines?
They are very important. If we're talking about Islamic shrines, quite a number of them have very distinctive architectural domes. Because most of the domes in Iraq are built with brick, not many of them have survived. In Mosul, however, there are quite a number of them and they're being destroyed. From an architectural point of view, it's a great pity.
Has there been any other time in Mosul's history where its diversity has been so threatened?
Never like now where there is an evacuation of all of them [the Christians]. That was the lovely thing about Iraq--we lived all of us together, and it is politics that has interfered. This time it is fundamentalist Islam. I'm very angry about this. The Jews were in Iraq from Babylonian captivity. And then politics let them leave from the 1950s onwards, and now the Christians are going. I remember as a child my father had three childhood friends. One was a Jew, one was a Christian, one was a Muslim. That gives you a symbol of what it was like. (Related: "What Does It Mean to Be Iraqi Anymore?")
I also have an English friend in Mosul whose husband has lived in Mosul for over 20 years. He says he's had tea and coffee and Coca-Colas with every single Christian sect in the world. Because they were all there. This is how it was. I honestly can't believe that its going like this. It is a great pity.


004 08/03/2014 ISIS Beats Back Kurds to Take Mosul Dam and Three Towns
"Islamic State" fighters have seized Iraq's biggest dam, an oilfield and three more towns. ISIS also scored its first major defeat of Kurdish forces since sweeping through northern Iraq in June.
The capture of the Mosul Dam could give the group a base from which to attack major cities and aid its bid to topple Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shiite-led government. ISIS's capture of the northern town of Sinjar has already forced up to 200,000 people to flee, the United Nations announced on Sunday.
"A humanitarian tragedy is unfolding in Sinjar," UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov said Sunday after ISIS, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, captured the town near the Syrian border, which had served as a refuge for thousands of families displaced from elsewhere in previous fighting.
After beating militia fighters to take territories in what had until recently been a stronghold for the transnational Kurdish minority, fighters hoisted the ISIS flag. The group has declared a caliphate in an area on the Iraq-Syria border and taken aim at the region's various sects, including the dwindling Christian population in areas such as Mosul.
'Hundreds fled'
In the town of Sinjar, witnesses told news agencies that residents had fled after Kurdish fighters put up little resistance against ISIS. On its Twitter site, ISIS posted a picture of one of its masked fighters holding up a pistol and sitting at the desk of the city's mayor. In a statement on its website, ISIS reported that its fighters had killed scores of Kurdish militiamen.
"Hundreds fled leaving vehicles and a huge number of weapons and munitions, and the brothers control many areas," ISIS reported. "The fighters arrived in the border triangle between Iraq, Syria and Turkey," the group claimed.
After soldiers fled ISIS's offensive on Mosul and Tikrit in June, abandoning arsenals the group took over, militias became a critical line of defense. However, Sunday's battles have called into question the reliance on militias, increasing pressure on Iraq's leaders to form a power-sharing government uniting political, ethnic and religious factions against ISIS.
In July, the Kurdish political bloc ended participation in Iraq's national government in protest over Prime Minister's Maliki's accusation that the ethnic group had allowed "terrorists" to stay in Arbil, the capital of the minority's semiautonomous region.
So far, ISIS has stalled in its drive to reach Baghdad, halting just before the town of Samarra, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the capital. ISIS has, however, proved successful at consolidating its gains, capturing strategic towns near oil fields, as well as border crossings with Syria so that it can move easily back and forth and transport supplies.
The battles in Iraq have led international airlines, including Germany's Lufthansa, to reroute flights away from the country.


005 08/03/2014 Facts on Iraq's Yazidi Minority
(AFP) -- The Yazidi minority faces a struggle for survival in Iraq after their bastion Sinjar was taken over Sunday by Islamic State jihadists, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee.
The existence of the small Kurdish-speaking community on its ancestral land is now critically endangered. Here are a few facts about the Yazidis:
- The largest community is in Iraq -- 600,000 people according to the highest Yazidi estimates, but barely 100,000 according to others -- while a few thousand are also found in Syria, Turkey, Armenia and Georgia. They are mostly impoverished farmers and herders.
- They follow a faith born in Mesopotamia more than 4,000 years ago. It is rooted in Zoroastrianism but has over time blended in elements of Islam and Christianity. Yazidis pray to God three times a day facing the sun and worship his seven angels -- the most important of which is Melek Taus, or Peacock Angel.
- Yazidis discourage marriage outside the community and even across their caste system. Their unique beliefs and practices -- some are known to refrain from eating lettuce and wearing the colour blue -- have often been misconstrued as satanic. Orthodox Muslims consider the Peacock a demon figure and refer to Yazidis as devil-worshippers.
- As non-Arab and non-Muslim Iraqis, they have long been one of the country's most vulnerable minorities. Persecution under Saddam Hussein forced thousands of families to flee the country. Germany is home to the largest community abroad, with an estimated 40,000.
- Massive truck bombs almost entirely destroyed two small Yazidi villages in northern Iraq on August 14, 2007. More than 400 people died in the explosions, the single deadliest attack since the 2003 US-led invasion.


006 08/03/2014 For Iraq's Assyrians, the Second Holocaust
Before more than seven decades from our days,
Today a new and advanced version of Hitler is risen and his name is Abu Bakir Albagdadhi, he is carrying out the second Holocaust in our world, by targeting the Christians in Mesopotamia, and Humiliating, Killing, and displacing them, and marking them with a sign (N) which refers to Nasara, as a humiliation to the Christians.
You have three choices:

1. Convert to Islam.
2. Remain as a (Themi: a weak and undermined status of citizen) and pay an unknown amount of weakly tax
3. Leave Mosul OR: The Sword is between us.

This is what ISIS (The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) leaders told Christian (Chaldean Assyrian Syriac) people of Nineveh to do.
The Christian heritage and history in Nineveh goes back to more than 5000 years. Their ancestors built this city, made it one of the wonders of the ancient world, a beautiful example of Assyrian Chaldean history.
Today, and for the first time since 3000 BC Chaldean Assyrian Syriac people, and since 2000 years as Christians of Mosul, Nineveh is empty of its indigenous people.
More than one thousand and one hundred Christian families have fled Mousil to Kurdistan Region. Now the territories of Nineveh plain are protected by the Peshmarga and Asayesh (Kurdistan Army and Security forces) for the first time since the fall of Baath regime in 2003.
Those displaced families lost their jobs, their homes, and whatever property and belongings they had collected in decades got lost at a glance by a word of the new extremist Khalipha Albagdadi!
This systematic and ongoing ethnic cleansing and demographic changing against the Christians people started in 2004 when several churches in the middle and south of Iraq were targeted and blown up.
As a result, 11 Christians were killed and dozens injured. In the same year, more than 196 Christians were kidnapped and 322 were killed according to the report published Hamurabi Human Rights Organazation.
The series of attacks on Christians continued.
Several clergymen, bishops and priests were kidnapped and killed.
The campaign reached its peak when the bishop of Chaldean Catholic Church (Mar Polis Faraj Rahoo) was kidnapped and killed together with three of his companions in Mousil in 2008. In 2010, more than 46 Christians were killed. The extremists attacked and blew Saydat Alnajat church up in Baghdad. Two Syriac Catholic Priests were killed in the same attack.
Not only the Christian churches were destroyed, the individual Christians were attacked and persecuted too.
The Christian students were forced to wear Islamic clothes in universities in Mousil and Baghdad. And in 2010, the buses carrying the Christians students were attacked by Al-Qaida terrorists, two students and another person were killed. In addition, more than 23 others were seriously injured.
According to "Alsharq Alawsat", a well-known newspaper, 52 Christian churches were attacked between 2004-2010 and more than 900 Christians were killed and more than one million Christians have fled Iraq.
Most of the Christians, who were unwilling to leave their homes and their town, had no choice but to move to Kurdistan.
Many of them fled also to Ankawa, a town located in the north of Erbil. It was a town of 8000 Christians inhabitants before 2003. Now there are more than 55000 Christians that are living peacefully under the good care of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Others fled to Duhok , Zakho , and Sulamania provinces.
Historically, the Christians have been living in peace and harmony with the Kurdish Muslim majority.
The President of Kurdistan, Mr. Masoud Barzani, last week said to the Christian clergy representatives: "In Kurdistan either we all die, or live together in freedom and dignity." And this manifests the true nature of the Kurdish Government and people towards Christians of this region and towards the Christian refugees.
The same day, Neqademos Dawod Maty Sharaf , the Bishop of Syriac Orthdox Church said on the radio < Russia Today' "Without the protection of Kurdistan, the Christians would have been slaughtered by the ISIS."
Today and after 11 years of the American intervention in Iraq, the Christian existence is in serious danger. More than 25 Christian families are fleeing Iraq every week according to local travel agencies and the number is increasing!
So, what is the best solution to protect the Christians in Iraq?
There are several proposals argued between the different Christian and Chaldean Assyrian parties:
Firstly, the autonomy for Christians : this proposal was made by the Christian politician Sarges Aga Gan Mamando, the former Minister of Finance and the Deputy Prime Minister of Kurdistan Regional Government. The draft of the right of getting autonomy within Kurdistan Region was submitted to voting in the Parliament in 2009.
This proposal is widely supported by the Christian political parties such as (Chaldean Syriac Assyrian popular council, Chaldean national congress, Bith Nahrin Democratic Party, Assyrian National party, Chaldean Democratic Platform, Bith Nahrin National Union, and Syriac Independent Movement).
Secondly, the self-governing province for Christians: this proposal was mentioned in the Iraqi constitution in 2005 and was supported by the Christian politician Younadam Yousif Kanna, the Member of the Iraqi Parliament and the former Minister of Industry in the Kurdistan Regional Government. This proposal was supported by Kannas (Assyrian Democratic Movement) as well.
Today the Christians people of Mesopotamia are at a crossroads, either to act fast and defend and preserve their existence in their ancestral historical land, or to face a similar destiny as the Jews in Iraq between 1948-1963. As we know, the Jews were targeted and killed for their religious identity. As a result, the whole Jewish population fled Iraq to Palestine.


007 08/03/2014 Assessing the State of the Syrian Army As ISIS Advances
After several weeks of fighting that resulted in some of the heaviest casualties in Syria's conflict, the Syrian army said it had retaken the Shaar gas field near Palmyra -- one of the country's largest -- from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The battle and its heavy losses raised questions about the army's state of preparedness against the Sunni militant group; fueled by spoils from its June offensive in Iraq, ISIS has marched steadily across eastern Syria and into the country's Kurdish areas. Analysts have said it now intends to attack key regime assets in an effort to consolidate the amount of territory under its control.
We asked Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, and Aram Nerguizian, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to weigh in on the state of the Syrian army and how it can respond to the challenge from ISIS.
Syria Deeply: What is the state of the Syrian army?
Joshua Landis: In Damascus, ISIS has gone to war with the Islamic Front in the Ghouta area and has been squeezed out of Ghouta, and is now trying to open a new front in Qalamoun, the range of mountains near Lebanon that the Syrian army just took back.
The Syrian army can't take all its men out of Qalamoun at this point -- they have to be vigilant. They are facing pressure in Palmyra, where this month ISIS took the Shaar gas field and killed well over 100 Syrian soldiers. Others have [since] disappeared. Then ISIS has been taking villages around Aleppo. So even as the army threatens to take Aleppo and is besieging parts of the city, ISIS is threatening to come back and fight them again there.
Then ISIS is surrounding air bases and military bases in Deir Ezzor and other strongholds. So overall, the regime has been very badly mauled by ISIS. And it's not something they were prepared for or expecting.
The regime's strategy was to ignore ISIS and allow it to take over the east in the hopes it would horrify and spook the West into supporting Assad. But now that ISIS has gotten its feet on the ground and consolidated its hold, it's become a real danger in a way the other militias never were.
The Syrian army will eventually defeat ISIS, because they're a real army, and because most of the world is spooked by ISIS. ISIS has taken the logic of the Syrian army, which is a sectarian logic, and a take-no-prisoners logic that you have to destroy your enemy, which the Syrian army embraced early on.
The Syrian army is very stretched. It's essentially a weak army, it has a limited number of well-trained troops, it has pretty basic equipment and it has spent the last three years rebuilding itself. It's been doing that with a lot of help from Iran and Hezbollah, and from Russia.
It's been able to rebuild in large part because it's had a central command and such incompetent opponents who've been fragmented and fought among themselves and haven't been able to convince their international backers to really back them. ISIS seems to know how to fight and has a real plan, and captured the imagination of many Sunni Arabs. How long that romance will last, I don't know. Because many are horrified by it as well.
Syria Deeply: How is the army faring and what are they facing, now that they've taken so many losses in the fight with ISIS?
Aram Nerguizian: People seem to be forgetting what we've learned over the last couple of years, which is that there's no done deal. Everyone [on the ground] is adapting to changing circumstances.
Hezbollah is caught on two fronts, working with the Syrian [regime] but also really accelerating their clear-hold operations in Qalamoun. And we're getting confirmation that Hezbollah is much more active in Iraq, in a training role [to help troops combat ISIS].
The fundamental reality between the Assad regime and ISIS does not seem to have shifted. One hand [of ISIS] still fights the regime on the battlefield, and the other is still involved in a transactional dynamic in regards to the regime's need for energy and oil. It needs to expand its oil [business] for currency reserves to pay off the young fighters it's recruiting.
Some things have shifted, but so far you've seen a fair amount of strategic caution [against the regime] on ISIS's part. I don't see them making a dramatic advance westward anytime soon. It's not surprising that there's been a rise in attrition rates against Assad's forces. It's the non-ISIS, non-regime factions that have the most to be concerned about in all this. They're being sandwiched between the two, and eventually they'll have to choose [a side].
ISIS never really saw the regime as its main threat. It's always what's over the horizon, namely what Iran and their allies in Iraq could come up with in terms of weakening and dislodging ISIS in Iraq -- and the effect that could have in Syria.
For the Assad regime, the calculus remains the same. They've been doing a balancing act since the late 1970s, where the idea is to always show Syrian relevance in international affairs as the alternative to whatever else is out there.
They're still playing by those rules. Even with attrition rates against ISIS [rising], the regime is still saying, "we're the alternative, we're the guys you ned to work with." If I were within the ISIS brain trust, I'd be concerned with Assad up to a point -- the regime can bring pressure from the western front -- but I'd always have to be mindful of what the dynamics are with Iraq. Namely, would there ever be a scenario where the U.S. gets involved in Iraq, and what would happen to ISIS if its opponents get it together in terms of how they engage the local tribes, and so forth.