The invasion by ISIS of the Palestinian settlement of Yarmouk,
in the southern suburbs of Damascus, has exposed serious divisions
within the Palestinian leadership. An apparent agreement to confront the
new crisis, with the Syrian Government, was rapidly disowned by the PLO
leadership in Ramallah.
In the absence of a united
Palestinian response it is highly likely that the Syrian Army, with
allied Palestinian factions, will impose a 'security solution' to the
area. This may mean near complete evacuation of the area and
heavy bombardment. Only about 18,000 of the pre-crisis population of
160,000 actually remain inside Yarmouk.
Obscurantist terrorists
PLO Executive Committee member Ahmed
Majdalani on 9 April announced a joint Syrian and PLO response to the
'obscurantist terrorists' who had seized the camp. He said the Syrian
leadership had been dealing with Yarmouk 'with a high level of
sensitivity' given its special status and as it symbolically stands as
the capital of Palestinian Diaspora'.
Because of that sensitivity, there had been no 'security solution' so
far. However all attempts at a 'political solution' had been aborted by
the terrorist groups.
Within hours the PLO in
Ramallah effectively washed its hands of the matter, saying that it
refused to 'drag our people and their camps into the hellish conflict
that is taking place in Syria'. Yet some sectarian Palestinian
groups bear great responsibility for the Yarmouk crisis. They were the
ones who invited Jabhat al Nusra snipers into Yarmouk, leading to
Syrian Army security clamp-downs on the area.
Current crisis follows assassination
Amal Asfour, member of the Palestinian
National Assembly for Relief in Yarmouk wrote that the current crisis
followed the 30 March assassination of Yahya Hourani (Abu Suhaib),
leader of the Hamas aligned Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis (ABM). After that
assassination, one of the factions of ABM arrested some ISIS aligned
individuals, against the objections of former ABM allies Jabhat
al-Nusra.
That prompted Jabhat al-Nusra
to turn on ABM and organise the invasion with ISIS members from the
al-Hajar al-Aswad and al-Takadom areas. The large ISIS group quickly
seized the greater part of the now mostly depopulated Yarmouk
settlement.
The Syrian Army, despite fighting on
several fronts, quickly moved to contain the threat. Al Masdar reports
that Palestinian reinforcements arrived from Jarmana camp, while the PLA
and PFLP-GC captured more of Palestine Street. Meanwhile
Syria's National Militia (NDF), backed by the Army, the PLA and the
Druze militia, wiped out an ISIS group to the south, which had attempted
to capture Tal Al-Khaldiyeh, in northwest As-Sweida.
Israeli ID cards reportedly found on ISIS terrorists
News 786 reports that Palestinian militia in Syria have found Israeli ID cards 'on the dead bodies of some ISIS extremists'.
This assistance from Israel is logical; there are many reports that
Israeli Defence Forces have provided medical aid to al Nusra and other
Islamist fighters, allowing them to cross the occupied Golan border.
Moe Salhi reports that sectarianism in
the Hamas leadership has been at the root of the problem. Instead of
staying out of the Islamist insurrection in Syria, the political leaders
of Hamas, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, facilitated engagement.
'They used all their techniques that had been taught by Syrians,
Lebanese, and Iranians [tunnels, explosive devices] to use against the
Israelis; they used it against Syrians!' says Salhi.
They then created the military faction
called 'Aknaf Beit al-Maqdes' (ABM), supposedly for Jerusalem but
deployed in Yarmouk. This group collaborated with Jabhat al Nusra, until
recently, and avoided any relations with the Syrian Government,
because it was 'infidel'. All this is consistent with the Muslim
Brotherhood strategy of confronting the internal secular 'enemy' first,
before facing the external enemy. However it has led to a disaster in
Yarmouk.
Yarmouk quarantined
According to Salhi, 'dozens of
conciliation attempts had been rejected at the last minute because of
the moody and elusive ABM militia, while blaming it on the 'murderer
regime''. The Syrian Army at times had to 'quarantine' the Yarmouk area,
when the al Nusra fighters penetrated the area, but they had also built
agreements to allow Palestinian militia to keep control. The ISIS
invasion may have destroyed that.
Salhi says, with the invasion, ABM
fighters 'split into 3 factions': one joined ISIS, another 'resisted it
and fought it', while a third 'surrendered to the loyal Palestinian
parties ... and therefore, to the Syrian Army'. In this way ISIS
dismembered ABM, taking down and trampling on the Palestinian flags and
raising their own black flags.
Now that ISIS has this foothold on the doorstep of Damascus,
the Syrian Army won't just quarantine it. There will definitely be a
heavy assault on the ISIS held areas, when sufficient evacuation has
taken place. All this has been done before, in Homs and Qusayr.
Khaled Abdul Majeed, secretary general
of the Palestinian militia fighting the extremists, said Palestinian
fighters allied to the Syrian Army were 'not too interested in what the
PLO leadership in Ramallah had to say about not entering the fray in
Yarmouk'. Very few of those fighters were from Fatah, the largest PLO
group, and only a few from ABM. The UNRWA was trying to get the
civilians out and the Syrian Army was cooperating, but ISIS was
preventing civilians from leaving the areas it controls.
Tim Anderson
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