WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th October, 2019) The US strategy in Syria sowed the conditions that allowed the leader of the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia) to hide in the first place and his elimination will have very little impact on the jihadist movement, analysts told Sputnik.
On Saturday, US special operations troops, according to officials, hunted down IS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi causing him to blow himself and three of his children up with a suicide vest in a tunnel below his hideout in Idlib.
Historian and journalist Dan Lazare told Sputnik that al-Baghdadi found refuge for years in the heart of an area where the United States had armed and funded anti-government terrorist groups including al-Qaeda (banned in Russia). Although IS and al-Qaeda are different terrorist organizations al-Baghdadi apparently was at home among jihadist brethren, he said.
"Did you notice where al-Baghdadi was killed? In Idlib province, of course, which the US allowed al-Qaeda-led forces to take over in April 2015 by arming them via the Saudis with TOW missiles," Lazare said. "But now the White House is shocked that al-Baghdadi was using Idlib as a hiding place all along."
TOW's proved highly effective against Syrian government vehicles, which was why al-Qaeda was able to drive Syrian forces out and create a stronghold that, with Turkish consent, exists to the present day, Lazare recalled.
Far from exposing the Islamist forces sheltering in the Idlib region thank s to US policies, the Western press had aided them too by protesting every move Russian and Syrian forces made to hunt out the jihadists, Lazare observed.
"Whenever Syria or Russia dares to bomb Idlib or advance on jihadist forces there, the press creates uproar about civilian casualties or poison gas. It's usually nonsense. What next - shock and dismay that Saudi Arabia and other gulf states provide money and aid to IS and Al Qaeda?" he asked.
Trump has made the IS leader's death a major taking point since the announcement but experts believe the rhetoric does not match reality.
Lazare cautioned that the jihadist movement was not extinguished when previous charismatic leaders like Osama bin Laden had been removed and it will survive al-Bahgdadi too.
In both earlier cases, all the United States did was clear away some dead wood so a new generation could takeover, which was why the jihadist movement was able to bounce back stronger than ever, Lazare explained.
"I'm confident that on this occasion it will do the same," he said.
Trump would be able to continue sustaining US forces in Syria for as long as he can use them to control Syrian oil, Lazare predicted.
The US president "will dress it up as defending US security interests, which will please Democrats on Capitol Hill. But the world will know what he's really up to, which is out and out theft," he said.
University of Pittsburgh Professor of International Affairs Michael Brenner told Sputnik that the Islamic State had been reduced to only a shadow of its former self already and that the United States had backed other extremist forces in the region that now would just take over the IS remnants.
"There's not much left to kill. No organizational structure to speak of, only informal networks, same as al-Qaeda in Iraq between 2008 -12," Brenner said. "The people we still support in Idlib are a far greater danger to the region - and they'll try to absorb or annihilate IS remnants."
Brenner agreed that al-Baghdadi's death would make very little difference to conflict dynamics in the region.
"No. After all we've been doing this in Afghanistan for 17-plus years," he said.
