Following the dramatic ISIS(IS), et al. offensive in Iraq last month much of the ISIS(IS)'s 'big mo[mentum]' was focused back on Syria.
They made major advances in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate and defeated or absorbed almost all of the Syrian rebel forces there.
They also expanded their control over a large area northeast of the city of Aleppo and were set on regaining control of the area north of Aleppo, the town of Azaz, and the border crossing just north of Azaz, thereby seizing one of the two remaining, and of vital importance for the rebels, Syrian-Turkish border crossings under Syrian rebels' control.
Along with this they increased their efforts to take control of the Syrian Kurdish controlled area in north central Syria around the town of Ayn al-Arab.
Note: The Syrian refugee family which lives on my farm is from one of the areas near Ayn al-Arab which ISIS(IS) has been attacking for quite a while.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the caliphate. The ISIS(IS)'s 'big mo' in Syria seems to have gone 'slow mo'.
ISIS(IS) got to within about 20 km of Azaz and made a few inroads into the Kurdish controlled area, but recently they have not been able to do much more.
At the same time the 'big mo' in Iraq also seems to be have shifted to 'slow mo'.
The ISIS(IS), et al. offensive has pretty much ground to a halt and recently attention has been focused on Iraqi Kurdish held areas, with there being three or four ISIS(IS), et al. mini-offensives on Iraqi Kurdish controlled areas going on now.
Additionally, some of the Baathist and Sunni Arab tribal allies of ISIS(IS) in Iraq have begun to publicly state that they are ready to turn on ISIS(IS) 'when the time is right'.
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As to the Syrian rebels: their very 'slow mo[mentum]' has become 'no mo[mentum]' and they seem to be well on the way to being 'no mo[re]'.
They have essentially none of the very limited public support they previously had. Most of the areas they control are depopulated; they generally control and fight over ghost towns.
Some of their already limited numbers have defected to ISIS(IS) following the caliphate announcement and the recent events in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate.
If they lose Azaz and the border crossing just north of it they will have control over only the border crossing west of Aleppo, and it is possible that ISIS(IS) could also take this border crossing. ISIS(IS) has a presence nearby and the rebels currently in control, Islamic radicals, could easily switch to ISIS(IS).
In the past few weeks rebel held locations just north of and south of Aleppo have been folding like a cheap suit when Syrian government forces approached.
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The National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces (SOC), the western-recognized and supported irrelevant Syrian opposition group met in a hotel near Istanbul (they don't rate a hotel in Istanbul any more) this week and elected a new president. His name is Hadi al-Bahra and, surprise, he is a US-educated Syrian and spent most of his adult life in Saudi Arabia.
The SOC has also started a kind of charm offensive for the Syrian Kurds. As the mostly useless FSA and now disbanded SMC continue their slide into nonexistence the SOC needs a military force to show to the west so that they can get more money.
And who would be the easiest force for them to present to the west - an organized, proven in battle force?
The Syrian Kurdish forces.
The same group which the SOC ignored, belittled, insulted, and accused of being allied with the Syrian government is now suddenly an 'integral part of the revolution'.
According to the SOC, ISIS and Syrian government forces are cooperating in an effort to split Syria, and as a part of that strategy ISIS and Syrian government forces are blockading the area around Ayn al-Arab which is controlled by Syrian Kurds.
In reality it has been rebel forces and the Turkish government who have been blockading this area and who have also blockaded the other areas in Syria held by the Syrian Kurds.
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UPDATE: And it seems that a lot of those American made and supplied weapons which were reportedly abandoned by Iraqi government forces to then end up in the hands of ISIS(IS) when Mosul, etc. were overrun at the beginning of the ISIS(IS) offensive, actually weren't and/or didn't.
A lot of them are turning up in the arms bazaar in the Kurdish city Sulaymaniyah.
He said that some 400-500 weapons are sold each day at the market, mostly US-made machine guns like the M16, M4 and M60.
http://rudaw.net/...
This paragraph is very interesting:
Merchants said that most of the weapons purchased before were in the name of the Syrian opposition, and that if Islamic State (ISIS) rebels were buying them for their fight, they were doing so secretly.
So the Iraqi Kurds are selling weapons which could then be used by the Syrian rebels, and probably ISIS, when they attack the Syrian Kurds, and possibly the Iraqi Kurds too.