Despite Syria's pledge to the Arab League to curtail its crackdowns on protesters, Syrian army operations are continuing in the city of Homs, a bastion of Sunni dissent against the Alawite-led regime. That the Syrian regime has continued to rely principally on force in dealing with the opposition should not come as a surprise; Syrian President Bashar al Assad is taking a strategic gamble that the Alawite-dominated army will continue to hold together while his external opponents in Turkey and Saudi Arabia refrain from going beyond rhetoric by helping arm or organize the Syrian opposition. It is not yet clear that the Syrian regime will prove successful in crushing the protests, but thus far it is doing an effective job of holding itself together and preventing the opposition from consolidating into a more potent force. One of the most important settings for this conflict is not in Syria at all, but in neighboring Lebanon, to which many dissidents have fled. Efforts to counter opposition activities there will be critical to the regime's success in subduing the protest movement.

Opposition Activities in Lebanon

Many Syrian dissidents, particularly those living in the Sunni-concentrated cities of Homs and Hama, look to nearby Lebanon as their natural escape from the dragnet of the Syrian army. The majority-Sunni areas of Tripoli and West Beirut and Christian enclaves in East Beirut are the most logical areas for Syrian dissidents to seek refuge in Lebanon as they attempt to organize the activities of the Syrian opposition from a comparably safer distance, or simply flee. The Ashrafieh district in Christian East Beirut is one such area where Syrian opposition members have set up a command center for other members to report to and disseminate information on Syrian protests to the media. Just as with the Syrian state media, a heavy dose of disinformation designed to make the protests appear larger and more threatening than they really are can be expected from such command centers. (click here to enlarge image) But Lebanon is far from an ideal refuge for Syrian dissidents. Syria's intelligence and security apparatus already pervades Lebanon, providing the regime with useful levers to track down and monitor the movements of opposition members. STRATFOR sources have indicated that Lebanese army chief Brig. Gen. Jean Khawaji, a Maronite Christian, has been coordinating closely with the al Assad regime and has extended his cooperation in helping the regime clamp down on outside attempts to smuggle arms through Lebanon to opposition forces in Syria. Lebanese smugglers accustomed to more lax security on the border with Syria have complained privately how difficult it has become for them to operate along their traditional smuggling routes due to the heavy Syrian army presence on the border. Additionally, factions of the Lebanese army under the heavy influence of Syria appear to be playing a direct role in assisting the Syrian regime in its crackdowns. STRATFOR received information that Lebanon's army had contributed roughly 3,000 army troops from the majority Shiite 6th Brigade and the majority Christian 8th Brigade to help reinforce the Syrian army presence in the area of Rif Damascus and Daraa in southwestern Syria. The Syrian army has continued to refrain from deploying its more demographically mixed units, preferring instead to rely on its Alawite-dominated divisions and security units to lead the crackdowns. This strategy helps ensure that Syrian army officers will take action against mostly Sunni protesters and not defect (as many Sunni conscripts already have), but it comes at the cost of spreading the army thin. Finding recruits among allies in the Lebanese army appears to be one method the Syrian regime is employing to get around this problem. Lebanese military sources have also told STRATFOR that Lebanese army trucks have played a part in transporting munitions to Lebanese troops operating inside Syria since Syrian army vehicles are already consumed in having to supply their own forces. Syrian authorities are also relying on intelligence drawn from the many Syrian laborers who cross into Lebanon on a daily basis for work. According to a STRATFOR source, Syrian intelligence officers are instructing Syrian workers in Lebanon to stay in communication with the Syrian Embassy in Beirut or embassy representatives in designated offices throughout Lebanon. These workers are instructed to be on call and ready for mobilization to participate in pro-Syrian demonstrations in Lebanon while contributing important information on activities of fellow Syrian workers as the regime tries to keep track of dissidents.

Syrian Proxies

Hezbollah, while publicly trying to distance itself from the violent crackdowns in Syria, is also playing a part in assisting the al Assad regime, knowing that the emergence of a hostile Sunni government in Syria could be disastrous for the Lebanese Shiite organization. A STRATFOR source claims that in addition to quiet assistance on the crackdowns, Hezbollah is operating a number of prisons in Lebanon, especially in the south and near the Lebanese-Syrian borders in the central and northern Bekaa Valley, where scores of Syrian activists are allegedly being held in Hezbollah's custody. To widen its network of militant proxies, the Syrian regime is in the process of reactivating a number of Palestinian guerrilla organizations based out of refugee camps in Lebanon. This includes the group al-Saiqa, a creation of the Syrian Baath Party that was very active in Lebanon during the civil war in the 1970s and 1980s. Syrian authorities are also allegedly consolidating Fatah al-Intifada and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command operatives in Lebanon. Notably, Syria's tightening of relations with secular Palestinian factions in Lebanon comes as Syria's relations with Hamas have been under serious strain. Lebanese factions that have already vocalized their opposition to the Syrian regime, including the Christian Lebanese Forces led by Samir Geagea and the Sunni Future Movement led by the Saudi-backed al-Hariri family, are meanwhile closely watching the movements of Syria's militant proxies and are arming themselves in preparation for a potential confrontation. That confrontation may still be some ways off, but when political tensions escalate in the neighborhood, the natural and immediate response of Lebanon's factions is to prepare for the worst. Overall, Syria appears to be doing an effective job in cracking down on potential lines of supply to opposition forces inside Syria. Syrian army operations along the borders of Lebanon and Turkey have been particularly frequent, as these are the two areas through which opposition forces in central and northern Syria, respectively, are likely to try to transit people and resources. Syria's porous and Sunni-populated border with Iraq likely remains a concern for the regime, but that is an area where Iran's heavy influence over Baghdad can play a part in preventing a Syrian opposition refuge from taking root on the Iraqi side of the border. Syria's desolate border with Jordan could pose a problem for Syrian authorities, as overlapping tribal and religious links have played a part in invigorating unrest in rural southwestern Syria, where the demonstrations began. However, this area is far from the main urban Sunni strongholds of Hama and Homs where the army is focused, not to mention the heavy security presence Syrian authorities have maintained in Damascus. Southwestern Syria is also where Syrian authorities have selectively called on Lebanese army assistance for reinforcements, as described above. The Syrian opposition faces an uphill battle in obtaining the external support it needs to sustain itself on a large scale. Unless a neighboring country such as Turkey, which has rhetorically supported the opposition, decides to establish an oft-rumored military buffer zone along its border with Syria to arm and organize the opposition, the Syrian crisis is likely to remain stagnant. STRATFOR does not yet see any sign that Turkey is willing to take such a step. Instead, there are more obvious signs that the Syrian regime, while struggling to stamp out protests altogether, is effectively exercising its leverage to hold the regime together and keep the opposition weak.