Baladi News – (Mona Ali)
No sooner than it had started its suspicious activities in 2013 than ISIS turned against the rebels to wage battles against the Free Syrian Army and even al-Nusra Front. That time, the terrorist organization captured the whole Raqqa province and vast areas of Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs, Damascus countryside, Dara, and As-Swayda. Later, ISIS turned to surrendering these areas to Assad’s regime and the allied militias according to military and political priorities.
The last news from Raqqa, the capital of ISIS in Syria, indicate that ISIS will surrender the city to Syria’s Democratic Forces (SDF).
Asharq al-Awsat cited activists in Raqqa that a delegation of the “ISIS Clans Office” headed towards Ayn Issa town to negotiate surrendering the city to SDF in return for allowing a safe corridor for the fighters of ISIS to head towards Damascus countryside and Deir Ez-Zour, which had been emphasized by Russia.
On the other hand, ISIS withdrew from cities and villages in Aleppo eastern countryside, which allowed Assad’s regime and Shiite militias to penetrate into Raqqa province and control villages in the western part of it, which is viewed by Russia as a guarantee in any coming negotiations about the administration of the city.
In the Syrian Desert, where violent and strategic battles are taking place, ISIS handed over about 20,000 km among the country sides of Damascus, Homs, and Deir Ez-Zour to Assad’s regime and its allies, which would have allowed them to reach the Syrian-Iraqi borders and meet their counterparts of the Iraqi mobilization had not the United States been conscious of their movements and had not it supported the opposition’s factions to prevent the establishment of a corridor from Tehran to the Mediterranean.
Having played such strategic and political roles, ISIS, according to the facts on the ground, has achieved what Assad’s regime, alongside all its supporters, has failed to achieve.
Politically speaking, ISIS has had the most prominent role in demonizing and showing the Syrian revolution as a terrorist movement, which has contributed to antagonizing it by the world.