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“If you look at the battlefield, Bashar [al-Assad] is not president of all of Syria anymore, because he has lost control of so much of Syria, even his own suburbs,” said Ken Katzman, a Middle East Affairs specialist with the Congressional Research Service, in an interview this week with alHurra TV.
The rebels’ success is not assured, but even if they did win, some say Syria would suffer a power vacuum and be entrenched in internal strife for years to come.
“Neither side has the strength to defeat the other,” Holliday writes.
“An alternative source of authority and security in Syria may be emerging,” writes Josh Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and author of the Syria Comment blog. Following the Geneva agreement of last weekend, Landis speculates that, in time, the militias of the FSA that can effectively cooperate with the revolutionary councils and can deliver field successes “will rise to the top, pulling the smaller brigades into their ranks.”
He is a frequent analyst on TV and radio. Most recently he has appeared on PBS News Hour, Charlie Rose Show, CNN, Fox News, and has been widely quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, LA Times, and comments frequently for NPR and BBC radio. He has spoken at the Brookings Institute, USIP, Middle East Institute, and Council on Foreign Relations.[
Dubai believes the Holliday report is “a bit out-dated.” “Most of the rural areas and especially the major urban centers of Idlib and Aleppo in the north are now under the control of the rebels,” Khawaji said.
He added he had seen reports that FSA forces had taken control of two Syrian military airfields. Khawaji said Turkish jets that were scrambled recently along the Syrian border to prevent another downing of a Turkish jet by Syria have, in effect, created a no-fly zone that gives the rebels air cover for their advances in the north.
He added he had seen reports that FSA forces had taken control of two Syrian military airfields.
Provincial military councils of the FSA have also coordinated closely with the three major organizations of the civilian opposition within Syria, said Elizabeth O’Bagy of the Institute for the Study of War. In addition to staging the protests that sparked the revolution,