Russia’s plan B for Syria: Alawistan

Russia’s pattern of airstrikes in Syria indicate that it is preparing a “plan B” should the regime fail to restore a central Syrian state and be forced to retreat to a fragment of government-held territory along the Mediterranean.

 

“A second option [for Russia] is to fall back to the defensible parts of useful Syria after guaranteeing the safety of the Alawi canton,” Joseph Bahout, a visiting scholar in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote of Russia in Carnegie’s “Syria in Crisis” blog.

 

“This is perhaps already a consideration, as the majority of Russian airstrikes concentrate on the contours of this area.”

 

Since intervening on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in late September, Russia has used airstrikes to create a buffer zone between rebel-held territory in the southern Idlib province and the traditional homeland of the Assads’ Alawite sect in the Latakia governorate.

 

Read More: Russia’s plan B for Syria: Alawistan – Business Insider