After Aleppo

This week’s blog post is at The Huffington Post

“After Aleppo”

“Taking the fight to the streets of Damascus and Aleppo over the past few weeks wasn’t about holding territory. It was a demonstration of FSA capabilities, a display intended for both a Syrian and international audience and designed to achieve several broader goals.”

Read it by clicking here

(also available in French here)

Please leave comments at The Huffington Post website below the article!

The Houla Massacre in Syria Is Just the Beginning

The Houla Massacre in Syria Is Just the Beginning

March 7, 2011. Nouri, Ali, and I were in Benghazi, watching television for news of the Libyan civil war we would soon be fighting in. It had been a long day – we recovered Ali’s Toyota Hilux pickup truck that was damaged in the Rajma military base bombing, made some quick repairs, and got it back on the road as our combat vehicle.
It was my first day in the revolution; I had been in Libya for less than 24 hours.

The town of Bin Jawad had just fallen to Gaddafi’s forces that day and Ali shared with us the disturbing news he had heard.

Fifty rebels had been captured in Bin Jawad.  They weren’t taken to prison. They weren’t even given the mercy of a bullet in the head.

They were burned alive.

Matthew VanDyke talking with Nouri Fonas and Ali about the capture of Bin Jawad by Gaddafi's forces

Photo from my conversation with Ali and Nouri Fonas about the capture of Bin Jawad on March 7, 2011. I was captured with Ali and two other rebels in Brega on March 13, 2011. Ali was missing for nearly a year until his body was found in a mass grave months after the war ended.

News of a massacre in Bin Jawad did not deter us. Rather, it increased our resolve to fight, and to get to the front line as soon as possible and do whatever we could to stop Gaddafi’s advance towards Benghazi.

And it will be the same with the rebels in Syria. For every person in Houla who had their homes destroyed by artillery, for every rebel fighter who stood his ground and was killed by Assad’s army, for every woman and child who had their throats cut by the Alawite shabiha militias that swarmed the town after the shelling had stopped – a dozen, maybe a hundred, maybe a thousand Syrians will join the ranks of the Free Syrian Army and fight to the death to avenge them.

This is just the beginning

The Houla massacre is emblematic of the savagery that is rapidly defining the Syrian civil war and it provides a disturbing insight into where this war is headed.

The following is certain:

1. Revenge will be taken by the people of Houla against nearby Alawite villages where the shabiha militias came from.

2. These Alawite villages will be razed, just as the Libyan town of Tawergha was razed by militias from Misrata for supporting Gaddafi during the war and because some Tawerghan men participated in the assault on Misrata and allegedly in the rape of Misratan women.

3.  When Assad falls there will hardly be an Alawite left in Syria. Many will flee and most of those who remain will be killed.  The majority of Syrian Christians, a group that supports the regime out of fear of what might replace it, will follow them into Turkey and Lebanon.

4. Revenge killings by the various sects will continue long after the regime falls.

5. The sectarian conflict in Syria will exacerbate sectarian divisions in neighboring Lebanon, igniting violence that could escalate into small-scale civil war in various parts of that country as well.

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) has made an effort to control its forces and minimize sectarian strife and atrocities committed by the rebel forces, but without a centralized command structure, organization, and a way to hold individuals accountable for their actions there isn’t much they can really do to keep a cycle of revenge from spiraling out of control in the coming months.

Syria has already surpassed Libya in terms of brutality, violations of human rights, and unapologetic savagery. It is devolving into an African-style genocidal civil war reminiscent of Rwanda and the best we can realistically hope for at this point is a Lebanese-style civil war (which lasted 15 years and resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties).

Neither of these are good scenarios, but one of them is going to happen.  Whether it is the worst case or the least-worst case scenario will depend on how soon the West intervenes. Inaction will lead to more massacres and Houla will just be one of many, alphabetized under “H” along with Hama and Homs on a “Syria massacres” Wikipedia page.

The Assad regime must be thoroughly destroyed, dismantled, and overthrown with no remnant of it remaining. NATO did a tremendous job assisting us in Libya, ending the war more quickly with far fewer lives lost than would otherwise have been possible.  It is likely I would still be a prisoner of war today (or still fighting Gaddafi if I had been traded or released) if it weren’t for NATO intervention in Libya.  The unequivocal defeat of Gaddafi’s forces through NATO airpower combined with our rebel forces on the ground has allowed Libya to progress with relative stability and no signs of a counter-insurgency against the new government.

It is time for NATO to act, with or without UN approval. Houla should be a catalyst for action, not because of the massacre itself, but because of what the aftermath will be if such massacres are allowed to continue.  The massacre in Houla, the shelling of Homs, and the current assault on Hama have already begun a chain reaction of revenge killings that will continue even after Assad is overthrown.  By the time the violence stops, Syria will be an almost entirely Sunni country with very few Alawites or Christians left standing.

And once that happens, they’ll turn on each other.


Note: I have not found any published reports of rebels being burned alive in Bin Jawad and have thus been unable to confirm whether what Ali heard really did happen. However, Associated Press reported on March 7, 2011 that 50 rebels were captured in Bin Jawad – that part of the story is confirmed – it is only whether they were burned alive or not that is in question. During the war there were many stories coming from the front lines, not all of which were accurate. Please contact me if you have any evidence or details about this incident.

Russian and Chinese Arms Sales to Authoritarian Regimes – Part 2 (China)


China: The Evil Twin?

This article is Part 2 of Russian and Chinese Arms Sales to Authoritarian Regimes.  Part 1 can be found here.


As Russia equips the world’s authoritarian regimes with the means to discourage Western intervention, China is selling them one of the worst tools of oppression against their own people: artillery.

(Artillery, as defined by the FAS report, includes field and air defense artillery, mortars, rocket launchers and recoiless rifles and FROG launchers 100mm and over)

Artillery sold by China (2003-2010): 1,890

Artillery sold by the US (2003-2010): 390

Why artillery?  Assad’s shelling of Syrian cities like Homs shows how essential artillery is to waging an effective campaign against a popular uprising.

Map showing artillery damage after Assad's army bombed Homs Syria
Map showing artillery damage after Assad’s army bombed Homs, Syria

In Syria, the use of artillery by Bashar al-Assad has accomplished numerous goals:

  1. Artillery has allowed Assad to avoid the mistake that Muammar Gaddafi made – using airpower to bombard the opposition – which led to calls for a no-fly zone and eventually Western military intervention to remove the regime.
  2. Artillery bombardment allows the regime to kill not only freedom fighters but also civilians, reducing the pool of potential recruits and dramatically increasing the war weariness of the population.
  3. The large-scale destruction of towns and cities serves as a warning to the civilian population not to support the uprising, and discourages rebels from holding ground in cities because of the destruction the regime response will cause.
  4. Using artillery provides the regime with some plausible deniability of intent when civilian buildings are hit (such as hospitals or media centers) because it is indirect fire.
  5. Artillery allows the regime to bombard the enemy from a distance, keeping the army together so as to prevent individual units from defecting to the other side.

These Chinese artillery purchases are in addition to all of the Russian artillery already purchased by the regimes in the past and doesn’t even include the smaller mortars (60mm and 80mm).  Syria and other authoritarian regimes have acquired a truly massive stockpile of artillery rounds for leveling cities and destroying any uprising against their rule.

China has been particularly aggressive with artillery sales to Africa.  Algeria, Sudan, and Egypt (under Hosni Mubarak) have purchased the 155mm howitzers from China.  China shipped mortars and rockets to President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe despite international pressure in 2008.

When the regimes don’t have enough cash to pay for the weapons China negotiates trade deals for the natural resources of the countries, allowing the regimes to further pillage the country and the resources of its people in exchange for the arms to remain in power.  This is part of the reason that China deals with pariah states under sanction by other countries; in their weakened state the regimes are forced to enter into resource deals on terms very benficial to China in exchange for weapons.  This allows China to expand influence in the Third World and obtain resources it depends on for economic growth.

Protecting Their Investment

The Russian and Chinese arms trade with authoritarian regimes isn’t just about money and resources.  Russia and China view themselves as superpowers intent on spreading their influence throughout the world.  Chinese weapons are viewed as cheap substitutes for Russian arms and as a consequence they’re the budget alternative for many authoritarian regimes.  With China’s focus on economic power as their means of influence in the world this presents an opportunity for them to ship cheap weapons to the Third World in exchange for favorable trade terms, natural resources, and establishing a foothold in developing countries.





Russia: The Evil Empire Revisited?


Freedom Fighter Matthew VanDyke in the Libyan Civil War



The FAS report “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2003-2010” contains Russia’s customer list for arms deals.  The usual suspects are all there:


For comparison, the United States’ main customers are:



The Disturbing Pattern






Helicopters sold by Russia (2003-2010): 390

Helicopters sold by the US (2003-2010): 138




Protecting Their Investment


