Russia began its military
intervention in Syria a month
ago, initially declaring that its
aim was to take on the selfproclaimed Islamic State. But
instead, it immediately started
targeting groupsthat pose the
most threat to Bashar alAssad’s regime, mainly the
Islamist coalition of rebel and
jihadi groups known as Jaish
al-Fatah, or the Army of
Conquest, which includes the
Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s Syrian
branch, as well as more
moderate groups backed by
Turkey, Saudi Arabia and even
the United States.
Russia hopes to consolidate the
territory controlled by Assad’s
forces, which have also
launched an offensive on rebel
groups affiliated with the Free
Syrian Army that have been
supplied with advanced antitank missiles by the CIA. It
looks a little like a proxy war.
Meanwhile, ahead of another
round of talks on Syria’s future
that now include Iran, the
United States and its allies still
insist that Assad has to go.
In the latest Global Dispatches
podcast, host Mark Goldberg
talks with Michael Kofman
about the Syrian conflict, the
impact of Russia’s intervention
and Russia and the United
States’ differing approaches
toward Assad and the Islamic
State.
Open and Shut: Sweden’s
Identity Crisis
Sweden, the biggest country at
the heart of rich and peaceful
Scandinavia, is in many ways
in the eye of the current
migration storm tearing
through Europe. Although it is
admitting fewer refugees than
Germany in terms of sheer
numbers, Sweden is—and has
been for several years—the
European Union’s (EU) biggest
per capita recipient of
refugees by quite a wide
margin. In 2014, Sweden, a
country with just 9 million
inhabitants, received more than
80,000 asylum applications.