Arab Spring in the Middle East: Its Impacts on Libya and

Syria with Special Reference to the Emergence of ISIS and

Recent Scenario

By:

Ghulam Murtaza Pitafi

Department of I-R & Political Science

University of Sargodha

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Arab Spring in the Middle East: Its Impacts on Libya and
Syria with Special Reference to the Emergence of ISIS and
Recent Scenario
Ghulam Murtaza Pitafi

M.A Political Science (Gold Midlist)

University of Sargodha (2014-16)

Trigger point of Arab Spring:

Arab spring was triggered on December 17, 2010, when Muhammad Bouazizi,
a 26 year old street vendor, went to work in the provincial town of Sidi Bouzid,
which lies in the centre of Tunisia. Bouazizi, a graduate who had struggled to
find work, had taken to selling fruit and vegetables as a way of feeding his
family, and putting his sister through university. Unfortunately, he had not
acquired a licence to sell goods, and a policewoman confiscated his cart and
produce. So Bouazizi, who had had a similar event happen to him before,
attempted to pay the fine to the policewoman. In response, the policewoman
slapped him, spat in his face and insulted his deceased father. Her actions were
to have a lasting effect on him. Feeling humiliated and infuriated, Bouazizi went
to the provincial headquarters with the intent to lodge a complaint to local
municipality officials. However, he was not granted an audience. At 11:30 am
and only a few hours after his initial altercation with the policewoman, Bouazizi
returned to the headquarters, doused himself in flammable liquid, which he had
recently purchased, and proceeded to set himself alight.

The act itself was particularly brutal and Bouazizi subsequently died of the
injuries he sustained, but it proved to be the spark from which greater forms of
indignation would emerge. One man’s self-immolation appeared to encapsulate
a pent up sense of frustration which had been buried deep down inside many
young Tunisians concerning a broad scope of social issues. Violent
demonstrations and riots erupted throughout Tunisia in protest of the high
unemployment, corruption, food inflation and lack of many political freedoms.
The intensity of the protests was such that it led to the then President Zine El
Abidine Ben Ali stepping down on January 14, 2011. This was a remarkably
sudden series of events. In just a matter of weeks, a regime, which had enjoyed

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23 years in power, had been ousted by a campaign of popular pressure.
However, this phenomenon did not remain confined to Tunisia’s
boundaries.The ruptures of the events in Tunisia seemed to echo elsewhere, the
so-called “Tunisian wind” swept across North Africa and the Middle East, and
began a great chain of unrest. Although events did not occur in an identical
fashion to those witnessed in Tunisia, it seemed that people across the Arab
world were actively taking the initiative to overthrow their autocratic
governments. Modern technology played a part in this as social media websites
such as Facebook and Twitter enabled the flames of discontent to be fanned and
spread the news to an observing world. Its aftershocks were further observed in
the form of revolution in Egypt; internal violence in Libya; major protests in
Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Oman and Yemen; and
comparatively minor protests in Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Saudi
Arabia, Sudan and Western Sahara--1.
Causes of Arab Spring in the Middle East

Autocratic
regimes

Censorship
Poverty &
& Social
inflation
imbalance

Unemploym Human
ent & Rights
Political violations &
oppression rule & law

1: McKay Alasdair, The Arab Spring of Discontent, published on e-International

Relations during the first half of 2011, Oxford University press

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 Arab Spring in Libya
Protests in Libya began on 15 February, 2011 in front of Benghazi's police
headquarters following the arrest of a human rights attorney who represented
the “relatives of more than 1,000 prisoners allegedly massacred by security
forces in Tripoli’s Abu Salim jail in 1996.”As a result a series of peaceful
demonstrations turned into confrontations which were met with military force.
A "Day of Rage" was declared for 17 February by the National Conference for
the Libyan Opposition. Libyan military and security forces fired live
ammunition on protesters. On 18 February, security forces withdrew from
Benghazi after being overwhelmed by protesters—some security personnel also
joined the protesters. The protests spread across the country and anti-Gaddafi
forces established a provisional government based in Benghazi, called the
National Transitional Council with the stated goal to overthrow the Gaddafi
government in Tripoli.--2

In March 2011, after the UN Security Council authorised "all necessary

measures" to protect civilians, NATO powers launched air strikes on
government targets, ostensibly aimed at imposing a no-fly zone. With military
assistance from the West and several Arab states, rebel forces took Tripoli after
six months of fighting in which several thousand people were killed. After four
decades in power, Gaddafi went on the run and was captured and killed outside
Sirte in August 2011after a longest duration of his 42 years rule.

The National Transitional Council (NTC), which led the revolt, declared Libya
officially "liberated" and promised a pluralist, democratic state. In July 2012, it
organised elections for an interim parliament, the General National Congress
(GNC), in which liberal, secular and independent candidates beat the Muslim
Brotherhood-aligned Justice and Construction Party.--3

2:Http://guides.library.cornell.edu/c.php?g=31688&p=200753, updated December16

3: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-12482311, updated 16 December 2013

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 Arab Spring and Libya

Uprisings FEB:
2011

Resistance by
Gaddafi forces

Elections &
NATO's No Fly
Power Transferred Killing of Gaddafi
Zone
to NTC

Arab Spring and Syrian Conflict

Arab Spring pro-democracy protests erupted in March 2011 in the southern city
of Deraa after the arrest and torture of some teenagers who painted
revolutionary slogans on a school wall. After security forces opened fire on
demonstrators, killing several, more took to the streets. The unrest triggered
nationwide protests demanding President Assad's resignation. The government's
use of force to crush the dissent merely hardened the protesters' resolve. By July
2011, hundreds of thousands were taking to the streets across the country.
Opposition supporters eventually began to take up arms, first to defend
themselves and later to expel security forces from their local areas.

Violence escalated and the country descended into civil war as rebel brigades
were formed to battle government forces for control of cities, towns and the
countryside. Fighting reached the capital Damascus and second city of Aleppo
in 2012. By June 2013, the UN said 90,000 people had been killed in the
conflict. By August 2015, that figure had climbed to 250,000, according to

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activists and the UN. The conflict became a battle between those for those of
anti-Assad and pro-Assad rule. It has acquired sectarian overtones, pitching the
country's Sunni majority against the president's Shia sect and drawn in regional
and world powers, it also became cause of raising the jihadist group
calledIslamic State for Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has added a further dimension.--4

Impacts of Syrian Conflict

1: Humanitarian Crisis:

More than 4.5 million people have fled Syria since the start of the conflict, most
of them women and children. Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have
struggled to cope with one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history.
About 10% of Syrian refugees have sought safety in Europe, sowing political
divisions as countries argue over sharing the burden. A further 6.5 million
people are internally displaced inside Syria; 1.2 million were driven from their
homes in 2015 alone. The UN says it will need $3.2bn to help the 13.5 million
people, including 6 million children, who will require some form of
humanitarian assistance inside Syria in 2016. About 70% of the population is
without access to adequate drinking water, one in three people are unable to
meet their basic food needs, and more than 2 million children are out of school,
and four out of five people live in poverty. The combatant parties have
compounded the problems by refusing humanitarian agencies access to civilians
in need. Up to 4.5 million people in Syria live in hard-to-reach areas, including
nearly 400,000 people in 15 besieged locations who do not have access to life-
saving aid.

4: Thaler David, Muslim world after Arab Spring, Published 2004 by the RAND
Corporation USA

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 Migration from Syria

2: Rebels and the rise of the Jihadists:

The armed rebellion has evolved significantly since its inception. Secular
moderates are now outnumbered by Islamists and jihadists, whose brutal tactics
have caused global outrage. Islamic State has capitalised on the chaos and taken
control of large swathes of Syria and Iraq, where it proclaimed the creation of a
"caliphate" in June 2014. Its many foreign fighters are involved in a "war
within a war" in Syria, battling rebels and rival jihadists from the al Qaeda
affiliated Nusra Front, as well as government and Kurdish forces. In September
2014, a US-led coalition launched air strikes inside Syria in an effort to
"degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS. But the coalition has avoided attacks that
might benefit Mr Assad's forces. Russia began an air campaign targeting
"terrorists" in Syria a year later, but opposition activists say its strikes have
mostly killed Western-backed rebels and civilians. In the political arena,
opposition groups are also deeply divided, with rival alliances battling for
supremacy. The most prominent is the National Coalition for Syrian
Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, backed by several Western and Gulf

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Arab states. However, the exile group has little influence on the ground in Syria
and its primacy is rejected by many opponents of Mr Assad.

Position of Different Fighting Groups

3: Peace efforts:

With neither side able to inflict a decisive defeat on the other, the international
community long ago concluded that only a political solution could end the
conflict in Syria. The UN Security Council called for the implementation of the
2012 Geneva Communiqué, which envisages a transitional governing body
with full executive powers "formed on the basis of mutual consent". Talks in
early 2014, known as Geneva II, broke down after only two rounds, with then-
UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi blaming the Syrian government's refusal to
discuss opposition demands. Mr Brahimi's successor, Staffan de Mistura,
focused on establishing a series of local ceasefires.His plan for a "freeze zone"
in Aleppo was rejected, but a three-year siege of the Homs suburb ofal-Wair
was successfully brought to an end in December 2015.At the same time, the
conflict with IS lent fresh impetus to the search for a political solution in Syria.

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The US and Russia led efforts to get representatives of the government and the
opposition to attend "proximity talks" in Geneva in January 2016 to discuss a
Security Council-endorsed road map for peace, including a ceasefire and a
transitional period ending with elections.

4: Proxy war:

Arab Spring uprising against an autocratic rule in Syria mushroomed into a

brutal proxy war that has drawn in regional and world powers. Iran and Russia
supported President Assad and gradually increased their support. Tehran is
believed to be spending billions of dollars a year to bolster Mr Assad, providing
military advisers and subsidised weapons, as well as lines of credit and oil
transfers. Russia has meanwhile launched an air campaign against Mr Assad's
opponents. The Syrian government has also enjoyed the support of Lebanon's
Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement, whose fighters have provided important
battlefield support since 2013. The Sunni-dominated opposition has,
meanwhile, attracted varying degrees of support from its international backers -
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, along with the US, UK and France.
Until late 2015, rebel appeals for anti-aircraft weapons to stop devastating
government air strikes were rejected by the US and its allies, amid concern that
they might end up in the hands of jihadist militants. A US programme to train
and arm 5,000 rebels to take the fight to ISIS on the ground also suffered a
series of setbacks before being abandoned.--5

5. Maya Bhardwaj, Development of Conflict in Arab Spring in Syria: from revolution to civil
war

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 Syrian Conflict and Emergence of ISIS

A Brief History of ISIS:

The Sunni militants who now threaten to take over Iraq seemed to spring from
nowhere when they stormed Mosul in early June. But the group that recently
renamed itself simply “the Islamic State for Iraq and Syria (ISIS)” has
existed under various names and in various shapes since the early 1990s.The
group began more than two decades ago in the leadership of a Jordanian named
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. A onetime street criminal, he arrived in Afghanistan as
to be a mujahid in 1989, too late to fight the Soviet Union. He went back home
to Jordan, and remained a fringe figure in the international violent “jihad” for
much of the following decade. He returned to Afghanistan to set up a training
camp for terrorists, and met Osama bin Laden in 1999, but chose not to join al-
Qaeda.The fall of the Taliban in 2001 forced Zarqawi to flee to Iraq. There his
presence went largely unnoticed until the Bush administration used it as
evidence that al-Qaeda was in cahoots with Saddam Hussein. Shortly after the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he set up the forerunner to today’s Islamic
State: Jama’at al-Tawhid w’al-Jihad (the Party of Monotheism and Jihad),
which was made up mostly of non-Iraqis. Although Zarqawi’s rhetoric was
similar to bin Laden’s, his targets were quite different. From the start, Zarqawi
directed his wickedness at fellow Muslims, especially Iraq’s majority Shia
population. Zarqawi’s intentions were emphasized with the bombing of the
Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, the holiest place of Shiite worship in Iraq.Zarqawi
sent dozens of suicide bombers to blow themselves up in mosques, schools,
cafes, and markets, usually in predominantly Shiite neighbourhoods or
towns.By 2004, Zarqawi’s campaign of suicide bombings across Iraq had made
him a popular in the international “jihadi” movement, in June, 2006, the U.S.
Air Force dropped a pair of 500-pound bombs on his hideout, 20 miles north of
Baghdad. His death came just as the tide was turning against AQI. Many Sunni
tribes, chafing at Zarqawi’s sharia rules, had begun to fight back and Abu Bakar
Al Baghdadi was chosen as ameer of ISIS.Baghdadi took Zarqawi’s tactics and
boosted them. The Shiites were still his main targets, but now he sent suicide
bombers to attack police and military offices, checkpoints, and
recruitingstations. (Civilian targets remained fair game.) ISI’s ranks were
swelled by former Sons of Iraq, many of whom had previously been

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commanders and soldiers in Saddam’s military. This gave Baghdadi’s fighters
the air of an army, rather than a rag-tag militant outfit.With thousands of armed
men now at his disposal, Baghdadi opened a second front against the Shias in
Syria, where there was a largely secular uprising against President Bashar al-
Assad. What mattered to Baghdadi and his propagandists was that Assad and
many of his senior military commanders were members of Shiite sect. Battle-
hardened from Iraq, ISI was a much more potent fighting force than most of the
secular groups, and fought Assad’s forces to a standstill in many areas. Soon,
Baghdadi renamed his group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS),
reflecting his greater ambitions. His black flags, emblazoned with the Arabic
words for “There is no god but Allah” and the reproduction of what many
believe to be the Prophet Mohammed’s seal, became universal.--6

Just as Zarqawi had in Iraq, Baghdadi overplayed his hand in Syria. He began to
impose harsh strictures on Syrian towns and villages under ISIS control,
especially in the province of Raqqa. In early 2014, Assad’s forces had
recovered and begun to strike back; in May, they retook the city of Homs,
which had been the symbolic heart of the uprising. It was a blow for the rebels.
But Baghdadi was planning a much bigger, bolder strike—in his home country.
The taking of Mosul the following month marked a new phase in ISIS’s
evolution.

6: Bobby Ghosh, ISIS: A Short History: The terrorist group's evolution from fervid fantasy to
death cult, Aug 14 2014, The Atlantic

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 It was now able and willing to seize and control territory, not simply send
suicide bombers to their death. Baghdadi used theoccasion to promote himself
to “caliph” and renamed the group “the Islamic State,” in a nod to It’s now
even bigger ambition of ruling the entire region from the Mediterranean to the
Gulf. He also broadened his list of targets.--7

Recent Scenario and the Concerns of Major Actors in Syrian

Conflict

1: Turkey’s Concern to the Syrian crisis:

Turkey’s response to the Syria crisis has evolved through a number of distinct
phases. After initially focusing on diplomatic efforts to persuade President
Bashar al-Assad to introduce reforms, the Turkish government swiftly cut ties
with the Syrian regime in August 2011.Turkey’s concerns relating to the Syrian
conflict include refugee flows, Syria’s large stockpile of chemical weapons, the
implications of Syrian territorial disintegration (especially if a new Kurdish
autonomous zone results) and preserving its economic interests in Northern
Iraq. 90% of Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) trade is with Turkey. The
increasingly sectarian nature of the Syrian conflict is also particularly worrying
to Turkey’s Arabic-speaking Alawi population concentrated close to the Syrian
border. Strongly secularist, they are worried by the prospect of Assad’s secular
regime being replaced by a Sunni Islamist one.—8

2:Iran’s Concern to the Syrian crisis:

The 33-year old alliance between Syria and Iran has formed a key strategic axis
in the region. The relationship is underpinned by pragmatic concerns and is
based on common strategic goals. If the Assad regime falls, this will be seen as
a sizeable strategic and foreign policy setback for Iran.

7: REYHANLI and URFA, Are American-led air strikes creating a Sunni backlash?, The
Economist, Oct 4th 2014

8: ANKARA, The reluctance to strike IS may redound on Turkey’s president, The

Economist, Oct 11th 2014

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 Not only does Syria provide its ally with access to Lebanon and Israel, but it
has also provided assistance and arms to Hezbollah, commonly seen as an
Iranian proxy. Hezbollah’s survival is seen as one of Iran’s most vital interests
in the region. Iranian assistance to the Syrian regime has taken various forms:
providing crowd control weapons to the security services; guidance on
surveillance and internet monitoring; and financial resources to circumvent
sanctions.--9

3: America’s Concerns to Syrian Crisis:

USA is taking keen interest in the Syrian crisis, President Barack Obama
announced openly to support Free Syrian Army and rebels against the Assad
regime he also promised to “lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist
threat”. This would include systematic air strikes against ISIS in support of Iraqi
forces and, if necessary, in Syria too.--10

4: Russia’s Concerns to Syrian Crisis:

Russia is supporting Assad regime with Iran against rebels backed by UAS,
Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia is ready to scale up its military
intervention in Syria, less than a day after Moscow signed off on an ambitious
UN plan to end the war. He has also offered Assad for political asylum in
Russia and assured every necessary help required to him. Russia also started air
strikes on ISIS.--11

5:Saudi’s Concerns to Syrian Crisis:

Saudi Arabia responded to uprisings in Bahrain, Egypt and Tunisia in a manner

that clearly established the Saudi government as a counter-revolutionary actor in
the Arab Awakening. However, by providing vast financial aid and weapons to
anti-Assad militants, it has sided with forces promoting regime change. Saudi
Arabia’s role in the Syria conflict is driven by several regional and domestic
objectives from destroying the Syria-Iran alliance to distracting the Saudi
population from domestic problems.
9. https://www.chathamhouse.org Syria, Turkey and Iran: Regional Dynamics of the Syrian Conflict
December 2012

10. BAGHDAD AND CAIRO, America is gathering allies for a long campaign against extremists in
Iraq and Syria, The Economist, Sep 13th 2014

11. Alexey Malashenko, RUSSIA AND THE ARAB SPRING, Carnegie Moscow Center, OCTOB R
2013

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As the Syrian regime is Iran’s closest Arab state ally, the Saudis view regime
change in Syria as an opportunity to deal a major blow to Iran, its Shia allies in
Iraq and Lebanon, and Shia elements in the Kingdom opposed to Wahhabi rule.
Given that 74% of Syrians practice Sunni Islam, the Saudi government would
like to use its religious authority and economic resources to acquire influence
over a post-Assad order — at Tehran and Hezbollah’s expense. Saudi clerics
have relied on the Middle East’s explosive sectarian divisions to motivate Saudi
youth to travel to Syria and wage jihad against the Shia/Alawite political order,
but as many Syrians (both pro and anti-Assad) are secularists who practice a
moderate form of Islam, the widespread rejection of Wahhabism in Syria
undermines Riyadh’s soft-power there.--12

Major Actors in Syrian Conflict

Iran

Major
actors in
USA Russia
Syrian
Cobflict

Saudi
Arabia

12. CAIRO, Saudi duality, The Economist, 12th July 2012

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 Conclusion
In conclusion it can be said that Arab Spring was a sudden and unguided,
unplanned movement or a political wave or frustration of the people against the
autocratic and long lasting regimes of Middle Eastern countries. Arab Spring
could not prove fruitful because later it was hijacked and used against the rival
countries for their personal interests by major powers. In Libya it eliminated
long lasting dictator Gaddafi but that country could not transform itself in
democratic rule and suffered in civil war. Same is happening with Syria where a
fight of Assad family has taken the shape of international war which has
engulfed 40,000 lives. Due to that ISIS has raised as new global challenge of
terrorism for the world.

---The End----

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