On August 31, US-backed Jaysh Usud al-Sharqiya and Ahmad al-Abdo Forces released in an official statement accusing unspecified sides of pressuring them to stop fighting against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). Opposition sources said that the “sides” mentioned in the statement are Jordan and the United States.
In the statement, Jaysh Usud al-Sharqiya and Ahmad al-Abdo Forces said that they were under heavy pressure not only to stop fighting the SAA but also hand over their positions in the Damascus desert to it.
Click to see the full-size image
The two groups stressed that they will continue their fight against the SAA and its allies at any cost. The statement included very offensive sectarian langue that this groups didn’t officially use before.
Furthermore, Jaysh Usud al-Sharqiya and Ahmad al-Abdo called for other Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups in the Eastern Ghouta region and in southern Syria to aid them and to fight the SAA too.
However, it’s not likely that any group will respond to this statement and break the de-escalation agreement.
Although both groups insist on fighting the SAA, they were not able in the last three months to recapture any lost position or even to stop the SAA advance.
Furthermore, these groups have not contributed any real effort to fight ISIS so far.
It’s likely that Jordan and the US are extremely unsatisfied with their “experience” in the al-Tanaf base near the Syrian-Iraqi border. The US-led collation’s forces there failed to achieve any of its goals beside occupying a strategic highway to Iraqi.
On August 29, Jordan refused to let injured FSA fighters to enter its hospital after the FSA attack on ISIS-affiliated Jaysh Khalid ibn al-Waleed had failed. The latest developments suggest that the US and Jordan might be considering dropping support to some of these FSA groups in eastern and southern Syria soon.
