{"id":13433,"date":"2018-08-31T22:25:50","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T22:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13433"},"modified":"2018-08-31T22:25:50","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T22:25:50","slug":"as-syrias-final-battles-looms-what-comes-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13433","title":{"rendered":"As Syria&#8217;s final battles looms, what comes next?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article-body\" readability=\"99.7373604728\">\n<p>The Syrian government and its ally Russia have hinted, in recent statements, that a push to retake\u00a0<span>the northern province of Idlib, the\u00a0<\/span>last major rebel-held area, may begin soon.<\/p>\n<p>It is a sign that Syria&#8217;s seven-year civil war may be entering its final stages, but also a warning that the conflict will not end without at least one more humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Russia has called Idlib a &#8220;hotbed of terrorists&#8221;, and even Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy for Syria, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2018\/08\/battle-idlib-warns-perfect-storm-180831104631362.html\">says<\/a> he believes as many as 10,000 al-Qaeda-linked fighters may now be gathered in the province.<\/p>\n<p>Idlib is also home to nearly three million people &#8211; almost half of them displaced from territory already recaptured by the Syrian government &#8211; including Aleppo, Eastern Ghouta and Deraa province.<\/p>\n<p>Syria&#8217;s foreign minister said on Thursday that his government plans to &#8220;liberate&#8221; Idlib, and Russia is reported to be building up its naval forces in the Mediterranean Sea.<\/p>\n<p>There has been talk of humanitarian corridors to help ease human suffering in the province, but there is little doubt any government offensive to retake Idlib will come at a terrible human cost.<\/p>\n<p>What is next for Idlib and for Syria as a whole, if its civil war is, indeed, entering its final phase?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Presenter:<\/strong> Hashem Ahelbarra<\/p>\n<p><strong>Guests:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Alexey Khlebnikov &#8211; Middle East expert at the Russian International Affairs Council<\/p>\n<p>Mamoun Abu Nowar &#8211; retired Jordanian air force general<\/p>\n<p>Haid Haid &#8211; research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span>Source:<\/span>\u00a0<span>Al Jazeera News<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Syrian government and its ally Russia have hinted, in recent statements, that a push to retake\u00a0the northern province of Idlib, the\u00a0last major rebel-held area, may begin soon. It is a sign that Syria&#8217;s seven-year civil war may be entering its final stages, but also a warning that the conflict will not end without at&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}