North and East Syria …Other wars without armies

The war on northern and eastern Syria has taken another direction, but it is not new. This trend has many names, including the "cold, special, psychological, nerves, dirty and soft" war and other terms that depend on indirect methods of conflict through fighting influence.

The Lebanese writer and thinker Shakib Arslan says, "If you want to kill a person, do not shoot a bullet at him. Rather, call him a rumor."

From here, the danger of a special war that depends on rumor and psychological warfare, as this psychological war or rumor does not begin until after the political, economic, social and other aspects have been prepared for it, as is happening now in northern and eastern Syria.

And the fact that the rumor must be based on the reality of the society in which it is planned to spread, and take into account the needs of individuals, the forces that drew all this, as we said, worked to create the conditions for them.

For example, there is the issue of water cuts, which the Turkish state cut off from al-Hasakah after the occupation of the Alouk area in the countryside of Serekaniye / Ras al-Ain, and then began to promote that the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria had a hand in that.

The one who started spreading this rumor knows that it is weak, but there is no harm if a certain number of members of society believe it.

The rumor or malicious propaganda is characterized by the nature of ambiguity, as it does not belong to a specific source, because ambiguity generates suspicion, and this is required for the success of its purposes, and the rumor is attributed to unfounded news, or dubbing news that has some validity, and it is always brief to facilitate its publication.

The rumor mongers present the rumors, which are popular in a glamorous way, and do not come out until after plotting, formulation, and a good choice of words and time to impose themselves strongly on public opinion.

Psychological warfare is essentially a moral war, and the news agreed that it is a form of conflict that aims to influence the opponent, weaken his morale, direct his ideas, creed and opinions, and replace them with other ideas that are in the service of the party waging the psychological war.

There are many examples in northern and eastern Syria, for example the power outage as well. These forces prevent the access of electrical equipment to the region to replace and maintain old equipment, and they are the ones who promote that the Autonomous Administration is unfair in the distribution of electricity or fails to manage this important file for the general population.

As is the case with regard to medicines, as they are prevented from entering northern and eastern Syria, and it is promoted that the administration is smuggling and selling them.

As we said, there are many aspects that these forces tried to exploit, such as services, education, and others.

Some countries have often succeeded in achieving their goals without going to the ground or exposing their soldiers to danger, but at other times psychological warfare is a prelude to military war, so the media arsenal is launched, and working in secret, to pave the way for the attacking forces after that, but there is another goal. It takes place after failure to achieve a military victory or the lack of a political or military atmosphere to launch an attack, through which the opponent is distracted from internal and institutional development and striking stability.

This is happening in northern and eastern Syria, after the Syrian Democratic Forces defeated the terror represented by ISIS, it was supposed to direct attention to the internal side by building infrastructure and rehabilitating civilian institutions, but the forces launched this special war, as the Chinese general, military expert and philosopher Sun says Tzu "It is better to attack the enemy's mind than to start attacking his fortified cities."

Now, this war is intensifying in northern and eastern Syria, and it is heading at times to try to cause fighting between political entities, and fighting between nationalities at other times.

As these forces sought to stir up Kurdish-Kurdish differences and did not leave a way without them, and even carried out assassinations, and played on the anger of some of the killing of "Mishaal Tammo" and tried to accuse the Democratic Union Party. The assassination of Amouda was also fabricated and subsequently exploited.

This time, the attempt was dangerous, which was to initiate Kurdish-Arab fighting, by assassinating Arab tribal leaders and accusing the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Here, despite the risk of the attempt, the seeds of fighting or creating a real rift are basically absent.

This attempt was made by some of the tribal elders and not their sheikhs, as during the political circumstances in the regions where the clans existed, the chiefs of the tribes were absent from the scene as a result of some of the notables supported by many forces marginalizing them, so the decisions of this notable would be unwelcome by the members of the clan.

In addition, during the past years, the role of the head of the clan and its elders became only symbolic, and this has its pros and cons.

The most important thing is how to counter the special war. As carefully planned and studied, the response must be studied more carefully.

T/S

ANHA