40 Middle East and Africa The EconomistFebruary 24th 2018
12 about 100 safe-houses in the city, where
police found more than $500,000.
IShas also laundered its cash reserves
by investing in legitimate businesses
around the region. In Iraq it has used mid-
dlemen to buy farms, car-dealerships, ho-
tels and hospitals. Most ofthe intermediar-
ies are driven by profit rather than
ideology, says Renad Mansour of Chatham
House, a British think-tank. Many are tribal
leaders or businessmen who have worked
with the jihadists before, smuggling oil,
weapons, goods and people.
Weak institutions and rampant corrup-
tion make it hard for Iraq to tackle the pro-
blem. Several ministries have tried to block
terrorist financing, with little success. Poli-
ticians also benefit from the black market.
Would-be whistleblowers fear thatIShas
spies inside the government.
ISalso retains the ability to generate
cash. It may use its businesses to siphon
funds meant for rebuilding the region’s
wrecked cities. Extortion, smuggling and
kidnapping will remain profitable, as the
group shifts its focus from capturing terri-
tory to waging an insurgency. New and old
money will keep the jihadists in business
for years to come. 7T
HE UNChildren’s Fund says it no lon-
ger has words to describe the suffering
in Syria. In an unusual move, the agency
released a blank statement to express its
outrage at President Bashar al-Assad’s lat-
est onslaught. On February18th his regime,
with Russian support, began pounding
Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus,
with artillery, air strikes and barrel bombs.
Hundreds of people have already been
killed. The regime appears to be mustering
troops ahead of a possible ground assault.
Far from winding down, Syria’s almost
seven-year civil war is heating up and
growing more complicated. The collapse
of Islamic State (IS) has freed local and for-
eign powers, which were loosely aligned
against the jihadists, to pursue other objec-
tives. Some have turned their guns on each
other. Observers see echoes of Lebanon’s
civil war, which also drew in foreigners
and dragged on for 15 years. But the war in
Syria has already been far more bloody.
The territorial demise ofIShas allowed
Mr Assad to focus on the final pockets of re-
sistance to his regime in western Syria, the
most populous part of the country. In De-
cember he sliced off a chunk of Idlib,which had been under rebel control. He
has now set his sightson Eastern Ghouta,
which the regime attacked with chemical
weapons in 2013 (and perhaps more recent-
ly). MrAssad’s tactics are as familiar as
they are chilling: besiege, starve and bomb
civilians until the rebels surrender or grow
too weak to resist. Homes and hospitals
have been destroyed. Supplies of medi-
cine, fuel and food are dangerously low.
The same strategy worked for the re-
gime in Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city,
which was held by rebels until 2016. Its fall
marked one ofthe biggestturning points of
the war. From then it has seemed increas-
ingly certain that MrAssad will remain in
power.
Now he is growing more assertive. Pro-
government militias have moved north
into the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, where
they hope to help Kurdish forces beat back
an incursion by Turkey, which opposes
Kurdish efforts to create a semi-autono-
mous zone on its border.
There is a growing risk of new clashes
involving the many external powers that
have been drawn in to Syria: Russia and
Iran, which back the regime; America,
which arms and supports the Kurds; Tur-
key, which has intervened to repel them;
and Israel, which is alarmed by the pros-
pect of Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hizbul-
lah, implanting themselves in the Golan
Heights. “With the fight againstISreceding
and the elimination of any serious threat
to the regime’s survival, the conflict is more
than ever defined by the struggle among
regional and international actors,” says
Randa Slim of the Middle EastInstitute, a
think-tank in Washington.
Some have already come into direct
conflict. On February 7th American-led
forces killed scores ofRussian mercenaries
who were fighting alongside pro-regime
forces in eastern Syria. On February10th Is-
rael intercepted an Iranian drone in its air-
space, prompting it to strike the base in Syr-ia from which it was controlled. After an
Israeli jet was hit by Syrian anti-aircraft fire
and crashed, Israel launched more such at-
tacks in Syria.
Mr Assad and his backers will probably
defeat mostof the rebels in eastern Ghouta
and elsewhere. But that may only mark the
start of a new phase in the conflict, one de-
fined more by the machinations of foreign
powers. The war is likely to keep burning
for some time. Syrian civilians will contin-
ue to bear the brunt of the fighting. “We are
dying and starving. But where is the world?
Where is the UN?” asks Ahmad Khansour,
an activistin Eastern Ghouta. “All it does
now is issue blank statements.” 7Syria’s civil warHotting up again
BEIRUT
The war in Syria is growing bloodier
and more complicatedMore misery in Eastern GhoutaB
RIGHTLY painted dhows bob on the
waves of the Arabian Sea. Fishermen
auction the morning’s catch of swordfish,
tuna and manta rays. Sardines dry in the
sun, fodder for the camels that pad through
the street. Life used to be simple in the port
of Ghayda, the capital of Mahra governo-
rate, tucked in Yemen’s far east.
The arrival of soldiers from Saudi Ara-
bia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is
complicating things. Abd Rabbo Mansour
Hadi, Yemen’s president, invited them into
the country to repel Houthi rebels, who
pushed him out in 2015. The Houthis con-
trol about a fifth of the territory. Saudi and
Emirati forces hold much of the rest. But as
their grip tightens, Yemen fractures.
Saudi and Emirati officials say their de-
ployments across the country are part of
their war effort. But join the dots and Saudi
Arabia’s positions match the incense trade
route that long ran overland from the Indi-
an Ocean to Arabia. The kingdom appears
to be carving a new corridor to the coast.
Meanwhile, the UAE’s actions in Yemen
appear part of a larger strategy to gobble
up ports along some ofthe world’sbusiest
shipping routes.
The Saudis, operating out of Ghayda’s
airport, which they took in November,
have bought favour with tribal sheikhs in
the east and south by dispensing weapons,
cars and Saudi passports. They aim to
block Iranian arms shipments at the sea-
port. In Seiyun, to the west, they train fight-
ers loyal to Mr Hadi. They are also working
closely with Ali Mohsen, Yemen’s vice
president, and his allies in Islah, an Islam-
ist movement, to rebuild Yemen’s army,
which the Houthis routed when they took
the capital, Sana’a, in 2014.The conquest of YemenGobbling up
southern Arabia
GHAYDA AND SEIYUN
Saudi and Emirati forces are pushing
deep into war-battered Yemen