How Syria Became the New Global War
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/syria-war-became-conflict-between-usa-and-russia-and-iran-a-1115681.htmlAccording to Abu Yazen, a scout for the rebel group Levant Front who is stationed a couple of kilometers outside the siege ring, Syrian Arabic dialect no longer gets you very far on the front lines surrounding Aleppo.
Every group participating in the murderous fighting around the city is trying to listen in on the radio communications of their opponents. "But to understand Assad's troops, I would have to be multilingual," Yazen said over Skype during a recent moment of calm, when no bombs from the regime or from Russia were falling on the city.
In the "Afghan sector" near Khan Tuman southwest of the city, Dari is spoken, a dialect of Persian common in Afghanistan, Yazen says. In the "Hezbollah sector" in the south, Arabic with a Lebanese accent can be heard. The Iranian officers, meanwhile, speak Persian. And nobody, the scout continues, understands the Pakistanis when they speak Urdu. He says that the Iraqi militias surrounding Aleppo tend to speak with the strong accent prevalent in southern Iraq, "but we've gotten used to it." The only reason they don't hear much Russian, he says, is because the pilots flying overhead "only use frequencies that are difficult for us to intercept."
Syria has become one giant Charlie Foxtrot.
