Syrian provincial capital of Idlib falls to al-Nusra front. Yahoo/Reuters

A technical fires at Syrian government forces. Yahoo/Reuters.

The Syrian provincial capital of Idlib has fallen to Al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Nusra Front. Yahoo/Reuters. The province of Idlib, which shares its name with the capitol city, is the second Syrian province to fall to Islamic insurgents, though it is the first one to fall to al-Nusra. Raqqa province fell to ISIS months ago. The Syrian government did not confirm that al-Nusra had taken Idlib but outside monitors confirmed the militants claim that the city had fallen. Losing the city is a major blow to the Syrian regime because it sits near the supply highway between the capital of Damascus and the major battleground city of Aleppo. 

My Comment:

This is a huge defeat for the Syrian regime and an ominous development all around. Al-Nusra has gotten much less attention then ISIS has but they are an extremely dangerous group. They are slightly less brutal then ISIS but they share much of the same ideology and are a bigger threat to western interests, at least in terms of overseas operations. They have now set up their own mini state in Syria, which is bad news for the people there. Not like the Syrian people have all that many options for good governments since everyone involved there is basically evil.  

The Syrian regime is in a bad position. Not only are they losing battles, their patron, Iran, has other competing interests. Iraq has taken up a lot of their time and resources and the conflict in Yemen threatens to distract them even further. Outside of Iran they have few allies actually willing to fight for them. They also have many enemies, not just including the various rebels and Islamic militias arrayed against them. They also have to contend with the United States and Turkey who desperately want to see regime change. 

Is the Syrian government losing the war? They still have control over some of their territory and have plenty of fighters and equipment left. But that's about all they have going for them. I don't think they will be utterly defeated any time soon though. The Syrian government's one great advantage is that all of their enemies are fighting each other. ISIS, al-Nusra and the few secular rebels that are left fight each other almost as much as they fight the government. ISIS and al-Nusra also have to contend with airstrikes from the United States and other coalition partners, and ISIS is facing huge battles in Iraq as well. If all of Syria's enemies put aside their differences and focused on taking down the government, then the Assad regime would have no chance. That's never going to happen, so for the time being the regime is somewhat safe. Still losing battles like this is not a good sign. 

Also, it is very disturbing at how much territory that radical Islam has managed to take. In addition to the vast territory captured by ISIS in Iraq, Syria and Libya, al-Nusra has its own mini-state in Syria, now with Idlib as its possible capital. Boko Haram has territory in Nigeria, while AQAP controls territory in Yemen. All of these groups control the fates of people that live in those areas. My fear is that people living their will be indoctrinated into the most radical forms of Islam and may not give up those beliefs when these areas are liberated, if they ever are. I've seen video of ISIS indoctrinating children into their belief system. If those children are ever freed from ISIS they will require some serious deprogramming. 

Finally, I think the United States needs to reevaluate their position on Syria. Though the Syrian regime is evil and has some terrible things it is clear that they are the best of bad options in the state. Nobody wants the regime to fall to either ISIS or al-Nusra. The ideal situation would be for the secular rebels to win, but there are so few of those left and the ones that are can't fight both the government and the Islamic groups. I'm not saying we should support the government but we could just admit that they are the lesser evil.