Danger facing Syria and Iraq

Faced with similar threats from a common enemy, Daesh, Iraq and Syria are being drawn closer at rapid speed.

Daesh occupies large swathes of territory in both Iraq and Syria, and continue to pose grave dangers to both countries.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi recently acknowledged that sharing intelligence with Damascus proved to be most valuable in the fight against the Islamist extremist groups.

He also downgraded the US efforts in the fight against Daesh, which he failed to see as very effective.

Abadi even called on Moscow, which started to strike Daesh troops in Syria, to use its air power in Iraq as well.

Russia also disclosed that it had sent military advisers to Baghdad to help it fight Daesh.

Meanwhile, Moscow has widened the scope of its air strikes in Syria to cover the moderate opposition groups as well, in defiance of the US, which still hope that this motley group of opposition fighters will be able to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad from power.

A Damascus-Baghdad-Tehran-Moscow axis appears to be in the making. If indeed that is the case, the Arab world will be further divided at a time when Arab unity is most needed.

Irrespective of the plans of big and smaller players in the region with declared or hidden interests in Syria and Iraq, these two Arab countries seem doomed to witness more war and destruction and to face the threat of seeing their stability and security upended by the intervention of foreign powers.

Arab division along sectarian lines has never been more obvious. Unfortunately, this will not stop at individuals, but threatens to bring down two countries that were once the pride of civilised world.