This video posted on the Internet yesterday shows the sort
of heavy
weaponry commandeered by FSA fighters after capturing a
military
base outside Deir Salman village in the Damascus Ghota, a green
agricultural
belt surrounding the capital in the south and east
Syria’s 20-month conflict is slowly but surely homing
in on the capital.
Rebel strikes against
military bases across Syria have exposed President Bashar al-Assad's weakening
grip in the north and east of the country and left his power base in Damascus
vulnerable to the increasingly potent opposition forces.
Rebel fighters have
taken at least five army and air installations in the last 10 days.
Rebels also have had a number of recent
successes in shooting down Syrian military aircraft, a possible sign that they
have been able to commandeer heavier weaponry after taking over government
military bases.
Two helicopters were shot down in Aleppo
province yesterday. A video of one of the attacks posted online shows a surface-to-air
missile slamming into a helicopter in a ball of orange flame.
The two main rebel
gains of the last fortnight were the huge 46th Division army base, which
sprawls over several square kilometers west of Aleppo, and the Mayadeen base in
Deir al-Zor, which left rebels controlling 120 kilometers of the Euphrates
river north of the Iraqi border.
Around the capital
itself, rebels have captured an air defense installation in the south of
Damascus and a helicopter base situated among the eastern farmlands and towns,
which have been an opposition stronghold for months.
To the southwest the
army has been bombarding rebels in the suburb of Daraya, determined to prevent
them from holding another gateway into the capital.
"There is a sense
that the flames are licking at the door,” a diplomat in Damascus told Reuters.
While the regime has
regularly claimed to be launching its final crackdown on the rebellion in
Damascus province, such announcements have rarely borne fruit.
"If it feels the
pressure build up further, the regime might turn into a militia, and that would
be the start of a process of disintegration in Syria," analyst Karim Bitar
of the French Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), tells AFP.
"The atmosphere and
characteristics of the battle for Aleppo will likely be reproduced in
Damascus" if all-out war breaks out there, he added.
"The battle for
Damascus will likely be even deadlier than Aleppo, and it might change the
rules of the game. It will really be an existential battle for the regime, and
such battles tend to give way to all kinds of madness and excess," said
Bitar.
"If the rebels make
real progress around the capital, it could be the beginning of the end for
Assad," the analyst said.
"But the regime has
not said its last word, and the coming weeks are full of danger."
An activist in the
Damascus suburb of Jobar tells today’s Saudi daily Asharq
Alawsat by Skype, “The regime has effectively collapsed. It only controls
the peripheries of neighborhoods. Everyone here is waiting for Zero Hour,
hoping it will pass well.”
The activist says “there
are more than 10,000 (Free Syrian Army) fighters in the city” but he is uneasy about
the anticipated backlash from the Fourth
Armored Division commanded by Maher Assad, the president’s brother.
The Fourth Armored
Division, which comes next in importance to the Republican Guard
that Maher Assad commands as well, “won’t cede Damascus, even when the regime
falls. They will destroy it by random shelling.”
Military analysts consider
the Division as the best trained and best equipped of the
Syrian Army. It is drawn mostly from members of the same Alawite minority sect
as the Assad family.
About 80 percent of
the Division’s soldiers and officers are Alawites and nearly 90 percent of them
are career soldiers. The Division has a military base in the south of Damascus,
which covers about 90 square kilometers and includes several mountain bunkers
in Mount Qasioun.
An unnamed member of
the opposition Local Coordination Committees tells Asharq Alawsat, “Over the
last few weeks, Mount Qasioun – which overlooks the capital -- was converted to
the largest military encampment that Damascus has ever known. All artillery
weapons are aimed directly at the suburbs surrounding Damascus
“Because the feeling
is that Zero Hour is imminent, the regime moved nearly all ammunitions into the
capital and Mount Qasioun…
“Fear of reprisals by
the Fourth Division won’t push back the battle for Damascus, which is knocking
at the door. We’re mobilizing all our resources. People are stocking up medical
supplies. Others are preparing to evacuate civilians and the rest are bracing
for the offensive on the capital.”
“The Syrian revolution
is okay,” Asharq Alawsat’s editor-in-chief Tariq
Alhomayed writes in his leader today, adding in part:
“For almost a
fortnight, the Arab media and many people overlooked details of Syrian
revolution happenings. They were busy following news of the eight-day war in
Gaza, then the Egyptian president’s counterrevolutionary decisions. Despite
this, the Syrian revolution is okay. It is forging ahead on the right path,
which will soon bring down the Damascus tyrant…
“The Syrian revolution
is okay because Assad failed to exploit the breather when the media, the world
at large and many Arabs were focused on the eight-day war in Gaza and the
Egyptian president’s regressive decisions as the Syrian insurgents continued to
tiptoe to Damascus.
“Assad is besieged more
than ever before. Neither Russia, nor Iran -- with Hezbollah in tow – were able
to change the equilibrium on the ground. Syrians are inching forward to lay
siege to the tyrant’s palace. They are capturing Assad’s vital military bases one
after the other. They are making political headway in the Arab world and
Europe, leaving Assad aides Farouk el-Sharaa, Walid Muallem and Bouthaina
Shaaban dumbstruck…
“The Syrian revolution
is okay. All we’re waiting for now is tyrant Assad’s overthrow, which is looming
more than at any time.”
