Who will fire the opening shot in the Battle for Damascus?
Lebanese journalist Nasser Sharara, who usually plays a go-between role for the Syrian regime and its al-Akhbar daily mouthpiece in Beirut, says this has been the $64,000 question in Syria since early March.
Regime and opposition plans for the Battle of
Damascus were an open secret seven weeks back.
But the “Syrian army has now fortified Damascus with
four walls,” Sharara writes today in a researched (or planted?) news analysis
for al-Akhbar, which
Hezbollah’s news portal al-Manar reproduces verbatim.
Sharara says in part:
In early March, the opposition could only gain access
to the capital’s administrative center by having rebels in Jobar, a suburb on
the outskirts of Damascus, storm al-Abbasiyeen Square.
If regime forces wished to launch a preemptive battle
for Damascus at the time, their first step would have been to blitz Jobar in
the east, which is 700 meters from al-Abbasiyeen.
Jobar “feeds” from Douma and Harasta in the east and
from Darayya, in the Western Ghouta.
Darayya is a logistical supply line, through the
groves of Kfar Sousa, to key rebel strongholds south of the capital.
In the past three weeks, however, the opposition
tried to improvise an unforeseen strategy to break the military deadlock.
It mobilized “sleeping cells” of rebels in Barza and
Ruknuddin (where most residents are either Palestinians or Kurds) to infiltrate
the outer reaches of Mount Qasioun overlooking Damascus.
Mount
Qasioun is home to the army’s largest encampment for artillery and missile
systems Damascus has ever known.
The planned rebel infiltration, which could have
taken the army by surprise, was thwarted by a last-minute military intelligence
tip-off.
The army has since braced for defending Damascus from
surprise attack either by the rebels or by outside forces like NATO’s.
It created what it codified as “the four walls.”
The walls go from the city center outward to the
frontlines in the Damascus suburbs.
The innermost wall is manned by the Republican Guard
and tasked to protect Mount Qasioun proper.
The 4th Armored
Division and the People’s
Army, now fighting rebels on the outskirts of Damascus, or what is called “contiguous
Rif Dimashq,”
jointly man the second wall.
The People’s Army is in charge of the third wall.
Military intelligence is staffing the fourth and last
wall all along the Rif Dimashq frontlines.
Two weeks ago, the regime ordered army command to
initiate the preemptive battle for the city-governorate of Damascus and the belt
of districts and sub-districts in Rif Dimashq.
The army’s plan this time is not to push the rebels
back from areas they control, but to fence them in before finishing them off
within a specified time frame.
The preemptive campaign will culminate with the
recapture of the embattled Yarmouk
camp, which is when the army will announce having ended all the opposition’s
armed presence in the Damascus area and its environs…
Sharara wraps up:
“According to sources close to the Syrian army, the
envisioned Damascus battle scenario currently underway will take the following
course: After Darayya, the armed forces turned to Moadamia. They will then head
to Qatana, where rebels are
few, and subsequently to the groves of Kfar Sousa and al-Liwan – two areas now
being used by rebels to lob mortars at Damascus city.
“After clearing Kfar Sousa and al-Liwan, the armed
forces will storm the neighborhood of al-Qadam to reach the top of the renowned
Damascus thoroughfare known as al-Thalatheen Street adjacent to the Palestinian
refugee camp of Yarmouk and the districts of al-Hajar al-Aswad – all in the
capital’s south.
“The Popular Army -- but not the regular armed forces
-- will go into Yarmouk camp.”
