Assad’s motorcade and the state of play in Syria

President Assad at the mosque (top) and a woman grieving the loss of a loved one on Eid day

Did Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's motorcade come under rebel attack as it headed to a Damascus mosque yesterday?

Yes.

Did the Katyusha and mortar rounds fired in the direction of the motorcade hit their target?

No.

Did Assad seem perturbed while performing Eid al-Fitr prayers after his arrival at the mosque?

Yes.

Was the attack a pointer to the state of play on the battlefield?

Yes, of course.

Syria's information minister denied rebel claims that they attacked Assad's convoy as it headed towards the Anas bin Malek mosque in the Maliki area, where the president has a residence.

Opposition activists and residents reported what seemed to be the sound of several incoming mortar explosions in the early morning.

The Eid prayers, which hardly take five minutes and are usually held shortly after sunrise, started an hour late at 8 a.m.

It was unclear whether the pictures of the president aired on Syrian state TV were pre-recorded, analysts at BBC Monitoring said. For a brief moment they carried a “live” caption, which then swiftly vanished.

It is possible the footage was pre-recorded, analysts told BBC News, as reports that the president's convoy was struck while travelling to the mosque had come around one hour previously.

Charles Lister, analyst and head of MENA at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre (JTIC) in London tweeted in relatively quick succession:

(1) “Combining reports of Internet access cut in attack location + heavy air force presence now over that location suggests something happened.”

(2) “#Damascus experiencing sig security this AM. New checkpoints hurriedly erected in Abbasiyeen Square. Low-flying jets over central districts.”

Two Syrian rebel brigades claimed responsibility for the attack – Liwa’ a-Islam commanded by Zahran Alloush and Liwa’ Tahrir al-Sham.

Alloush told Aljazeera TV by Skype from the Damascus suburbs, “We fired the Katyusha rockets in the direction of the motorcade, while Tahrir al-Sham used mortar shells…

“We are deployed in close proximity to the Presidential Palace and the Maliki area… We have a sizable surveillance force inside Damascus and we are privy to reliable and precise intelligence information.”

Having watched TV footage of Assad praying, Dr. Zahran Alloush, a Jordanian psychologist based in Amman, later told Aljazeera the Syrian president’s “body language was telling. He looked rattled and worried.

“I kept asking myself, ‘Why are his eyes looking left and right in quick succession while performing the prayers?’

“He also seemed in a rush. He just wanted to dash out. “

The pointers to the state of play on the battlefront after the failed attack were left for Egyptian military strategy analyst Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Safwat el-Zayyat, who told Aljazeera:

The armed opposition formed the “Front to Liberate Damascus” a fortnight ago and has started moving from Eastern Ghouta to the capital proper.

Within two weeks, we’re seeing clashes in Umawiyeen and Abbasiyeen squares, which are just over two kilometers from the site of the (motorcade) incident.

This means the armed opposition is now fighting inside Damascus.

At the same time, the regime is capitalizing on its airpower to bomb Qaboun, Jobar, Barza, Ghouta and other places in the Damascus countryside.

The armed opposition, in other words, has gone a long way since the regime announced in mid-April that it was winning the battle for Damascus.

The area targeted by the rebels today is a nerve center for the regime. It’s where the presidential offices and palaces are.

Although Katyusha and mortar rounds are not exactly accurate, I think the message was delivered to the regime: the president’s motorcade is on our radar.

We’re now into what is called fourth-generation warfare (4GW), in which no side lets its opponent rest.

For example, after capturing Minnigh airbase in Syria’s far north, we see the rebels targeting political and military regime leaders in the heart of Damascus.  The purpose is to keep the adversary under tactical, operational and strategic pressure.

On August 1, the president paid a symbolic visit to troops in the battered town of Darayya, southwest of Damascus, on the occasion of Army Day.

TV footage showed him surrounded by scores of presidential guards and exchanging a few words with 10 soldiers at most.

Why would a head of state need special protection when talking to his troops?

The answer came today in the capital’s Maliki area.

Also on August 1, the rebels sent a wave of rockets slamming into a huge advanced weapons depot in Wadi ad-Dahab, southeast of Homs.

How did the rebels know it existed?

A day later, they captured a major munition depot of anti-tank guided missiles in the Damascus northern countryside region of Qalamoun, where the Syrian army’s famed 3^rd Armored Division is deployed.

Who led them to it?

Then came the armed opposition’s sweep on Latakia’s rural areas, where they captured 10 villages in two days.

This tells me, the armed opposition is now getting a trove of intelligence information from regime insiders.

Syria: Assad isn’t winning and rebels aren’t losing

Anti-tank guided missiles seized by rebels in Qalamoun

Two body blows to the Syrian army this week dented incessant claims Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is winning the war.

He isn’t. And the armed opposition is simply not losing.

Between them, the town of Qusayr and the neighborhood of Khalidiya in Homs city – recaptured by the regime in the past two months -- don’t make up even 0.01 percent of Syria’s territory.

Assad can’t be winning the war if it takes his army – enhanced by Vladimir Putin’s arms supplies, Barack Obama’s perfidy and the complicity of Iraq’s Nouri al-Maliki, Iran’s Ali Khamenei and Lebanon’s Hassan Nasrallah -- over two years to “retake” 0.01 percent of so-called “strategic” territory.

Rebels battling Assad's army captured five depots of Konkurs, Kornet and Milan anti-tank guided missiles, arms and ammunition in the Qalamoun area on the doorstep of Damascus early on Saturday.

The massive explosions in Wadi Dahab near Homs 

Two days earlier, the rebels sent a wave of rockets slamming into regime strongholds in the Wadi Dahab area of Homs, triggering a succession of massive explosions in a weapons depot that killed at least 40 people and wounded some 120. The rocket attack sent a massive ball of fire and a black mushroom cloud into the sky and caused widespread damage and panic among residents, many of who are Assad supporters.

Egyptian military and strategy expert Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Safwat el-Zayyat last night gave an enlightening news analysis of the two body blows to the regime.

Speaking live to Aljazeera TV anchorwoman Khadija Bengana, he said:

The implications of the rebel attacks on the weapons depots in Qalamoun and Homs are very significant.

The Qalamoun area, chiefly the village of Baqaa, where the rebels overran the depots, is teeming with regime forces.

It’s the nerve center of the Syrian army’s famed 3^rd Armored Division, which is renowned for its blind loyalty to the regime and is tasked with shielding the northern gateway to Damascus.

Legitimate questions need answering.

Why? Because:

§ The 5^th Armored Division, which is only 10 kilometers away from the scene, failed to send reserves to protect the site

§ The depots are close to the surface-to-surface missile brigade raining Scuds on northern Syria

§ The site is in the vicinity of al-Nasiriyah military airbase.

The rebels’ raid must have lasted several hours. Where were the reserve and mechanized units during that time?

Is this a sign that regime forces are extremely exhausted, overstretched and unable to secure the area between Homs and Damascus?

What if we also factored in the rebels’ rocket attack on the army’s weapons depot in Wadi Dahab, southeast of Homs city?

Does all this show the armed opposition is now privy to military intelligence information from within the regime?

The 3^rd Armored Division is one of the strongest in the army. It is not a simple matter for the rebels to storm the five depots under its nose and walk away with the booty in their own time.

The Kornet anti-tank guided missiles seized by the rebels -- of the type used by Hezbollah against Israeli forces in summer 2006 -- are superior to the Konkurs type they have been using lately.

The 3^rd Armored Division’s evident vulnerability could now embolden the armed opposition to go one step further, which is to cut off and win control of the highway between Homs and Damascus. They could even target Qusayr for that matter. Who knows where they will be heading next!

The army and allied militias are now busy fighting for the suburbs – in Qaboun, Jobar and Barza.

The armed opposition, for its part, has put Eastern Ghouta on the back burner and turned westward to knock at the door of Abbasid Square in central Damascus.

The regime is clearly lacking foot soldiers and unable to maneuver on the ground. It is mostly using heavy artillery, airpower and missile strikes.

But fighting without moving ground forces to occupy, or control, or in one way or another liberate areas, towns, townships, villages or a neighborhood raises many question marks (about Assad winning the war).

After Khalidiya, is Assad winning the Syria war?

Dramatic images of destruction in Khalidiya

Hyped media reports that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad is winning the Syria war are misplaced, according to Egyptian military and strategy expert Safwat el-Zayyat.

The reports follow the fall of Khalidiya, a neighborhood in Homs city, to Syrian government forces backed by Shiite militiamen from Lebanon, Iran and Iraq.

Seven weeks earlier, these combined forces retook Qusayr, a town some 35 kilometers from Homs city on Syria’s border with Lebanon.

Zayyat said in his live, four-minute military news analysis for Aljazeera TV channel last night:

The regime is not in a position to contend with two battlefronts at the same time.

After retaking Qusayr (on June 5), the regime turned swiftly to Aleppo.

News agencies started saying regime and Hezbollah forces were knocking on Aleppo city’s door and preparing to overrun the nearby villages of Nubul and Zahra.

Four days later, we saw regime and Hezbollah forces refocusing on Homs, instead.

Homs city has been under siege for 442 days.

It took the regime 442 days to forces its way into just one of the city’s numerous neighborhoods – namely, Khalidiya.

I believe the armed opposition’s unified command gives priority to the attrition war.

For now, it is concentrating on the Aleppo and Deraa fronts.

More thrilling perhaps is the Damascus front, where the armed opposition seems to have decided to switch its main thrust from Eastern Ghouta to try and reach Abbasid Square, (a landmark plaza) in central Damascus.

Also, three days ago, regime forces were set to swoop on Qaboun (a neighborhood of Damascus held by the rebels).

Suddenly, regime forces pulled back from around Qaboun and Jobar and started evacuating citizens from the Qassaa, Ghassani, Qusur, Fares el-Khoury and al-Tijari areas of Damascus to safer neighborhoods in the capital, including Muhajereen and Ruknuddin.

The closer the armed opposition gets to the center of Damascus, the less likely the regime’s recourse to carpet shelling and bombing of the capital’s rebel-held areas.  

On the Aleppo province front in northern Syria, the armed opposition captured the key town of Khan al-Asal six days ago.

They have since seized Dhahret Abd Rabbo and are no more than 200 meters away from the Air Force Intelligence building there.

Dhahret Abd Rabbo will allow the armed opposition to control the Aleppo-Aintab motorway, which links them to Aleppo city, Nubul, Zahra and Minnigh all the way to the border crossing (with Turkey) at Bab al-Salam.

The opposition’s advances in Deraa province are even more spectacular.

The rebels now hold the major towns of Nawa, Inkhil and Jassem there.

The entire city of Idlib will come under their control once they flush out regime forces from the neighborhood of Manshiyeh.

Assad forces focus on Homs, rebels on Deraa

Khalid ibn al-Walid Mosque (top) under shelling

Khalid ibn al-Walid mausoleum (top) and before and after snaps of the mosque courtyard

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces were today using their lethal monopoly on the skies to launch recurring airstrikes against rebel-held districts in the central city of Homs.

The Syrian Opposition Coalition warned this afternoon the regime might resort to chemical weapons, having failed so far to make “any significant progress on the ground” in the battle for Homs, center of the 27-month-old uprising.

Activists said jets and mortars pounded rebel-held areas of the city that have been under siege by Assad's troops for a year, and soldiers fought battles with rebels in several districts.

An activist in Homs told The Associated Press the assault was "the worst campaign against the city since the revolution began" in mid-March 2011.

"Government forces are trying to storm (Homs) from all fronts," another activist told Reuters.

Video footage uploaded by activists on YouTube showed heavy explosions and white clouds of smoke rising from rebel districts.

One clip showed thick black smoke rising from the 13th-century Khalid ibn al-Walid Mosque, on the edge of the Khalidiya neighborhood.

The mosque is dedicated to Khalid ibn al-Walid, a companion of Prophet Muhammad and a military commander who led the Muslim conquest of Syria in the 7th century following the decisive Battle of Yarmouk, which put an end to Byzantine rule in Syria. His dome-topped mausoleum is located in a corner of the prayer hall.

The regime’s attack on Homs follows military advances by Assad forces, backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, in villages in Homs province and towns close to the Lebanese border.

Three weeks ago Hezbollah spearheaded Assad's recapture of the town of Qusayr on the Lebanese-Syrian border.

Last Wednesday the rebels lost Tal Kalakh, a town located within walking distance of the Lebanon border.

Elsewhere in Syria rebels made major advances in the southwestern city of Deraa, just north of the border with Jordan.

They overran a major military checkpoint in Deraa on Friday and hoped it would allow them to capture the city, cradle of their 27-month-old uprising and an arms pipeline for rebels stretching all the way to Damascus.

According to military strategy expert Safwat al-Zayyat, a former major general in the Egyptian armed forces, “the battle for Homs is the regime’s follow-on to the Qusayr battle.”

Zayyat told Aljazeera TV in an interview last night:

The regime’s focus now is to try and regain full control of Homs.

The rebels, on the other hand, have the initiative in Aleppo and in the battles for Idlib and for Deraa.

Assad forces know the airbases they use for resupply from Iran and Russia are liable to be bombarded at anytime.

They thus want to secure an alternative bridgehead for resupply from their allies in Lebanon.

The regime wants to consolidate its control over a corridor of territory into Lebanon that runs from Damascus through Homs to Qusayr and Tal Kalakh.

Lebanon is set to become the regime’s next and sole resupply artery.

By concentrating their firepower on Jurat al-Shiah, Khalidiya, Bab al-Sebaa, Bab Houd and Bab al-Drayb in Homs, Assad forces are unlikely to want to overrun these neighborhoods. They don’t have the foot soldiers to do that. They would want to decimate and cleanse the neighborhoods instead.

As regards the rebels, they are on the verge of a decisive victory in Deraa shortly. Now that they have overrun military checkpoints Nos. 35, 36 and 37, the only neighborhood standing in their way into Deraa city center is al-Manshieh.

By capturing Deraa, opposition forces would be able to rush reinforcements to rebels fighting in Eastern Ghouta and the southern districts of Damascus.

In brief, the rebels now control most of Syria’s north and a sizable part of its south, and the regime is in the saddle in the provinces of Homs and Damascus.  

Israel to sit out Syria war and U.S. “late” to peace

Cooking Syria cartoon by hassanbleibel.com

Israeli deputy premier and defense minister says President Bashar al-Assad’s forces currently hold only 40 percent of Syria’s territory and have lost their grip on four neighborhoods in the capital Damascus.

Speaking at the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, Moshe Yaalon characterized the fighting in Syria as having reached a stalemate, whereby neither side “knows how to handle the other side in order to achieve victory.”

He said Iran’s Lebanese militia Hezbollah is moving “its best troops” into combat in Syria, which has become a battleground between Shiites and Sunnis with each side "massacring the other."

Yaalon reiterated Israel’s policy not to interfere in the Syria war “so long as Israel’s own interests are not being hurt.”

What Israel does not want to see, he said, includes the transfer of advanced weapons, missiles, or chemical weapons from the Damascus government to Hezbollah or a heating up of the frontier and a spillover.

Yaalon confirmed Israel is operating a field hospital on the Syrian border and transferring severely wounded Syrian nationals to Israeli hospitals for treatment.

“Our policy is to help in humanitarian cases, and to that end we are operating a field hospital along the Syrian border,” he said. “In cases where there are badly wounded, we transfer them to Israeli hospitals. We have no intention of opening refugee camps.”

Yaalon began his security briefing with Syria, saying the country had become “a sparring ground for the superpowers.”

The S-300, a state-of-the-art Russian-made missile system, he said, had not yet been delivered to Syria and, if it is eventually transferred, “that will only happen in 2014.”

Oops

In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday the United States came "late" to efforts to end the war in Syria and is trying to prevent the total collapse of the country.

"This is a very difficult process, which we come to late," Kerry said at a news conference, speaking of a U.S.-Russian effort to bring the warring parties to a peace conference, known as Geneva-2, which might lead to a transitional government.

The State Department’s spokeswoman, Jennifer R. Psaki, said Kerry’s remarks had not been intended as a rebuke of the administration’s policy thus far. “It’s not an implied criticism of anyone — more just a recognition that more needs to be done and that’s what we’re focused on,” she said.

Kerry said he spoke with his Russian counterpart on Friday and Sergei Lavrov is "deeply committed" to supporting the conference, but added the situation in Qusayr "could put this kind of thing at risk."

The secretary of state made no mention of Russia having blocked last Saturday a 109-word UN Security Council statement on Qusayr that would have read:

The members of the Security Council express their grave concern about the situation in Qusayr, Syria, and in particular the impact on civilians of the ongoing fighting.

The members of the Security Council strongly call upon all sides to do their utmost to avoid civilian casualties and for the Syrian Government to exercise its responsibility to protect civilians.  They emphasize that those responsible for atrocities or other violations or abuses of applicable international law will be held accountable.

The members of the Security Council call upon the Syrian Government to allow immediate, full and unimpeded access to impartial humanitarian actors, including UN agencies, to reach civilians trapped in Qusayr.

But here is what Kerry did say regarding Syria at yesterday’s news conference with Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski:

…With respect to the Turks and the process for Syria, let me just begin by saying that what is happening in Syria is happening because one man, who has been in power with his family for years now, more than 40 years, will not consent to an appropriate process by which the people of Syria can protect minorities, be inclusive, and have the people of Syria decide their future.

He has decided to protect himself and his regime’s interests by reaching out across state lines and actually soliciting the help of Iran on the ground with foreign fighters as well as Hezbollah, a terrorist organization. A designated terrorist organization has now crossed over from Lebanon into Syria and is actively engaged in the fighting.

President Assad is not unwilling to use Scuds against women and children and students and doctors and hospitals. He’s not unwilling to wreak havoc on individual citizens. And today in Qusayr, which is under siege by his forces and the surrogate forces, you have an extraordinary number of civilians who are trapped, and he will not allow the Red Cross and humanitarian aid to go in until the military has finished what it intends to do.

So I think the world is seeing the actions of a person who has lost touch with any reality except his own and who is willing to wreak any kind of punishment on his own – on the people of his country simply so that he can maintain power. And so this situation is obviously intolerable, unacceptable by any standard, and I think all civilized countries would call on the Assad regime to pull back from that and to engage in a legitimate peace process.

Now, with respect to that, I’m confident that Turkey will continue to be a critical player in this. I’m confident Turkey will reach out and resolve these questions. It’s not the first time any government has faced this kind of challenge. And I do expect Foreign Minister Davutoglu and the Prime Minister (Erdogan) to remain engaged in the effort to try to resolve what is happening in Syria.

With respect to Geneva-2, we all understand – I have said from day one – this is a very difficult process, which we come to late. We are trying to prevent the sectarian violence from dragging Syria down into a complete and total implosion, where it has broken up into enclaves and the institutions of the state have been destroyed, with God knows how many additional refugees and how many innocent people killed.

That’s why the effort to try to have an implementation of Geneva 1 take place at a conference. Now, when that ripens, when that becomes a reality is going to be decided by events on the ground and the participants themselves. The United States can push and cajole, and President Obama has instructed all of us to try to take every step possible to protect the people and to provide a venue for this dialogue to take place. But in the end, the people on the ground are going to have to decide that that’s something they’re prepared to engage in.

I spoke with Foreign Minister Lavrov on Friday. We had a good conversation. He remains deeply committed to trying to make this conference happen, as do all of the support group of the people involved with the opposition. But I will say that the possibility of the transfer of S-300s, which will upset the balance of power with Israel as well as the prosecution of this lopsided military initiative in Qusayr and the trapping of civilians and the treatment of civilians, could put this kind of thing at risk. So we hope people will pull back and stay focused on the possibilities of implementing Geneva 1 and having a legitimate conference.

This week – tomorrow, in fact – Under Secretary Wendy Sherman will travel to Geneva. She will meet with Russian counterparts, and we will continue to lay the groundwork for the possibility of a negotiated resolution. And we will stay committed to that possibility notwithstanding the violence on the ground and the difficulties that we face.

Assad on Black Sunday: “U.S. remains pragmatic”

Syrian president tells visiting Lebanese group:

• Americans have been pragmatic throughout the crisis
• Europe is confused
• For Russia, defending Damascus is defending Moscow’s status
• The Arab League is blind as a bat
• Lebanon is not in Africa to dissociate itself from Syria
• The Aoun-Franjieh-Ra’i triplet is Lebanon’s godsend
• The FSA is undone and we’re fighting al-Qaeda
• The battle will be long and our sole choice is to win it

The Local Coordination Committees of Syria say government forces and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad killed a record 566 people, many of them women and children, across the country on Black Sunday.

At least 85 of the fatalities were in the town of Jdaidet al-Fadl near Damascus, which the army retook from opposition forces (see my April 16 post “Syrian army secures Damascus with ‘four walls’”).

At the same time, Assad was talking his fill on the Syria war to a deputation of supporters from Lebanon.

According to Beirut’s pro-regime daily al-Safir today, the Syrian president told his Lebanese loyalists at al-Muhajereen palace in Damascus the following:

Lebanon is not in Africa to dissociate itself from Syria

“Lebanon’s official policy of dissociation from the Syria war is misplaced. One cannot dissociate himself when he is in the line of fire and when the flames are approaching. I don’t understand! What does this policy mean exactly? Does it mean transposing Lebanon into Africa pending an end of the Syria crisis, when Lebanon would revert to its natural spot?”

The Aoun-Franjieh-Ra’i triplet is Lebanon’s godsend

Three Assad apologists -- Hezbollah ally Michel Aoun, the one-time Lebanese Army Commander who now leads the Free Patriotic Movement, MP and Marada Movement leader Suleiman Franjieh, and Maronite Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Ra’i – are “farsighted, nationalist and insightful leaders…

“To Aoun’s credit, he tussled then made peace with us honorably. His position on the Syria crisis is so much more credible because he was not our friend in the past -- on the contrary, he was a vicious adversary. That’s why we recognize the value of his stance.

“As for MP Suleiman Franjieh, I can’t say more than he is my friend and my brother.

“Cardinal Ra’i is a guiding light.

“Aoun and Franjieh consolidate the Christians’ Eastern dimension and consecrate the Christians’ enrichment of the region’s social fabric.

“The same can be said of the Armenians who did not turn their back on Lebanon during its ordeal or on Syria now.

“While Islam blends us with the Kurds and the Arab identity binds us to the Christians, the Armenians succeeded in integrating our societies.”

The FSA is undone and we’re fighting al-Qaeda

“Developments on the ground are going well.

“Our strategy is to keep Damascus and the other cities under army control. As concerns the countryside, we deliberately choose to clear some areas for tactical reasons at times.

“Better we sap (their strength) than having them sap ours.

“The so-called Free (Syrian) Army is effectively undone. We’re now fighting al-Qaeda. Some 23 foreign nationalities are currently fighting on Syrian soil.

“Many advised us at the onset of the crisis to respond decisively. But you can’t do that to your own people on your home turf.

“Had we followed the counsel, the picture for some people would have looked blurred and we would have lost a few friends. Today, however, we are winning (the hearts and minds) of some of our adversaries.

“For example, we responded wisely when armed rebels broke into the Yarmouk Camp (for Palestinian refugees). We were urged to force them out.

“Instead, we reinforced our positions around the camp and fenced in the armed insurgents. In no time, we heard residents clamoring for the terrorists’ evictions from the camp…”

Generally, “the battle will be very long, but our sole choice is to win it.”

The Arab League is blind as a bat

“The Arab League is blind as a bat. It was originally set up to serve British interests. It never played a pan-Arab role, except in the days of Egypt’s late Gamal Abdel-Nasser.

For Russia, defending Damascus is defending Moscow’s status

“Moscow’s strategic decision to stand by the Syrian state is not for the love of our people and us. It is because Russia considers the battle to defend Damascus as a battle to defend the status and interests of Moscow.”

Today’s Russia is stronger than the former Soviet Union. Some people link the outcome of the Syria crisis to the meeting between Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland in June.

“From our side, we say Syria’s steadfastness and strength will impact on the summit and not the other way around.  We need to impose our rhythm on the summit instead of vice versa. Each of the two presidents will be looking at the facts on the ground in Syria to determine what he does.”

Americans have been pragmatic throughout the crisis

“The Americans have been pragmatic since the onset of the crisis. They don’t go to the limit. In the end, they go along with the winner.

“Europe is confused.”