Damascus, Syria Dec. 7, 10:51 p.m.
Syria Live Updates: Government Forces Withdraw From Damascus Suburbs, Monitors Say
Two war monitoring groups said Syria’s military had pulled out of a number of Damascus suburbs where anti-government protests erupted. The movements could not immediately be confirmed.
Syrian government forces have withdrawn from several Damascus suburbs where opposition protests erupted on Saturday, according to war monitoring groups, the latest sign that President Bashar al-Assad was rapidly losing control over large parts of his country.
The British-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had pulled out of a number of suburbs of the capital, including Moadamia al-Sham and Daraya, and the nearby Mezzeh military airport.
The Syrian military denied that its forces had withdrawn from the Damascus suburbs. But Mr. al-Assad’s autocratic government, which had until just over a week ago appeared to have a firm grip over much of the country, now seemed to be facing the unthinkable: a possible breach of Damascus.
Syrian state media reported that Mr. al-Assad was still in Damascus.
Another threat moving toward the capital was coming from an area about 100 miles north of Damascus, where rebels were battling government forces on Saturday to try to take the strategic city of Homs.
The rebels in Homs are part of an offensive that began in northwestern Syria late last month and has already swept through major cities and significant parts of four provinces. They have been rapidly advancing southward in the direction of the capital.
In the city, people crowded stores to buy food and cars disappeared from the streets, said a woman there who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern about retribution from the government. She said residents felt a mix of fear, worry and, for those opposed to the government, joy. People are waiting anxiously to learn who will run the country in the days ahead, she said.
Mr. al-Assad’s control in southern and northeastern Syria, too, appeared to be crumbling, with a different coalition of rebel factions capturing much of Daraa Province in the south, and United States-backed Kurdish-led forces moving into the city of Deir al-Zour in the northeast, according to the Observatory.
But still, Syrian government officials sought to project confidence. “There is a very strong military and security cordon on the far outskirts of Damascus and the Damascus countryside,” the interior minister, Mohammad Khaled al-Rahmoun, said in a video posted online. “No one — not them, nor their masters, nor their patrons — can break that defensive line.”
How Syria’s civil war reignited: The new uprisings present the gravest challenge in years to Mr. al-Assad. It is unclear what resources he can marshal to defend the rapidly shrinking territory under his control, especially without the help of one of his staunchest allies, Iran, which began to evacuate its military commanders and personnel from Syria on Friday.
Who are the rebels: The leader of the Islamist group leading the main rebel coalition said in an interview with The New York Times this week that the fighters aim to depose Mr. al-Assad. His group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, broke ties with Al Qaeda in 2016 but is still designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
What Syria’s allies and adversaries are saying: Two Assad allies, Russia and Iran, appeared to be turning to diplomacy to preserve their interests in the country rather than significant military support. Israel, long at odds with the Assad government, reinforced positions in the Golan Heights. President-elect Donald J. Trump said on social media that the United States should not get involved in the conflict.
Where protests started in Syria: The rebel offensive appeared to be reinvigorating anti-Assad sentiment among parts of the population. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported that residents of another Damascus suburb, Jaramana, came out in an antigovernment protest, chanting anti-Assad slogans and pulling down a statue of Hafez al-Assad, the current president’s father and predecessor.
The Syrian government replaced the statement by the interior minister with a video of him speaking with reporters. “I want to reassure our compatriots — there is a very strong military and security cordon on the far outskirts of Damascus and the Damascus countryside,” said the minister, Mohammad Khaled al-Rahmoun. “No one — not them, nor their masters, nor their patrons — can break that defensive line, manned by the noble men of our military.”
Al-Rahmoun vowed that the government would forcefully push against the opposition forces. “We will break them in Homs and Hama and Aleppo,” he said. “They will be broken and defeated.”
Syrian rebels have swept through large parts of Syria in their swift offensive, and the Islamist leader heading the charge says their aim is nothing short of ousting President Bashar al-Assad.
After attracting little notice for years, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani and the rebels he leads shocked the world by launching the most significant challenge to Mr. al-Assad’s rule in a decade. He told The New York Times in an interview this week that he was confident the rebels would score more victories against weakened and demoralized government forces.
“Our goal is to liberate Syria from this oppressive regime,” he said in an hourlong video interview from an unknown location.
Appearing relaxed and confident, but struggling at times with a persistent cough, he was unwavering in his contention that the rebels could end the longtime Syrian leader’s brutal, authoritarian rule. “This operation broke the enemy,” he said of the rebels’ lightning offensive.
Mr. al-Jolani, 42, leads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group once linked to Al Qaeda, that has controlled most of the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib for years.
He and his administration have come under criticism from inside and outside the country for using authoritarian tactics and cracking down on dissent.
His rebel alliance struck at a moment of vulnerability for Mr. al-Assad, when the president’s allies were weakened or distracted by other conflicts. But some observers are questioning whether the rebels have the resources and capabilities to hold onto all the territory they have captured in such a short time, or to ultimately govern the fractured country.
There are also questions about whether Mr. al-Jolani’s form of rule — where some conservative Muslim strictures have been imposed on the population — would be widely accepted across Syria. He and his group espouse government guided by a conservative and at times hard-line Sunni Islamist ideology.
But he has formed an alliance with a variety of other rebel factions, some backed by Turkey, that hold more moderate views.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was previously affiliated with Al Qaeda, but broke ties with it in 2016. Despite the split and attempts to gain international legitimacy, the group is still designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Russia, Turkey and Iran called for “dialogue between the government and the legal opposition,” Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia said after meeting with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts in Qatar on Saturday. But he indicated those talks should not include the Islamist group leading the rebel offensive, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. “It is unacceptable to allow a terrorist group to take control of territories,” he said, according to the Russian state news agency Tass.
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of the Islamist group that has spearheaded the rebel offensive, said in a message on Telegram to his fighters, "we are now on the doorstep of Homs and Damascus, and the toppling of the criminal regime is near."
Al-Jolani also pledged that any Syrian soldiers who turned themselves over to the rebels or stayed home without joining the battles would be safe. His group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, broke ties with Al Qaeda in 2016 but is still designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.
The Syrian armed forces said on Telegram that its soldiers were continuing to fight and decried what it called “fake news” spread by government opponents. In a televised statement, a Syrian military officer who did not give his name said the army was reinforcing lines across the Damascus countryside and in the southern region, in order to guard against incidents caused by "terrorists." Syrian officials routinely refer to rebels as terrorists.
The U.N. special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, told repoters in Doha, Qatar, that the situation in Syria was changing by the minute. “The need for an orderly political transition has never been more urgent, starting with the urgent formation of inclusive and credible transitional arrangements in Syria," he said. "For this we need an urgent, serious process, fundamentally different from what has gone on before."
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey held a joint meeting in Doha, Qatar, on Saturday to discuss Syria. Iranian state media reported that they reached an agreement to find a diplomatic solution to the fighting in Syria through negotiations with the rebels. The readout of the meeting was the latest sign that Iran and Russia do not plan to offer the Assad government significant military support and are instead pursuing a diplomatic approach.
A senior U.N. official said that the U.N. was reducing its footprints in Syria and pulling out nonessential staff members who could work remotely from neighboring countries. U.N. humanitarian work would continue, and has been affected by the fighting but not by transfer of staff, the official said.
Despite the rebels' rapid advance, Syria’s interior minister, Mohammad Khaled al-Rahmoun, sought to project confidence about the strength of the capital’s defenses. “There is an extremely strong security cordon on the outskirts of Damascus that no one can break,” he said in a brief statement on social media.
The Syrian military said that its forces in the southwestern cities of Daraa and Sweida had “redeployed” to new positions after rebel fighters had “attacked the army’s checkpoints and military points.” New anti-government uprisings have erupted in those two southern cities.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTDespite four years of a frozen conflict, analysts say the Assad government has done little to strengthen its military ranks, confident in an ultimate victory over the opposition.
Instead, the military ranks remain filled with unwilling and poorly paid conscripts, young men forced into military service.
On Wednesday, Mr. al-Assad ordered salaries for his forces increased by 50 percent. But that was not expected to prevent more soldiers from fleeing the front lines.
A senior State Department official said Mr. al-Assad needed ground forces and that Iran would be hesitant to provide any.
Israel has sent reinforcements to its decades-old armistice lines with Syria in the Golan Heights, fearing the conflict could spill over. On Saturday night, the Israeli military announced that it was working to repel an attack by armed individuals against a United Nations post in Hader, near the Syrian cease-fire line, without providing further details.
There was no immediate comment by the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the area.
President-elect Donald J. Trump said that the United States should avoid getting involved in the unfolding fight for control of Syria, calling it "NOT OUR FIGHT" on social media. He said opposition fighters, who had reached the outskirts of Damascus, were “obviously preparing to make a very big move toward taking out Assad.”
Trump suggested Russia, which backs the Syrian government and has bases in Syria, might soon be forced out of the country. “It may actually be the best thing that can happen to them,” he wrote, adding that “there was never much of a benefit in Syria for Russia.”
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTThere were few signs that a major ally of the Syrian government, Russia, was coming to its aid, beyond some limited airstrikes.
Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015 and helped keep President Bashar al-Assad in power by bombarding rebel-held areas into submission. But now the Russian military is stretched thin, with much of its air and ground force tied up in Ukraine.
Analysts said Russia sees little incentive to intervene more forcefully in Syria given the apparent ineffectiveness of Mr. al-Assad’s own forces.
“The Syrians need to be the ones defending Homs,” said Anton Mardasov, a Moscow-based military analyst focusing on the Middle East. “If they are running away, then no one will be fighting in their place.”
Government forces and their Russian allies withdrew from more than a dozen positions in the southwestern province of Quneitra near Israel and rebels took over the positions, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
President Bashar al-Assad’s political survival was under threat on Saturday as the Syrian government battled opposition rebellions around the country and, amid protests near the capital, withdrew forces from several of its suburbs, according to war monitoring groups.
The Syrian military denied that its forces had withdrawn from suburbs of the capital, Damascus. Yet Mr. al-Assad’s autocratic government, which had until just over a week ago appeared to have a firm grip over much of the country, now seemed to be facing a possible breach of Damascus.
In addition to the protests, the main rebel offensive had by Saturday reached the outskirts of the strategic city of Homs, only about 100 miles from the seat of Mr. al-Assad’s power in Damascus.
The new uprisings present the gravest challenge in years to Mr. al-Assad. It is unclear what resources he can marshal to defend the rapidly shrinking territory under his control, especially without the help of one of his staunchest allies, Iran, which began to evacuate its military commanders and personnel from Syria on Friday.
Russia, his other important ally through nearly 14 years of civil war, has offered only limited aid.
The British-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces have pulled out of a number of suburbs of the capital, including Moadamia al-Sham and Daraya, and the nearby Mezzeh military airport. That could not immediately be confirmed.
The Observatory also reported that residents of another Damascus suburb, Jaramana, came out in an antigovernment protest, chanting anti-Assad slogans and pulling down a statue of Hafez al-Assad, the current president’s father and predecessor.
Syrian state media reported that Mr. al-Assad was still in Damascus.
Mr. al-Assad’s control in southern and northeastern Syria, too, appeared to be crumbling, with a different coalition of rebel factions capturing much of Daraa Province in the south, and U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces moving into the city of Deir al-Zour in the northeast, according to the Observatory.
The group leading the main offensive said it was preparing to surround the capital, which rebels had attacked early on in the civil war but had not entered since.
“Our forces have begun implementing the final phase of encircling the capital Damascus,” a rebel commander, Lt. Col. Hassan Abdulghani, said on Saturday afternoon in a statement posted on the rebels’ Telegram channel. He gave no further details and it was not immediately clear whether any operation on the ground near Damascus was underway.
“We have started sending more reinforcements from the north and south to the axes of the capital Damascus to support our ongoing operations there,” he said hours later.
Russia and Iran both lent robust military support to Mr. al-Assad over the last decade, proving crucial to his survival through Syria’s civil war.
Joint control with
Syrian government
Turkish army and
Syrian opposition
Aleppo
Kurdish forces
Kurdish advances on Friday
Rebels
Hama
Syrian government
IRAQ
Homs
Rebel advances
since November
LEB.
U.S. military base
and Syrian allies
Damascus
JORDAN
Southwestern
opposition
groups
50 MILES
Turkish army
and Syrian
opposition
Joint control with
Syrian government
TURKEY
Aleppo
Kurdish forces
Raqqa
Rebels
Latakia
Kurdish advances
on Friday
Deir al-Zour
Hama
Syrian government
Homs
IRAQ
SYRIA
Rebel advances
since November
LEBANON
Damascus
50 MILES
U.S. military base
and Syrian allies
JORDAN
Southwestern
opposition groups
But late on Friday, Iran moved to start evacuating military commanders and other personnel from Syria, according to Iranian and regional officials.
There were also few signs that another major ally, Russia, was coming to the Syrian government’s aid, beyond some limited airstrikes. Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015 and helped keep Mr. al-Assad in power by bombarding rebel-held areas into submission. But now the Russian military is stretched thin, with much of its air and ground force tied up in Ukraine.
Analysts said Russia sees little incentive to intervene more forcefully in Syria given the apparent ineffectiveness of Mr. al-Assad’s own forces.
“The Syrians need to be the ones defending Homs,” said Anton Mardasov, a Moscow-based military analyst focusing on the Middle East. “If they are running away, then no one will be fighting in their place.”
Still, the opposition fighters in Homs were facing some of the stiffest resistance they have encountered so far from the government forces there, who are trying to block the rapidly moving rebel advance heading toward Damascus.
Syrian government forces are stationed on the outskirts of Homs and were shelling areas newly captured by the rebels, according to the Observatory. There were also clashes between rebels and government forces north of the city, the war monitor said.
“Syria is witnessing a historic change,” the rebels said in a statement released on their official Telegram channel. “And the people’s message has become clear: There is no place for injustice, no return to tyranny, and the end is closer than Bashar imagines.”
An array of different groups have been taking territory from the government in other parts of the country as well.
Government forces and their Russian allies withdrew from more than a dozen positions in the southwestern province of Quneitra near Israel and rebels took over the positions, according to the Observatory.
In eastern Syria, government forces in the city of Deir al-Zour have nearly entirely withdrawn from their positions, including from the airport and a military base, according to the Observatory. In their place, Kurdish-led forces backed by the United States have sent military reinforcements and released prisoners from a military prison there, the war monitoring group said.
With Syria’s allies pulling back, the weakness of the national military has come on full display.
Despite four years of a frozen conflict, analysts say the Assad government has done little to strengthen its military ranks, confident in an ultimate victory over the opposition. Instead, the military ranks remain filled with unwilling and poorly paid conscripts, young men forced into military service.
On Wednesday, Mr. al-Assad ordered salaries for his forces increased by 50 percent. But that was not expected to prevent more soldiers from fleeing the front lines.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Damascus could soon be under threat. A senior State Department official said Mr. al-Assad needed ground forces and that Iran would be hesitant to provide any.
The U.S. Embassy in Damascus on Friday urged U.S. citizens to leave Syria now.
“The security situation in Syria continues to be volatile and unpredictable with active clashes between armed groups throughout the country,” an Embassy statement said.
The main rebel offensive now approaching Homs is led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. It has taken major cities and large parts of four provinces since launching a surprise offensive last week out of its base in northwestern Syria.
In the southern province of Daraa — where the Syrian uprising against Mr. al-Assad’s authoritarian rule began in 2011 — a separate grouping of local rebel factions has taken control of more than 80 percent of the province after government forces withdrew from checkpoints and military headquarters, according to the Observatory.
And in the neighboring province of Sweida, a different array of local opposition groups attacked police and military checkpoints and took control of the main prison.
Anton Troianovski contributed reporting.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment