Saturday, December 07, 2024

Big news from Syria tonight


The Syrian rebels are winning.

The Washington Post provides this timeline article:
The shocking speed of Syria’s rebel advance against Assad: A visual timeline
Videos, photos and maps show how Syrian fighters mounted a stunning offensive against the Assad regime, overtaking Aleppo and Hama, and closing in on Homs and Damascus.
Celebratory gunfire. Statues torn down. Families reunited after prisoners were unexpectedly set free.
In just a few days, a broad coalition of Syrian rebel forces have dislodged President Bashar al-Assad’s control over the cities of Aleppo and Hama after a four-year stalemate. The lightning offensive, led by the armed Islamist faction Hayat Tahrir al-Shams, or HTS, has continued to build momentum, moving south along the M5 highway, Syria’s most important artery. By Saturday morning the group appeared poised to overtake Homs — an industrial center and the “capital of the Syrian revolution.”
On Dec. 6, a separate anti-Assad faction captured Syria’s southernmost city of Daraa. It’s not yet clear how this faction, the Southern Operations Room, is connected to HTS, although it’s clear the faction has been motivated by HTS’s success....
From the north and the south, rebel commanders are vowing to continue on to Damascus, posing the biggest threat to the Assad regime in its nearly 54 years of autocratic family rule. Rebel groups are closing in on Damascus, as they overtake suburb after suburb.
Residents reported shops closing and a shortage of cash in the capital on Saturday. Video verified by The Post showed men toppling a sculpture of Assad in Jaramana, less than 10 miles from the presidential palace.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani said that rebel forces were on the verge of toppling “the criminal regime.”...
The New York Times adds: 
In the Syrian Regime’s Hour of Need, Its Patron Iran Makes an Exit 
The collapse of a partnership built over four decades would reshape the balance of power in the Middle East. 
For decades, Iran has expended much blood and money in support of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, helping him survive a civil war that threatened his dynastic rule. Iran operated military bases, weapons warehouses and missile factories in Syria, which it used as a pipeline for arming its militant allies across the region. Now, just as Mr. al-Assad needs help to repel a rapid advance by rebel forces, Iran is heading for the exits. On Friday, the country started evacuating its military commanders and personnel, as well as some diplomatic staff, according to Iranian and regional officials. It is a remarkable turnabout: Iran not only appears to be abandoning Mr. al-Assad, its closest Arab ally, but also relinquishing everything it had built and fought to preserve for 40 years in Syria, its main foothold in the Arab world.
Other posts and comments: In a long thread on Bluesky, Silverman on Security analyzes what is happening now:
The reporting is that Assad has fled. What is over is the Assad's dominance of Syria for 2 generations.The Syrian Civil War, the ethnic violence that is both part of it & greater than it, & the manipulation of events in Syria by the contenders to be regional hegemon is not & will continue. 1/
Right now the ethnic & religious minority groups = the Alawites, the Yazidis, the Syriac Christian, & others - will all be either digging in or trying to flee as the advancing Islamic extremists of the HTS hem them in. 2/
The Kurds are, as always, going to be in for a world of hurt, though they'll continue to fight. Erdogan will be looking to the HTS to do his dirty work for him. The Iranians will be desperate to maintain their corridor from Iran, through Iraq, into & through Syria into Lebanon. 3/
The Israelis will do whatever they can to ensure maximum chaos provided it doesn't land an Islamic extremist presence on their border, which is why there's reporting that Israel's Northern Command has reinforced its positions in the Golan Heights. 4/
I have no idea what, if anything, Russia/Putin is going to do here. He'll be desperate to maintain his warm water port in Tartus, Latakia, which is Alawite territory & where the Assads are from. I'm also not sure what the Saudis will do. 5/
When the Syrian Civil War, the Saudis were major players, but that was before MBS. I really don't know what he will or won't do. 6/
More concerning will be the humanitarian situation. Right now there's reporting that the ethnic & religions minorities - Yazidis, Alawites, Kurds, Syriac Christians - are already being hunted by the HTS. You've got thousands of Lebanese refugees who fled from Israel's war with Hezbullah. 7/
And if all the reporting is accurate & HTS is opening and emptying the prisons, there's an untold number of Lebanese political prisoners that have been held in these Syrian prisons since the mid to late 1980s when Hafez el Assad decided to occupy Lebanon. 8/
Some of these prisoners are legit political prisoners. They stood up in one way or another & opposed the Syrian occupation. Others were scarfed up for the usual reasons: failure to pay off Syrian occupation officials or to give them free goods from one's store or restaurant or other business. 9/
Some were scarfed up because a Syrian official took a fancy to their wives or sisters or daughters & the easiest way to get what they wanted was to make the husbands, fathers, or brothers disappear. 10/
These men have been in Syrian prisons for 35 to 40 years. They have no idea what a cell phone is. They have no idea how anything even works in 2024. I don't have any idea who would take responsibility for identifying them, vetting them, & trying to get them home. 11/
Anyone who suggests that it, whatever it is, in Syria is now over because Assad has, reportedly fled, is, unfortunately wrong. It is not over. And it is going to get worse before it gets better. 12 & end/
Check out this excellent thread about how HTS achieved its success: This wasn't a quick revolution: More posts:
Hmmm -- here's something interesting too: I see some news stories tonight about how Ukraine and, indirectly, the United States have been supporting the Syrian rebels. Also, the end of the Assad regime will likely deny Russia its access to the Mediterranean Sea. So no wonder Trump is posting about how the US should stay out of it. 
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3 comments:

lungta said...

Let the import of blood feuds and generational grievances complicated by truncated morals due to war PTSD and one way culture begin again .
https://boloprogram.org/
I hate it when trump in his offbeat way actually I.D.s a problem.
Would it be too much to have "new" Canadian citizenship be contingent on obeying the laws of the land for their entire lifetime? One strike ... your out ... no exceptions.

12:37 pm
Anonymous said...

So Syria goes from a secular dictatorship to a religious fanatic one?
Religious fanaticism consumes the ME and that includes Israel!
I pity the fate of the majority who likely DGAF and just want to have a decent life.
TB

6:41 pm
Cathie from Canada said...

Yes, its hard to say how this will turn out, but at least those people stuck in prisons for years are being freed, and refugees are heading home, so hopefully it will work out for them

1:50 am

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