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Merged Syrian Civil War heats up again/Damascus about to fall

crescent

Philosopher
crescent
Joined
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Messages
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The war never stopped, but had been at a reduced intensity for some years.

Four days ago the group holding NW Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) started an offensive East towards Aleppo and South towards Hama. The Government Syrian Arab Army (SAA) seems to have collapsed throughout northern Syria. HTS is a conglomerate group, some of its components are secular, others were once affiliated with Al Qaeda but claim to have moderated. They are listed as a terrorist organization by the west and by Turkey, but claim that they have changed their ways and that the designation is outdated.

Aleppo was Syria's second largest city before the war and at the peak of rebel advances early in the war they never controlled more than about a third of the city. Now they seem to control about 2/3, including the central areas, the Crusader Citadel, and the airport. The areas they do not control are under Kurdish control - but HTS and the Kurds do not get along and the Kurds have had mostly peaceful relations with the SAA for a few years now. The SAA is completely out of Aleppo, HTS has opened the prisons and released many people.

With the collapse of the SAA the Kurds have assumed control of much of the area NW of Aleppo, although HTS or allied groups have taken control of much of the border with Turkey.

HTS pushed south, captured an old destroyed airbase outside Abu ad Duhur.

As of right now, the HTS or allied groups are entering Hama and the SAA is evacuating south. There are claims that HTS is already south of Hama and is just outside Homs, that SAA has already pulled out of Homs too.

I don't know if HTS has any specific tactical objectives. But if they can reach the Lebanese border they can cut the Tartus governate off from the rest of the country. That includes the Russian naval base there and all of Syria's access to the sea.

Basically, Russia diverted troops and aircraft to Ukraine and reduced supplies being sent to the SAA. Ukraine apparently send advisors to work with HTS. Then Israel curb-stomped Hezbollah, which has been actively and effectively fighting on behalf of the SAA in Syria.

You can follow it here: https://syria.liveuamap.com/# or on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/search?q=syria
 
And now claims of fighting in Damascus itself:

War Reports (@atseez.bsky.social)

⚡ Syria: The clashes between the Republican Guard and the Syrian 4th Armored Division are taking place near the building of the General Staff of the Armed Forces in Damascus.
bsky.app bsky.app

Orion412 (@orion412x.bsky.social)

Rumors: Fighting outside Bashar al-Assad's residency, the Presidential Palace in Damascus, Syria.
bsky.app bsky.app

Assad is not in Syria at the moment. He's in Moscow. (ETA: or maybe he returned to Damascus a few hours ago. Fog of war.)

...But the SAA is still fighting hard in some places. Like against unarmed protesters south of Damascus: https://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2024/30-november-17-proassad-forces-forces-open-fire-on-protesters

ETA: Appears to be coup attempt in Damascus. Leader seems to be a General Hossam Louka. His Republican Guard troops are fighting against the 4th Division (ETA: commanded by Assad's brother) and against Iranian troops in the city itself - or so claims internet news. Fog of war and all that.
 
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This is all the fault of the Jews.

(Having curb-stomped Hezbollah properly and definitively, the Jewish State of Israel has thus provided the rebels some respite from their battles with Hezbollah fighters, who were diminished substantially from military capabilities inside Syria).
 
Norman Alexander said:
Never fear! Trump will take credit regardless of which side wins.
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Wasn't his son-in-law, the one who looks like an Auton was impregnated by Howdy Doody, going to "fix the Middle East" in Trump's previous term? Perhaps he can do it this time. I suggest he be sent there ASAP. By himself, any entourage would only slow him down.
 
There are so few good guys in this war. Assad may be a dictator, but the rebels taking Aleppo are ISIS clones. There's a video of them resuming beheading and taking women as sex slaves. I don't want us to be on their side, no matter how bad Assad is.
 
Trausti said:
There are so few good guys in this war. Assad may be a dictator, but the rebels taking Aleppo are ISIS clones. There's a video of them resuming beheading and taking women as sex slaves. I don't want us to be on their side, no matter how bad Assad is.
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Assad doesn't do anything like that?
 
Assad is much more civilized. He merely kills also keeps killing till the other side totally capitulates. If there are any problems he simply hasn't killed enough people yet. His problem is that Russia is the expert in the mass killing of civilians and they are preoccupied elsewhere.
 
plague311 said:
Assad doesn't do anything like that?
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Not really. I've never seen an Assad regime beheading video. Nor that his army enslaves young women for sex. He's a dictator, sure. But in an multi-ethnic/multi-racial/multi-religious place like Syria, that's kinda of necessary to hold the bits together.
 
Trausti said:
Not really. I've never seen an Assad regime beheading video. Nor that his army enslaves young women for sex. He's a dictator, sure. But in an multi-ethnic/multi-racial/multi-religious place like Syria, that's kinda of necessary to hold the bits together.
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No - but during the first year of the war there was plenty of video of Assad's troops mass executing unarmed prisoners. Plenty of horribly tortured corpses dumped back in the neighborhoods that they had lived in, as a message to the citizens.

Also plenty of evidence that Assad's troops saved the worst and most barbaric treatment for the relatively secular opposition. They wanted to force it into as much of a black and white situation as possible.
 
HTS and associated groups are entering Hama now. It looks like the Syrian government might try to make a stand. They've had some time to prepare so maybe they'll succeed. Or maybe not, I'm no expert.

I am seeing social media reminders of "Hama Rules", a phrase coined after the previous Assad regime killed 40k civilians in Hama to put down a rebellion back in 1982. In 2011 as many as 400k people in Hamas protested against the Assad government, eventually the protests were violently suppressed.
 
HTS has Hama and is moving south toward Homs. Russia took a short break from its hospital bombing campaign to hit a key bridge between Hama and Homs, but HTS seems to had sent a large force across before the bombing and can approach from another direction anyway.

The leader of HTS has stopped using his nom-de-geurre (Al-Jolani) and instead is using his actual name: Ahmad Al-Shar’a. This seems to signify that he's transitioning away from being a Jihadist military commander and moving towards being a politician. I'll take that with a grain of salt, but at least he's not doubling down on his jihadist bona fides. HTS is making a show of moderation. Time will tell.

Civilians are evacuating Homs. They seem to mostly be moving towards the coastal areas rather than Damascus. If HTS takes Homs then Damascus is cut off from the coast and from the Alawite heartland there.

​

 
crescent said:
HTS has Hama and is moving south toward Homs. Russia took a short break from its hospital bombing campaign to hit a key bridge between Hama and Homs, but HTS seems to had sent a large force across before the bombing and can approach from another direction anyway.

The leader of HTS has stopped using his nom-de-geurre (Al-Jolani) and instead is using his actual name: Ahmad Al-Shar’a. This seems to signify that he's transitioning away from being a Jihadist military commander and moving towards being a politician. I'll take that with a grain of salt, but at least he's not doubling down on his jihadist bona fides. HTS is making a show of moderation. Time will tell.

Civilians are evacuating Homs. They seem to mostly be moving towards the coastal areas rather than Damascus. If HTS takes Homs then Damascus is cut off from the coast and from the Alawite heartland there.

​

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Given what the past history of Homs, you cannot blame the people for geitng the hell out of there.
You have to wonder if Putin has decided that his involment in Syria is not paying off the way he hoped in terms of prestige and influence in the Middle East, and is cutting his losses.
 
crescent said:
And now claims of fighting in Damascus itself:

War Reports (@atseez.bsky.social)

⚡ Syria: The clashes between the Republican Guard and the Syrian 4th Armored Division are taking place near the building of the General Staff of the Armed Forces in Damascus.
bsky.app bsky.app

Orion412 (@orion412x.bsky.social)

Rumors: Fighting outside Bashar al-Assad's residency, the Presidential Palace in Damascus, Syria.
bsky.app bsky.app

Assad is not in Syria at the moment. He's in Moscow. (ETA: or maybe he returned to Damascus a few hours ago. Fog of war.)

...But the SAA is still fighting hard in some places. Like against unarmed protesters south of Damascus: https://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2024/30-november-17-proassad-forces-forces-open-fire-on-protesters

ETA: Appears to be coup attempt in Damascus. Leader seems to be a General Hossam Louka. His Republican Guard troops are fighting against the 4th Division (ETA: commanded by Assad's brother) and against Iranian troops in the city itself - or so claims internet news. Fog of war and all that.
Click to expand...
 
Russian Govenremnt is advising Russians to leave Syria.
Whatever he said in his Moscoe trip failed to convince Putin not to basicallly pull out of SYria and leave Assad to his fate,
Breaking news ;Homs will amost certainly fall very shortly to the rebels.
 
The south end of the country popped off too. They've taken Daraa and most of the south.

Daraa is where the civil war first started: big protests. Military was ordered to fire on them, and obeyed for a while. But then some soldiers started to desert rather than fire on the protestors. At first they deserted without their weapons, but that changed into defecting with weapons and shooting back and that turned into civil war. Some of the regime's worst atrocities were in the south, hammering the more secular opposition groups.

They've opened the prisons in Daraa and Aleppo and Hama. At least one western reporter, thought to have died a decade ago, has been released. Some of the prisoners have been there since the 1982 uprising.

This is not like any other phase of the civil war. Assad has survived some very serious threats to his position, but nothing like this. A few days ago I would have not been profoundly shocked if he somehow still managed to stabilize the situation, but that seems out of reach now.

I am curious what will happen with the Russian assets on the coast, the airbase and port.

ETA: https://theworld.org/stories/2016/08/02/syria-how-it-all-began (reprint of article that was first published in 2011, just five weeks into the fighting)
DARAA, Syria — It was the small act of defiance that catapulted Syria to the frontline of the Arab revolution.

And it came not from the organized opposition in Damascus or Aleppo or any other major Syrian city, but from the graffiti cans of school boys in a run-down border town half way to the desert.

"As-Shaab / Yoreed / Eskaat el nizam!": "The people / want / to topple the regime!"

Here on March 6 the slogan of the revolutions in Cairo and Tunis, which the boys had seen played out on their TVs, came flying from their paint cans onto a wall and grain silo in Daraa, the ancient and increasingly arid farming town on Syria’s southern border with Jordan.

The local secret police soon arrested 15 boys between the ages of 10 and 15, detaining them under the control of Gen. Atef Najeeb, a cousin of President Bashar al-Assad.

In a gloomy interrogation room the children were beaten and bloodied, burned and had their fingernails pulled out by grown men working for a regime whose unchecked brutality appears increasingly to be sowing the seeds of its undoing.
Click to expand...
 
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crescent said:
I am curious what will happen with the Russian assets on the coast, the airbase and port.
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I'd bet they aren't going to be Russian assets anymore. I'm not sure whether to be happy or not with this news. Sounds like a massive ◊◊◊◊ show no matter what.
 
plague311 said:
I'd bet they aren't going to be Russian assets anymore. I'm not sure whether to be happy or not with this news. Sounds like a massive ◊◊◊◊ show no matter what.
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Putin has written them off as not being worth the cost.
Truth is, Putin's involment in Syria has not paid off the way he thouhgt it would in terms of gaining power and prestige in the Mideast, and with the costs of Ukraine mounting he is cutting his losses.
As for the port, it is not like he has many waships to use it anyway.......
Putin tellings Russian citizens to get out of SYria is it for Assad. Whatever Assad had to say on his trip to Moscoe, did not change Putin mind about pulling the plug on him.
 
ANd the climax is going to be bloody. "No Prisoners" is still the rule in warfare in Syria.
 
dudalb said:
ANd the climax is going to be bloody. "No Prisoners" is still the rule in warfare in Syria.
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That can't be true since a bunch of prisoners are being released, including a journalist that's been off the radar for years. Seems like they're taking prisoners plenty.
 
plague311 said:
That can't be true since a bunch of prisoners are being released, including a journalist that's been off the radar for years. Seems like they're taking prisoners plenty.
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They allowed the Assadist troops to evacuate from Daraa. Armed Assadist troops driving right past armed "resistance" troops unimpeded.

This honestly seems less bloody than the earlier phases of the war. So far. I have no crystal ball to see the end game.

Here's a thing about the reporter: https://apnews.com/article/syria-austin-tice-washington-hostage-58e79b5bcb117cac5674b27ff66d5d69
 
dudalb said:
Putin has written them off as not being worth the cost.
Truth is, Putin's involment in Syria has not paid off the way he thouhgt it would in terms of gaining power and prestige in the Mideast
Click to expand...
I always thought Russia's interest in Syria was just because the US has friends in the Middle East and they wanted at least one, too.
 
Live reports indicate the HTS "rebels" are in Damascus. Important I think to remember that HTS aren't good guys either.
 
Fighting in Damascus is quite a long way from HTS taking Damascus. I don't know what the chances are of a general collapse of Assad's forces but HTS are the sort of enemy you'd want to run away from rather than surrender to. Eventually they'll make a stand and HTS will be quite extended.
 
I'm sure Assad will be fine. After all, over 95% of Syrians voted for him barely 6 months ago
 
Just now Assad forces are fleeing the wealthy Mezzeh area of Damascus, the site of the Syrian Presidential Palace.

The office of Assad is denying that he has fled the capital, It condemns "rumours and false news" saying Assad is continuing to perform his duties from the Palace.

That means he's long gone.
 
I've seen two different videos of Syrian soldiers literally changing out of uniform in to civvies on the side of the street. It's over for Assad.
 
Trump posted

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Opposition fighters in Syria, in an unprecedented move, have totally taken over numerous cities, in a highly coordinated offensive, and are now on the outskirts of Damascus, obviously preparing to make a very big move toward taking out Assad. Russia, because they are so tied up in Ukraine, and with the loss there of over 600,000 soldiers, seems incapable of stopping this literal march through Syria, a country they have protected for years. This is where former President Obama refused to honor his commitment of protecting the RED LINE IN THE SAND, and all hell broke out, with Russia stepping in. But now they are, like possibly Assad himself, being forced out, and it may actually be the best thing that can happen to them. There was never much of a benefit in Syria for Russia, other than to make Obama look really stupid. In any event, Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!
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Who to believe

Syria's interior minister says the government's security forces have created a "very strong" military cordon around the country's capital and no one will be able to get through it, according to AFP.

Mohammed al-Rahmoun, speaking from Damascus on state TV, says: "There is a very strong security and military cordon on the far edges of Damascus and its countryside, and no one... can penetrate this defensive line that we, the armed forces, are building."
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Meanwhile the BBC says

Damascus falling suburb by suburb to rebels, US official tells CBS
An unnamed US official has told the BBC's US partner, CBS News, that Damascus appears to be "falling suburb by suburb to the rebels", as fighters opposed to the Assad regime progress along the main road to the Syrian capital.
Click to expand...
 
Hmmm... "There is a very strong security and military cordon on the far edges of Damascus and its countryside, and no one... can penetrate this defensive line that we, the armed forces, are building." Sounds a lot like a siege to me. Wouldn't have thought a modern(ish) city would last long without supplies getting in.
 
Darat said:
Hmmm... "There is a very strong security and military cordon on the far edges of Damascus and its countryside, and no one... can penetrate this defensive line that we, the armed forces, are building." Sounds a lot like a siege to me. Wouldn't have thought a modern(ish) city would last long without supplies getting in.
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It's not a siege even they are already inside the castle.
 
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