The struggle continues to see-saw between government and rebel fighters, writes MICHAEL JANSENin Damascus
DURING A Tehran press conference with his Iranian counterpart, Syrian foreign minister Walid Muallem said his country’s government had the capability to defend Syria from external conspiracies and military intervention.
He reiterated Damascus’s commitment to the peace plan put forward by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan but said the government was determined to “prevent foreign aggression” and maintain “the unity of our land”.
However, Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi warned that the idea of a managed transition put forward by the US and its allies was “an illusion . . . we have to look carefully at . . . what’s happening inside the country.”
On the Damascus front, the military has managed to rout rebel fighters from most hot areas in and around the capital but there are explosive devices and active snipers in Midan, a central district which remains unsafe, and elsewhere.
While rebels have been flushed out of the satellite towns to the northeast, fighters continue to hold out in a corner of Barzeh and clashes rumble on in two districts, Mu’adamiya and Daraya, to the southwest, where orchards and fields connect built up areas to the countryside which hosts rebels.
Explosions echo between the city’s tower blocks from time to time. Hussein, a shopkeeper whose sister lives in the Hajjar al-Aswad neighbourhood, to the south, said it had been retaken by troops but there had been looting by armed men in civilian clothes. He also said he would not go to the quarters freshly taken by the army because security had not been re-established, the odd rebel could linger and residents could be suspicious of outsiders.
Douma, a town 10km from Damascus held by rebels for many months, was badly damaged before the army took control. Only a fraction of its population has returned, since there are no bakeries and water and electricity have not been restored. The death toll since mid-July is said to be 2,500 rebel fighters and coffins are provided for an average of 60 government soldiers a day.
Outside Damascus the situation is fluid. A foreign source residing in the city for several years said the majority of rebel fighters were Muslim Brothers and ultra-orthodox Salafis. They dominated units raised at the local level among 17 and 18-year-olds. A 23-year-old commander of the unit in the northern port city of Latakia told the source that the connection to the Turkey-based Free Syrian Army (FSA) was tenuous and local fighters were resisting the imposition of defected officers by the FSA because they lorded it over recruits, as they always did over common soldiers. Consequently, there is no clear chain of command.
The source expects the struggle between regime and rebels to see-saw back and forth since neither side can defeat the other. Meanwhile, the economic and political situation would continue to deteriorate, he predicted.
Only half a dozen out of more than 60 embassies remain open. Ambassadors and staff have left.
There is concern that if the regime falls, the country could follow Iraq’s example and descend into chaos and anarchy, particularly if the military does not seize power to prevent the collapse of law and order, revenge killings and wholesale pillage.