The large scale clashes between the Syrian Army and the fighters of the Free Syrian Army-FSA in Damascus since five days, and the death in the suicide bombing of five top Syrian Generals and cabinet ministers at the National Security HQ’s is a turning point in the struggle of the Syrian people to bring an end to the four decades of Baathist regimes brutality and twelve years of Bashar al Assads fascist rule. The crisis began 16 months ago, and is continuing unabated. Syrian troops have killed eighteen thousand civilians, tortured, maimed and jailed twice that number, and forced one hundred and fifty thousand (150000) men, women and children to flee the country. In the joint press conference in Moscow with President Validimir Putin, Mr Erdogan the Turkish Prime Minister condemned the Syrian regime for killing its own people. He was seeking Russian support for the UN Security Council resolution for sanctions against Syria.
The Free Syrian Army fighters announced the launching of ‘Operation Damascus Volcano and earthquake of Syria”, a full offensive in Damascus to avenge the daily massacres of unarmed civilians. The operation was launched at 1700 GMT on Monday “in response to massacres and barbaric crimes” committed by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, the FSA’s Central-Horns Joint Command said. The statement described the operation across the country as “the first strategic step towards bringing Syria into a state of complete and total civil disobedience. Radio Moscow and the Russian TV reported fierce clashes between the rebels and troops in the neighborhoods of Al-Hajar al-Aswad and in Al-Midan, which is close to the Old City center. The FSA fighters have blocked attempts by the army to storm Qaboon, and has stopped the Syrian Army advance into the areas held by them. But the Syrian Army, backed by tanks, artillery, low-flying helicopter gun ships, and Air Force jet fighters are randomly shelling and pounding the FSA held neighbor-hoods. Russian TV has reported casualties and arrest of some Free Syrian Army Fighters. Overnight, Syrian troops targeted an electrical power sub-station in Qaboon, causing huge power cuts. Syrian Army sources admitted, “We were unable to evacuate the wounded because snipers were in control of the streets,”. Syrian Army soldiers have entered hospitals to beat up, torture and kill suspected FSA fighters.
With all the senior members of Assad’s inner circle killed by the Free Syrian Army, the Civil war in Syria could turn into an inferno of revenge and vendettas by the state against the unarmed citizens. The Syrian military has brought massive reinforcements of troops, tanks, APC’s and gun-ship helicopters into Damascus. Presidents Guard Division has been pushed into the battle. Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp with three hundred thousand refugees is being bombed by artillery and armor.
The Free Syrian Army attack on National Security Headquarter in Damascus killed Syrian Defense Minister General Daoud Rajha, President Bashar al Assad’s brother in law Assef Shawkat, General Hasan Turkmani chief of the National Crisis Cell, Interior Minister Mohammad al Shaar, and General Hisham Bakhtiyar, the Chief of the National Security and General Mohammad Saeed al Khitan. Assef Shawkat was the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Syrian Armed Forces, and the most powerful man in Syria after the President. He was in-charge of the military operations and was overseeing the operations of the regular army to crush the public protests and the armed insurgency. He is responsible for the bar-baric destruction of dozens of cities and genocide of the Sunni population. He is directly responsible for the massacre of 18000 Syrian citizens by the Syrian military and the infamous Shabiha, who have been on a killing spree since 16 months. Killing of his brother in law is very personal for the Syrian President, and the people of Syria should expect the worst form of reprisals and vendettas by the regime which fears and kills its own people without remorse.
With all the senior members of Assad’s inner circle killed by the Free Syrian Army, the Civil war in Syria could turn into an inferno of revenge and vendettas by the state against the unarmed citizens. The Syrian military has brought massive reinforcements of troops, tanks, APC’s and gun-ship helicopters into Damascus. Presidents Guard Division has been pushed into the battle. Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp with three hundred thousand refugees is being bombed by artillery and armor. The Free Syria Army has claimed that “its attack on the National Security HQ was an outstanding operation aimed at bringing down Assad and the pillars of the regime. The Syrian state media called it “suicide bombing”. A Syrian security official said that the bombing was carried out by a body guard of one of the cabinet ministers or Security Chiefs attending the meeting. The attacker was wearing a explosive belt packed with cordite. The body guard left the explosive packed belt in the conference room, and detonated by remote control. President Assad immediately appointed General Fand al Freij as the new defense minister. General Fand announced retaliatory reprisals and revenge. He promised to wipe out the Free Syrian Army, whom he called terrorists.
The attack of the National Security HQ’s came a day after the FSA’s announced its battle to liber-ate Damascus. Meanwhile, the Free Syrian Army reported gains else-where in Syria. “In the province of Horns, rebel fighters took control of all checkpoints in Talbisseh on Monday. Talbisseh has been controlled by the rebels for weeks and it now appears the insurgents have been able to overrun troops at checkpoints surrounding the city of Horns. Syrian Army has perpetrated inhuman massacres in Horns. The city is a ghost town, with all houses, shops and properties destroyed by the Shahabia the Gestapo arm of the Syrian security forces. Shahabia since sixteen months is embarked on the mass massacre of the Sunni population of Horns, Hamma, Derazour and dozens of Sunni cities and towns. Meanwhile Kofi Annan has met Russian President Valadimir Putin in Moscow. The Russian president has sided with the Bashar al Assad regime and continues to remain oblivious of the massacre of the twenty thousand unarmed Syrian men, women and children by the Syrian Army and the brutal Shahabia. Russia is the sole supplier of weapons to the Syrian Army, Air Force and the Syrian Navy. Latakiya deep water port on the Mediterranean is a major base of the Russian Navy.
Syria’s violence has grown increasingly bloody and chaotic as the uprising has morphed from a peaceful protest movement seeking political change into an armed insurgency seeking to topple the regime by force. The regimes brutal response has caused the exodus of 110000 Syrian citizens to neighboring Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon to escape death and rape. Anti-regime activists say 20000 people have been killed. The Syrian government, says it has lost more than 4,000 security officers. It has remained silent about numbers of civilian dead. International diplomacy has failed to stop the violence, and world powers remain deeply divided over who is responsible and how to stop the carnage. The United States, many Western nations and all Arab governments have called on Assad to quit and leave power. While Moscow, Beijing and Tehran have stood by the Assad regime, and have supported and encouraged the Bashar al Assad not to give in to public resentment, -protests or active resistance. These pro-regime countries have no interest in the safety and survival of the Syrian masses.
Russian Foreign Minister had accused the West of using black-mail to secure a UN Security Council resolution that could allow the use of force to stop Syrian Army’s barbarities in Syria. Lavrov objected to the text of a Western-backed resolution that calls for sanctions and invokes Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, by which state perpetrated bloodshed could be stopped militarily by UN intervention. He said Russia had been told that if it opposed the resolution, Western nations would not extend the mandate of a U.N. mission sent to Syria to monitor a cease-fire. “We consider it to be an absolutely counterproductive and dangerous approach,” Lavrov said.
UN and International envoy Kofi Annan, who has made little progress in brokering a political solution in Syria, despite his meeting with Russian leaders in Moscow. The meeting the latest in Annan’s efforts to save his faltering peace plan comes a day after the con-flict crossed an important symbolic threshold, with the international Red Cross formally declaring it a civil war, a status with implications for potential war crimes prosecutions.
Fierce clashes since five days between armed civilians and the Syrian military in the heavily guarded capital Damascus and the bombing of the National Security HQ’s and death of key generals, ministers and Presidents brother in law, implies that civil war has taken a new turn. The people armed with anti-tank rocket grenades and RPG -7 rocket launchers are led by defecting Syrian Army officers and soldiers. The intensity and duration of battles and the fact the Bashar al Asad Baathist regime has threatened to use chemical weapons to crush and annihilate peoples resistance is indicative of the desperation of the regime. Ruthless massacres in most Sunni populated cities have been perpetrated ruthlessly. The world media including Russian TV, Channel News Asia, BBC, Al-Jazira, CNN have regularly televised Syrian Army’s shelling and bombing of houses and shops in impoverished provinces. Water has been cut off, and food supplies stopped. For the 4 million people in Damascus the capital, the violence that has deeply scarred other Syrian cities, would destroy their beautiful, historical and culturally rich city.
“The sounds of booming guns and rifle fire are audible throughout the capital. They are echo and bounce off the buildings.” But decisive battles between the powerful Syrian armed forces and the nascent and lightly equipped Free Syrian Army are being avoided by the FSA. Syria has a powerful military establishment, which is loyal to President Bashar Al Assad. It is worth mentioning that Baath party elite, the soldiers and officers of the Syrian armed forces, the powerful Makhabharat – the Syrian Intelligence, and Shabiha the large Gestapo network are Allawite Shias, and are loyalists of the Assad regime. The people have been shackled and are held in bondage, and are voiceless, since forty years, when Hafez Al Assad father of Bashar al Assad seized power by a coup-de-etat.
The Syrian Arab Army is the dominant military force, and controls the senior most posts in the armed forces. The strength of the regular Army is estimated at 220,000, with an additional 280,000 reserves. The army has three Corps HQ’s and eleven infantry divisions. With three Corps, eight armored divisions (with one independent armored brigade), three mechanized divisions, one armored-special forces division, ten independent airborne-special forces brigades and eleven infantry divisions, Syria has a huge Army. The Syrian Arab Air Force has 830 air craft, and 220 helicopters. The Syrian Army and the Air Force has been used frequently to crush protests and brutalize and silence the population with utter barbarity. Despite its huge size, the Syrian Army and the Syrian Air Force fared poorly in the Arab-Israeli wars of 1956, 1967 1973 and 1982 wars. But the Syrian Army is adapt at killing and torturing the unarmed Syrian people.
In April 1982, myself and the Ambassador of Turkey were a wit-ness to the destruction of city of Hama and the massacre of forty thousand citizens of that unfortunate city, which has been destroyed again and leveled by the ruthless Syrian Army. In April 1982 Syrian Army soldiers tried to kidnap some Sunni girls in Hamma. Some local youths prevented the kidnap-ping. The Syrian soldiers returned to beat the youngsters and kidnap the girls. In the ensuing fight the soldiers were killed. What followed was in the barbaric style of Changez Khan and Kublai Khan. The city was surrounded by artillery regiments, an armored brigade and was pounded and shelled for two weeks. The Syrian Air Force bombed the city of Hama for the same period of time. This ground and air bombardment led to the death of estimated twenty to forty thousand besieged and defenseless citizens. The Turkish Ambassador had passed through the city two days after the massacre. He saw dead. bodies every-where. The stench of the dead was so strong, that breathing became difficult. Turks are brave people and do not cry. But the Turkish Ambassador was overwhelmed with sorrow and narrated the sad story with tears in his eyes.
The world, especially the Arab and the Muslim world has remained a mere spectator since 16 months at the gruesome carnage in Syria. The West has extended moral support only. The Islamic world, including the government and the people of Pakistan have yet to express a word of remorse. The Pakistani media is totally silent at the death drama in Syria. The Syrian peoples resistance has got organized in the shape of the Free Syrian Army, with 40000 fighters mostly defectors, Large numbers of officers including 25 brigadiers and generals are among deserters, who have joined the FSA. With the motto VICTORY OR DEATH it is a com-mitted force, but is too small and inadequately equipped to fight the large Syrian Armed Forces.
During the past sixteen months uprising the Free Syrian Army battled the Syrian Army in the battles of Rastan, Zabadani, Douma, and Al-Qusavr. Several clashes with the regular Syrian Army took place in and around Horns, Hamma, Damascus and in Idlib and Darra provinces. The Free Syrian Army has attacked the Horns Air Force Base. Some of the best Syrian Army officers have joined the ranks Of the Free Syrian Army. These include Colonel Riad al-Asad-Commander-in-Chief, Colonel Malik Kurdi- Deputy C-in-C, Colonel Ahmed Hijazi-Chief of Staff and Colonel Mustafa al-Shiekh- Head of the Military Council.
The Free Syrian Army is an armed opposition that has been most active during the on going Syrian peoples uprising. They have called upon the Syrian army to defect and join them. One of the leaders of the group, who identified himself as Colonel Riad-al-Asad, announced that the Free Syrian Army would work with demonstrators to bring down the system, and declared that security forces attacking civilians are justified targets. Riad al-Assad has stated that the Free Syrian Army (FSA) has no political goals except the removal from Syria of president Bashar Assad’s government. The FSA has claimed that the conflict is not sectarian, that they have in their ranks Alawi’s soldiers and officers who oppose the government, and that there will be no reprisals if it falls. On 23 September 2011, the Free Syrian Army merged with the Free Officers Movement (Harakat al-ubba-al-ahrar) and became the main opposition army group. By early December, there were an estimated 15,000 to 25,000 defectors from the armed forces according to activist and media sources. Western intelligence sources estimated greater than 10,000 Syrian Army defectors. By the middle of January 2012, the Free Syrian Army reported defections, and a total of 40,000 men in its ranks. This small number is no match for the half million strong Syrian Army. Reportedly some Syrian Army generals have joined its ranks. Several (7) Syrian Air Force fighter pilots have defected and landed their jet fighters at Royal Jordanian Air Force Bases.
The Free Syria Forces are active in the northwest (Idlib, Aleppo), the central region (Horns, Hama, and Rastan), the coast around Latakia, the south (Deraa and Houran), the east (Dayr al-Zawr, Abu Kamal), and the Damascus area. The largest con-centration of these forces appears to be in the central region (Homs, Hama, and surrounding areas), with nine or more battalions active there. The Free Syrian Army has been fighting a guerilla war stating that it does not have the resources to occupy and take control of territories, and instead relies primarily on hit and run attacks to prompt the Syrian army into withdrawing. The head of the United nations. Mr Ban ki Moon has said that the Free Syrian Army is in control of significant parts of some cities. Unless the United States and other European and Arab countries adopt a firm and clear policy to arm and train the Free Syrian Army, its aim of defeating the regular well equipped, half million strong Syrian Army is unlikely to succeed in the near future. The innocent people of Syria are likely to suffer immensely from the reprisals being unleashed by the regular Army and by Gestapo Shabiha. Unlike Hosni Mubarak, Muamar Gaddafi and Zain-al-Abidin, Dictator President Bashar-al-Assad is well entrenched, is supported fully by the Syrian elite, the Syrian Armed Forces, by Russia and China the two super/major powers and by Shiite Iran. Tehran is fully committed to perpetuate the Assad regime by material support, including Iranian troops fighting alongside the Syrian Army. Syria has been a fascist dictatorship since over four decades, and the fascist anti-people mindset of the Syrian President and Baath Party leaders is unlikely to change. in the short run Syria’s future is bleak. Syria is heading towards full-fledged civil war, in which Syrian people will continue to die and suffer.♦
