The Looming Battle of Damascus

The Syrian capital of Damascus, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth, may be largely destroyed in the coming months. The terrific Michael Weiss, who has been covering the Syria war like few others and was actually brave/foolish enough to go there as a witness himself, writes a chilling analysis for NOW Lebanon.

The new, dramatic claims of Bashar’s overdue demise aren’t mere fantasy telegraphing, however. They reflect a new stage of relentless psychological warfare by the Syrian rebels who have lately encircled Damascus in an attempt not to take the city (which they can’t yet do) but to lay the groundwork for its eventual taking. The aim is to deplete what remains of regime’s morale, sow panic and paranoia in the ranks of the mukhabarat and conventional military, and put Assad on the propagandistic back foot. If the Lion of Damascus is now forced to roar just to offer proof of life, then he has all but lost control of the country. And this fact emphasizes another: namely, that the battle of all battles will be unlike any that has come before. What we’re seeing now is a coming attraction for an apocalyptic film. 

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All of the regime installations cited above are in elevated positions meaning that, as rebels advance into downtown Damascus, a steady barrage of rockets and artillery can rain down on the capital until there aren’t any buildings left standing. As grim as it may sound, this may actually constitute the rebels’ end-game in the absence of foreign intervention. 

How does a guerrilla insurgency make up for its lack of firepower or an air component? By using the other side’s to do its bidding. Typically what has happened in other fought-over swaths of Syria is that the rebels have laid siege to regime installations with their own rockets and artillery for the purpose of infiltrating them and confiscating whatever materiel they can carry or drive off with. (This ranges from Kalashnikovs to surface-to-air missiles). The regime inevitably responds to the loss of its own strategic terrain, and the prospect of better-equipped enemies, by bombarding these sites and rendering them inoperable even when the rebels are flushed out. 

According to analysts I’ve spoken to, there is simply no way that the rebels can penetrate the Rif Dimashq military installations given their current capability, even with Croatian rocket launchers and recoilless guns. Since they don’t have a no-fly zone or close air support, or heavier caliber weapons the West has been reluctant to supply them, they will likely resort to the kind of pinprick measures – suicide and car bombings – we’ve seen used against NATO and coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Rebels will thus act as both moving targets and guidance systems for the regime’s own war machine, raiding one base in the hopes that it will be cannibalistically powdered by the adjoining. Jahbat al-Nusra is well-poised to be the vanguard fighting force in Damascus since its militants have the fewest reservations about sacrificing themselves. Idriss’ Supreme Military Command, although it disclaims Nusra membership in its ranks, is not above partnering with the caliphate-minded jihadists for precisely this reason.