Assad renews offensive as strikes raise escalation risk
BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army unleashed a massive bombardment against one rebel enclave on Monday and prepared for the withdrawal of insurgents from another as President Bashar al-Assad pushes to crush the rebels’ last besieged strongholds.
However, missile strikes against several government military bases on Sunday – not claimed by any party despite speculation in Israel that its military was responsible – underscored the risks of a wider escalation in the seven-year conflict.
More than 140 Syrian army air strikes hit the town of Rastan and surrounding villages in the rebel enclave between the cities of Hama and Homs early on Monday alongside sustained shelling, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
Last week, a Syrian government minister said the enclave would be the army’s next target after retaking all rebel areas around the capital, a goal it looks closer to achieving with Monday’s expected insurgent withdrawal from south Damascus.
Despite Assad’s ever-stronger position against rebels since Russia’s entry into the war in 2015 brought a string of battlefield victories, the involvement of numerous regional and global powers threatens to inflame the war further.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the missile attacks that struck several bases near Hama and Aleppo overnight, causing large explosions, and the Syrian army has blamed only “aggression” by its enemies.
However, Israel has previously carried out strikes in Syria to stop Assad’s ally Iran getting stronger there or transferring weapons to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, and there is widespread speculation in Israel that it was behind the attack.
Diplomats have warned of a possible major escalation between Israel and Iran in Syria as Assad and his allies take more territory from rebels.
The United States, Jordan and Assad’s main ally, Russia, have declared a cease-fire zone in southwest Syria, near the border with Israel. On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington’s strategy there “remains unchanged.”
The Observatory said at least 26 people, mostly Iranians and members of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia, were killed in Sunday’s strikes, and dozens more people were missing.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said no Iranian base had been hit or Iranians killed. Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a senior Iranian member of parliament, met with Assad on Monday and said Iran would keep its military advisers in Syria until the war ended.
Tehran and its allies blamed Israel for an April 9 air strike on the Tiyas air base in Syria, in which several Iranian military personnel were killed, and Iran has warned it would not go “without response.”
The Syrian army’s assault on the pocket between Homs and Hama, the most populous remaining besieged area in Syria, included air strikes and artillery, the Britain-based Observatory said.
Reinforcements arrived in government-held areas before the bombardment, which targeted Rastan, the biggest town in the pocket, and several nearby villages, the Observatory said.