‘Mission accomplished’ again?
SYRIAN army reinforcements are moving up to more front lines in the suburbs of Damascus for another battle which could prove to be a carbon copy of the Douma siege.
Just as some fighters accepted Russian military mediation to leave Eastern Ghouta two weeks ago, while others stalled and held out to the end – when footage of gassed civilians went around the world and led to last week’s air strikes – Russian and Syrian negotiations to end the battles for the Yarmouk Camp have largely succeeded.
But in an area on the edge of the district called al-Qadam, where civilians are still living, IS and other jihadis are refusing to depart; so fresh Syrian troops are being sent to the suburb for a final battle if the talks drag on. Donald Trump’s triumphal claim to have taught president Bashar al-Assad a lesson will look more than ironic if more images of choking civilians then appear on tape.
What makes this battleground so perilous is the anger caused by a massacre – one so dreadful that the Syrian authorities did not reveal it – when 120 Syrian soldiers were executed during a truce agreement arranged with IS-allied gunmen almost three weeks ago. The mass killings occurred on March 27 after 500 Syrian troops entered a ceasefire line at al-Qadam which they believed to be safe. Surrounded, many of the Syrians escaped, but 116 of them were captured. The prisoners were apparently led away to a street where all were murdered.
The Syrian Red Crescent later removed 96 of the corpses but 30 of the dead men were unaccounted for. The story has outraged the army and families of those executed. I know one man whose cousin was among the murdered men.
This area may now be the site of the next battle for the Syrian suburbs.
And it raises a horrible question. If the final al-Qadam ceasefire talks – in which the Russian army are involved – fail, will the world see even more pictures of civilian gas victims dying in agony? What will Trump, Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron do then? Further missile strikes all over again? It’s dangerous to think a foreign nation can switch off its involvement in a war because it doesn’t wish to undertake further military operations.
And it’s especially difficult when the conflict is a civil war. Western public opinion might tolerate one dangerous adventure – after not a single life was lost and individual targets were apparently hit with accuracy. But not another one. The Syrian government insists that the rubble in Damascus was once a “centre of scientific research” with no connection to chemical weapons.
Requests by The Independent to visit the ruins of the building hit by missiles at Barzeh, less than two miles from the centre of the city, were officially declined on Sunday, although photographs of the building have been printed in the press.
Thousands of residents watched the missiles – and the anti-aircraft fire – flashing across the darkened sky in the early hours of Saturday.
The explosions lasted for about 12 minutes according to seven witnesses. One counted 116 rockets.
The Syrian military have focused on the abilities of their anti-aircraft missile crews, which are reported by both the Syrian and Russian governments to have brought down 71 missiles. The US denies such claims. The Syrian army have been collecting parts of the exploded US weapons, and little attempt is made to hide that their details are being shared with Russia and Iran. They also claim anti-aircraft fire prevented the Americans from shooting at another six targets. This may be what one often refers to as a likely story.
But the next battle is now beginning to dominate the thoughts of the military authorities in Damascus. The Yarmouk area and al-Qadam and nearby Hajr elAswat have been the scene of fighting, with thousands of civilians under siege, for years – just as Eastern Ghouta, which contains Douma, was until the past two weeks. There are an estimated 2,000 fighters still under arms there, perhaps half of them IS operatives. Two smaller groups have agreed with the Russian army to be bussed out.
But if talks drag on – and Syrian and Russian leaders lose patience – then the prospect of another Douma in al-Qadam becomes more likely. At which point, Trump’s “mission accomplished” could turn out to be as ironic as George W. Bush’s identical and fatuous claim after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. – The Independent