Syrian rebels blame each other for defeat in Ghouta

BEIRUT: Syrian rebel factions are blaming each other for opening the way to their defeat near Damascus, underlining splits that plagued the armed uprising against President Bashar Al Assad since its earliest days.

The rivalry between the factions of eastern Ghouta - Failaq Al Rahman and Jaish Al Islam - had led to the effective partition of the enclave since 2016 and fuelled bouts of deadly violence that played to the government’s advantage.

With the help of Russian air strikes, the army has waged one of the most ferocious offensives of the war to recapture eastern Ghouta, killing more than 1,600 people since February 18 according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Still, in media comments late on Sunday, the groups laid blame on each other for speeding up the government’s advances.

The Jaish Al Islam military spokesman, in an interview with Al Hadath TV, said Failaq Al Rahman had rejected a proposal to mount a shared defence of Ghouta and accused it of cutting water supplies needed to fill defensive trenches.

“These trenches dried up which sped up the regime’s advances,” said Hamza Birqdar, the spokesman. The Failaq Al Rah- man spokesman told the same TV station that Jaish Al Islam had staged a weak defence of the enclave, which advancing government forces split into three separate pockets. “Failaq Al Rahman was stabbed in the back ... via the frontlines that Jaish Al Islam was supposed to be at,” said Wael Olwan, Failaq Al Rahman’s Istanbul-based spokesman.

Full story @ timesofoman.com/world