Eastern Ghouta is Assad regime’s weak spot

BEIRUT: Eastern Ghouta near the Syrian capital is the regime’s Achilles heel, and because of this it faces an almost inevitable military offensive, experts said.

The battle-scarred region east of Damascus, which has been under neardaily bombardment and a crippling regime siege since 2013, is strategically vital to President Bashar Assad.

Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, said the ongoing rebellion in Eastern Ghouta contrasted with the regime “presenting itself as the winner” of Syria’s war elsewhere.

“The persistence of the Eastern Ghouta resistance has become a major embarrassment and liability for the Assad regime,” he said.

The Assad regime, militarily backed by its ally Russia, has retaken control of more than half of the country with a string of victories against opposition forces.

“It hopes to convince the international community that it faces little opposition any more save for the enclaves on the margins of Syria,” Landis said.

But opposition and militant groups managed this week to surround a regime base on the edge of Eastern Ghouta, prompting intensified regime airstrikes there.

Rami Abdurrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the enclave is the regime’s “weak spot.”