With Assad back in control, Syria is getting rid of Daesh
The Syrian army broke a three-year siege by Daesh on an enclave of the eastern Syrian city of Deir Al Zour, offering a fresh boost to the fortunes of President Bashar Assad and his once-flagging army. After weeks of fierce fighting, Syrian soldiers trundled into the besieged garrison of soldiers at a base known as Brigade 137 and moved on to a cluster of nearby neighbourhoods, where they were greeted by wildly cheering residents.
On a day when the Syrian soccer team kept alive the country’s hopes of competing for the first time in the World Cup, a mood of national celebration swept government-controlled areas of Syria. State television broadcast scenes of ecstatic crowds dancing in the streets and waving Syrian flags in what turned into the biggest national celebration the country has seen since the war erupted six years ago.
The victory also set the stage for a global race to control the rest of the desert province, also named Deir Al Zour, which the U S has also been preparing to liberate from Daesh fighters still entrenched there.
The relief of the garrison was announced in a Syrian army statement and coincided with a renewed focus by Assad’s government on Daesh-controlled areas of eastern Syria. It bolsters the argument made by Assad that his forces, and not the US-backed fighters farther north, should take responsibility for liberating the remaining areas of Syria controlled by Daesh.
“This is a strategic turning point in the war on terror,” said the statement, which was read by a general live on Syrian state television. The push by Assad’s forces to relieve Deir Al Zour, in an offensive that began this year, was spurred in part by Syrian concerns about statements from the Trump administration that the US military would soon turn its attention to areas of Deir Al-Zour province, analysts say. US officials have said that after securing the city of Raqqa — in the province of Raqqa — where an offensive by US-backed Kurdish and Arab forces is entering its fourth month, they will prepare forces to advance south into Deir Al Zour, in part to prevent further expansion by the Iranian-backed militias fighting alongside the Syrian army in the strategically vital area adjoining Iraq.
The biggest question now is where Syrian government forces will head next, and whether they plan to press on into the rest of the city of Deir Al Zour or turn their attention farther east and south, to the other parts of the province for which the United States is preparing forces.
They are most likely to choose to preempt any further US-backed advances by continuing to head east toward the Iraqi border, and to focus on securing main roads in and out of the country to assert Syria’s sovereignty over its borders, said Kamal Alam, an analyst with the London-based Royal United Services Institute.
The army was aided in the fight, as in most of its previous battles, by Iranian-backed militias, as well as by Russian advisers and Russian airstrikes. Russia’s Defense Ministry has said that one of its warships in the eastern Mediterranean had fired cruise missiles into the area in support of the Syrian army.
The battle nonetheless showcased the recent improvements in the capabilities of the army, which had been worn down by defeats and defections earlier in the war and had to be rescued by a Russian military intervention in 2015.
Whereas Iranian assistance to Assad has focused on building up militias drawn mostly from Iraq, Russia has focused on rebuilding the army, Alam said. “The goal of the Russians was to bring the army back to prewar capacity,” he said. “Every month, its capability has been improving, and as they freed up territory, they freed up more people to fight.”
The victory added to a string of military and political successes in recent months for Assad, who is seeking to consolidate his hold in Damascus.
The relative success of a Russian cease-fire initiative creating de-escalation zones around rebel-controlled areas has helped free up government forces to focus on the Daesh-held areas in the country’s east.
Loyalist forces have made brisk progress through Daesh lines across the near-empty desert terrain stretching east from the central city of Palmyra toward Deir Al Zour.
As the advancing forces drove through the vast base, a few dozen of the liberated soldiers ran through the desert and embraced them to cries of “God is great” and “God, Syria, Bashar,” according to a live broadcast by state television.
When the relieving Syrian troops reached the adjoining neighbourhoods, they were greeted by wildly cheering crowds waving Syrian flags and photographs of Assad. Deir Al Zour is a majority-Sunni city, and the areas that were freed have remained loyal to Assad throughout the six-year war.
The army’s success there will also give a boost to the Syrian government’s intensive efforts in recent months to recruit the support of tribes in the area, reinforcing its bid to wrest back the remainder of the province, Schneider said. —The Washington Post Liz Sly is the Post’s Beirut bureau chief. She has spent more than 15 years covering the
Middle East, including the Iraq war
As advancing forces drove through the vast base, a few dozen of the liberated soldiers ran through the desert and embraced them to cries of “God is great”