Fall of Deraa: Crucible of the Syrian uprising shattered by Assad regime
Capitulation of southern front has left many contemplating future of the revolution
When Abu Al Baraa was given a choice to stay in his home city of Deraa, or leave with Syria’s latest exiles, he packed his suitcase. He left the birthplace of the uprising against President Bashar Al Assad, boarding a bus bound for the north, where Turkish-backed proxy militias hold sway.
Just days before, the Syrian government had raised its flag on top of the governor’s mansion in the city where the first protests against Mr Al Assad’s rule broke out, delivering a deep psychological blow to the rebellion. He left as a surrender deal was negotiated, weeks into a bombardment supported by Russia and aimed at vanquishing what rebels remained in the south.
“It broke our back,” said Mr Al Baraa – who declined to give his full name for safety concerns – about the flag raising. “It was a great success for the regime and all its auxiliary forces, who succeeded in extinguishing the revolution. It started in Deraa, and it ended in Deraa,” he told The National.
Two images released over the past week encapsulated the trajectory of the Syrian uprising, now on the verge of military defeat after seven years of violence, displacement, and chemical attacks.
The first was the raising of the flag in Deraa, where demonstrations against the torture of teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti began and then spread throughout the country. The second was of dozens of Syrians from refugee camps in Quneitra, 80 kilometres away from Deraa and straddling the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hours into the bombardment of nearby towns to force the surrender and final defeat of the southern rebels, the refugees walked to the Israeli fence separating the occupied Golan from Syria, and chanted: “We want international protection.” They were turned away.
The images and the desperation they portrayed heralded the impending and swift conclusion of a major government offensive to reclaim control of southern Syria, one backed by Russian air power and one which easily subdued what was once a major stronghold of the western-backed opposition.
The south’s rebellion against the Al Assad government, its rebels gaining support from international powers, and then its unceremonious fall before the military might of the regime and its allies in Moscow and Tehran offered a glimpse in microcosm into the story of the uprising. Once touted by the international community as exemplary moderate rebels, they were abandoned at the start of the latest month-long offensive.
“It’s definitely a symbolic victory for the regime, winning control over this area that offered the spark of the revolution,” said a former fighter who defected from the government to join the southern rebels.
“The abandonment by the international community is clear, their messages, from the Americans especially, were clear that ‘we will not come to your aid’.
“This international abandonment allowed the Russians to establish complete control over negotiations, which in reality are negotiations taking place under bombs, artillery and Russian air strikes. They would always say that if there were no negotiations, there are 40 planes ready to bomb all military and civilian areas.”
More than 160,000 people are stranded near the Golan Heights border, and tens of thousands more are waiting by the Jordanian border. The Syrian government said on Thursday it was nearing an agreement that would formalise its victory in Quneitra, which borders the Golan, after Deraa, near Jordan, returning to its pre-2011 positions in southern Syria.
With the conquest of the south, a region of great significance because of its proximity to Israel, the regime’s attention will now turn to Idlib, where a hodgepodge of rebels and Al Qaeda-linked militants are in power.
On Thursday, the government concluded an agreement with the militia known as Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a coalition of fighters led by the former Al Qaeda wing of Syria. The deal led to the forced displacement of Shiites from two towns in Idlib, Fua and Kefraya, that have been under siege by rebels for three years.
Under the deal, the residents of the towns, about 7,000 in total, were forcibly displaced from their homes to the city of Aleppo in buses, mirroring the image of rebels and opposition civilians who have been bused out to Idlib after surrender deals.
Fua and Kefraya were a rare case of a rebel siege in a war where hundreds of thousands of civilians at any time were living under blockade. HTS insisted that the deal, which was reportedly brokered by Russia and Turkey, would secure Idlib and led to the release of 1,500 prisoners by the government and its ally, Hezbollah.
But the departure of Fua and Kefraya’s population, whose homes HTS said will be used to house refugees from other parts of the country, has deepened the demographic shifts that have become a key feature of Syria’s conflict. Most of the nearly three million living in Idlib are Sunnis displaced from other parts of the country.
Although HTS has said that the deal aims to protect Idlib, observers now fear the board has been set for a major offensive by the regime into the province. The plight of Fua and Kefraya’s civilians has long been a rallying cry for the government and its allies, and with them safe from the grasp of HTS, there is little to deter an advance, checked as it has been so far by the presence of Turkish observers.
But the swift collapse of the southern front, with nary a condemnation from the international community, has left many contemplating the future of a revolution turned civil war and now collapsing under the weight of its military defeat. Its last stronghold is beset by factional fights and the presence of extremists, while to the north Turkish proxies control the territory and in the east American-backed Kurdish fighters remain in power.
“At the end of the day, it isn’t the end of the revolution,” said the southern front official.
“The revolution was not about carrying arms, but Assad and Russia’s argument was always that if there was one armed individual in Syria, Assad will always be in power, ready to bring in Russia or Iran or all the thugs in the world to fight them. Perhaps the military defeat will lead to political action,” he said.