Syria surrounds Daraa

AMMAN, July 9, (Agencies): The Syrian army and allied troops laid siege to the rebel-held enclave in Daraa on Monday and were poised to gain complete control of the city where the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s rule first erupted, insurgents said.

With its advance on rebel-held parts of Daraa city, the government appeared to be piling military pressure on the insurgents even after they agreed to surrender terms last week, in a major victory for Assad.

The army was also consolidating its grip over the border area with Jordan to the east of Daraa city on Monday. Free Syrian Army rebels (FSA), once backed by the West and Jordan, have mostly handed over the area along with their heavy arms to the government since the surrender deal clinched last Friday.

Backed by Russian air power, the Syrian army and its militias scored a strategic victory in a 20-day offensive after they captured Nassib crossing, a vital trade route that insurgents held for three years.

Abu Shaima, a spokesman for the opposition in Daraa, said several thousand people were now encircled after the army pushed into a base west of the city without a fight. “The army and its militias have besieged Daraa completely,” he told Reuters.

State media said the army was fanning out along the border areas with Jordan and tightening the noose on what they term as “terrorists”, but made no mention of the siege of Daraa.

The return of Daraa to Assad’s complete control would deal a big psychological blow to the opposition since the city came to epitomise the early peaceful protests against authoritarian rule in 2011 that spread across Syria. The protests were violently crushed and paved the way for the civil war.

The surrender accord reached on Friday between Russian officers and rebel representatives covers Daraa city along with other towns in the southern province, which borders Jordan.

Before the deal, many towns and villages in Daraa province had been forced to agree to return to state control after a major Russian aerial bombing campaign on urban centres that led to the largest displacement of civilians in the more than seven- year-long conflict.

Opposition sources said the territorial sweep into Daraa province will allow the army for the first time to take over FSA front lines with Islamic State militants, who occupy the Yarmouk Valley pocket southwest of Daraa along both the Israeli and Jordanian borders.

“The Russian military police and the army entered Tafas town and secured a corridor through opposition territory to a front line with DAESH,” a regional intelligence officer said, using the Arab acronym for Islamic State.

As part of the surrender deal, opposition fighters not ready to make peace with the army must first be allowed to evacuate to opposition-held areas in northern Syria before the handover of weapons and the return of state sovereignty.

“There are fighters who want to go to (opposition-held) Idlib but this was rejected after we were besieged,” said Abu Shaima, referring to a meeting on Sunday in which he said a go-between with the Syrian army had flatly rejected their demands to leave.

The rebels say the deal also does not allow the army to move into their bastions and allows for setting up local forces from ex-rebels under the oversight of Russian military police.

“There is a lot of fear about the unknown fate that awaits us and we do not trust the Russians or (Damascus) regime,” Shaima said, adding that remaining rebels in Daraa city were still holding their front line positions.

Another opposition negotiator said a further round of talks with Russian officers was planned on Monday over the fate of Daraa and security arrangements once it returns to state rule.

“We will work with the Russians on setting up a local force from the inhabitants that will prevent the entry of the army to Daraa with Russian guarantees,” Abu Jihad, a negotiator, said.

The United Nations said on Monday it would immediately start providing humanitarian assistance to thousands of civilian families affected by the fighting in the Daraa, Sweida and Quneitra areas of southern Syria, after the Syrian government asked it to do so.

“The living conditions of the civilians affected by the conflict in the Syrian south are currently dire,” said United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Syria Ali Al Zaatari, and he welcomed the government’s request to mobilise aid.

The offensive in southern Syria has displaced more than 320,000 people, the United Nations said last week.

Assad said on Monday that his top priority was the reconstruction of his country, battered by more than seven years of fierce fighting.

He spoke during a gathering with his foreign affairs minister Walid Muallem and other Syrian diplomats in Damascus, according to the presidency.

“Reconstruction is the top priority in Syria, backed up by the continued fight against terrorism,” Assad said.

Syria’s war began in 2011 with protests against Assad’s rule that turned into a full-fledged conflict.

Violence has gutted the country’s infrastructure, including electricity and water systems, schools and hospitals, and other institutions needed for daily civilian life.

In 2017, the World Bank estimated the cost of war-related losses in Syria at $226 billion (191 billion euros), the equivalent of four times the country’s pre-war gross domestic product.

Top officials in the West publicly insist their countries will provide no reconstruction funds without a credible political transition away from Assad.

And the Syrian head of state, who has estimated rebuilding would cost $200 billion at the very least, has insisted he would refuse Western contributions.

In an interview in June with Russia’s NTV network, Assad said the West “won’t be part of reconstruction in Syria, because very simply we won’t allow them to be part of it, whether they come with money or not”.