Syrian rebels capture air bases just outside Damascus
BEIRUT—Syrian rebels said they seized an important military airport and an air defense base just outside Damascus on Sunday, adding to a monthlong string of tactical successes—capturing bases, disrupting supply routes and seizing weaponry—that demonstrate their ability to erode the government’s dominance despite facing withering aerial attacks.
Over the past month, rebels have seized or damaged major military bases around the country, making off with armored vehicles, antiaircraft weapons and other equipment they desperately need to break the stalemate in the grinding conflict, which has taken more than 30,000 lives. But they have not tried to hold all of the bases, as they become easy targets for government airstrikes.
The capture of the air base near Damascus, Marj al-Sultan, could be significant because it was one of the principal bases used by the Syrian Air Force’s fleet of Mi-8 helicopters, said Joseph Holliday, a senior analyst covering Syria for the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. The government relies on the aircraft to resupply army units and to carry out bomb and rocket attacks, especially in the north where government forces are increasingly isolated and air power is the main way to harass the rebels.
Still, despite videos of rebels seizing weapons caches, analysts said the recent successes appeared unlikely to produce a sudden shift in the balance of power, since the government seems to be consolidating its forces to defend core areas.
Holliday said the events of recent weeks underscored the arc of the conflict since late spring: The rebels have been gaining strength and becoming more organized, he said, and the government forces have been slowly con- tracting under pressure.
The government’s continued loss of bases, however, raises questions about how long it will be able to operate in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo. Ground supply routes linking those provinces to Damascus, the capital, have slowly been cut off throughout the spring and summer, as rebels have mastered the use of roadside bombs and gradually overrun government bases and checkpoints along the way.
“The real question,” Holliday said, “is when the regime will start to pull out of the north.”
Rebels have assaulted Taftanaz air base in Idlib, and captured two major bases and an oil field in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour and a large base outside Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
Striking at government air power is militarily and psychologically important for the rebels, for whom aircraft pose a significant threat because of their firepower and unlimited reach. Yet the rebels have so far been unable, because of international reluctance and opposition disunity, to obtain significant amounts of antiaircraft weaponry that could help them turn the tide in the conflict, which began as a protest movement and gradually turned into a civil war after soldiers fired on demonstrators.
The battle for the air base on Sunday was part of a day of intense military activity that showed the level of chaos that has come to be expected even near the heart of President Bashar Assad’s government.
By day’s end, rebels claimed to have seized three military installations, including the Marj al-Sultan airfield, and 11 mobile antiaircraft guns, and blamed the government for the bombing of a playground that killed eight children, whose bloodied bodies were shown in an online video.
It remained unclear, however, whether the government had moved its working helicopters elsewhere before the rebels arrived, and whether the government might be able to reclaim the territory.