On September 19, in an interview with the UK’s Guardian newspaper, Qadri Jamil, Syria’s deputy prime minister said the Syrian conflict that has lasted two years and caused the death of more than 100,000 people, had reached a stalemate, neither side was strong enough to win the conflict,. This is the first time a regime official has acknowledged the state of the war between the rebel groups on one side and the regime on the other side. However the reality is that Syria was in a state of stalemate a year ago, today the balance of power in the country is shifting and the regime is desperately struggling to maintain its grip.
كَمْ مِنْ فِئَةٍ قَلِيلَةٍ غَلَبَتْ فِئَةً كَثِيرَةً بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ
“How often a small force has triumphed over a much greater one by Allah’s permission!”
(Al-Baqara, 2:249)
On September 19, in an interview with the UK’s Guardian newspaper, Qadri Jamil, Syria’s deputy prime minister said the Syrian conflict that has lasted two years and caused the death of more than 100,000 people, had reached a stalemate, neither side was strong enough to win the conflict,. This is the first time a regime official has acknowledged the state of the war between the rebel groups on one side and the regime on the other side. However the reality is that Syria was in a state of stalemate a year ago, today the balance of power in the country is shifting and the regime is desperately struggling to maintain its grip.
The Arab spring reached Syria in March 2011 with the murder of a number of men in the Southern city of Dera’a by the regimes security service personnel. This led to the people of Syria carrying out individual acts of rebellion, which then galvanised nationwide protests. Many believed it would not last as the Ba’athist regime was notorious in its brutality. The al-Assad regime historically maintained social cohesion through fear. However, events rapidly escalated as the regime carried out massacres, including on funeral processions. A few months later, the Syrian army started to witness defections from officers and soldiers who refused the commands to shoot at the peaceful protestors. This phenomenon went further and the army defectors formed the Free Syrian Army (FSA), for the purpose of protecting the nation from the aggressions of the regime. This later developed further with the formation of numerous armed brigades.
As the uprising continued the slogans and objectives expressed by the Muslims of Syria and the armed brigades became more and more Islamic. Every Friday came to be named after significant events in Islamic history. In the areas were fighting was intense large demonstrations took place mobilising the masses in the name of Islam. As a result the al-Assad regime very quickly mobilised its elite units – the 4th Armoured Division, the Republican Guard and 14th Special Forces – elements al-Assad could trust and began air raids and long range artillery bombardment, as well as laying siege to beleaguered towns. He then gathered his militia, the sabihah who carried out ground assaults to clear towns of everything that stood in their way.
Due to this the uprising very quickly turned into an insurgency, the indiscriminate onslaught by the regime forced the Ummah to organise into rebel groups and take on the regime. The rebels faced-of against the regime by utilising guerrilla tactics, targeting and cutting regime supply lines around the country. By targeting the regime across the length and breadth of the country they were able to conduct surgical strikes against military air bases, allowing them to replenish their weapons stock and acquire more advanced weaponry.
In May 2013, the al-Assad regime was on the verge of collapse, this led to the intervention of Iran and thousands of fighters from Hizbollah. Because of this Bashar al-Assad achieved one of his most important military victories in the past two years by forcing the withdrawal of opposition forces from the town of al-Qusayr. The town located in Homs province, an area central to the success of Assad’s overall military strategy. The fall of al-Qusayr effectively altered the balance of power on the ground and served as a critical turning point in the war. This is because it is a critical junction that’s links Damascus to Latakia and the Mediterranean coast. From this success the regime launched multiple counter offensives in Homs, however the regime had to consolidate resources and reinforcements in Homs province, and diverted its attention from important opposition advances, particularly in Damascus.
In the last few weeks the rebels have made a comeback. Even though this was not the first counter attack in the last two years of fighting, what was special about this counter attack was the weapons gained from rebel raids and control of army bases and checkpoints. In their control over the Menneg airport in Aleppo, the rebels gained an enormous amount of weapons including T-72 tanks, anti-tank guns, heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft guns and payloads of artillery and grenades. The most important gain came from the Damascus suburb arms depot where the rebels gained hundreds of advanced anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) which can eliminate any type of tank in the Assad repository.
Today the regime has lost almost all of the north of the country, the countryside and some southern areas. It recently won back Homs from the rebels with the help of Iran and hizbullah, but is now struggling to hold this. The failure of the regime to stem the insurgency has led it to some to frame the uprising as sectarian. Al-Assad even called for the Alawi’s to defend their towns and villages against the sunni onslaught. The success of the rebel groups has led to many to brush the whole opposition with sectarianism distracting from the regimes brutality and unpopularity during a period of sweeping change across the region.
Wherever al-Assad’s regime has fought its strategy has been to crush the opposition by using overwhelming force, besieging towns and indiscriminately firing to root out the insurgency. Even though his regime has more weapons, they have failed to stem the rebel march to Damascus. One by one Assad’s advantages have been disappearing.
Large scale formations against rebel strongholds was countered by the rebel forces utilising asymmetric tactics making it difficult for the regime the route them out. Rebels have not needed to match the security forces’ numbers or firepower as they have forced the regime to fight them all over the country at the same time. Basher al-Assad’s advantage of heavy armour was countered by using Anti-Tank Guided missiles, which resulted in the rebels neutralising tanks and other ground based equipment. This allowed them to attack airports and other ground infrastructure. The air advantage the regime had was countered by rebel groups targeting air bases and taking them over, this meant the regime was unable to resupply its troops. Basher al-Assad was forced to use chemical weapons as many of his other tactics have been countered. However no amount of chemical weapons can alter the balance of power currently in the country. This is because with a nationwide insurgency and without the rebels possessing fixed facilities or headquarters using artillery to disperse chemical agents would have little impact as the opposition forces are dispersed around the country and thus chemical weapons would have little impact when dispersed over a large area. The recent attack in Goutah is an exception as this took place in urban Damascus. Chemical weapons are being used as a weapon of mass fear rather than destruction. Thus, the strategic balance is shifting in the battle between the regime and the rebel groups and in this context the US started talking of military intervention. The trajectory of the rebel onslaught despite regaining and losing territory has been gaining more and more territory and unless this is stopped or reversed Basher al-Assad moment of truth is not far away.
This is why a US intervention where they are openly stating what targets they will target, giving the regime plenty of time to relocate essential assets, will in all likelihood dismantle any heavy and lethal equipment that the rebels can get their hands on. Possible utilization of drones to eliminate the threat of militants like Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Levant (ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra. John Kerry’s statements that’s ground troops as an option ‘cannot be taken of the table,’ point to a future escalation. Whilst the drums of intervention have now died down, military intervention remains America’s ultimate weapon in case the rebel groups are on the verge of overthrowing the regime.
In summery despite the multitude of rebel groups, they have been able to survive and take on the regime for over two years. Cobbling together a group of loyalists, who will negotiate with the regime and eventually join the regime, remains the sole solution for dealing with the uprising by the West. This was encapsulated by General Dempsey, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff: “It is my belief that the [rebel] side we choose must be ready to promote their interests and ours when the balance shifts in their favor. Today, they are not.” For the moment the US has failed to impose its settlement on Syria. With the rebel advance direct intervention is being planned in order to ensure real change does not take place. Syria’s foreign minister, Walid Al-Moallem in a press conference in June confirmed what was at stake in the country and the region, he said: “We know that those who plan evil for Syria and those who demand the establishment of the Islamic Khilafah state will not stop at the borders of Syria. So what we are currently doing is even defending Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.”