BLBG:Syrian Artillery Pounds Damascus Areas As Fighting Rages
Artillery shells slammed into areas of Damascus as Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad tried for a fourth day to dislodge rebel fighters from the heart of his power base.
The fighting came as talks on Syria’s future headed toward a showdown at the United Nations with a vote this week on sanctions against the country.
Assad, fighting for the survival of his family’s four- decade hold on power, has been unable to suppress a revolt that’s escalated into an armed insurgency largely pitting majority Sunni Muslims against a leadership class drawn from the Alawite minority, affiliated to Shiite Islam.
Rebel fighters, mostly armed with light weapons, have been pushing into the capital to battle government forces armed with tanks, artillery and attack helicopters. Damascus and Aleppo, Syria’s largest cities, had been spared the worst of the violence until recently, as the army carried out attacks in mainly Sunni provinces such as Homs and Hama.
“Whilst the armed opposition has registered a degree of success at the tactical level, it is far from being able to dislodge the regime through force alone,” Torbjorn Soltvedt, senior analyst at U.K.-based risk analysis company Maplecroft, said in an e-mail. “Even with improved accesses to anti-tank weapons, anti-regime fighters are likely to avoid major open engagements with the Syrian army and instead focus on ambushes, operations aimed at wearing down state forces.”
Artillery Shelling
Artillery rounds smashed into neighborhoods of the capital today and heavy gunfire could be heard in several districts, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees. Rebel fighters clashed with government troops in Damascus neighborhoods including Maidan, Kfar Souseh and Nahr Aisha, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in an e-mail. At least 13 people were killed, Al-Arabiya television reported.
The violence is mostly concentrated in areas on the outskirts of the city and is approaching the center. Some upper- income areas, such as Mazzeh where several embassies are located, have also seen sporadic clashes or gunfire. A few neighborhoods have been largely calm, with restaurants still open and traffic jams during rush hour.
The opposition, which began as a loosely connected group of army defectors and untrained dissidents, has morphed into a more compact and organized rebel army that’s grabbed control of more territory and can now attack Assad closer to his seat of power, according to three UN diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information they cited is classified.
With Syria’s borders increasingly porous, weapons from Qatar and Saudi Arabia are easier to smuggle in, the officials said.
In New York, diplomats have been trying to persuade Russia, which twice has blocked measures against its longtime ally, not to use its veto a third time.
UN Sanctions
That allegiance will be tested again as soon as today in a vote threatening sanctions in 10 days if Assad doesn’t comply with a UN peace plan he has flouted for five months.
At stake for Russia is its last toehold in the Arab world. Syria is an arms customer and hosts Russia’s only military base outside the former Soviet Union in the port of Tartus.
While Russia re-submitted an amended version of its resolution, it calls only for a rollover of a UN monitor mission, according to Western diplomats who all spoke on condition of the anonymity because the text isn’t public.
With little sign of a breakthrough at the UN, Assad’s fate is more likely to be decided on the Syrian streets, said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, in a telephone interview.
“Even if Russia doesn’t use its veto, is there a workable outcome if he leaves?” he said. “This is going to play out bloodily on the battleground. It’s difficult to imagine a brokered scenario where the Alawites give up and one that the Sunnis accept.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Donna Abu-Nasr in Beirut at dabunasr@bloomberg.net; Flavia Krause-Jackson in United Nations at fjackson@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net; Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net
