You're reading: Assad prepares for more attacks on southern Syria

After seven years of war, the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is back on the offensive due to the military intervention of the Kremlin, as well as help given by Iran and the numerous Shia militant groups Tehran backs.

The regime, which was on the brink of defeat in 2015, today claims to control more than half of Syria, while the democratic opposition, cornered in a few isolated enclaves, faces the prospect of defeat.

Seeking to regain control over the whole country, Assad’s forces are evidently preparing for new onslaughts on the last rebel strongholds. Another major escalation of this most brutal war is expected in the southwestern province of Deraa, which is still a bastion of the anti-regime resistance.

Severely outgunned by pro-government forces and Russian airpower, the opposition is under immense pressure. However, analysts say the regime itself is still far from its goal of ultimate victory. The devastated country remains deeply fragmented by the multi-sided conflict, with little hope of unification, while Damascus and its allies lack the resources to reconquer and hold rebel territory, let alone stabilize and reconstruct the country.

Meanwhile, the war rages on, having already claimed at least 500,000 lives and uprooted 11 million civilians (nearly half of the country’s population). No end to the fighting is expected soon.

Strategic axis

As of early June, the secular opposition forces — mainly represented by the Free Syrian Army — held approximately 10 percent of Syria’s territory.

These were primarily in three pockets, in the country’s northwest (parts of Idlib and Aleppo provinces), southwest (in Deraa), and in the southeast (in the al-Tanf desert area, where the U.S.-led international coalition has been fighting the forces of the Islamic State).

Besides that, vast swathes of northeastern Syria — nearly 25 percent of its territory — is held by U.S.-backed Kurdish militia forces, including the cities of Raqqa, Haseke, and Deir-ez-Zor. These were previously held by the Islamic State, which, although almost defeated in Iraq, still holds some 7 percent of the Syrian territory, in the eastern and southern deserts.

Nevertheless, with the last rebel enclaves near Damascus and north of Homs being snuffed out over the past weeks, the regime now enjoys full control of up to 56 percent of Syrian territory.

Since the fall of the rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, which saw another deadly chemical attack that killed at least 44 persons on April 7, pro-government forces are now gearing up to strike to the south, in Deraa, a region bordering Israel and Jordan.

“Deraa is the regime’s next target, that’s a fact beyond any doubt,” Tobias Schneider, a research fellow with the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin, told the Kyiv Post.

“It will be the next pocket to fall, since it is the last rebel stronghold that is not actively supported by any foreign forces.”

“And it’s a very important strategic territory for Syria. Prior to the war, one-third of all Syria’s Armed Forces were stationed in the south (next to the Israeli-held Golan Heights). So it is a sort of major threat to them.”

“Besides, it is also important for the economy — it is a crucial trade route to Jordan and all the way down to the Red Sea. So the Syrian government is very intent on retaking it.”

Schneider will be one of the speakers at the Kyiv Post’s June 18 conference “Bringing Peace to Syria & Ukraine.” The event will highlight Russia’s military assaults on both nations, and seek solutions to produce a lasting peace. More information on how to get free tickets for the event can be found online here.

On May 29, news agency Reuters reported, with reference to a pro-regime commander, that the Syrian army had completed its preparations “for an imminent offensive against rebel-held areas in southwestern Syria.”

The warning signs increased as the regime’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem, said on June 2 that the government is seeking to recapture Deraa and Quneitra. He issued an ultimatum to rebel forces to accept government rule, or leave.

Threat of escalation

Under the wing of the Kremlin and Iran, Assad seems to have no doubt his forces will win the next battle, and that final victory for his regime is approaching.

During a June 10 interview with the UK newspaper the Mail on Sunday, he said he expected the war to be over within “less than a year,” and also insisted that his aim was to retake “every inch of Syria.”

He has reason to be confident, as the Kremlin has already prepared the diplomatic groundwork for the southern offensive: on May 28, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Syria’s southern border with Israel and Jordan would soon be under the control of the Syrian army.

Russia’s support for regime’s attack plans nullifies an agreement on a “de-escalation zone” in Syria’s southwest brokered last year by the Kremlin itself, in cooperation with the United States and Jordan.

On top of that, the new offensive risks drawing the United States into the fighting: Washington is thought to have deployed at least 2,000 special operations troops in the eastern desert area of al-Tanf along Syria’s border with Iraq, also close to the territories of America’s major regional allies, Israel and Jordan.

“As a guarantor of this de-escalation area with Russia and Jordan, the United States will take firm and appropriate measures in response to Assad regime violations,” U. S.  Department of State spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on May 26, following fresh reports of the Syrian army advancing south.

While the rebel enclave in Deraa and Quneitra looks doomed to fall after another bloody battle, international organizations are raising the alarm about another anti-regime holdout — the northwestern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo.

On June 11, United Nations envoy Panos Moumtzis said up to 2.5 million civilians in Idlib were being displaced “with no place else to go” amid endless airstrikes and fighting. He called on regional powerbrokers to prevent another bloodbath in the besieged enclave.

Just three days before, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Russian warplanes conducted another deadly air strike, killing at least 44 people — the highest death toll in a single attack on the rebel-held region in 2018.

Government forces head towards jihadi positions in the Hajar al-Aswad district on May 14 on the southern outskirts of Damascus, Syria. (AFP)

Government forces head towards jihadi positions in the Hajar al-Aswad district on May 14 on the southern outskirts of Damascus, Syria. (AFP)

Grim prospects

Even if the Assad regime, Iran, and Russia are successful in defeating the pro-democratic Syrian opposition, they will be left in control of a country completely ruined by the multi-sided war between various Sunni and Shia Islamist groups, Kurdish forces, Turkey, and the Western coalition.

And even though it has saved Assad from defeat, Russia now finds withdrawal from Syria impossible. Without Russian support, the regime would again come under pressure, and the Kremlin would again risk the loss of its prized military bases in Tartus and Khmeimim, as well as its newly gained role as a Middle East powerbroker.

“The Syrian regime is now just a shadow of its former self,” Schneider says.

“It is depleted and poor, it is out of manpower… and its economy has hit rock bottom. It doesn’t have the financial or human resources to retake, control and stabilize its territory.”

“So it is entirely dependent on outside support.”

In a similar fashion, Russia alone lacks the power to hold and support the whole country. Nevertheless, the Kremlin still has the resources to support Assad in the ongoing war indefinitely.

But the venture still comes with a cost in human lives.

As of early 2018, at least 100 Russian army servicemen had been killed in action in Syria, along with hundreds of mercenaries from the Kremlin’s unofficial private army, the Wagner Group.

According to an investigation by Russia’s RBK media outlet, the Russian defense ministry spends around $2.5 million every day on the war in Syria; but analysts agree that no human and financial losses could forces a Russian retreat from Syria.

“For the Kremlin, it’s a ridiculously small amount,” says Sergey Sukhankin, a fellow with the Jamestown Foundation think tank. “It is basically half the amount Turkey usually spends every day (on its own military operation against the Kurds in northern Syria).”

“Besides, historically, for Russian society, the death toll, or financial losses, have never been a reason to question the necessity of military operations overseas, as they produce a nice picture of success for the evening news.”

“Russia’s military presence will continue no matter what the cost is,” Sukhankin said.

“In his June 7 appearance on TV, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin confirmed that his troops will stay in Syria as long as necessary to protect Russia’s ‘national interests.’ And I’m afraid this might mean that we should expect not only a new and bloody escalation in Syria, but also elsewhere, in other hotspots in the Middle East and beyond, notably in the Central African Republic, or Somalia, Transnistria, the Donbas, Tajikistan, or even Kazakhstan.”

“Putin’s whole presidential campaign for 2018 was run on the promise of new foreign policy successes in the years ahead, and I fear that could mean new Kremlin wars,” Sukhankin said.