Battle for the Damascus Suburbs
Video Transcript:
Video Transcript:
Battles between Syrian armed forces and rebel units continued for a second day in several districts of the Damascus suburbs Feb. 7. This rebel-initiated offensive, however, is not an attempt to overtake the capital city, but rather a probing attack meant to weaken the central government’s control over the surrounding suburbs of Damascus. The battle for Syria is still largely a battle of attrition, and as it continues the rebels’ battlefield success will become increasingly contingent upon the procurement of heavy and more sophisticated weaponry.
The rebels launched an offensive in several suburbs of Damascus, nicknamed Operation Epic, with some of the heaviest fighting taking place in Jobar. Rather than launching an attack on Damascus city in efforts to seize control of the capital from the regime, this attack is focused primarily on the surrounding districts. Although some suburbs of Damascus have active pockets of rebel activity, many of the districts are still under government control. Thus, the current campaign objective is to wear away at the regime’s defense line on Damascus and to cut al Assad’s command and control lines from the center of the city to its outskirts.
At this point the battlefield reality is such that the regime still maintains powerful artillery, air power and armor that can be very effective against rebels operations. Conventionally, the rebels lack the anti-aircraft and other heavy weaponry necessary to efficiently counter regime forces. Although the regime has focused on defending key supply lines connecting Damascus and the coast to greater Syria, the city that has been defended the most fiercely with the most capable weapons and forces is Damascus.
Damascus is the home of the al Assad regime, and a loss of control over Damascus would largely symbolize a loss of Syria. For this reason, the regime will continue to concentrate key forces in Damascus and the rebels will not attempt to seize control of the city until they have significantly weakened regime forces and reinforcements in the area. One factor that could help to expedite this process is the rebel procurement of difficult-to-acquire surface-to-air missile systems and other heavy weapons.
Though a common complaint from rebels across Syria is that they do not have sufficient weapons, video evidence has recently surfaced indicating that rebels fighting in the southern governorates of Daraa and Sweida have been using weapons smuggled through Jordan, likely from donors in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council states. These weapons include the M79 Osa rocket launcher, the RPG-22, the M60 recoilless rifle and the RBG-6 multiple grenade launcher, all of which can help boost the rebel’s military capabilities.
As the rebels continue to receive weapons pledged from Gulf countries and other external donors and secure munitions from raided Syrian military arms caches, the rebels will gain the military resources necessary to weaken regime forces in preparation for the eventual strike on the capital and heart of the regime.
