Displaying items by tag: Assad

Under the terms of a 1974 UN armistice that demilitarised much of the Golan, Israel withdrew from the capital of Quneitra province which it had captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Now, backed by Russian aircraft, Syrian pro-Assad regime forces pushed into the Golan border area and raised the Syrian flag and President al-Assad’s Baath Party flag in Quneitra on the 26 July. They are tightening their hold on the strategic Syrian sector of the Golan Heights bordering Israel and Jordan, and have been pushing into Quneitra province since their May offensive that routed rebels in adjoining Deraa province (rebels once backed by Washington, Jordan and Gulf states). The Russians reached a deal with the remaining rebels, which effectively brings the whole of the border frontier under Syrian state control.

Ex-army colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon became a volunteer in Syria and said, ‘I’ve never seen anything as horrific as what is going on in Ghouta. Its starving people live underground in cellars, caves and tunnels. Three times in the past four days chlorine bombs were dropped by Syrian forces. Outlawed by the Geneva Convention, the chlorine combines with water in the lungs to produce hydrochloric acid, which dissolves the lungs. When civilians are flushed out onto the streets, they face death from the barrel-bombs and high-energy explosives that rain down from Putin’s Russian jets and Assad’s aircraft. Water is contaminated. Hospitals are targeted in air strikes. Ghouta is the last bastion to hold out against Bashar al-Assad and its inhabitants are being bombed, gassed and starved into submission.’ He added, ‘Putin can do as he pleases, and there will be chilling consequences for Britain’s security unless we act.’

Russia has invested politically and militarily into Syria; many believe their primary concern is less President Assad than the power and prestige of maintaining their position. Any plan to move Moscow from this stance needs to involve a face-saving mechanism that Putin could package as win-win internationally, and in Russia’s best interest domestically. Many strongly believe that if Assad were to go, the Syrian Christians would be history, and like Iraq and Libya before, Syria would descend into jihadist chaos. The BBC’s correspondent Robert Pigott said, ‘If he goes, IS and Al-Nusra will be fighting it out on the streets of Damascus’. Also, Assad is the leader of the Alawites. The Alawites are Shi’ite Muslims centred in Syria who have older beliefs that predate Islam. Unless the Syrian Alawites themselves make a change in their leadership they will back Assad. Any initiative that omits Syria’s Alawites will be a diplomatic failure and lead to more deaths.

UN-sponsored peace talks between the Syrian government and opposition began in Geneva on Thursday. The two sides will not meet face-to-face to begin with. Staffan de Mistura, the UN's special Syria envoy, said on Wednesday he was ‘not expecting a breakthrough’, though we can pray for one. The opposition insists that the fate of President Bashar al-Assad must be on the agenda, but the government refuses to discuss this. For the sake of the 300,000+ people killed since the war began, the 4.8m who have fled the country and 6.3m displaced inside Syria, ask God in His mercy to be in the midst of these negotiations and for His will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven.