Syrian insurgents handed Homs, a city symbol of revolt

Syrian rebels began on Wednesday leaving the last insurgent strongholds in the city of Homs. The cradle of the revolt against Bashar al-Assad in 2011 will be well in the hands of the regime that underwent two years of relentless siege. The UN and Iran sent supervisors to observe the removal, pursuant to an agreement reached by the parties last Friday. Red Crescent  will take care of the wounded.

Sources said Wednesday the insurgency that the rebels began as symbol of resistance against the regime’s brutality started the evacuation. Approximately 1,200 to 2,000 people are expected to leave the city. The orderly exit of militiamen allow them to meet other comrades rebel positions in the north of the city. During the weekend, one of the insurgents in Homs confessed to the Associated Press: “It’s not what we wanted, but it’s all we have achieved.”

The surrender of Homs is a propaganda coup for al-Assad, who prepares for a presidential election on June 3. His family controls the Government of Syria for forty years, now a republic with hereditary periodic mock presidential election.

Homs became a rebel troops Numancia when Assad, vastly superior in number and weaponry, used it as a testing ground for the strategy been implemented in several fronts of the civil war that ravaged the country since 2011. Insurgents  endured months of relentless bombing of heavy artillery and aviation, as well as an almost complete blockade of supplies and food. After more than 700 days of deprivation and bombardment of civilians and militants, Syria ‘s third city becomes, at least temporarily, to the domains of Assad.

In April, the hereditary president publicly stated that their general appreciate a “turning point ” in the development of the race. In Damascus believe that the military balance is tilting in their favor. Assad made several displays of this restored confidence: the electoral process, for example, and some other out of the capital to visit areas not too distant and newly recovered by their armies. Although much of Syria remains under control of the various insurgent factions, Assad has registered several successes in 2013 and so far in 2014.

We encourage divisions among the rebels, whose features are bled on several parallel wars between roughly Islamist groups. The link with Al Qaeda causes some distrust of the revolt, despite initial sympathy expressed by Europe and the United States in 2012. Assad, meanwhile, has the strong economic, military and diplomatic support of Russia and Iran.

For delivery of Homs succeed without retaliation, the militants have agreed to the release of Iranians and Lebanese prisoners who fight on the side of Assad. There is talk of some seventy people, many of them members of the Shiite militia Hezbollah, now prisoners of the rebel Islamist forces that control of the northern city of Aleppo. In addition, the rebels have promised to open avenues for food supply in two locations in the predominantly Shiite north. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a related NGO rebels said on Wednesday they have opened two roads to facilitate the arrival of supplies to the two cities.

Besides its importance propaganda, making Homs also has strategic value to Damascus. The city, in central Syria, is in the middle of a corridor linking the capital to the Mediterranean regions of northwestern Alawite majority country. Their decision will facilitate communications and movements of the Army. Assad may now focus on regaining full control of Damascus and intensify the siege of Aleppo, near the Turkish border. In this old commercial metropolis is applying the same strategy of humanitarian suffocation and constant bombardment that has served him to pay the rebels in Homs.

Syrian civil war began with peaceful protests in 2011 and soon became a slaughter that has already taken more than 150,000 lives and left more than five million Syrians homeless .

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=43727

Posted by Nadeem Bajwa on May 8 2014. Filed under Middle East. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.