Assassinations in southern Syria expose limits of Assad’s control
Killings in Dera’a province are testing Syrian leader’s alliance with Russia Rebel fighters ride on a tank in the southern Syrian province of Dera’a during the height of the civil war in 2016 © Mohamad Abazeed/AFP Getty
Two senior army officers and a political official have been killed in southern Syria this month, the highest-profile assassinations in a spate of murders that have exposed President Bashar al-Assad’s struggle to maintain control of the country’s war-torn south.
A little under two years since Russian-brokered peace deals were supposed to have pacified opposition to Mr Assad’s regime, rebel groups have continued to take up arms in parts of the southern province of Dera’a, considered the birthplace of Syria’s 2011 uprising. After nine years of civil war, Mr Assad nominally controls about 70 per cent of the country, thanks to military support from his allies Russia and Iran.
But the regime’s battlefield victories have been eroded by the destruction of most of the country’s infrastructure and an economic collapse made worse by coronavirus. Food prices have more than doubled in a year, according to the UN. The Syrian military officers were gunned down in Dera’a in mid-April, according to local media reports, as was an official from the ruling Ba’ath party, who was reportedly shot dead as he left his house. Another man, linked to Syrian intelligence, was assassinated in the province around the same time.
David Miliband on Donald Trump’s response to Covid-19 and what democracies need to do Dera’a’s volatility “is an illustration to how territorial and security fragmentation may look after the state returns to some areas”, said Abdullah al-Jabassini, a Syrian scholar who has studied political and security dynamics in the province since 2012.
“Dera’a will continue to pose a challenge for the regime as long as people’s grievances remain unsolved,” he said. According to Mr Jabassini’s records, at least 425 people have been killed in the province since the 2018 peace deals. In March, Mr Assad’s army launched an offensive on the town of Sanamayn, in the north of the province, where a small band of rebels continued to launch deadly attacks on regime targets.
The offensive did little to strengthen the regime’s position. At least 31 Syrian army soldiers and regime militiamen have been assassinated in Dera’a since the operation, according to Mr Jabassini. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the [Assad] regime is reluctant or unable to develop a system of government that can mitigate corruption and crime Alexander Aksenyonok, former Russian ambassador The violence in Dera’a is also a problem for Russia, which has military police in southern Syria. Mr Assad has recently faced criticism in Moscow.
“It is becoming increasingly obvious that the regime is reluctant or unable to develop a system of government that can mitigate corruption and crime,” Alexander Aksenyonok, a former Russian ambassador and deputy chairman of the Russian diplomats association, wrote this month in an opinion piece for an influential Russian think-tank. Both Russia and Iran have built up proxy forces in southern Syria — which borders Jordan and Israel — in the past two years, in an indirect competition for influence that experts say adds to the insecurity.
“The competition between Iran and Russia is one of the main reasons behind the instability in Dera’a,” said Haid Haid, a research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College in London. “Iran’s allies are trying to destabilise areas controlled by Russian-backed factions in order to consolidate their control.”
Moscow’s military police have a large presence in southern Syria, particularly in eastern Dera’a where one 28-year-old resident described Russian soldiers “wandering around with full gear as if they were going to war”. Under the terms of the 2018 peace deals, rebel forces in Dera’a were often allowed to keep light weapons if they ceased attacks on regime forces, and Mr Assad’s troops agreed to withdraw from the region’s towns. Russian military police were stationed around the province to maintain security as an interface between Damascus and the local groups.
“The agreement was clear, that security and the [Syrian] army would not enter our areas and we manage them ourselves,” said Dera’a lawyer Adnan al-Masalmeh, 57, who was part of negotiations. But now activists and negotiators in Dera’a say the Assad regime has not upheld the bargain. They complain that forces loyal to the regime have arrested civilians at checkpoints between the towns and that thousands of people are still being held in regime prisons. Recommended Law High-profile Syrian war crimes trial begins in Germany Those grievances are driving the attacks on regime targets, Abu Saria al-Hourani, 22, told the Financial Times.
Mr al-Hourani said he was one of the 30-odd fighters that mounted covert operations against Mr Assad’s forces in Sanamayn earlier this year. Syria experts said the assassinations of regime personnel do not yet constitute a renewed insurgency. The high murder rate in Dera’a is driven by local factors too, including revenge killings under retributive tribal justice and rivalries between smugglers and criminal gangs operating in the province. Isis has also claimed responsibility for some attacks.
That means violence has also affected non-combatants. Three aid workers have been killed in Dera’a this year and Syrian civilians are the target of frequent criminal kidnappings.
Areas where rebels negotiated with Russian intermediaries have better basic services and security than those parts of the province retaken by the Syrian army by force, according to Mr Jabassini. But in general, the regime’s divide-and-rule tactics have delivered chaos rather than peace, he said. “The state created a hostile environment, fuelled resentment and triggered local conflicts,” Mr Jabassini said.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views and editorial stance of the SOHR.
Source: Assassinations in southern Syria expose limits of Assad’s control | Financial Times