Israeli army says Assad, family still in Damascus despite fierce fighting
Sunday, 22 July 2012
The Israeli army said the Syrian armed forces are still loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, despite a very big wave of defections, and he and his family are still in Damascus. (Reuters)
Embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family are still in the Syrian capital Damascus and he retains the loyalty of his armed forces in the face of an advancing rebellion, the Israeli military said on Sunday.
There have been doubts about Assad’s location since a bomb on Wednesday killed four members of his high command in Damascus. Assad has not spoken in public since and state TV has shown only footage of him swearing in a new defense minister.
There have been doubts about Assad’s location since a bomb on Wednesday killed four members of his high command in Damascus. Assad has not spoken in public since and state TV has shown only footage of him swearing in a new defense minister.
“The (Syrian) military is still loyal to Assad, despite a very big wave of defections, and he and his family are still in Damascus,” Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai, chief spokesman for Israel’s armed forces, said in an Israeli television interview.
In a further escalation of a conflict that opponents of President Assad have turned into all-out civil war, fighting raged around the intelligence headquarters in the biggest city Aleppo and in Deir al-Zor in the east, as Syrian forces bombarded parts of Damascus with helicopter gunships on Sunday.
In a further escalation of a conflict that opponents of President Assad have turned into all-out civil war, fighting raged around the intelligence headquarters in the biggest city Aleppo and in Deir al-Zor in the east, as Syrian forces bombarded parts of Damascus with helicopter gunships on Sunday.
The bombardments in Damascus and Deir al-Zor were some of the fiercest yet and showed Assad’s determination to avenge a bomb on Wednesday that killed four members of his high command.
It was the gravest blow in a 16-month-old uprising that has turned into an armed revolt against four decades of Assad rule.
Rebels were driven from Mezzeh, the diplomatic district of Damascus, residents and opposition activists said, and more than 1,000 government troops and allied militiamen poured into the area, backed by armoured vehicles, tanks and bulldozers.
Three people were killed and 50 others, mostly civilians, were wounded in the early morning bombardment, said Thabet, a Mezzeh resident. “The district is besieged and the wounded are without medical care,” he said.
“I saw men stripped to their underwear. Three buses took detainees from al-Farouk, including women and whole families. Several houses have been set on fire.”
The neighborhood of Barzeh, one of three northern areas hit by helicopter fire, was also under siege, by troops from the elite fourth division.
The division is run by Assad’s younger brother, Maher al-Assad, 41, who is widely seen as the muscle maintaining the Assad family’s Alawite minority rule.
His role has become more crucial since Assad’s defense and intelligence ministers, a top general and his powerful brother-in-law were killed by the bomb on Wednesday, part of a “Damascus volcano” by rebels seeking to turn the tables in a revolt inspired by Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
Assad has not spoken in public since the bombing. Diplomats and opposition sources said government forces were focusing on strategic centers, with one Western diplomat comparing Assad to a doctor “abandoning the patient’s limbs to save the organs.”
It was the gravest blow in a 16-month-old uprising that has turned into an armed revolt against four decades of Assad rule.
Rebels were driven from Mezzeh, the diplomatic district of Damascus, residents and opposition activists said, and more than 1,000 government troops and allied militiamen poured into the area, backed by armoured vehicles, tanks and bulldozers.
Three people were killed and 50 others, mostly civilians, were wounded in the early morning bombardment, said Thabet, a Mezzeh resident. “The district is besieged and the wounded are without medical care,” he said.
“I saw men stripped to their underwear. Three buses took detainees from al-Farouk, including women and whole families. Several houses have been set on fire.”
The neighborhood of Barzeh, one of three northern areas hit by helicopter fire, was also under siege, by troops from the elite fourth division.
The division is run by Assad’s younger brother, Maher al-Assad, 41, who is widely seen as the muscle maintaining the Assad family’s Alawite minority rule.
His role has become more crucial since Assad’s defense and intelligence ministers, a top general and his powerful brother-in-law were killed by the bomb on Wednesday, part of a “Damascus volcano” by rebels seeking to turn the tables in a revolt inspired by Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
Assad has not spoken in public since the bombing. Diplomats and opposition sources said government forces were focusing on strategic centers, with one Western diplomat comparing Assad to a doctor “abandoning the patient’s limbs to save the organs.”
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