I joined Monocle 24’s The Daily on Wednesday night to discuss the entry of Islamic State fighters into the Yarmouk camp in the southern Damascus suburbs.
The episode caught the attention of mainstream media, who wrote of the complete seizure of Yarmouk by the Islamic State, a dramatic shift in the military situation, and even an “invasion of Damascus” by the jihadists.
See Syria Daily: Fighting with Islamic State Inside Yarmouk Camp in Southern Damascus
But was this the first stage of an Islamic State offensive or more a local dispute, with the jihadists pushed out of Yarmouk by Wednesday night?
That question led to a wider discussion of the current position in Syria of the Islamic State and of its coverage by the media.
The discussion starts at the 4:08 mark:
The Islamic State do not have enough forces to establish a high-profile presence in the Damascus suburbs for a long period of time…..
The immediate wider motive for this is that the Islamic State has been suffering a series of defeats elsewhere in Syria. They have taken significant losses in the north and are under pressure in the east.
This is a local counter-attack to say, “Look, we can cause trouble for the rebels. We are still a force to be reckoned with.”
