Sources say rebels have agreed to surrender in Quneitra Province in southwest Syria, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The capitulation is the latest success for pro-Assad forces, enabled by Russian bombing, in their offensive which began June 19 to retake all opposition territory in southern Syria.
The opposition now only holds a pocket in neighboring Daraa Province, much of which capitulated last week. Only the towns of Nawa and Tasil and the surrounding area, near the Damascus-to-Amman highway, is holding out. Pro-Assad forces are bombing and bombarding, killing and wounding at least 165 people, to bring a final surrender.
S. #Syria: tour inside #Tasil after several days of bombardment. #Yarmouk Basin – #Daraa. https://t.co/RYEuGXDxXK pic.twitter.com/0vEIm7ogPs
— Qalaat Al Mudiq (@QalaatAlMudiq) July 19, 2018
Fighting also continued on Thursday near the strategic hilltop of Tel al-Haara, seized by pro-Assad forces this week.
Syrian State media said 10 buses entered a village in Quneitra on Thursday night to remove rebels and family members to the opposition’s last major area in Idlib Province in northwest Syria. Fighters agreed to give up heavy and medium-sized weapons.
An outlet of Hezbollah, a key ally of the Assad regime, echoed the report. It said the agreement provides for “the return of the Syrian army, represented in the 90th and the 61st brigades, to the positions that it was in before 2011”, when the Syrian uprising began in Daraa city on the Jordanian bordder.
A rebel source said Russian military police will accompany the same two Syrian army brigades “to the ceasefire line and the demilitarized zone, according to the 1974 agreement” between Syria and Israel.
It’s obvious that the average ex-rebel – whatever his original reason for initially taking up arms – will now dutifully sing Assad’s praises in the hope that he doesn’t get carted off into the night by the security services. It’s hard to blame them, as ending up in Assad’s prisons can be a fate worse than death.
But for their leaders, them having a clandestine relationship with their supposed enemies isn’t surprising at all. It’s the type of behavior you’d expect from opportunistic war-lords. The “moderate” spectrum of the rebellion has been chock-full of these people in the later years. Especially in the south, where MOC efforts to keep the rebels on a leash and the jihadists at bay encouraged that type of leadership.
To answer your question, it’s hard to talk about loyalties here since that guy was almost certainly loyal only to himself and his clique from the start. It only makes sense then that he had covered all his bases: paying lip-service to the revolution in order to legitimize his lordship over his fiefdom, following orders from Amman to keep the cash and weapons flowing, and finally reaching a mutual understanding with the biggest warlord of them all.
It’s a big harsh to describe it as opportunistic too surrender and accept amnesty if the alternative option means certain defeat and death.
One could just as easily accuse the rebels who took up the fight as opportunistic in the first place, when a good many of them probably believed Assad’s overthrow was innevitable
“It’s a big harsh to describe it as opportunistic too surrender and accept amnesty if the alternative option means certain defeat and death”
For a real holy warrior death is the greatest victory of all, those who surrender and accept amnesty were not up to the task but I guess that in modern times only very few people can meet the requirements for being a real mujahideen.
For a real holy warrior death is the greatest victory of all
Which suggests freedom, human life, human rights and democracy is not high on their list.
Remember the last hope for a moderate and secular non-Assadist Syria? Behold:
“…Melhem was the military commander of Jaysh al-Tawheed, the largest rebel faction in the region, with some 3,000 fighters. He boasts now, not of fighting government forces, but of ridding the region from the Islamic State group in 2015 and al-Qaida-linked fighters a year earlier.
“Jaysh al-Tawheed was created with the goal of fighting Daesh and we kicked them out of our area,” Melhem said, using an Arabic term for IS.
He said that since the rise of IS, his group started having contacts with Syria’s Military Intelligence Directorate and this continued until last year, when the de-escalation deal was reached.”
A happy ending for the Southern Front. Now they get to finally fulfill their dream of serving bābā Bashār by throwing themselves at entrenched Jaysh Khālid ibn al-Walīd positions in the Yarmūk basin.
Source: “Under Assad’s grip, uneasy co-existence with Syria ex-rebels”
loyalties are tricky. The question now is, do you suspect he has changed his tune because of the realities or always held these feelings? And in some ways was a double agent. Is this the “defeated” perspective? I imagine that returning to Assads rule was always closer in their minds than the idea of being truly independent of him. Comfort in he devil you know?
Southern front is and always was a farce. Except few groups most of them were either double agents or infilitrated by the regime. And couldent move a finger even if they wished because of the MOC in Amman.
Response is below, evidently I forgot to click “reply”.
Probably still better than all those “moderate” barrel bombings, chemical attacks, and torture.
As oppose what Kevin? Those 500/1000/2000 freedom bombs, white phosphorous, depleted uranium and black sites?