Robert Fisk: Syria rebels will not claim their greatest prize

The appalling scenes in Syria begin to reflect the barbarism of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia

Share
+More
Related Topics

They have gone for the jugular now. The brother-in-law of the President, the Defence Minister, a massive bomb close to – or in – the headquarters of the military apparatus run by the President's own brother. Assassinations take time to plan, but this was on an epic scale, to match the bloodbath across Syria.

Bashar al-Assad's own sister, Bushra, one of the pillars of the Baath party, loses her husband in a massive explosion in the very centre of Damascus. No wonder the Russians talk about the "decisive battle".

It won't be a replay of Stalingrad, but the tentacles of the rebellion have now moved towards the heart. And, of course, there are massacres to come. Why else would thousands of Syria's citizens flee to the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp yesterday, to seek protection from the most betrayed citizens of the Arab world?

And there is hatred enough to maintain this savage strike at the Syrian government. Eight months ago, during one of the massive pro-regime demonstrations in the Rawda district, I walked past the very intelligence-security establishment which was bombed yesterday.

At the time, a Syrian friend of mine looked at it bleakly. The torture goes on below ground, he said. "You don't even want to know what happens there." But whoever emerged from there would be happy to kill his tormentors, let alone the chief torturers.

The people's anger will embrace a duke or two. It was typical that, in their desperation to fill the vacuum left by yesterday's assassinations, the regime chose a nonentity, Fahd Jassim al-Furayj, to fill the job of Defence Minister – a man who comes from Hama, the centre of every major uprising against Syria's rulers.

We have a habit, we Westerners, of always looking at the Middle East through our own cartography – the Middle East is "east" of "us", isn't it? – but tip the map on end and you realise how close Syria is to Chechen Muslim irredentists. No wonder Moscow fears the rebellion in Syria.

And old Hafez al-Assad, father of Bashar – he used to worry in his last years that a rebellion in Syria would take the form of the terrible conflict which he followed daily on television: the break-up of "secular" Yugoslavia, whose sectarian divisions were then remarkably similar to Syria's today. And weirdly, although the throat-cutting, the militia massacres of civilians and the slaughter of children parallel the 1990s war in Syria's Algerian ally, the appalling scenes from Syria do now begin to reflect the barbarism of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.

What can Bashar do now? Another Syrian friend put an interesting question to me the other day. Suppose the Alawite Shia President Bashar decides to flee, he said. "He will be driven to the airport by an Alawite colonel. Will the colonel let him go? I doubt it."

So two gloomy predictions. Yes, Bashar may still hang on longer than we think. And he won't leave; his brother Maher, who runs the so-called 4th Brigade, may be a different matter. But tanks in the streets of Damascus, the oldest inhabited city in the world, and the shooting can be heard from the presidential palace; these are unprecedented days. Why, a few times yesterday, even Syrian television was forced to tell the truth. The verdict? Going, but not yet gone.

The New Suffragettes

Buy the new Independent eBook - £1.99 A celebration of those who risk their lives for women's rights, a century after Emily Wilding Davison's death.

kobo Amazon Kindle

React Now

iJobs Job Widget
iJobs General

FX Options Front Office Java / C# Developer

£500 - £600 per day: Orgtel: FX Options Front Office Java / C# Developer - Ba...

Project Manager - Front Office - Regulatory IT

£600 - £700 per day: Orgtel: Project Manager - Front Office - Regulatory IT C...

Lighting Design Engineer

£33000 - £35000 Per Annum: The Green Recruitment Company: The Green Recruitmen...

Are you an Primary NQT looking for your first role in Essex?

£21000 - £22000 per annum: Randstad Education Chelmsford: NQTs required now fo...

Day In a Page

Read Next
Charles Saatchi  

From charmer to bully: My encounter with Charles Saatchi

John Walsh
 

Our love for the NHS blinds us to its failures. Morecambe Bay is yet another wake up call

Jane Merrick
'To farm I have to rape the countryside. It’s got to be wrong': The true effect of the badger cull

The true effect of the badger cull

'To farm I have to rape the countryside. It’s got to be wrong'
Theatre review: Daniel Radcliffe gives an admirably honest performance in Michael Grandage's The Cripple of Inishmaan

First night: The Cripple of Inishmaan

Daniel Radcliffe gives an admirably honest performance in Michael Grandage's comedy
Girls Guides drop religious reference but pledge to self and the Queen

Guides drop religious reference but pledge to self and the Queen

After 103 years, organisation changes oath to welcome 'all girls, of all faiths, and none'
Steve Tongue: Joe Kinnear was one of the boys and a breath of fresh air... 21 years ago

Steve Tongue

Joe Kinnear was one of the boys and a breath of fresh air... 21 years ago
Chris Froome: Free from 'pain in neck' after Bradley Wiggins' exit

Chris Froome: Free from 'pain in neck' after Wiggins' exit

Sky's lead rider says he is in fantastic form for the Tour and happy pecking order debate is over
Hannah England: I've got the right times – now to focus on the chess

Hannah England: Keeping Track

I've got the right times – now to focus on the chess
Beards, brawn and body art

Beards, brawn and body art

Meet London’s new batch of male models
Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

British love of shows such as The Bridge, Borgen and The Killing shows no sign of fading
Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?

The Great Green Wall of Africa,

Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?
Laughter Inc: the cheering growth of the chuckle industry

Laughter Inc

The cheering growth of the chuckle industry
The bad science scandal: how fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research

The bad science scandal

How fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research
To the manor born: The female aristocrats battling to inherit the title

Female aristocrats battle to inherit the title

A passionate protest is gathering pace among the women of Britain's aristocracy, who believe that men should no longer automatically inherit the family pile and title.
Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten

In pictures: JFK's visit to Berlin in 1963

Photographer Ulrich Mack accompanied Kennedy on the entire trip. The results are an astonishing record of a watershed moment.
Eat shoots and leaves: Mark Hix gets creative with fresh peas, mangetouts and sugar snaps

Mark Hix gets creative with English peas

English peas and their offsprings, such as mangetouts and sugar snaps, are great tossed into a salad, says our chef.
Ceviche with a smile: Chef Martin Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends

Chef Martin Morales: Ceviche with a smile

Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends