EVEN by the standards of Syrian state television, the gap between fact and fiction yawned unusually wide on July 15th. With street battles rattling Damascus, the capital, for the first time in Syria’s 17-month uprising, a roaming camera crew struggled to find a picture of reassurance. “Nothing’s happening! Its completely quiet!” a trio of veiled women shouted at the microphone poked through their car window, as gunfire crackled in the background. They seemed anxious to speed off, as did a lone pedestrian waylaid on an eerily deserted boulevard, who briskly agreed that things were “normal—very, very normal”.
Syrian security forces are fighting at Aleppo at the northern end of the Jordan-to-Turkey road, but if Assad wants to retreat to Core Syria, I think Aleppo is a bridge too far. Friendly populations need to be evacuated from there.
Assad has to cut his losses at some line, and Aleppo is too far forward of that line, I think.
As long noted, most of the Syrian army is too shaky to fight and is confined to barracks. The rest is doing a fair job of ethnic cleansing along that road corridor.
And the story says that Assad has two brigades in reserve, still.
Seriously, Assad's army has to be tired. They're taking way heavier casualties than we did fighting in Iraq, and Syria is up against more meager opposition. The troops just can't keep up this pace. Two reserve brigades is enough for an emergency but not enough to relieve troops in battle to allow a fight that drags on years.
But two brigades could be fire brigades to rescue retreating units and people as they withdraw to Core Syria.
