Troops take Syrian oil hub after siege lasting four days

SYRIAN TROOPS have taken control of the eastern oil hub of Deir al-Zor after a four-day siege, moving into two northeastern towns near the Turkish border, reportedly killing one person and wounding 13.

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded by saying his foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who met President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday, had called for an end to the crackdown, but Mr Erdogan also said he expected political reforms to be enacted within 15 days.

Deir al-Zor, 450km from Damascus, is inhabited by 600,000 mainly well-armed Sunni tribesmen with Iraqi connections. The government apparently decided to move after 500,000 people from the city and surrounding areas were said to have staged a protest against the regime.

The use of military force to re- establish Damascus’s rule over Deir al-Zor follows a strategy adopted by the government since the five-month rebellion began.

Troops are first concentrated on the outskirts of a target city, power and communications are cut and tanks and soldiers then move in, smashing barricades erected by opposition defenders, routing them and seizing the city centre.

At the same time, the military deploys in sufficient strength at other protest sites to contain demonstrations. This strategy has, so far, enabled the government to check but not defeat the protest movement, which has grown bolder and better organised.

The Syrian information ministry yesterday brought journalists and ambassadors to Hama, the city subdued last weekend at the cost, according to opposition activists, of 250 lives.

Visitors saw barricades being dismantled by soldiers, a police station said to have been torched and 50 tanks departing on flatbed lorries. Homs, the country’s third city, was returned to government control several weeks ago.

The unrest in Syria is having negative repercussions for its ally, the Lebanese Hizbullah. In Syria, demonstrators have chanted slogans against the movement’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and burned its flag. This amounts to an 180- degree change of attitude among Syrians who once admired Hizbullah for its successful military campaign against Israel during its 2006 war on Lebanon.

Although Hizbullah backed the Tunisian, Egyptian, Yemeni and Bahraini uprisings, Arab adherents have been disillusioned by its support for Iran’s suppression of dissent following the 2009 presidential election and for Syria’s suppression of anti-regime protests.

Furthermore, Hizbullah’s political position in Lebanon has been diminished by the weakening of the Assad regime by unrest in Syria. Hizbullah’s opponents have also exploited the movement’s refusal to co-operate with the tribunal conducting a trial of figures suspected of involvement in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafic Hariri.

The irony is that Hizbullah faces these challenges at a time an ally, Najib Mikati, has formed a government it favours and president Michel Suleiman, a former army commander, has dismissed calls to dismantle Hizbullah’s military wing and confiscate its arsenal.