A Matter Of Life And Death

"My bag has my family's passports, our university degrees, some cash and medicine.  It is very hard to imagine leaving your home and everything you worked to get, but it's a matter of life and death."

And so, as the civil war between Syria's majority Sunni population and its minority Shia-Alawite regime continues to rage and encompass the capital, Damascans, like their counterparts elsewhere in the country, are beginning to migrate away from danger, hoping at the very least to preserve their lives.  Reprisals are feared.  And lack of assurance that non-combatants will be secure.

The Syrian Kurds, Christians and Druze hardly know what to think.  They were given protection under the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.  They fear now that their security will be a distant memory once the Sunni majority, with the Islamists among them, from al-Qaeda supporters to the Muslim Brotherhood which will plan to have an advantage with a new administration.

"The streets are completely empty, the shops are closed.  People are terrified of what's next", said an activist in Damascus who estimates there were about three hundred rebels fighting the troops in the centre of the city.  The rebels eventually departed, but not without leaving the message that they are capable of entering anywhere, and the violence that is inexorably spreading has a deep reach.

How deep a reach was demonstrated when the rebels enjoyed the shock that reverberated as three ministers of the regime were dispatched.  A security guard working on behalf of the rebels, wearing an explosives belt was reportedly persuaded to make a personal contribution to the outcome of the civil war. 

That story, however, was later altered.  Riad al-Asaad, the rebel commander, claimed responsibility.  His  forces, he explained, planted a bomb in the room where the security establishment was to meet, and when all those assembled were securely within the room, the bomb was detonated.  All those who were involved in the attack survived.

The result being a shocked and traumatized city, hardly knowing what next to expect.

Ministers were meeting heads of security agencies at the time of the explosion

The dead include Bashar al-Assad's brother-in-law, the Syrian Minister of Defence, and the head of Syria's crisis team, at the national security headquarters.  Not nearly as secure as these top defence figures felt it to be, quite obviously.  The dead were Defence Minister General Daoud Rajiha, Deputy Defence Minister Assef Shawkat, Assistant Vice-President, head of crisis management, General Hassan Turkomani.

Two other senior officials, Interior Minister Mohammad Ibraham al-Shaar and National Security Bureau Chief Hisham Ikhtiar, managed to cheat the Grim Reaper this time around, they sustained wounds from the bombing but survived.  "We are going to miss them and we offer our condolences to the Syrian leadership and the Syrian army" was the message from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Israel's military intelligence chief gave warning that global jihadists have entered Syria bordering the Golan Heights, anticipating that the area could be used as a staging-ground for attacks against Israel.  And from Jordan, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh announced the kingdom was taking steps to ward off a potential chemical attack from Syria.

More than reflecting the nervous state of anticipation in the region where it is feared the violence and chaos in Syria could spread across the Middle East.