Losing Syria to the Dark Ages

"I was hit in the knee by shrapnel. I was in a battle in Sheikh Saeed. The army have taken the construction company building and pinned us down. They have snipers, they have tanks. 
"Every time they sense movement they hit it with a tank. In fact if they see a single soldier they hit him with a tank."
Malek, Syrian Opposition fighter

"Before we used to guard the neighbourhood around our houses, but now we are more organized. We are participating in military actions.
"We are not fighting for Assad. The country comes first. He is the best in the world but we still don't fight for him, we fight for the country. Those people want to take us back to the dark ages."
Syrian volunteer with the National Defence group

"The government is couching this as a straight fight between itself, a moderate secular bastion, and Nusra and al-Qaeda.
"There are plenty of Syrians who are willing to take that message. Many Syrians have taken a hard look at Assad and at the opposition and they don't draw much hope from the opposition."
David Hartwell, senior Middle East Analyst, Jane's.

Sheikh Saeed is a suburb on the edge of Aleppo's Old City. The Free Syrian Army had planned to take possession of the airport. Rebels planned to establish a chain of control from the city's north, then around to its eastern side, and finally to the south-west, and the airport. The airport represented one of the key areas of command, to the rebels. Behind the city stands the Qasioun Mountains, where the rebels found a bastion of security.

But from Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad has succeeded in initiating a new front, determined to take back what was once his, and Qusayr on the border with Lebanon was his first goal. Where Iran's proxy army Hezbollah was ready and more than eager to present itself as a force to be reckoned with. That strategic battle was a success, building on his earlier successes around Damascus and central Syria. The road between Deraa and Jordan  has reopened, sweeping away rebel gains in the north, in Aleppo.

Neighbourhoods in Aleppo, Damascus and Homs, largely Sunni inhabited and long opposed to the Alawite Baath Assads and their minority Shia status, welcomed the rebels in Sheikh Saeed. Rebels and regime fighters now combat at close range at the military bases the rebels had hoped to capture. The regime's military in possession of better weapons, of air support and a new confidence born of tactical ruthlessness, overpowering the rebels' implacable determination.

The regime feels more empowered now, anticipates it will overcome the opposition. The advantage of the Quds Iranian Republican Guard advisers, and the Hezbollah militias helps, enormously. But then there is yet another advantage; use of Shia Syrians whose zeal to prevail against the Sunni rebels matches the former's fierceness. Defections from the military have declined markedly. And the creation of a 60,000-strong volunteer militia, the National Defence Force has proven a match in street fighting by the rebels.

"If we had more ammunition we could take Aleppo in twenty days" comments Abdulaziz al-Salameh ruefully. He is political head of Aleppo's largest brigade, the Tawhid. Who not that long ago felt confident that the rebels were fully prepared to take Aleppo, move on to Homs, and finally Damascus. That was then, now morale is at an all-time low. Tawhid itself has lost support, many of its strength defecting to Jabhat al-Nusra.

Which, although comprised of experienced fighters whose arms are far superior to that of the rebels, has become almost as opinion-fractured as the unco-ordinated rebel militias in their split into two factions. One in favour, the other against a merger with the Iraq arm of al-Qaeda. If it came down to a final confrontation between the butchering Islamist Sunni al-Qaeda-in-Iraq on one hand, and the murderous Islamist Shia Hezbollah on the other, all bets are off.

But until the final results came in, the Shia minority Alawites loyal to their leader with his newly regained self-confidence, would be living on tenterhooks of the prospect of forced martyrdom at the hands of the triumphantly avenging Sunni militias inspired to slaughter them in a blood-bath of tidal proportions. While the Sunni majority who have fled in their millions to internal and external displacement, visualize the gruesome prospect of the very same possibility in reverse.

Before the entire geography becomes engulfed in a cataclysmic spasm of sectarian vengeance.