Baladi News – (Mona Ali)
Assad’s regime, as well as its Iranian and Russian allies have exploited the de-escalation agreement, which was also imposed on the Syrian opposition, to expand towards additional and strategically important areas.
The Race Towards Deir Ez-Zour
It was reported that sectarian militias and remnants of Assad’s army reached the triple frontier shared by Syria, Jordan and Iraq in an effort to control the desert of Homs, Deir Ez-Zour province, up to Boukmal. In addition, the regime forces and their allies reached the gates of Maskanah at the borders of Raqqa province.
Such an expansion would not have been achieved without the de-escalation agreement that allowed the regime forces and the allied militias to leave their positions in Hama, Homs, the surroundings of Idlib, and Damascus countryside and head towards the depth of the Syrian Desert, and particularly Deir Ez-Zour.
Iranian Scheme
The matter is related to Iranian endeavors to change its roads to the Mediterranean through the Syrian territories after the expansion of the United States influence in the northeast of Syria. The new Iranian road passes through the cities of Mayadin, Deir Ez-Zour, Palmyra, and Damascus and up to Lebanon and the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.
Creating Confusion
Mohammad Hammado from the Free Syrian Army indicated that “when specific areas are covered by the de-escalation agreement, this means that other areas are not,” adding that “the agreement allows the regime to catch its breath and redeploy its forces in a way that is compatible with its ambitions on the one hand and overcrowd the opposition factions in tight areas and ignite infighting among them for narrow interests on the other.”
Hammado considered that “Astana agreement must be undermined by mobilizing the revolutionary forces and creating confusion by waging a battle of attrition against the Russians in the Syrian coast in order to restructure the agreement in a way that fulfills the interests of Syrian people.