Syria under Bashir Assad (closed end 2014)

**davidbfpo** · 05-17-2014

A week ago a IISS Strategic Comment had the title 'Syria's war: Assad gains upper hand' and partly ended:

...While its survival is no longer in question in the medium term, its ability to rebuild the pretence of a state remains in doubt, given its limited resources, internal contradictions and the reality of soft partition. Syria is, in effect, transforming into small statelets, none of which is viable on its own.

Link to a very short free passage:http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/...pper-hand-6a54

**davidbfpo** · 06-03-2014

The full title of this Canadian article is: A Throne of Bones: The Assad Regime’s Military Strategy Leading to the June 3rd Election

While wide swathes of the country remain outside government control, regime forces and their allies have reversed the steady downward trend they were experiencing through 2012 and have since gone on the offensive in key areas. Damascus and its allies established a clear set of strategic priorities to focus on in the months leading up to the June election, and they have eagerly pursued them in order to establish their preferred environment for the event. The Syrian military is far from strong enough to retake all the territory it has lost, but it is capable of making significant progress in areas where it chooses to concentrate its forces and firepower, as recent months have shown.

Some maps too, although after the first minus a key.