There are shootings every night in the capital of Syria. They occur almost exactly at the same time each day, at around 22.00 (11 AM). Militants are in the suburbs of Damask yet no one is doing anything about them.
It looks like this tension in the capital of Syria is good for both sides.
Assad's traveling in Damask and in Syria is limited for his safety. Only the most trusted people could personally meet Assad.
A good question comes into the mind: does Assad actually know what is happening in his country? Does he have independent sources of information that allow for a full understanding of the situation in his country? By the way, Syrian leaders deny the fact that they have a civil war. They think it is an internal military conflict with the elements of external intervention. Despite these full scale military actions there is still no martial law introduced.
A huge amount if intelligence forces (mukhābarāt) make the situation even worse. There are four kinds of it: national, military, air and political. There is also the National bureau of security.
The corruption in Syrian intelligence forces is awful. They force the whole population and army to pay an enormous amounts of bribes.
You have to pay when traveling through Syria at each checkpoint. Even a truck loaded with food could only cross the checkpoint for money. A similar situation is happening with refugees. Syrian intelligence forces could take a random person from the crowd and take all the money. The person then is detained. In order to free such person you would have to pay around 200.000 liras per person. This is a huge amount of money by Syrian standards.
It is impossible to apply European approach in multi-ethnic and multi-confessional Syria. You have to consider the local way of thinking. For example Syria has a lot of Christians, there is around 2 million of them. However they are not willing to fight for Assad. They used to be a social outcast in Syria, heavily underrepresented at all government levels. Hence they are not willing to fight for Assad since they do not know what to expect from him in the future. They could be used to form a few brigades 10.000 people each, and they could be brave warriors too.
No one is cooperating with Syrian Turkmen. They are good warriors as well, yet they fight for the opposition mostly. They could have fought for Assad if they knew what they are fighting for exactly. Even the ones who are fighting for the opposition could have switched to the pro-government forces. Yet no one is working with them. Syrian intelligence forces also play a bad role here, they just steal these people and you never see them again.
The relatives would only get a note afterwards, saying that "your son died in prison". The government is making a lot of enemies for themselves.
Current situation in Syria is a dead end. There is no military solution for the situation. While Americans and the opposition are working on the new constitution, Assad is doing nothing.
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