Vol. 77/No. 37      October 21, 2013

Defense Secretary John Kerry praised Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for progress in the deal brokered by Moscow toward decommissioning the Syrian military’s chemical weapons — at least those not moved out of the country or otherwise hidden — as “a credit to the Assad regime.” Meanwhile, armed forces backing the Assad government are stepping up a series of sieges aimed at crushing resistance in the suburban neighborhoods of Moadhamiya and Zamalka, both of which were hit by sarin gas attacks Aug. 21.

The U.S. has deployed a sizable naval armada around Syria. Five destroyers, an unspecified number of submarines and the USS San Antonio, an amphibious troop-landing vessel carrying 600 Marines, are off Syria’s Mediterranean coast. A Strike Group led by the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz aircraft carrier was diverted to the Red Sea in September.

Washington also deployed to the Red Sea the USS Kearsarge, a large-deck amphibious warship armed with 16 Harrier and Osprey aircraft, helicopters and 3,000 Marines and naval troops. Washington used the Kearsarge to launch airstrikes against Libya in 2011.

Syrian government troops from the 4th Army Division and the paramilitary National Defense Force are “tightening the noose around one of the suburbs gassed by chemical weapons in August,” the Oct. 2 Wall Street Journal reported.

There are some 12,000 people in Moadhamiya, near Damascus. “We won’t allow them to be nourished,” one paramilitary commando told the Journal.

The neighborhood has been without electricity or telephone service for months and water supplies are running short. The Syrian Arab Red Crescent has made numerous efforts to bring food to the area, but has been rebuffed by government forces each time.

It’s the same story in Zamalka, a suburb in Ghouta where pro-government shelling and sniper fire comes in daily.

Workers there have organized a network of committees to take on medical care, communications, humanitarian relief, education, sanitation and “something that approximates the rule of law,” Reuters reported Oct. 4. With all the schools bombed out by the regime, residents have organized “revolutionary education” centers.

Roughly one-third of Syrians have been forced out of their homes since the Assad regime launched its scorched-earth assaults to crush anti-government protests by workers, peasants and youth beginning in 2011. More than 2 million have been driven out of the country.

In September 2012 there were 300,000 refugees. There were 1 million in March and 2 million in September this year.

More than 1 million have fled to Lebanon where today roughly one out of every four people is Syrian.

Some 600,000 are in Jordan, making up 10 percent of the population, 120,000 in the U.N.’s Zaatari camp on the Syrian border. Rents in the capital Amman have doubled. The population of the town of Mafraq has doubled to 250,000. The Jordanian monarchy has asked Washington to quietly build up its military presence in the country.

Half a million Syrian refugees are in Turkey and 100,000 in Egypt. Some 200,000 Syrian Kurds have gone to Iraq, many fleeing stepped-up attacks by Islamist Jihadists seeking to carve out territory.

In Syria, entire industries have come to a standstill. Three-quarters of the factories in Aleppo, the country’s most industrial city, are no longer operating. Textile, one of Syria’s largest industries, has lost $88 million in destroyed plant and production.

The bulk of Syrian capitalists continue to back Assad. “They look at the countryside and think: What if these people win?” Joshua Landis, a U.S. professor, told the New York Times. “Are they going to respect capitalism? Are they going to preserve our wealth?”
 
 
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