But the
tables have turned. It is the rebels themselves
who are now surrounded, along with the tens of
thousands of civilians in their sector of the
city – but they have no airport to sustain them.
On the basis of so many other battles in this
appalling war, there is unlikely to be any
offensive for the centre of this greatest of
Syrian cities; rather it will be a slow and
grinding siege to force the insurgents to
surrender.
In an
ironic twisting of recent history, the two Shia
villages of Nubl and Zahra – whose people had
been surrounded by rebels and starved for three
years, fed only by Syrian military airdrops –
have now been retaken by the Syrian military.
The
Shia, co-religionists of the Alawite people from
which President Bashar al-Assad comes, have been
cornered in several villages in the region,
although their plight has gone largely
unreported.
Now the
people in the rebel-held part of Aleppo are
going to feel the same sense of isolation – and,
no doubt, the shellfire of their besiegers.
There has always been a movement of people
between the two sectors of the city – will these
passages now be closed? And what of the tens of
thousands of civilians streaming north towards
Turkey?
Aleppo
itself was late to join the war. By some kind of
historical miracle, it remained disentangled
from the conflict until 2012 when rebels –
thinking they were en route to Damascus –
managed to infiltrate into the ancient city. Its
streets were then burned out in months of
fighting. Now it appears to be the first of
Syria’s large cities to be effectively back in
the hands of the regime. What comes next? The
retaking of the Roman city of Palmyra? The
clearing of the lands around Deraa (of Lawrence
of Arabia fame)?
And,
much more dramatically, how soon will the Syrian
army, its Hezbollah allies and the Russian air
force set their course for the Isis “capital” of
Raqqa?
Isis,
which holds Palmyra, must be learning of the
extraordinary developments of the past few hours
with deep concern. The everlasting Sunni
“Islamic Caliphate” in Syria doesn’t look so
everlasting any more. Is this why the Sunni
Saudis have suddenly offered to send ground
troops to Syria? And why the Turks are so
flustered? I doubt if anyone is weeping in Shia
Iran.
Anyway,
the Saudi military is already having its feet
chewed off in the disgraceful Yemen war. As for
the Turks sending their own Nato soldiers across
the Syrian border – presumably at risk of being
attacked by the Russians – that is a nightmare
which both Washington and Moscow must avoid.
Otherwise, we’ll find ourselves in another
Gavrilo Princip moment – and we all know what
happened in 1914.
