With the attack on the Palace of Justice on Thursday, a pro-regime television station on Tuesday and the raid on a Republican Guard barracks in Damascus last week, it appears as if the Syrian rebels are getting closer and closer to President Bashar al-Assad.
The attack on the barracks by the Free Syrian Army, the main armed opposition group that is made up of soldiers who defected from the Syrian military, was the closest that rebels have come to the regime. By most accounts, the FSA has stepped up action in the capital city -- the attack on the main courthouse on Thursday, which wounded three people, was the latest advance -- but the small raid, while "just a test for when the battle does move to Damascus," according to the FSA, was done in the shadow of the presidential palace next door, making it a significant and symbolic action.
Likewise, the destruction of the al-Ikhbariya TV station was less strategic than it was a message. Although it's privately owned, the pro-government station is a poignant symbol of the Assad regime, which tightly controls the inbound and outbound flow of information. Syria prohibits foreign journalists from entering the country -- allegedly with deadly force at times -- and the only source of news comes from the government, which can report whatever they please.
The FSA has not claimed responsibility for the assault on the television station, but a spokesperson from the Syrian National Council (SNC), the political umbrella of the opposition, said that "newly defected soldiers from the Republican Guard" carried out the attack.
"There are dozens of resistance groups in all major Syrian cities, and they do cooperate in some operations sometimes," said Ausama Monajed, the Advisor to the Secretary General of the SNC.
International Business Times
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