Syria: Front line battles take Damascus suburbs back to 'stone age'
December 2, 2013 -- Updated 1555 GMT (2355 HKT)
Inside the battle for Damascus
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Syrian regime forces are battling rebels for control of suburbs surrounding Damascus
- Battle for control of southern, eastern areas of capital could be key to outcome of civil war
- Rebel leader says "genocidal" government siege is taking suburbs "back to stone age"
- Regime says rebels are blocking aid convoys from reaching civilians in contested areas
Snipers swap shots around
the clock in Tadamon, a district in southern Damascus. The front line
here has been static for months now, but fighting has increased recently
as the government has won back neighboring districts and opposition
fighters have fled to this area.
"It is pretty much every
day that they try to attack our positions. It happens in the mornings,
the afternoons, the evenings and at night. When we see them, we shoot,"
one Syrian soldier told CNN, never taking his eyes off the
battle-scarred swath of no man's land visible through his sniper scope.
The battle for the
suburbs of Damascus will be key to deciding the outcome of the civil war
in Syria. Much of the southern and eastern ring around the capital has
fallen into the hands of rebel forces, often led by Islamist brigades,
but the Syrian army is slowly winning back turf -- often at a high cost
for both sides.
Syrian children living with war
Syrian FM: Opposition 'from Middle Ages'
In Syria, mass polio vacciation campaign
Syria peace conference set for January
The front line in Tadamon
has gone back and forth between the rebels and the military for a long
time. The commander in charge, who would only let us identify him as Abu
Saleem, took us through a street that runs parallel to the front.
"We call this the
lifeline," he said. "We used this street to move around and resupply
when the rebels nearly broke through. It was vital to holding on to this
area."
Most of the residents
have fled the buildings near the front line, but only a few yards away
life continues at almost a normal pace. Children play in the streets,
shops are open and cars edge along debris-littered streets.
"We had to leave our
houses a few times because the fighting came so close," one local woman
said. "But the military was able to hold the opposition fighters up and
things have become more calm recently."
Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad has made winning back the outskirts of Damascus a main
priority. While Syrian soldiers in Tadamon are merely holding the line,
in other districts, the army is on the offensive. Regime forces recently
won back the district of Sbeneih south of the capital and have also
made gains in Yarmouk, the district just west of Tadamon.
Abu Saleem, the
commander in charge of taking back Tadamon, says there are many foreign
jihadists among the rebels his forces have encountered.
"The fighters from
foreign countries are leaders," Saleem said, "Especially from places
like Libya, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. We hear from our
sources inside that there are many foreign fighters there."
One opposition leader in
the Eastern Ghouta region around Damascus who calls himself Abu Kareem
called the army's siege of rebel-held areas "genocidal."
"We are facing a severe
shortage of medicine and all medical supplies," Kareem told CNN. "They
are basically non-existent. We have gone back to the stone age."
Rebels say the Assad
regime is trying to starve the civilians still stuck in contested areas.
There have been reports and videos on social media of severely
malnourished children and people eating leaves to survive. A photo that
surfaced on Twitter in the past week allegedly shows residents of one
Damascus subrub killing the lion at the local zoo for food.
But the government
claims the opposition is keeping aid convoys from reaching the districts
under siege. International aid groups have blamed both sides of using
access to food as a weapon.
When asked what Syria's
military was fighting for, Abu Saleem, the commander in Tadamon,
insisted it was about more than simply preserving Assad's rule.
"This is not a battle of
good against evil," he said. "This is the battle of a secular state
against Islamist ideals. We want to preserve Syria as a diverse
society."
The soldiers in Tadamon
say they are placing little hope in the Syrian peace talks scheduled to
take place in Geneva, Switzerland next January. Right now they can't see
beyond the mostly deserted streets of a neighborhood that both sides
are reducing to rubble.