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Iran Helping Assad Establish Full Control in Damascus

(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Hanin Ghaddar - On Aug. 27, Bashar al-Assad's forces moved into Daraya, a besieged Sunni suburb less than two miles from the center of Damascus, after convincing the 8,000 local residents who remained there to leave. The regime has begun negotiating similar agreements with other besieged Sunni areas, where Iranian-sponsored militias are heavily involved in the sieges of these towns. Assad seems to be moving to eliminate any Sunni presence around Damascus, while Iraqi Shiite families are being moved to Syria to repopulate the evacuated suburbs. Assad's father Hafez actively populated Damascus with Alawites during his time as president. While in 1947 only 300 Alawites lived in Damascus, by 2010 that figure had soared to more than 500,000. Iran's strategy is to create a Sunni-free corridor linking Hizbullah in Lebanon to Damascus, Homs, and the Alawite enclave on Syria's coast. This would also give Hizbullah safe access to the Golan Heights, potentially allowing the group to open another front against Israel. At the same time, Iran's corridor would be surrounded by a sea of Sunnis and remain vulnerable, meaning that Iran's militias, including Hizbullah, will have to remain deployed on multiple fronts to protect it. The writer, a veteran Lebanese journalist and researcher, is a visiting fellow at The Washington Institute.
2016-09-09 00:00:00
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