Syria Attacks Rebel Holdouts in Qalamoun
The Daily Star reports that the Syrian army has begun an assault on the remaining opposition strongholds in Qalamoun, after declaring victory over rebel fighters Sunday in the strategic town of Yabroud.
“The army began an offensive against remaining rebel enclaves in Qalamoun Monday evening, including shelling the village of Flita, a Hezbollah source said. A security source in Damascus said the army would launch operations ‘in all areas where terrorists are to be found,’ using the regime term for rebels battling to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
“’The aim of the army operation is to entirely secure the border and to close all corridors to Lebanon.’ Two al-Nusra fighters including one commander were killed in the Qalamoun region Monday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.”
Syria “in Free Fall”
Anne Barnard of the New York Times writes that after three years of conflict, Syria is in free fall and “falling apart.” The third anniversary of the war was March 15.
“The country is threatened with de facto partition among the government, Kurdish militias and a patchwork of insurgent groups, some seeking to impose extremist Islamist rule. Criminal gangs profit from chaos, and pro-government militias increasingly threaten to slip from state control. A regional proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran further polarizes the conflict and fuels its sectarian dimension.”
Barnard also touches on growing regional destabilization. “With 9 million Syrians driven from their homes, according to the United Nations, 2.5 million of them into nearby countries, the Syrian displacement dwarfs the exodus from British-mandate Palestine during the war over Israel’s founding in 1948, a flight of 750,000 people that fuels conflict and hardship to this day.”
A Syrian Refugee Camp With Girl Scouts and a Safeway Store
Deborah Amos of NPR reports from Zaatari refugee camp, now the fourth-largest enclave in Jordan, on what she says has become a functioning city with Girl Scout troops and grocery stores.
“In this desolate place, the troop’s weekly meetings are a time to forget the horrors that forced these girls to flee Syria with their families. This week marks the third anniversary of the start of the Syrian conflict, and this unofficial Girl Scout troop is a sign these girls may spend their childhood in exile, and their families are learning to cope with what may be a long-term stay,” Amos writes.
“It’s not just the refugees who are adapting to the new timeline. The aid agencies must change, too. They know their work is not about a quick fix anymore. They are starting to design programs to prepare Syrian refugees for an exile that could go on for years.”
You can listen to Amos’s full radio piece from Zaatari here.
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