Hope and suspense in East Ghouta as the regime loses ground

PARIS — As morning broke over the Damascus countryside on Friday, residents woke to the news that opposition forces had advanced into several cities and towns in northern Homs, edging closer to the Syrian capital. 

“People have regained hope that their suffering from the [regime’s] stranglehold could come to an end,” Ratib Omran (a pseudonym) told Syria Direct from Douma, a city in the formerly opposition-held East Ghouta suburbs of Damascus. 

The capture of Hama city on Thursday by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other opposition factions pushing south from northwestern Syria was a turning point for the Syrian regime and civilians in areas it controls in and around the capital. 

News and images flowing in from the central Syrian city “shook the confidence of the regime in itself, and of its supporters in it,” Omran said. He was on his way home to Douma along the Damascus-Homs highway late on Thursday when he saw “people affiliated with the regime and their families leaving,” driving in the other direction “for Tartous and Latakia.”

When the HTS-led offensive, dubbed Operation Deterring Aggression, began on November 27, regime forces launched a conscription and arrest campaign in the East Ghouta. Military police and military intelligence personnel also deployed to the streets of cities and towns including Douma, Saqba and Kafr Batna. 

For days, young men tried to evade military checkpoints, fearing the regime would “drag them into losing battles,” Omran said. This fear was particularly acute with the spread of many videos on social media showing regime forces—some conscripted from formerly opposition-held settlement areas like Homs, Reef Dimashq and Daraa—captured by opposition forces. 

The fall of Hama city on Thursday sparked a change. Regime forces and patrols pulled out of multiple East Ghouta cities, including Douma and Harasta, redeploying to checkpoints at the entrances and exits. “These checkpoints are protected with sandbags, for fear of being targeted,” a source in East Ghouta who is currently conscripted into the military reserves told Syria Direct, requesting anonymity for security reasons. 

Conscription operations have not stopped, but are now limited to the checkpoints outside cities themselves, the source explained. “The regime is afraid to enter these cities and towns,” he added.

East Ghouta was controlled by armed opposition factions from late 2012 until the signing of a Russian-backed settlement agreement in the spring of 2018, when fighters and civilians who refused to reconcile with the regime withdrew to northern Syria. 

While the regime is “panicking, worried about operations against it from inside Ghouta,” residents are in a state of “great suspense and anxiety,” Omran said. Many fear that opposition factions could halt their march on Damascus. 

“The cessation of military action against [the regime] means turning Damascus and its countryside into a military zone, after regime forces and vehicles withdrew from several Syrian provinces,” Omran added. He is optimistic that “salvation will come within a few days.” 

A person in the Reef Dimashq city of Douma holds up a piece of paper that reads: “Douma revolutionaries congratulate the Military Operations Department on the liberation of Hama city,” 6/12/2024 (Douma Coordination Committee)

Still, many are worried about the ongoing conscription and arrest of young men wanted for compulsory military service. “These days, that means a death sentence for conscripts,” the source in the reserves said. “Before, [the regime] would drag us to the fronts in northern Syria. After losing wide areas, where would it take us?”

Is Reef Dimashq mobilizing? 

Both sources Syria Direct spoke to in East Ghouta ruled out the possibility of organized military action against the regime from within the area. Damascus has wiped out any military presence in the eastern suburbs, and stripped all weapons from opposition forces while expelling them to the north in 2018. 

This differs from Daraa, where local factions maintained a limited presence and played a role in administering the southern province and pressuring the regime to limit violations since signing their own Russian-backed settlement in 2018. 

As opposition factions from northern Syria pressed forward in their military operations against the regime—capturing Idlib, Aleppo and Hama provinces and reaching northern Homs—local military groups in Daraa and neighboring Suwayda province launched their own “decisive battle” on Friday. 

Fighters within the newly formed Southern Operation Room announced control of Daraa city on Friday night local time. Throughout the day, armed groups in both provinces took control of regime headquarters, military sites and security centers while securing the defection of a number of regime forces. 

Advances in the south “increase our hope that things have gone beyond the regime’s control, even in Damascus and its countryside,” Omran said. At the same time, they “increase our fears of how it could react in the areas it has been confined to.” 

Amid rapid developments across the country, activists reported on Friday that a meeting is expected in northern Syria between Ahmad Taha, former commander of Jaish al-Umma in East Ghouta, with the head of Jaish al-Islam and other commanders from Reef Dimashq opposition factions. The reported meeting is in preparation for launching a military convoy to Damascus and Reef Dimashq as part of Operation Deterring Aggression, they said. 

Any military action against the regime in former opposition areas such as East Ghouta can only come “from the outside,” Omran reiterated. His hope is for East Ghouta to emerge on the other side with “the least damage” possible. 

“We are living with great hope and optimism—and extreme caution,” he said. 

This report was originally published in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.