DAMASCUS — The Syrian regime started a wide-scale battle on Feb. 8 that it dubbed "the battle for a settlement,” in the countryside of Daraa (80 kilometers, or 50 miles, south of Damascus), with heavy participation from Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Observers believe that it is the most important battle yet at the military and political levels. It comes a day after the opposition fighters launched “the breaking claws” battle in Daraa. The fighters targeted the regime forces' positions in the northern countryside of Daraa, in response to the massacres committed by these same forces in eastern Rif Dimashq on Jan. 23.
The military objectives of the battle aimed to extend the regime’s control over the towns located in a strategic geographic triangle linking the northern countryside of Daraa, the northeastern countryside of Quneitra and southwestern Rif Dimashq. It is an attempt to separate these cities from each other, to prevent the infiltration of the opposition fighters and to fully secure the capital, Damascus. The battle also aims to pave the way for the regime’s progress toward a stretch of hills leading to the strategic Tal al-Hara in western Daraa, and then to the center of Hauran, the city of Nawa, Sheikh Miskin and Quneitra.
