Syria opposition vows to resist regime assault in Daraa

By Adham Kako, Levent Tok and Mohamad Misto

DARAA, Syria/ANKARA

Opposition groups in Syria’s southwestern Daraa province have vowed to resist regime forces as the Syrian regime pushed ahead with a deadly military offensive in the opposition stronghold.

On Monday, regime forces and allied militias launched a ground offensive -- supported by Russian air power -- following four earlier attempts to storm Daraa’s northeastern town of Busra al-Harir.

Recent days have seen Syrian regime forces and their Iran-backed allies advance to the town’s outskirts, where they have continued to clash with armed opposition groups.

According to local civil-defense sources, at least 29 people have been killed by repeated regime attacks in the area.

The opposition groups called on the international community to fulfill its responsibility toward halting regime atrocities in the area.

As part of Astana process, Daraa was one of the de-escalation zones that was established in May 2017 by guarantor countries Turkey, Iran and Russia.

Later in July, the U.S. and Russia reached an agreement to declare Daraa a “de-escalation zone”.

The UN estimates that at least 45,000 people have been internally displaced by the regime offensive and that the fighting has affected around 750,000 in the area.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since 2011 when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, according to the UN.