“For the most part, fighting in areas of Damascus has not reached the downtown section, though it does spill over there on occasion. That happened last Thursday, when a mortar shell landed in the heart of Damascus, killing six inhabitants.”
“Islamic State has Damascus in its crosshairs,” by Avi Issacharoff, Times of Israel, August 22, 2015:
…For Assad, the eastern outskirts of Damascus are a preferred target. In August 2013, he attacked Ghouta al-Sharqiya, a suburb near Douma, with chemical weapons — an incident that eventually led to an agreement on Syria relinquishing its chemical arsenal. Douma, and mainly Ghouta al-Sharqiya, are considered strongholds of the Islamist opposition group Jaish al-Islam (the Army of Islam), which does not identify with the Islamic State. The regime claims that the Syrian aircraft attacked the headquarters of Jaush al-Islam, but members of the group say that its headquarters are located three kilometers away from the Douma marketplace.
Jaish al-Islam’s presence inside Damascus is not the main problem Assad faces for control of the capital. For the Syrian president, the prime concern is the Islamic State’s advance toward Damascus. The various opposition groups, notably including IS, are slowly closing in on Assad’s home.
IS already has a presence in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, adjacent to the city, where it is working against the regime together with activists from Al-Nusra Front (which is fighting against IS in other sectors in Syria, such as the Golan Heights front). For IS, Damascus is the bottom-line goal.
It is not a secret target; IS has promised more than once that it will conquer the capital. The pace of its progress, at least for now, is quite slow. It captured Palmyra several months ago. Raqqa, Islamic State’s capital city, is fairly distant, but its people have succeeded in reaching Bir Qassab, roughly 40 kilometers southeast of Damascus, and for now they have stopped there.
For Assad, the president of “Lesser Syria,” evil will come from the east, since the general direction of IS is clear: to move westward toward the capital and drive the embattled Syrian president away.
For IS, that goal still seems far off. For the most part, fighting in areas of Damascus has not reached the downtown section, though it does spill over there on occasion. That happened last Thursday, when a mortar shell landed in the heart of Damascus, killing six inhabitants.
Islamic State has some thorny logistical, military and economic problems. Its troops are deployed throughout Syria and Iraq to the limits of its capabilities. The stream of volunteers continues, though at a slower place due to firmer action by Turkey against Islamic State. On the other hand, the Syrian army, which has enough troops and arms to protect the capital for now, is receiving massive support from Iran and Hezbollah. In addition, Islamic State is under constant attack from coalition aircraft.
Still, the trend in Syria is clear: Islamic State’s progress toward the capital has not been stopped….

gravenimage says
Islamic State has Damascus in its crosshairs
……………………
This is terrifying–but comes as no surprise. Damascus was always the final target of Jihadists in Syria.
Remember when a “Road to Damascus moment” meant something very different?
Cecilia Ellis says
“Islamic State has Damascus in its crosshairs”
And Rome . . . and Paris . . . and London . . . and Washington, D.C. . . . and Jerusalem . . .
Diana says
Yes Cecilia – love your posts! ” …. And Rome . . . and Paris . . . and London . . . and Washington, D.C. . . . and Jerusalem . . ”
Let me add to that ….. And LA and Milwaukee and Detroit and Denver and Honolulu and Dallas and Ottawa and Toronto and Sydney and Canberra and Melbourne and Edinburgh and Glasgow and Dublin and Brussells and Warsaw and Prague and Copenhagen and Stolkholm …. (they’ve already got Malmo) … and the list goes on and on and on ad nauseum.
Every civillised place on earth is under threat. And we stand for freedom – worth the effort to defrend yes?
Diana says
oops! Meant “defend” but the unintentional typo “defrend” above is exactly what I have done with my ex-friends who are blinded by their own oh so PC/MC rose-tinted glasses. No friend of mine is a friend or an apologist for this clear and present danger – the greatest evil ever to manifest on this planet.
Cecilia Ellis says
Diana, thanks for your kind reply. I have to admit that we both failed to mention Dearborn . . . I wonder why that happened . . .
Angemon says
And it won’t, at this rate. Obama’s enemy in Syria is Assad, not the islamic state.
Cecilia Ellis says
On-target with that one, Angemon!
mortimer says
The genocide of the Alawite heretics has been the target all along. Saudi Arabia and Turkey sought to exterminate the Alawites by proxy. The ‘proxy’ morphed into ISIS. Turkey supports ISIS to exterminate the Kurds who want their own country (a reasonable request). Each of the tribes in the Muslim world can’t work together with others, so they must be separated.
kay says
Re : “The genocide of the Alawite heretics has been the target all along.”
This is GUARANTEED TRUE.
I saw youtube videos of Arab discussions on What To Do With Assad’s people.
The exact statements amount to this: “The Alawites get to convert to Sunni Islam. Otherwise we will of course exterminate them.”
Syria has 2.6 million Alawites.
The Alawites and Sunnis hate each other with the greatest intensity. Many children will be killed if the Sunni get into Damascus.
This has to be a fight to the death. The Alawites have nowhere to run.
I expect that the Sunnis would like to kill at least a million Alawites. It’s not that hard to do. Just smash the infrastructure and starve many civilian neighborhoods to death.
Slaughter of non-conforming Muslims is as important to the Salafist jihadis as slaughtering the Jews.
Russia and Iran have given a lot of support to Damascus. Damascus was ALREADY lost except for the billions of dollars that Iran sends each year.
The point is that Damascus is not sustainable when it is running out of troops. A war of attrition works well for Islamic State.
The hatred is too intense for Sunnis to negotiate with Assad. Assad will get no compromise.
And Islamic State is far more powerful in Syria than the other semi-organized Sunni groups there.
Islamic State can let the other Sunnis do much of the fighting and build a strong presence ringing much of Damascus. Islamic State is the strong horse in Syria and no major Sunni groups there actually oppose them.
Of course, all the Alawites know what kind of future they would get under Islamic State rule.
And they cannot flee to any Sunni country like Egypt or Turkey. It is very easy for the Turks to close the Turkey / Alawite regional border with tanks and checkpoints.
The Alawites can hold on for some time but there is no one to rescue them. The Shia in Iraq are pathetic and they’ve mostly lost against Islamic State forces.
Damascus will be incrementally reduced to rubble over time and there will be a truly horrendous bloodbath in stages.
So this is no exaggeration. Genocide of Alawites is what we can all expect. There literally is no alternative possible. It’s just that it with the current political chaos it takes many months to grind Damascus to dust.
Syria will not be rebuilt. It will remain a destroyed country.
And trying to ship in large quantities of food by sea does not address the problem of what will happen to the Alawites or the Christians under immediate threat by Salafist jihadis.
Syria today is a complete disaster with 10 million refugees.
Alawite Syria is finished. Not in 2015. But likely by late 2016.
There is no hope for Syria, just more Islamist-driven destruction and bloodshed until the story is over.
An (underground) road to Damascus: Isis could tunnel into heart of Syria’s capital to take fight to gates of Assad’s palace, warn experts
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/an-underground-road-to-damascus-isis-could-tunnel-into-heart-of-syrias-capital-to-take-fight-to-gates-of-assads-palace-warn-experts-10165660.html
Thomas says
Once Syria falls and it will, the rest of the western world will see jihad attacks rise and the fall of Israel.
cs says
Fall of Israel? Are you sure? Unlikely. Only if Ha-Shem decides so. We shall see.
Diana says
Thomas – doubting Thomas – please stop being so darned negative and get with the positive action program. Have you got anything positive to add? Otherwise we really don’t need to hear from you with nothing more than the voice of doom. Act defeated and you ARE defeated!
Syria may well fall even further than it already has but there is time for us to figt the good fight and resist this evil.
Jack Diamond says
If restoring the Caliphate, instituting the pure shari’a, and “healing the heart of the believers” (healed by killing Allah’s enemies) were not enough reason, there is the urgency of prophecy being lived and fulfilled, the very reason their magazine is called Dabiq, site of Armageddon for the ‘Christian-Romans’. (Sahih Muslim. 6924 “Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The Last Hour would not come until the Romans would land at al-A’maq or in Dabiq.” Dabiq was also the site of a decisive Ottoman victory in 1516 that led to its conquest of Iraq and the Levant.
Damascus is where the Madhi will rule, in the eschatology, and where Isa/Jesus will descend to proclaim Islam (and end “Christianity”). Jihadis flocking to Syria are every bit as apocalyptic and about ushering in the End Times (with a great slaughter) as are the shi’a in Iran:
“If you think all these mujahideen came from around the world to fight Assad, you are mistaken. All of them came here as it was foretold and promised by the Prophet. It is the war he promised us; the war of the Great Tribulation”– Abu Omar, jihadist fighting in Aleppo, as quoted in Foreign Policy 10/3/13. He also says ‘he considers the jihad in Syria holier than in Iraq, a view he says is shared by other fighters. “The Qur’an and the hadiths already predicted that Satan will be defeated in Damascus.”
Here’s to Satan being defeated, which will surely be an ironic outcome for the Muslims (except, the defeat and demise of Islam were also predicted–Allah gets to be right either way). As Doomsday cults go, the merely self-harming Heaven’s Gate seems sane in comparison to Islam.
kay says
Re : Damascus is where the Madhi will rule, in the eschatology, and where Isa/Jesus will descend to proclaim Islam (and end “Christianity”).
The Church of England recognizes Mohammed the Desert Pirate as an Abrahamic Prophet. And Pope Francis has kissed a Koran.
Looks like large sectors of Christianity are giving up in face of Islam. Two of their principal faith leaders are waving the white flag of surrender. And most others do basically nothing.
I do not think the Christian fellowships are in this fight. This is going to be a grass roots civil society mobilization effort without church leadership.
If there WERE actual church leadership we would have SEEN it already. One lone Catholic priest in Belfast doesn’t count for much. There simply is no fight in these Christians.
Events are moving too quickly. All the initiative lies in the hands of the bloodthirsty criminal Islamists.
I do not think the Christians understand the problem scope, and I do not think they respect themselves. Prayer will not avail them.
I have no idea how Islamic eschatology works. But the Roman Catholic hierarchy really could fall in two generations.
The Christians as a larger community have to decide they are in this fight. If I were a lay Christian I’d be absolutely furious at Occidental church leadership in general. Why not stand for western civilization?
So far, no points awarded to the Christian churches. Somebody needs to wake these people up. There’s a war on.
Linde Barrera says
To kay- Your 8:10 pm Aug 23 comment was so alarmingly true. As a Christian lady who tries to do what I am supposed to, I am in despair about this wretched, demonic situation. I spoke with a United Church of Christ minister 2 weeks ago about various Christian charity groups like ACERO, Open Doors USA, Barnabas Fund and Hatune Foundation, all of which he never heard of, and I told him to Google them and get their contact address and email. To my mind, President Obama speaks out of both sides of his mouth. His protection of Islam and IS is very obvious, and it is terrifying when you can’t trust the so called leader of your country. As for me, I will do as much as I can to protest Islam. I will never become a Muslim. My attitude is: “I am here. Come and get me baby. I still won’t convert.” Take good care kay. I do love your posts.
kay says
Hi Linde. Thanks. Re: “alarmingly true”.
I cannot know what the Christian fellowships and organizations are really doing. However, the little matter of the Anglican hierarchy embracing Islam, plus Pope Francis kissing a Koran is disastrous. Turns out that Pope John Paul II also kissed a Koran in front of an imam – I saw the photo. These head-of-church acts have Far Ranging Consequences. They embody ( or symbolize ) Sharia compliance. Basically the Anglicans and the Pope are Sharia friendly.
The Koran states that Jesus was completely “misunderstood” by the Christians and that this major rabbi was only a prophet and NOT divine. Therefore in honoring the Koran or Islam as “legitimate” the whole basis of Christian faith is destroyed, including the last bit about the Cross and Resurrection. The Anglican Church has thrown away the Resurrection!
From multiple public statements it is clear and unambiguous that Pope Francis really emphasizes a UNITY of Abrahamic monotheists. He says this:
“Muslims, Jews, Orthodox, Catholics and others. We are all brothers and sisters! We all adore the One God. Never let there be any separation among you. Brotherhood and union.
— Pope Francis, June 6th 2015 John Paul 2 Youth Center
Also see in “The Joy of the Gospel”, where Pope Francis says: “Authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” He also clearly sees the ROOT problem of Islamic jihad to be “poverty and unemployment”. And says “equating violence with Islam is wrong”.
He simply doesn’t get that to Mohammed, the Jews and Christians are infidels, that the Koran enjoins war upon these infidels, and that slavery is part of jihad. Pope Francis has not read Andrew Bostom so he just doesn’t get the big picture.
I understand now the perspective of Pope Francis. There is a remedy for his disastrous perspective: The Christians. Have Got. To Read. Andrew. Bostom. Starting yesterday. That’s all I can tell them.
As for me, I’m pretty much sweating bricks, and I don’t even live in Europe. That’s far different from being just an “alarmist” fear monger. There is an Islamist surge sourced in many nations.
If Damascus falls and IS sets up shop there as principal authority, that will effectively set the seal of divine mandate upon these fascist psychopaths and true believers. And then they will go for Jordan and lots more. All these symbolic acts and major war events are closely related by a “shared” ( and tangled ) Abrahamic narrative. But no one gets the Islamic story until they get jihad and Sharia, for example as laid out by Bostom.
The real story is not what the Pope thinks or says. It is what Mohammed has put forward and what Bostom has written. And that is anything but good for the Jews and the Christians. Or humanity.
Jack Diamond says
“Christian-Romans” in their lingo includes any armies from the West, in the same way we are all regarded as “Crusaders. Islamic end-times events, besides those talking trees and stones Jews try to hide behind and which call Muslims to come and kill them, involve the return of Isa/Jesus who “breaks the cross” ends the jizya and proclaims Islam the only religion of Allah. Breaking the cross means the finish of the false religion of Christianity which has been abrogated since the coming of Muhammad, Seal of the Prophets (in the Qur’an 61:6 Isa says he was sent just to give “glad tidings” of one to come, Muhammad). Ending the jizya means the end of the protection offered Christians, protection from the sword of Islam by the purchase of their lives (jizya), and resumption of the condition of war without the third option, i.e. just convert or die.
Remember, in just the 19th and 20th centuries alone hundreds of thousands of Christians in these regions were horrifically massacred and the rest lived in fear of massacres, aside from the daily humiliation and inferiority imposed by Islam. This is the method by which, over centuries, Christian majorities became small, scattered, frightened, persecuted ghosts. The Islamic State is just finishing business. The response from the Church is shameful (like the response from the world at large) but what has been the response of (overwhelmingly) secularized Europe to Islamic invasion, how is Europe standing for western civilization? It is institutionally thoroughly compromised by its “alliance of civilizations”. Nobody has bragging rights here.
But the Church does have precedence for Islamorealism. It used to know Islam well and speak plainly about it (even war against it). Men like St Thomas Aquinas:
“He (Mohammed) seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh urges us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected; he was obeyed by carnal men.
“Mohammed said that he was sent in the power of his arms – which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning. Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Mohammed forced others to become his follower’s by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimony of the Old and the New Testaments by making them into a fabrication of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law.” –Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1, Chapter 16
Cecilia Ellis says
Jack, here’s another quote that is germane:
“The Mahometan paradise, however, is only fit for beasts; for filthy sensual pleasure is all the believer has to expect there.”
St. Alfonsus Liguori (d. 1787). Quoted from his book, “The History of Heresies and their Refutation.”
ECAW says
Wonderfully informative thread. Thanks all.
Jack Diamond says
A heresy, not one of the three great Abrahamic faiths. Here’s another, The Fount of Knowledge, St. John Damascene (749): “From that time to the present a false prophet named Mohammed has appeared in their midst. This man, after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, devised his own heresy. Then, having insinuated himself into the good graces of the people by a show of seeming piety, he gave out that a certain book had been sent down to him from heaven. He had set down some ridiculous compositions in this book of his and he gave it to them as an object of veneration.”
St. Gregory Palamas (1296-1359), debate with Turkish nobleman:
“It is true that Muhammad started from the east and came to the west, as the sun travels from east to west. Nevertheless he came with war, knives, pillaging, forced enslavement, murders, and acts that are not from the good God but instigated by the chief manslayer, the devil.” On the Muslims who attacked Constantinople, “they live a reproachful, inhuman, and God-hating life…to live a prodigal life in swords and knives, indulging in slavery, murder, plundering, rape, licentiousness, adultery and homosexuality.”
St. Sophronios, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in 637 or 638, on the invasion of Jerusalem:
“That is why the vengeful and God-hating Saracens, the abomination of desolation clearly foretold to us by the prophets, overrun the places which are not allowed to them, plunder cities, devastate fields, burn down villages, set on fire the holy churches, overturn the sacred monasteries, oppose the Byzantine armies arrayed against them, and in fighting raise up the trophies [of war] and add victory to victory. Moreover, they are raised up more and more against us and increase their blasphemy of Christ and the church, and utter wicked blasphemies against God. Those God- fighters boast of prevailing over all, assiduously and unrestrainably imitating their leader, who is the devil, and emulating his vanity because of which he has been expelled from heaven and been assigned to the gloomy shades.”
Cecilia Ellis says
Here’s another quote, Jack:
“We profess Christ to be truly God and your prophet to be a precursor of the Antichrist and other profane doctrine.”
– Sts. Habenitus, Jeremiah, Peter, Sabinian, Walabonsus, and Wistremundus (d. 851), martyrs of Cordoba, Spain. Reported in the Memoriale Sanctorum in response to Spanish Umayyad Caliph ‘Abd Ar-Rahman II’s ministers that they convert to Islam on pain of death.
Jack Diamond says
Thanks Cecilia, the kind of courage shown by the 21 Coptic Christians martyred on the beach in Libya whose last words were “Ya Rabbi Yasou (O My Lord Jesus)” while the caption on the ISIS video says “these insisted to remain in unbelief.” For they also refused to convert to Islam on pain of death.
Matthieu Baudin says
If President Assad doesn’t have the stomach to normalise relations with Israel then it’s time for him to hand over the reins to someone who does. On current course the Syrian National Forces will become overwhelmingly compromised and politically indebted by their reliance upon foreign Shia militias. The region needs a stable and independent secular government in Syria and a realistic working relationship with Israel is an opportunity that should be grabbed before the regime is thoroughly white-anted or Damascus falls.
Uncle Vladdi says
LET’S FACE IT: OBAMA HAS HAD DAMASCUS IN HIS CROSS-HAIRS FOR YEARS – WHICH IS WHY HE CREATED ISIS!