Free Republic

It may be too early to speak of endgame in Syria, but four days of fighting in the heart of the capital, Damascus, underline what should have been obvious from the start: The Assad regime’s policy of rule by massacre has failed to crush the nationwide uprising. More dramatically, the confusion caused by the fighting may have facilitated yesterday’s attack on the headquarters of the security services (the backbone of the regime). The attack claimed the lives of Defense Minister Gen. Daoud Rajha and Security Chief Assef Shawkat, a brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad. At least a dozen other top...

The Syrian regime seems on the verge of collapse. The killing of several key officials — the defense minister and the president's brother-in-law — suggests that the regime that has already killed 17,000 could crumble far more quickly than most experts anticipated even a few weeks ago. The next 36 hours are critical, Syria watchers say. "Will the regime choose to massacre its way out of the crisis?" Andrew Tabler, an expert on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of "In the Lion's Den," a book about life under Bashar al-Assad's regime, said. "And if...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fled Syria's capital of Damascus for his family's coastal stronghold in Latakia, according to news sources. Opposition sources and a Western diplomat told London's Telegraph that the strongman was in thel city of Latakia, and was directing a response to yesterday's bombing of a cabinet meeting. "Our information is that [Assad] is at his palace in Latakia and that he may have been there for days," a senior opposition figure, who declined to be named, told Reuters. The palace, which Assad has used before to conduct official business, is located in hills near the city,...

Syria's defence minister General Daoud Rajha was killed in Wednesday's bomb attack on the National Security headquarters in Damascus, state TV said. The Interior Minister and Assad's brother-in-law Assef Shawkat was seriously wounded in the blast, Al Manar TV reported. Security officials told AFP that several other participants in a top-level meeting were wounded in the blast and taken to Al-Shami hospital in the capital for treatment. The attack took place during a meeting of ministers and security officials - it wounded several people, some of them critically, state television said.

The road to Damascus had been the Syrian opposition's most difficult journey. Now, after one decisive and deadly strike, the world's oldest capital appears in reach. As the dust settled at the national security building, a transformation unthinkable only hours earlier was under way. Three of the regime's leaders lay dead around the table where they had been holding a weekly crisis meeting: the deputy defence minister, Assef Shawkat, the defence minister, Dawoud Rajha, and the military committee leader, Hassan Turkmani, all key figures in the Middle East's most ruthlessly efficient police state. Of the three, Shawkat had long been...