The onslaught being led by Syrian President Bashar Assad together with Hezbollah and Iranian forces south of Damascus, in the direction of Israel’s border, is intended to relieve some of the rebel pressure on his embattled capital city. For years, Assad has tried to uproot rebel strongholds and prevent the different Islamist rebel factions from uniting, especially the Nusra Front, which has planted itself firmly in the city of Daraa near the border between Jordan and the Syrian Golan Heights.

As of now, Assad’s army has failed at every one of its objectives: uprooting rebels from the suburbs of Damascus, cutting rebel supply lines and hitting the rebel strongholds in the Golan Heights hard. The Syrian army has tried – unsuccessfully – to take over the main road connecting Damascus and Daraa as well as the Syrian side of the Golan Heights no less than three times.

In one such attack, the regime forces were aided by professional Russian consultants who liaised with Iranians, but to no avail. Daraa remains a Nusra Front stronghold and different groups of Islamist rebels have taken over the Syrian Golan Heights across the border with Israel, and in the meantime are just expanding their control of the area.

This situation poses a real and immediate threat not only to the Assad regime that is already in control of one third of Syrian territory, but also endangers the positions of senior government officials and members of the Assad family. It is for this reason that Assad is taking advantage of the relative weakness of the rebels throughout Syria, in order to distance the Islamist rebels from Damascus and force them south and eastwards, and mainly in order to cut off the supply lines of equipment and food running through the Jordanian border to Daraa for the rebels in Damascus.

Read the article in full at Ynet.