Bashar Assad’s survival is in serious question after the deaths of his top allies, his brother-in-law Security Chief Assif Shawqat and Defense minister Gen. Dawoud Raijiha by a suicide bomber, while holding a top-level meeting in the National Security building in Damascus, Wednesday, July 18. Interior Minister Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ibrahim Shaair is in critical condition.
This was the deadliest blow to the Assad regime in the 17-month Syrian uprising, striking deep inside the president’s inner circle and family: Shawqat was married to his sister. It took place on the fourth day of fierce fights with rebel forces which seized parts of Damascus and are battling superior government forces backed by heavy tank, artillery and machine gun fire and helicopters.
The bomber must have had an inside track to the top level of the Assad regime to have come close enough to reach a cabinet meeting with security officials in the heavily fortified National Security building and blow himself up among them.
To ward off the rebel assault on the capital, the Syrian regime engaged in the high-risk tactic of letting them enter the southern districts of Damascus, to trap them and then finish them off with superior fire power.
Assad meanwhile scattered his key government departments in fortified buildings around Damascus: The General Staff was assigned the military complex on Shuhada Street and the cabinet met at the National Security building. Now the Syrian ruler is forced to believe that all his security arrangements are deeply penetrated by his enemies who knew exactly where and when to strike.
