Having provincial leaders back in fold could provide critical edge in anticipated battle for Deir ez-Zor. Having provincial leaders back in fold could provide critical edge in anticipated battle for Deir ez-Zor.
On January 3rd, Nawaf al-Bashir, an influential tribal leader who was an early defector from the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, returned to Damascus.
He had been lured by a Russian-inspired campaign to woo key opposition figures back to the fold to divide the opposition and bolster popular support for new military offensives aimed at recapturing more territory from rebel forces.
The strategy seems to be working. Coming on the heels of the regime’s landmark December victory in Aleppo, some Syrian notables seem to have concluded that bringing down the regime is no longer possible and they are turning a new page with the Kremlin, via Damascus.
Bashir, 63, a long-time opponent of the regime who fled to Turkey in the summer of 2011 shortly after the war erupted, flew into Damascus Airport aboard a plane from Tehran — the most prominent counter-defection of the 6-year war.