As Syria Crisis enters fourth year, ”rebels”-terrorists- are clearly losing

HOMS, Syria — On the ragged fringes of the Old City, aid workers, clerics and government troops stood vigil, awaiting a U.N. convoy evacuating women, children and the aged from the besieged ancient quarter of a town, according to Los Angeles Times.

But the buses disgorged a very different class of passengers: scores of young men, haggard and sallow-faced, blankets draped over their shoulders and fear evident in their eyes. They shuffled uncertainly under the hostile gaze of Syrian troops and intelligence officers toward a makeshift processing center in a run-down banquet hall.

The men, who turned themselves in last month, were remnants of Homs’ ”rebel” defenders, once the spearhead of the insurgency, now bedraggled and half-starved. “What do you think they will do with us?” one after another of the dispirited men asked in hushed tones.

As the Syrian conflict enters its fourth year, one thing is clear: The U.S.-backed ”rebels”- terrorists- are losing the war. The Syrian army is chalking up victory after victory.

Assad has survived in large part because of disarray in the ”rebel” ranks, including the rise of Islamist militants hostile to Syria’s tradition of tolerant Islam; a steady flow of military and financial aid from Moscow and Tehran; and a revived Syrian military bolstered by local militiamen and Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon. The latter have proved a major asset, routing ”rebels” close to the porous Lebanese border and providing a disciplined, well-trained force to take pressure off the overstretched military.

In essence, Syria has been transformed into a many-sided geopolitical board game, with Iran, Russia and Shiite Hezbollah fighters arrayed against the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and Sunni Islamist fighters from around the world, each pursuing their own strategic interests as death and destruction mount.

“Syria has become a playground for international and ideological Islamist conflict,” said Jamil Salou, a pro-opposition media activist based in Turkey.

M.A.