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Israel Disputes View that Syrian Civil War Has Swung Assad's Way
(Ha'aretz) Gili Cohen and Amos Harel - A senior Israeli security official said Wednesday that Western intelligence assessments that Assad has changed the course of the Syrian civil war are groundless. The source said neither side has the military strength to prevail. Israeli defense officials say Hizbullah's entanglement in the war in Syria is causing it grave damage. The overall number of fatalities Hizbullah has suffered in Syria so far appears to exceed 500. "The era of a united Syria under Assad's rule is over. What remains is two million Alawites who can hold onto the Damascus area and the Alawite region in the northwest of Syria in the meantime. They cannot rule the rest of the communities and regions in the country anymore. That's over," the Israeli official said. "The problem of the opposition organizations is that they too are divided into more than 100 groups and factions. From Israel's point of view, this mutual paralysis is not necessarily that bad, because the stronger rebel factions are radical Muslim organizations whose rule in Syria could be worse even than the current state of affairs."