Tony Badran

Despite the escalation in Arab, Turkish and international condemnation of the Syrian regime following its deadly assault on the city of Hama on the first day of Ramadan, Bashar al-Assad has pressed on with his military offensives against Syrian cities. While the protest movement has been overwhelmingly peaceful, Assad’s large military campaign against the eastern city of Deir az-Zour might become a turning point in the uprising.

One week after the assault on Hama, the Assad regime, which had heretofore stopped short of an all-out offensive on Deir az-Zour—even as it launched one in July in Al Bou Kamal, a little further south—finally raided the city with more than 200 tanks and armored vehicles. By day’s end on Sunday, the death toll already stood at 50. Another 17 were killed on Monday, as regime forces moved systematically from one neighborhood to another. The number of dead is now very likely well past the 100 mark, and residents who managed to flee have been recounting the horror inflicted on the city, where Assad’s forces are “shooting anything that moves.”

The regime’s calculation seems to be to crush cities that have not only defied the regime through massive demonstrations, but which have even briefly escaped government control. On July 22, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Deir az-Zour calling for Assad’s downfall. The consensus was that Ramadan carried the potential for such protests to occur daily, and so the regime’s thinking was to preempt such a possibility with brutal military action, recapturing these cities, and, in Hama’s case, making sure that footage of the carnage was broadcast as a warning.

However, unlike Hama, Deir az-Zour presents a different set of challenges that could result in Assad’s decision ultimately backfiring, with potentially critical ramifications on a military already stretched thin and an economy in tatters.

One reason why the regime had hesitated to fully take on Deir az-Zour was its tribal nature, which extends across the border into Iraq. Historically, the Assad regime had sought a modus vivendi with the tribes of eastern Syria. However, this had now come to an end, as was evident from the active role the leader of the region’s main tribal confederacy, Sheikh Nawwaf al-Bashir, was playing against the Assad regime.

Bashir is the head sheikh of the entire al-Baqqara tribal confederacy, which encompasses thirty subdivisions. Al-Baqqara extends into the Anbar province in Western Iraq, where its kinsmen number even more than in Syria. A couple of weeks ago, the regime abducted and detained Bashir. The tribes were incensed.

A YouTube video of a meeting of tribal members from Deir az-Zour discussing how to proceed, as Assad’s forces surrounded their city prior to the offensive, shows the tribesmen’s utter distrust of the regime and their willingness to stand up to it, and even to bear whatever arms they have against it.

This sentiment was echoed by various residents who spoke to the media on the eve of the assault. One person who spoke to the New York Times predicted that “all the tribes in the other provinces will demonstrate against the regime” should it attack Deir az-Zour. Another activist noted last Sunday that tribal kinsmen on the Iraqi side “have vowed to step in and back their brethren in Syria if they come under attack. Until now this is rhetoric, [but a] wide-scale military assault on Deir al-Zor … would change those calculations.”

Now that the offensive has taken place, and the city has been recaptured by the regime, the coming days will reveal what course of action the tribes will follow. Should they decide to pick up armed resistance, it would open a new chapter in the Syrian revolution.

The regime is particularly vulnerable in Deir az-Zour. Already there was a mysterious pipeline explosion there in mid-July, which the authorities said was only an accident. These pipelines could become a deliberate target, which would hit Assad’s last remaining source of funding: the energy sector.

For the regime to hold Deir az-Zour, it would have to allocate more resources to the northeast, adding to the stress on force cohesion. On the one hand, wherever the military has pulled out after operations, protesters have immediately returned to the streets. On the other hand, an extended military occupation of the city could spur the tribes into a war of attrition that could potentially become a fatal wound for Assad’s forces.

The situation in eastern Syria has the potential to metastasize. Early in May, sharp observers were expressing concern that, given the impotence of the world’s reaction to Assad’s horrific violence, the Syrian protesters might conclude that they need to resort to violence.

This is precisely why the US has to declare that it seeks Assad’s ouster and begin working with its allies toward achieving that goal. The Syrian people’s ability to remain peaceful for nearly half a year in the face of unspeakable brutality is remarkable. The longer Assad remains, the longer violence will continue to engulf Syria.

Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay.