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July 22nd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda That same morning also saw the bomb blast at the National Security building that killed the Defence Minister, General Daoud Rajha, and President Assad’s brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat – both key figures in the “crisis cell” that has masterminded the regime’s response to the uprising. When state television – in a rare burst of candour – confirmed the deaths just hours later, the atmosphere became much foreboding. Since then, streets were previously bustling have become noticeably quieter, and at night are now all but deserted. Many shops are now shut all day, and those that remain open attract long queues of people stocking up for what they fear could be a long haul.
“I spent the whole morning trying to find petrol for my car and bread for my family, but I haven’t found bread because the bakeries in my area didn’t bake any,” said a man from the Christian Jaramanah district, who told me that he now planned to hole up with his family at home. In some parts of the city hit by fighting, office workers have spent days sleeping on the floor, afraid to go home.
While pro and anti-Assad graffit now festoons the city – “Shut up Assad” shouts one street corner, “Long live Assad” replies another – the prevailing mood, in public at least, is still behind the Syrian leader. On Wednesday, I attended a funeral at a military hospital for 34 soldiers killed in the violence – an average toll these days, according to one female official there. “Per day we bury between 15 and 45 soldiers from the Damascus area,” she told me.
At the service, children wept for for their fathers to come back, while mothers and sisters fainted in front of the coffins. Yet nobody had any doubt that they had died for a worthwhile cause – their loved ones, they said, had simply been protecting the country from terrorists. What other kind of people, after all, would attack the nearby military hospital, where other wounded soldiers were still being treated? Sure enough, the building bore scars of fighting – caused, I was told, by occasional salvoes of rocket propelled grenades.
Many, though, prefer to support neither side in the conflict. “Me and my friends, we are all taking pills to stay calm,” said one young woman in a cafe in Damascus, drinking a coffee and smoking a cigarette. “I am not with the regime and not with the opposition. I believe many different groups are involved in this mess and I hate all of them. Why all this violence? We all love our country and in this way we destroy it completely. Everywhere we go and everything we do, people talk about the situation. I just want to listen to music and forget about it.”
“This whole conflict is based on lies,” added an assistant film director, who last week finished taping the last episode of a soap opera to be broadcast every night over the month of Ramadan, which began on Friday. The set was a beautiful villa on the outskirts of Damascus, where heavily made-up actresses sat waiting to play their part. “We love Bashar,” said one, dressed in super tight jeans and a low-cut pink top. “He is our hero. Without him this country will fall apart.”
Indeed, the key family drama of the coming month will not be a fictional one on television, but that played out within the extended Assad clan itself. Will Bashar and his family stay in Damascus to the bitter end. Might they relocate to the Alawite strongholds of coastal north-west Syria? Or could they flee to a friendly nation like Russia? If the events of last week are anything to go by, the final episode may come sooner rather than later.
Daisy Mohr is a reporter for Radio Netherlands Worldwide
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