Fears Growing as Syrians Wait for U.S. Attack

In a narrow alley in the old city of Damascus, a shopkeeper who opposes the Syrian government spent Thursday as usual, drinking coffee with the other merchants who keep him company in place of long-vanished tourists. But the calm on the cobblestone street, he said, could hardly mask the fear and ambivalence over an American military strike.

“Disorder, revenge. Sectarian violence,” he said in a text message, ticking off what he sees as the worst potential consequences of the missile strikes that American officials have threatened against President Bashar al-Assad’s government, which they blame for a deadly chemical attack last week.

In Damascus, as people stock up on food and water and the government closes central streets and moves troops and matériel into residential areas and schools, even staunch supporters of the uprising against Mr. Assad are divided on the looming attack.

Many here feel even a limited strike threatens to inject a new, unpredictable dynamic into a civil war that has largely spared their storied city. And some opponents of the government are loath to see direct American military intervention in their fight, fearful it will hijack and discredit the uprising they have waged for more than two years at great cost.

Though some called early on for NATO intervention, others said they wanted support and arms from Washington — not an attack by the American military.

“We know what is best for our country,” said Fahad Darwish, 33, a supermarket worker in Damascus. “We don’t need the Americans to do it for us, and we will win this war by the Free Syrian Army,” he added, referring to the loose-knit rebel coalition.

People in the Syrian capital still have a lot to lose. As war ravages the densely populated towns surrounding it, central Damascus, one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, remains largely intact. Supporters and opponents of the government still live side by side; as the shopkeeper put it, “People in Damascus are still coexisting.”

But that peace is vulnerable to an American attack.

“They could have defended the values from Day 1 of our revolution and could have helped us, but they waited till the country was destroyed,” Khalid al-Khalifa, a novelist in Damascus, wrote on Facebook, declaring that he opposed American intervention.

“Tell me when did the invaders bring freedom?” he wrote. “The fall of the regime will satisfy me, but I don’t want our revolution to be incomplete after all this blood.”

Even though American officials say the attack is not aimed at toppling Mr. Assad or shifting momentum on the battlefield, residents fear it could cause civilian casualties and unleash uncontrollable forces. Some rebels said they hoped to take advantage of the chaos after any attacks to launch their own, including pushing deeper into Damascus, which shelters many who have fled fighting elsewhere. Others expect government forces and loyalists to be enraged and searching for revenge in the aftermath.

Some government opponents bitterly note that the American intervention comes after 100,000 Syrians have died, and that with foreign intervention already rife — their movement hijacked by foreign jihadists and thwarted by Russia, Iran, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite fighters — there is no clear sign the American moves will help them.

Others reluctantly welcomed the attack.

“Having dignity and caring about your country’s sovereignty is no longer something that we can hang onto when our people are being killed in this way that has no dignity,” said Rami Jarrah, a Syrian who runs the Cairo-based Activists News Association. “I am not happy, but there is no other solution. I know that if we don’t do something, we’ll lose.”

People braced for the worst, scurrying to passport offices, banks and grocery stores, planning to skip work and school, and posting pleas on social media for seats in cars headed to the Lebanese border.

“I bought enough food and alcohol, so I will die happy,” joked a 22-year-old saleswoman who gave only her first name, Nour.

In the neighborhood of Mezze 86, home to many military families and members of Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect, people were packing up and heading out of the city.

An employee of the military housing authority who gave only his first name, Samir, said he had sent his wife and their 3-year-old daughter to their family home in Tartus, on the Mediterranean coast, while he had stayed behind to join any military response.

“I am ready to fight the Americans and defend my country,” he said. “We have no other choice: victory or death,” he added, reciting a line often used by rebels.

A Damascus teacher who gave only his first name, Hazem, said the Ministry of Education had handed control of a number of schools in central neighborhoods to the security services.

“Since schools are protected internationally, many are occupied by the security forces, and they have moved in their gear and arsenals,” he said.

Rebels, too, have been moving, seeking to avoid being hit by the strikes or attacked in retribution by government forces, and preparing to sweep into bombed bases and scavenge arms.

“If the United States decides to hit, we are expecting more brutality and massacres from the regime,” said Bassel Darwish, an activist in central Syria who said he had fled his office for fear of the strikes. He said he worried that Free Syrian Army camps could be hit, and that the government would attack villages, killing civilians.

Others laid plans to capitalize on the distraction.

“If the international community moves, we will too,” said a rebel fighter near Damascus who goes by the name Abu Tamam.

That is the shopkeeper’s greatest fear. Though he supports the rebels, he said he would personally confront them if they tried to enter the old city — because, he said, the government would not hesitate to bomb it, as occurred in the historic souks of Aleppo to the north.

Reflecting the deep division among those fighting Mr. Assad, one fighter, a Kuwaiti from the extremist Nusra Front, which is linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq, called American strikes an “inevitable evil” that could target his group.

“I expect that the United States will attack or try to attack our bases, and they will announce that the Syrian regime did it to start chaos in the region,” said the fighter, Abu Thur al-Muteiri. He said the Nusra Front had moved its fighters to new locations.

“Sooner or later, we will be targeted by the U.S.A.,” he said.

But for most it was just a matter of hunkering down, and waiting. A 50-year-old man who gave his name as Abu Maher drove to Damascus from the southern suburbs to try to buy three weeks’ worth of meat and canned goods. His family home is near a military base, he said, and many of its forces have moved into nearby civilian areas for cover.

“I will close my door and wait to see what happens,” he said.

Source: NYTimes