The deaths of several key members of the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al Assad in a bomb attack will provide a significant morale boost to armed opposition rebels as they launch their most ambitious offensive yet in the heart of Damascus, the Syrian capital.

Is this a turning point in the 17-month uprising against the Al Assad regime? The headline-grabbing offensive in Damascus and the multiple assassinations of top officials in a single blow suggest it could be. The momentum does appear to be on the side of the armed opposition, which has slowly gained traction in recent months thanks to an influx of funds, equipment, arms, and ammunition from external sponsors. Defections within the regular Syrian Army, mainly among Sunnis, have increased and include senior officers, sapping the morale of those soldiers who continue to serve and placing more pressure on key, mainly Alawite, loyalist units.

Loyalists more determined?

On the other hand, those key military units remain loyal and possibly more determined because of the perception among Alawites, who make up about 12 per cent of Syria’s population, that they face an existential threat from the challenge to their rule mounted by the majority Sunnis.

Even at this critical stage, Al Assad continues to enjoy the support of Russia and Iran. Moscow described Wednesday’s bombing as an “act of terror” and said the perpetrators should be arrested and punished. However, that foreign support may begin to decline if Moscow and Tehran believe that the Al Assad regime is beyond saving.

“Regime degradation and eventual collapse, or just full on civil war?” asks Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of a book on Syria under the rule of Bashar Al Assad. “I’m hedging as I don’t know what collapse will look like or mean.”

The disarray among the ranks of the bickering political opposition suggest that should the Al Assad regime collapse soon, a smooth transition of power is the least likely scenario. Instead, Syria risks becoming engulfed in chaos, with multiple armed groups on the ground all vying for a stake in the new Syria. In such an event, ousting the Al Assad regime may only mark the end of the first chapter of a long dramatic novel.

Perhaps the more important question to ask is: turning point to what?

Christian Science Monitor