Are things slowly taking shape in Syria?

The surrender of Darayya to Syrian government forces heralds a new strategy in the Syrian slaughter house.

Darayya is on the outskirts of the capital. It had a population of nearly 80,000 Sunnis who were reduced to 4,000 during the last four years, according to United Nations figures.

Since 1970, the population has witnessed the influx of Alawites from Qirdaha and Latakia, who settled in Damascus and were financed to buy houses and start business.

The Alawite population in Damascus now is nearly half a million, or 20 per cent of their total in Syria.

During the last four years, Iraqi Shiite militias were ordered to lay siege on Darayya, enforce a food and medicine embargo, and use Syrian helicopters to bombard civilians day and night.

The 700 fighters there managed to survive for four years, but finally had to accept a deal whereby they will have to move to Idlib and Homs, while civilians will be relocated in new areas, as the whole city is evacuated.

Syrian Foreign Minister Waleed Al Muallem had to make a surprise trip to Baghdad to coerce the Iraqi militias to accept the deal and allow the Sunni fighters to withdraw with their personal weapons.

The surrender of Darayya gives strong indicators that a new map for Syria is being redrawn, where the Kurds will have their own political contiguous entity east of the Euphrates, with an access to the Mediterranean, as promised by Washington to the Syrian Democratic Forces as a reward for the fight against Daesh, and other terrorist groups.

The Sunni groups, including those supported by Ankara, will have under their control the region adjacent to the Turkish border, a safe haven zone about 48-km deep and 113-km wide, including cities with a Sunni majority, like Homs and Idlib.

Since Moscow joined the civil war in support of Bashar Assad, the regime has won a guarantee that it will not be defeated by the Islamist opposition, be it Jaish Al Fateh or Fateh Al Sham (called earlier Jabhat Al Nusra) or Feilaq Al Sham, representing the Muslim Brotherhood’s military wing.

British press sources give an estimate of 70,000 “moderate” opposition jihadists.

The success of the Turkish-Russian dialogue had its first manifestations in Darayya, where the Syrian government gave approval to fighters and civilians to have safe passage to new locations.

The Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party will not object to having the new “Rojava” political entity accommodate all Kurds relocated from other areas.

The battle for Aleppo will be decided by the Turkish-Iranian talks, due this week, as the patron-client relationship is the dominant factor in the new strategy, as applied in Darayya.