East Ghouta: the last great battle of the Syrian war?
Reading media reports of the fighting in east Ghouta over the last few days has triggered an eery sense of déjà vu.
It is like taking a time machine back to the autumn of 2016 and listening to all the arguments over the fighting in Aleppo all over again.
Just as in 2016 the reports concern fighting between the Syrian military and a large force of Jihadis – in both cases around 10-15,000 men – trapped in a district of one of Syria’s two main cities.
In 2016 it was eastern Aleppo; this time it is east Ghouta, which is a suburb of Syria’s capital Damascus.
