Syrian officials have closed access to the Internet throughout the country Thursday and closed the Damascus airport as offensive mounted rebels near and tried to advance on the capital from four directions. telephone networks were also paralyzed in much of the country, causing fear and confusion on both sides and fueling claims that a new rebel push has been gaining ground.
Minister of Information of Syria blamed "terrorists" for the failure, but stop communications was seen as an attempt to thwart rebel militias trying to coordinate an attack against Damascus. It was also thought to be intended to thwart the progress of plans in other cities.
Opposition groups were also advancing in the north of Syria, especially near the second city Aleppo, where the fall of regime two planes with surface to air missiles this week gave impetus to a rebel campaign that had become a series of attritional battles.
While officials often closed Internet and mobile phone access in areas where the opposition held since the uprising began in March 2011, sometimes for weeks at a time, they have never before Web communications and voice cut nationwide.
Shortly after noon on Thursday, all 84 ISP address blocks Syria were inaccessible, web specialists Renesys said. Five ISP addresses were to continue operating. Renesys analysts said they were used to deliver malware to anti-regime activists earlier this year, a fact that seems to link the address to the government.
Landline phones began to slowly return to the line later in the day.
Throughout 20 months of uprising, Damascus has remained a bastion of regime, with divisions capable of defeating a rebel offensive in July and mount large-scale retaliation in rebel areas near loyalist army.
Rebels have long considered the capital as the most difficult cog in the great machine of the state, they tried to dismantle the first days of street protests morphed into civil war raging without compromise now country. As night fell Thursday, the reverberant rocket fire regime downtown and there were heavy clashes supported near the international airport. Two airlines, Egypt Air and Emirates, based in Dubai, said they had suspended inbound flights. Two other airlines said they were likely to follow suit. Ground radar at the airport was closed in the early evening.
Rebel groups said fighting near the airport was the most intense since the uprising began.
The Free Syrian Army, an umbrella group of militias that essentially led the fight against the forces of the regime, confirmed that it had launched a big push in Damascus. The regime's forces have also been widely deployed and appeared to dig in a fierce defense of the city
Although apparently besieged city does not seem to be at risk of falling soon -. and spelling the end of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and the regime he inherited from his father, Hafez al-Assad, who laid the foundation of the ruthless police state there nearly 40 years.
Syrian officials have consistently scored the opposition supported by foreign terrorists. Assad has denied the groups that are fighting now are her Syrian and insists rebel groups want to replace its secular regime with an Islamic state that widely persecuted minority communities.
Rebel groups continue to rail against the pretensions of the regime, emphasizing their nationalist campaign is aimed solely at removing a vengeful regime
In northern Syria the opposition is led by the rural poor -. almost exclusively drawn from the Sunni majority group in the country, which is estimated to account for at least 65% of the population.
However, since the summer, the battle in the north and east of Syria has steadily been joined by jihadist groups, which now play a leading role in most clashes regime forces from Aleppo to Idlib and Deir el-Zour near the eastern desert.
Chief among groups is Jabhat al-Nusra, a predominantly Syrian network of activists, many of whom have fought in Iraq. Foreign fighters are joining the fray.
Although much less numerous than the regular units of the Free Syria Army, which consists of defectors and citizens, the influence of jihadists is increasingly felt, even in Damascus, where cars bombs and suicide attacks hit several targets of the plan.
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