About those Syrian casualties from the Israeli bombing

The enormous mushroom cloud, the earth-shaking earthquake-like reverberations, the secondary explosions.

We’re heard a lot of noise from Syria, but relatively little about casualties.

The NY Times reports over 100 dead soldiers:

The attack, which sent brightly lighted columns of smoke and ash high into the night sky above the Syrian capital, struck several critical military facilities in some of the country’s most tightly secured and strategic areas, killing dozens of elite troops stationed near the presidential palace, a high-ranking Syrian military official said in an interview….The airstrikes shocked residents of Damascus, a relative bubble of security, literally shaking some out of bed. It was a display of firepower far greater than any seen near the capital in two years of war.

At the military’s Tishreen Hospital on Monday, a doctor said that there were at least 100 dead soldiers and many dozens more wounded.

A similar assessment came from anti-Assad Syrian observers.

Israel’s weekend airstrike on a military complex near the Syrian capital of Damascus killed at least 42 Syrian soldiers, a group of anti-regime activists said Monday, citing information from military hospitals.The Syrian government has not released a death toll, but Syrian state media have reported casualties in Sunday’s pre-dawn airstrike, Israel’s third into Syria this year.

It’s just strange we haven’t heard more about this.  No bodies paraded before cameras.  No weeping widows and children.

There’s really no incentive … yet … for Assad to play up the damage, as it would box him into having to take some futile gesture which would ensure his regime’s demise.

Tags: Israel, Syria

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