Blast in Syria kills most leaders of largest anti-Assad rebel group

[Xithras]

18. From a strategic standpoint, it's a sound battle plan.

If your enemies are shooting each other, they're reducing the number of enemies you'll eventually have to fight. Assad's strategy seems to have been "Let them slaughter each other, and then take out whoever is left after the dust settles." By all accounts, he seems to have focused on simply capturing and holding the large western cities, while the various rebel groups deplete their numbers while struggling over the rest of the country.

It also places the rest of the world in a bit of a bind. By allowing the radicals to slaughter the moderates, he's creating a situation where the world has to choose between an Assad-led Syria, and a radicalized, terrorism exporting Syria. And he gets to create that situation without firing a shot. Assad is many things, but he's not stupid.