Syria claims tide has turned and balance of power has shifted in Assad's direction

BEIRUT, Lebanon – As hopes for a Syrian peace conference fade and the opposition falls into growing disarray, President Bashar Assad has every reason to project confidence.

Government forces have moved steadily against rebels in key areas over the past two months, making strategic advances and considerably lowering the threat to Damascus.

With army soldiers no longer defecting and elite Hezbollah ­fighters actively helping, the regime now has the upper hand in a two-year civil war that has killed more than 70,000 people.

In back-to-back interviews with Lebanese TV stations this week, Assad and his foreign minister both projected an image of self-assuredness, boasting of achievements and suggesting that the military's offensive would continue regardless of whether a peace track is in place.

"What is happening now is not a shift in tactic from defense to attack, but rather a shift in the balance of power in favor of the armed forces," Assad said of his troops' recent ­battleground successes.

"There is no doubt that as events have unfolded, Syrians have been able to better understand the situation and what is really at stake," he told Al-Manar TV, owned by the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group. "This has helped the armed forces to better carry out their duties and achieve results."

Military analysts and activists on the ground in Syria say that Assad's forces have shown renewed determination since roughly the beginning of April, moving to recapture areas that had long fallen to rebels.

Significantly, Syrian troops appear to have gained the edge in the ­country's central Homs region.

The regime considers Homs ­strategically important partly because it links Damascus with the coastal heartland of Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The rebels are mostly from the country's Sunni Muslim majority. The coast also is home to the country's two main ­seaports, Latakia and Tartus.

Syrian troops and Hezbollah forces have successfully been clearing the town of Qusair in Homs Province, where rebels have been entrenched for a year.

Syrian TV said troops on Friday captured the village of Jawadiyeh outside Qusair, closing all entrances leading to the town and tightening the government's siege. For the rebels, holding the town means protecting their supply line to Lebanon.

Rebels have fought back against the government push into Qusair, and days ago called on opposition forces around the country to join them. Activists said that organized groups of rebels from the northern province of Aleppo managed on Friday to enter areas of the town still in ­opposition hands to help defend it.

In an interview with Al-Mayadeen TV Wednesday, Syrian ­Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said he expected the fall of Qusair to the regime "within days."

The commander of the main Western-backed umbrella group of Syrian rebel brigades, Gen. Salim Idris, told the AP in an interview that unless rebels receive weapons quickly, they might not be able to hold Qusair.

The army also has successfully pushed back rebels in some areas around the capital. According to residents, that's led to a decline in mortar shells on the city center that only few weeks ago were a daily occurrence.

"The army has broken the ­atmosphere of fear and terror inside Damascus that the rebels created by firing mortars," said Hisham Jaber, a retired Lebanese army general who heads the Middle East Center for Studies and Political Research in Beirut.

Jaber said troops have cleared up to 80 percent of the areas around Damascus in the past two months.

Equally important, he said, is the successful offensive the army is conducting in the area south of Damascus that links the capital with the Jordanian border.