The Water War in Damascus

Damascus draws most of its drinking water from a single spring at Wadi Barada, north-west of the city. When that valley became a frontline, the question of who controlled the spring stopped being a humanitarian footnote and became a central instrument of the war for the capital.

This essay reconstructs the political and military choreography around the Wadi Barada operation and uses it as a case study in how essential utilities become bargaining chips — and how their weaponisation outlives the battle that produced it.