reporting on Syria in the New York Times

I was just talking about this yesterday.  All reporting in the Times about military developments in Syria between the two sides (that I oppose equally), has to stick to this formula: the rebel forces are always gaining and the Syrian regime forces are always in retreat.  But today, all Arab media is reporting gains by Syrian regime forces (especially in rif of Damascus) but the Times could not get itself to report this so it resorts to defensive language of the sort exhibited in the headline.