News Round Up (8 April 2013)
Posted by Joshua on Monday, April 8th, 2013
Preparing for the day after al-Assad’s fall Inside Syria – Aljazeera
Presenter Ghida Fakhry: Joshua Landis; Yazan Abdallah, a Syrian academic and member of the Syria Dialogue – a group calling for transitional change in Syria; and Saleh Mubarak, a member of the Syrian National Council and a professor at Qatar University.
See PBS Frontline on Syria tomorrow – Tuesday – Very impressive and powerful documentary produced by Azmat Khan and filmed by Olly Lambert.
Alawites
AZIZ NAKKASH, March 2013
[Excellent article based on interviews with numerous Alawi inhabitants of Homs, explaining their reasons for supporting the regime and fighting in the various branches of the military and shabiha. ]
Economy
Steep fall in Syria foreign trade in 2012 – Now Syria
Faltering role of tribal leaders tested by oil-related disputes in Deir Ezzor (Part III) Hassan Hassan [Great new Blog by Hassan]
Syria oil industry buckling under rebel gains
By BASSEM MROUE | Associated Press
Syria’s vital oil industry is breaking down as rebels capture many of the country’s oil fields, with wells aflame and looters scooping up crude, depriving the government of much needed cash and fuel for its war machine against the uprising.
Exports have ground practically to a standstill, and the regime of President Bashar Assad has been forced to import refined fuel supplies to keep up with demand amid shortages and rising prices. In a sign of the increasing desperation, the oil minister met last week with Chinese and Russian officials to discuss exploring for gas and oil in the Mediterranean off Syria’s coast…. “Businesswise there isn’t a company that is willing to invest in Syria these days,” said Seifan, who currently lives in Iraq.
A new report on the northern city of Aleppo goes some way to showing how dire the situation in Syria is economist.
War in the South: US and Jordan Training Syrian Forces
By Taylor Luck, Published: April 2 – Wash Post
AMMAN, Jordan — The United States and Jordan have stepped up training of Syrian opposition forces that may be used to establish a buffer zone along Syria’s southern border, according to U.S. and Jordanian officials. Training begun last year has been expanded and accelerated after rebel gains in the south, including capture of a stretch of the Jordanian-Syrian border near the Golan Heights, two military outposts and the country’s main border crossing with Jordan.
Buffer zones along the Syria/Jordan border
Jordanian security officials said a previous timetable to complete training of about 3,000 Free Syrian Army officers by the end of June has been moved up to the end of this month in light of the border victories.
Creation of a buffer zone would aim to convert areas now in rebel hands into permanent havens for thousands of army defectors and displaced civilians in the area and allow easy access for humanitarian aid. More than 470,000 Syrian refugees have already crossed into Jordan — a number U.N. officials expect to pass the 1 million mark this year.
Officials from the United States and Jordan cautioned that implementation of the zones has not been set in motion and listed several stumbling blocks, including the ongoing refusal of the United States and other international backers to provide air cover to prevent Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s air force from attacking rebel outposts.
Two years after the start of the Syrian conflict, Western and Middle East governments are struggling to devise an effective strategy they can agree on, even as the war appears to be spinning beyond their ability to influence it, short of the direct intervention they have refused to contemplate.
But the officials cited growing concern that moderate rebel forces, who have fought effectively in the south and around Damascus, would be overtaken by extremist Islamic fighters who have become dominant in northern areas under rebel control.
“The last thing anyone wants to see is al-Qaeda gaining a foothold in southern Syria next to Israel. That is a doomsday scenario,” said a U.S. diplomat in Jordan who was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject….
The Obama administration and regional governments fear the fighting may soon spill over into other countries.
“Buffer zones on the Syrian side of the border is the only way to keep the conflict away from Jordan,” said Mahmoud Irdaisat, head of the Amman-based Center for Strategic Studies at the King Abdullah II Defense Studies Academy.
The Obama administration, which sent a force of about 150 U.S. military personnel to Jordan last year, has repeatedly refused to comment on reports that the force is training Syrian fighters…
Obama administration officials have expressed repeated concern that some of about 20,000 of the weapons, called MANPADS, have made their way from the arsenals of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi to Syria.
The administration has acknowledged that Persian Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are supplying weapons to the Syrian rebels, and it has helped vet the recipients. But it has repeatedly expressed concern that adding surface-to-air missiles to their arsenal would risk putting the weapons in the hands of militants and pose a threat to Israel and other nearby countries…..
…But while the fall of southern Syria would facilitate the rebel push for Damascus, it might also create dangerous complications, potentially drawing Syria’s neighbors into the two-year-old civil war. Besides abutting Jordan, the region borders Syria’s side of the Golan Heights, along a sensitive frontier with Israel.
‘‘This is a very sensitive triangle we are talking about,’’ said Hisham Jaber, a retired Lebanese Army general who heads the Middle East Center for Studies and Political Research in Beirut. ‘‘The fall of Daraa, if it happens, may usher in strategic changes in the area.’’…
‘‘Damascus will be liberated from here, from Daraa, from the south,’’ declared an armed fighter,….
Opposition fighters battling Assad’s troops have been chipping away at the regime’s hold on the southern part of the country in recent weeks with the help of an influx of foreign-funded weapons.
Their aim is to secure a corridor from the Jordanian border to Damascus in preparation for an eventual assault on the capital. …
A Western diplomat who monitors Syria from his base in Jordan said the fall of Daraa appeared imminent, possibly in the next few days or weeks. His assessment was based on classified intelligence information, he said.
Daraa’s fall could unleash lawlessness on Jordan’s northern border and send jitters across the kingdom, a key US ally which fears Islamic extremist groups on its doorstep.
Also of grave concern are rebel advances in areas near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. ‘‘If Daraa falls, the rebels will come face-to-face with the Israeli army in the Golan,’’ said Hilal Khashan,
Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, says he believes Syria could turn into another Afghanistan.
Saudi Arabia backs push to carve out liberated southern Syria
By Ruth Sherlock, Magdy Samaan and Suha Maayeh in Amman, 05 Apr 2013, Telegraph
Saudi Arabia is backing a push by Syrian opposition rebels to carve out a “liberated” area in southern Syria, opening a key route of attack on Damascus…. Americans are supervising the flow of arms and the Saudis pay for them,”….Those receiving training are mainly moderate Sunni Muslim tribesmen from central and southern Syria, many of whom have served in the Syrian army….
General Salim Idriss, who heads the SMC has been touring donor countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Kingdom to rally support and map a military strategy.
Qatar has been working more closely with Turkey, who are more sympathetic to the Doha backed Muslim Brotherhood, whilst Saudi Arabia has been pushing much of its support through Jordan, analysts and diplomats have said.
Syria Update: The Southern Battlefronts
Apr 5, 2013 – Jonathan Dupree – ISW
Syrian Regime Launches Counteroffensive on Rebels – ABC News
‘Syria could become another Afghanistan’
Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, says he believes Syria could turn into another Afghanistan. Dempsey, who is on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, also said “…
I have grave concerns that Syria could become an extended conflict” that drags on for many years. Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of Army and security personnel, have been killed in the violence…..
Assad
Syrian leader warns of domino effect and accuses Arab neighbours of sheltering rebels who seek to overthrow him…
“If the unrest in Syria leads to the partitioning of the country, or if the terrorist forces take control … the situation will inevitably spill over into neighbouring countries and create a domino effect throughout the Middle East and beyond,” he said in an interview with Turkish television.
Turmoil would spread “east, west, north and south. This will lead to a state of instability for years and maybe decades to come,” Assad said in the interview, posted by the Syrian presidency on the internet.
Opposition & Rebel Brigades
[Important read]…The National Coalition is not simply an SNC clone, but it has replicated the representation game that the SNC and the Friends of Syria had already played over the preceding year. A central assertion in Clinton’s critique of the SNC was that it was insufficiently representative of those opposing the Assad regime. The National Coalition claims to represent the Syrian opposition more broadly than the SNC—but that is a stretch…..The SNC had still not set up permanent aid offices or a supply structure to deliver the most urgently needed commodities to liberated areas—such as fuel to run power generators for field hospitals, bakeries, and water pumps, and for heating. Nor had it attempted systematic surveys of needs and data collection….The scale of the challenge, and its political complexity, were highlighted when the Syrian government authorized the United Nations World Food Program in mid-January 2013 to work with local nongovernmental organizations to distribute food aid worth $519 million. The program was already delivering aid for up to 1.5 million Syrians a month through the government-controlled Syrian Arab Red Crescent, but the new agreement allowed it to reach an additional one million Syrians in need. The National Coalition protested vociferously against giving assistance to “the regime that destroyed cities and shelled hospitals and bakeries and displaced inhabitants, to help it to fix what its own hands have perpetrated.”34 Noting that rebel areas, “in which over ten million people reside, or nearly half the Syrian population,” were receiving only 10 percent of what they needed, its Aid Coordination Unit offered itself as a more effective and equitable alternative for aid distribution.35 Syrian activists acknowledge that the Friends of Syria lack confidence in the operational capacity of the National Coalition to deliver international aid on a large scale, and resent this. Its ability to provide security is an added concern, as United Nations food and fuel convoys have come under rebel attack. In late January, National Coalition Chairman al-Khatib acknowledged that “much of the relief aid has been stolen or looted by gangs exploiting the security anarchy.”36 ….Activist writer Hajj-Saleh, who remains in hiding in Damascus, offered a bleak assessment of the local civilian structures at the start of March 2013. The grassroots movement provided a “multifaceted creativity” that the formal opposition lacked, he noted, butThis is not to say that conditions in the society of the revolution or its various local communities are promising. In reality we can speak of widespread signs of dissolution, damage to social ties even at the local level, the spread of violence and use of violence to settle diverse scores or for private profit. The forms of self-organization do not meet needs in most areas, as the elements of dissolution, fragmentation, and selfishness are more present and influential than those of healing, cooperation, and joint action.49
Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood: influential, organized, but mistrusted
April 04, 2013, Agence France Presse
BEIRUT: Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood may be President Bashar Assad’s best-organized political adversaries, but they are also loathed by some dissidents who accuse them of trying to dominate the opposition, backed by funds from Qatar.
In late March, some 70 dissidents sent a letter to the Arab League criticizing “the dictatorial control exercised by one of [the opposition’s] … currents over its decisions and actions, and the flagrant hegemony of diverse Arab and regional players.”…
London-based Ali al-Bayanouni, the Brotherhood’s deputy political chief, rejected the accusations.
“Our role in the coalition has been greatly exaggerated, and we are not financed by any state,” he told AFP, saying the group’s funding comes from “members and supporters, from Syria and elsewhere.”
“We represent just 10 percent of the coalition. How can they say we control everything?”….
“They believe that they are the natural leaders of Syria, they believe … their time has finally come and that they represent the nation better than anybody else,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma.
“That self-assurance is resented of course by all the other groups. … The Brotherhood are the presumed winners, and that is why they are targeted.”
Analysts and dissidents admit that the Brotherhood are Syria’s best-organized opposition group. They have a hierarchy, offices, a website and even a newspaper.
“Qatar and Turkey support them because they are the only institutional party that has any chance of organizing Syria” should Assad fall, Landis told AFP…..
And the Brotherhood is confident they have real support on the ground too. “When there are democratic elections in Syria, we shall see w
Phil Sands, Apr 1, 2013 – The National
ANTAKYA, TURKEY // Syrian rebel fighters have accused the Muslim Brotherhood of undermining the revolt against Bashar Al Assad and trying to dictate opposition politics.
Rebel officers said the Brotherhood was putting narrow factional politicking over the broad interests of the revolt.
“We hold you responsible for delaying victory of the revolution and the fragmentation of the opposition,” the Joint Command of the Free Syrian Army said in an open letter to the Muslim Brotherhood.
There was a “deep confrontation” within the opposition between the Muslim Brotherhood and other secular, national and military factions, the FSA said.
Anti-Brotherhood sentiments, particularly in Damascus, were running high, the FSA warned, with growing anger at efforts by the group to control military and humanitarian relief efforts administered by the Syrian National Coalition, the opposition bloc given Syria’s seat in the Arab League at a summit last week.
A significant majority of its members are directly or indirectly allied to the Muslim Brotherhood, much to the dismay of other rebel factions who say the group’s representation in the SNC political chambers vastly outweighs its street presence inside Syria.
Tawheed brigade establish traffic police in Aleppo “liberated” areas. Their uniforms look like Lebanese darak
Ahrar al-Sham: A Profile of Northern Syria’s al-Qaeda Surrogate – Jamestown
The uprising against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s rule entered its third year in March. The process of disaggregating the political and armed currents that are struggling against the Ba’athist regime, however, remains an exercise in futility. Despite ardent efforts by the numerous opposition factions to portray an image of ideological moderation, the preponderance of evidence indicates that radical Islamists dominate the Syrian insurgency. Jabhat al-Nusra, a radical Salafist organization that is acting as al-Qaeda’s surrogate in the conflict, has solidified itself as the most deadly insurgent faction fighting in Syria today. Yet other similarly motivated extremist formations are also making their presence felt. It is against this background that the activities of the Kata’ib Ahrar al-Sham (Free Men of Greater Syria Brigades, hereafter referred to as Ahrar al-Sham), a radical Salafist faction operating largely in northern Syria, warrant a closer look.
Ahrar al-Sham has consolidated its influence in strategically important theaters across Syria, including portions of Syria’s second city of Aleppo and its environs as well as vital supply and communication lines extending to Turkey (al-Monitor, January 13). It has also reportedly engaged Syrian security forces in some of the fiercest combat witnessed since the militarization of the uprising, including a series of fierce battles for control of a number of military air bases and civilian airports in January and February (al-Safir [Beirut], January 30; al-Jazeera [Doha], February 12). Perhaps most importantly, the instrumental role played by Ahrar al-Sham in the formation of the Syrian Islamic Front (SIF), an association of eleven like minded Salafist militant factions that came together in common cause in December 2012, is emblematic of its growing influence. [1] Ahrar al-Sham is widely reputed to maintain a dominant presence within the SIF. [2] In another sign of its expanding authority, a number of fellow Salafist insurgent groups merged under Ahrar al-Sham’s leadership structure to form the Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiya (The Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham) in January 2013 (AFP, February 13).
Details surrounding the precise origins and leadership of Ahrar al-Sham remain murky. The group is believed to have organized in late 2011 and is reportedly led by Abu Abdullah al-Hamawi. While the nisbah portion of his name suggests that he hails from Hama, it has also been reported that he hails from Aleppo (al-Monitor, January 13). [3] Ahrar al-Sham’s founding members are said to be former political prisoners who were incarcerated in the infamous Sednaya Prison located just outside of Damascus until they were granted amnesty in May 2011. While it welcomes foreign-born militants into its ranks, Ahrar al-Sham boasts of its mostly Syrian-born membership (al-Monitor, January 13; AFP, February 13). Ahrar al-Sham’s influence is centered largely in Syria’s northern governorates of Idlib, Aleppo and Raqqa and, to a lesser extent, the western-central governorates of Hama and Homs. An accurate estimate of its membership is difficult to discern. An alleged member of the group asserted that Ahrar al-Sham commands between 5000 and 6000 fighters in Aleppo governorate alone, a figure that is likely to be inflated for propaganda purposes (al-Monitor, January 13). Tens of regional-based detachments likely organized around local village, town and city networks operate under its auspices.
Ahrar al-Sham’s track record to date is fraught with contradictions. From an ideological perspective, Ahrar al-Sham has declared its objective to transform Syria into its image of an Islamic state. Members of Ahrar al-Sham have stated that their conception of an Islamic state would protect religious minorities and be based on the premise that the majority of Syrians, who are Sunni Muslims, would choose to live in an Islamic society (Daily Star [Beirut], February 13; al-Akhbar [Beirut] January 5). Yet its official discourse is replete with extremist themes and
symbolism informed by its radical Salafist pedigree. Ahrar al-Sham’s frequent resort to sectarian diatribes targeting Alawites and Shiite Muslims, both of whom are viewed by hardline Salafists as h
eretical, is often cited as a point of concern.
Video appears to show world’s most powerful rifle in hands of Syrian rebels
By Paul Alster, April 03, 2013, FoxNews.com
Brown Moses: Another Case Of Weapons Mis-Identification In The Media – “British AS-50s” On Al-Arabiya. Rebels are not using the AS50 as reported in the previous article, Brown Moses demonstrates. Also see his Early Signs Of The “Aleppoisation” Of Southern Syria
Al-Qaeda Seen Expanding Influence in Lebanon – Al-Monitor
Kurds
Bashar Ja’afari, Syria’s Ambassador to the UN.
….The majority of Kurds in Syria have been pro government through the uprising. Now the Kurdish card is being played. They will promise the Kurds their own state that runs from Iraq and through Syria. A new state will be carved. What was once the Skyes-Picot Agreement will be the Erdogan-Hamad deal….
Erdogan plans to draw Iraq’s and Syria’s Kurds into the ‘Turkosphere’, writes David Gardner
In 10 years as Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at times reliably unscripted and unpredictable, has attracted his fair share of brickbats. But not last week when, buried in bouquets of praise, he started decisively down the road to peace with Turkey’s Kurds.
On Kurdish new year, or Newroz, Abdullah Ocalan, jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), called a truce in its 29-year war against the Turkish state, after a delicate negotiation with Mr Erdogan’s most trusted aides.
This process is a high-risk strategy to address a tangled story, with tactics that appear inconsistent and policy signals that will look contradictory. The reward for Turkey if it works is potentially enormous…
In exchange for the PKK standing down, a deal would require: reform of anti-terror laws that criminalise opinion (and jail thousands of Kurdish political activists); replacement of ethnic references in the constitution with equal citizenship; equality for the Kurdish language in education and public life; devolution of some power, probably through a broad decentralisation of Turkey; lowering of the electoral threshold to enter parliament, currently at 10 per cent, which prejudices Kurdish parties.
There will also have to be a formula to release Kurdish prisoners and exiles (including the reviled Mr Ocalan), and a reconciliation process to establish the truth about a dirty war that has cost about 40,000 lives.
All this requires not just cultural change but almost doctrinal revolution, and Mr Erdogan’s aides warn that the prime minister will continue to seem unpredictable, if only to keep at bay the wolves of Turkish nationalism.
But what seems to have set Mr Erdogan on this course – from which he at least once before pulled back – is the accelerating disintegration of Syria in the chaotic uprising next door against Bashar al-Assad…..
As Fighting Rages in Damascus, Kurds Flee Their Neighborhoods – Rudaw
Refugees
“We are broke,” U.N. Says as Syria Refugee Funds Dry Up By Tom Miles | Reuters
Culture
NYTimes: Grave Robbers and War Steal Syria’s History
Syria’s archaeological heritage, which has yet to be fully studied, is imperiled by threats ranging from outright destruction to opportunistic treasure hunters.
Ancient City of Palmyra Threatened in Fighting;
Comments (777)
MarigoldRan said:
No oil for the regime! And no money too.
Buffer zone will be set up in the south eventually.
April 8th, 2013, 12:37 am
Juergen said:
Joerg Armbruster, the long time ARD reporter was shot while filming in Aleppo on Good Friday. He is now back in Germany and recovering from his wounds.
He made this report on the role of the children in Aleppo.
Here is a transcript of the text in the video, the video is embetted in the right hand side of the page titled: The First library.
Shockingly child labor is common now in war driven Syria. The children of a shopowner have to sew in a workshop for 7 Dollar a week.
http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.daserste.de%2Finformation%2Fpolitik-weltgeschehen%2Fweltspiegel%2Fsendung%2Fbr%2Fsyrien-kinder-102.html
April 8th, 2013, 1:07 am
Badr said:
“Buffer zone will be set up in the south eventually.”
Not unless this issue is first addressed:
“. . . the ongoing refusal of the United States and other international backers to provide air cover to prevent Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s air force from attacking rebel outposts.”
April 8th, 2013, 1:19 am
revenire said:
There isn’t going to be a buffer zone or a no-fly zone.
Juergen who shot him? And how? Circumstances?
April 8th, 2013, 1:21 am
MarigoldRan said:
If the war continues for another 3 years, the Assadists won’t have any planes or helicopters left. The rebels will make a no-fly zone the hard way.
In two years of war, the regime has lost more than a quarter of its military hardware, including planes and tanks. At the current rate of attrition, it won’t have tanks or planes in another 5 years or so.
Also, jet planes can’t be kept in missions indefinitely over years. Their engines and parts break down, especially in the desert.
There’s also the minor matter of the spreading war into Damascus. More and more Damascenes are fleeing.
EDIT: A jet in peacetime, with good maintenance, lasts 10 years. With a war, and indifferent maintenance, they last 3-4 years, at maximum.
April 8th, 2013, 1:27 am
revenire said:
All weapons get replaced by Russia, Iran and other allies.
Where are the army losses published? Make sure it isn’t an anti-Syrian source or it is garbage – like your mind. To say X amount has been lost is stupid – even for you dog eater.
April 8th, 2013, 1:34 am
Juergen said:
Reve
It was a government sniper on the roundelle at Bab al Hadeed in Aleppo. He only survived because he had blood compresses in the car because they were on their way to a hospital to donate medicals they had brought with them. He was operated in the Aleppo hospital and then rushed to Turkey for further treatment. This reporter is known for his safety concern for his team and himself, many suggest that he didnt wear his flak jacket at the time of the assault.
April 8th, 2013, 1:36 am
MarigoldRan said:
The Russians and the Iranians can send in money, spare parts, and ammo. But they can’t ship in jets or tanks in large numbers.
That military hardware is irreplaceable.
Facts are facts, retard.
April 8th, 2013, 1:38 am
ghufran said:
the talks about plans for a transition after Assad is media garbage, there are no plans unless you consider a violent overthrow of a government and the installment of a puppet regime dominated by Islamist a “plan”. the only plan was to destroy Syria and give Israel a breathing room, that plan may have succeeded, I actually feel sorry for people on both ends, the participants and the viewers, for wasting their time on this junk. the lack of a plan is ironically the main reason why many Syrians have not supported the islamists,not all Syians are stupid.
April 8th, 2013, 1:42 am
MarigoldRan said:
A Syrian civil war is a Syrian civil war.
The final responsibility for the war is with Syrians. The regime wanted war, and everyone else complied. If the Assadists want war, then war it will be.
April 8th, 2013, 1:47 am
Badr said:
Marigoldran,
Well if there is no threat from al-Assad’s air force, then why the need for a buffer zone in the first place?
April 8th, 2013, 1:54 am
Visitor said:
…..
April 8th, 2013, 2:37 am
Visitor said:
Regime idiots on this forum never get tired from fabrications, posturing, fake claims to punditry, lying, and in short are so keen to expose themselves as the most pathetic breed of chimps ever walked on this planet.
In the last couple days, we have been flooded with so-called reports of victories of a crippled and dying regime, one would think that the Syrian people, who have endured two years of heroic holy war against an abominable abberation of history, will have no choice but to submit to the equation of slavery = so-called security. When the dust settles, however, and the news begin to trickle out of the thick of the battles, we discover that all the hype is nothing but a mirage of wishful thinking and empty posturing and a cover for further losses in the ever shrinking areas the regime and its thugs are still controlling. The fact should not have been lost to the discerning eye of the non-gullible analysts, who should be able to see clearly that when desperation reaches such a level as to fire ballistic missiles on neighborhoods such as Jobar in Damascus, then all is not well in the dungeons of thuggocracy as we are intended to believe by the zombie mouthpieces (ghufran, zoo, apple_mini_juice, reverse-en-avant,…..)
Not only southern Syria is lost and no longer controlled by Assadistan, but also large parts of Damascus itself are now firmly under the revolution control, specifically under the control of the holy, mighty and ever-victorious Nusra Front of the holy warriors,
http://www.alarabiya.net/ar/arab-and-world/syria/2013/04/08/النظام-السوري-يواجه-فقدان-بعض-أحياء-العاصمة-براجمات-الصواريخ.html
April 8th, 2013, 2:45 am
Badr said:
For accuracy, I should rewrite my previous comment as a potential future condition:
When there will be no longer a threat from al-Assad’s air force at some point in the future, why would a buffer zone for the rebels and displaced civilians still be needed?
April 8th, 2013, 2:51 am
Badr said:
Whether you like it or not, democracy, which by definition implies secularism, is the solution.
April 8th, 2013, 2:59 am
MarigoldRan said:
Artillery lasts a lot longer than jet planes.
Assad will be out of planes within a few more years of war. However, if he’s still around, he’ll probably still have artillery.
If the war continues at this rate, both the Alawites and the Sunnis will end up with equivalent military hardware. The Alawite’s edge in military technology is being whittled down by the day. They’re rapidly turning into an overgrown militia.
April 8th, 2013, 3:19 am
MarigoldRan said:
Regime “offensives” consist of artillery and plane strikes. But they don’t have the troops to take and hold territory. As a result they steadily lose ground.
A guerilla war is always two steps forwards, one step back. Results are not gained in days or weeks, but in months and years. The rebels have won zero decisive military victories, yet in two years of war, they control more than half the country including most of the oil fields AND farms.
Winning military victories is nice, but it’s SECONDARY to the purpose of de-legitimizing and demonizing the regime. In this the rebels have already accomplished their goal. Most Syrians and most of the world no longer recognize the Assadists as a legitimate government.
The longer the war continues, and the more the Assadists bomb Sunni areas, the more the Assadists will appear to be foreign puppets waging a war against Syrians.
April 8th, 2013, 3:28 am
Citizen said:
http://stratrisks.com/geostrat/11721
Saudi Arabia backs push to carve out liberated southern Syria
April 8th, 2013, 3:32 am
MarigoldRan said:
Syria’s going to be divided. There is no question of that. Regime supporters pretend they can re-take the country, but even they aren’t trying very hard at that make-believe game.
What’s happening right now is that the Sunnis and the Alawites are fighting over the boundaries of the new sub-states of Syria. The Alawites are trying to hold Damascus, Homs and Hamas, and carve out their own sub-state, but in the long run that’s impossible.
April 8th, 2013, 3:35 am
Badr said:
“Artillery lasts a lot longer than jet planes.”
Marigoldran,
If this is meant as an answer to my question, then how could a buffer zone protect against artillery?
April 8th, 2013, 3:51 am
MarigoldRan said:
By taking out of all of the regime’s outposts near the buffer zone, the artillery can’t hit them.
Jet fighters have much longer range than artillery, you know.
April 8th, 2013, 4:55 am
majedkhaldoun said:
Badr
can you explain the connection between democracy and secularism
Democracy means 50% plus one
Secularism is seperate state from the power of religion
April 8th, 2013, 6:31 am
Badr said:
Marigoldran,
So there won’t be a buffer zone, not only until the threat of air strikes is eliminated, but also the menace from the artillery is taken care of, by the rebels’ own effort. It seems to me that when the media talk about establishing a buffer zone, they usually mean something else, i.e. on a much faster time scale with a direct foreign assistance.
Majed,
Roughly speaking, the way I understand democracy is that it is more than simply the majority rule. It also includes equal rights and duties for all citizens, and guarantees a certain set of rights for the minorities. Whereas secularism means to me no adverse discrimination based on sect, ethnicity, creed …So secularism is part of the democracy package.
April 8th, 2013, 7:46 am
Uzair8 said:
The piece on Alawites of Homs is quite interesting. Quite long but I’ve had a glance.
http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/09825.pdf
Also interesting how people accuse the Mukhabarat from the coast of making it sectarian by identifying people on sectarian basis.
It was already suspected the regime was giving government employees the day off to participate in pro-regime rallies. More manipulation:
http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/09825.pdf
April 8th, 2013, 7:51 am
Visitor said:
”
Whether you like it or not, democracy, which by definition implies secularism, is the solution.”
the above statement is FALSE. The same character has been repeating the same falsehood ad nauseam.
Democracy is nothing BUT majority rule 50 + 1.
Western secularism is a movement for seperating church political authority from the state.
We do not have churches in Islam to seperate from the state.
April 8th, 2013, 7:55 am
apple_mini said:
This board got bloated by so many immature, shallow and hysterical analysis.
I feel sorry for people whose time got wasted by those eyesores.
I’d like to propose a suggestion that when people write their own analysis, please refrain themselves from getting too high by their emotions.
Also, please cut out those cliche.
April 8th, 2013, 8:00 am
Tara said:
“This board got bloated by so many immature, shallow and hysterical analysis.”
Like yours?
Yeah. I say please analyze for yourself in a my dear diary .
April 8th, 2013, 8:21 am
Dawoud said:
Ok, finally “Syria Comment” is pinpointing an important reason why Bahar (f@kin@ Murderous Dictator) al-Assad’s months are are numbered (less than a year in my opinion): the thousands of defected Syrian soldiers in Jordan are being trained and equipped. Furthermore, I do believe that clandestine Jordanian forces will join them, at least in freeing the Der’a province and the southern portions of Damascus. In “al-Quds al-Arabi,” Abdel-Bari Atwan (he could have had inside sources)pointed out that the secret/clandestine forces that entered the Libyan capital with the rebels (al-Qadafi’s Bab al-Aziziah compound) were Jordanian. Also, he pointed out that clandestine Jordanian forces put down the Bahraini uprising (which is in my view an attempt by Iran to seize control of Bahrain by inciting the 50% Bahranin Shia-who are a minority in Bahrain because non-citizens-most of whom are Sunnis-outnumber citizens).
I would not be surprised that the rebels (accompanied with Jordanians) would conquer Damascus airport, which would make it very difficult to continue the Tehran-Damascus bloody supply line.
The liberation of Syria is getting very close! Praise the Lord! Hasan-who described Sunnis as illegal immigrants-may have to go outside Syria to look for what he described as “the ancient Greek origins” of non-Sunni Syrians. Syria will be fine because Sunnis (Arabs and Kurds) are 87% of Syria’s population, and enough decent/principled non-Sunnis will join the revolution. I suggest Hasan should move to Tehran and take Zoo, Ann (the American Hizbistan), Ali, et al. with him!
April 8th, 2013, 8:22 am
Freevirgins said:
بسام القاضي – سؤال استفساري: بما انو 70% من الأراضي السورية تم احتلالها من قطعان المسوخ الشيطانية المتناكحة، اخونجية ووهابية وقاعدة وكيلوية وزيادية وعظيمية…………
فليش ما يجو “عهار” الثورة السوري المنحطة، من الأتاسي لفليحان، ومن الخطيب للشقفة، ومن كيلو لقربي.. ليش ما يجو يستمتعوا بالحرية والتحرير؟!
وللا المناكحة بسرير المخابرات العثمانية والفرنسية والبريطانية والألمانية والأمريكية.. أحلى وأمتع من المناكحة مع اخوانهم وأخواتهم في “الأراضي المحررة”؟!
April 8th, 2013, 8:33 am
majedkhaldoun said:
Dear Badr
Unless we agree on the definition of terms we will be talking in circles
Please look for the definition of the terms, ,you may look at the definition of equality while you are there.
April 8th, 2013, 8:42 am
majedkhaldoun said:
Mr. Landis said the day the revolution wins there will be three million Alawi flee to Lebanon.
1- The nymber is exagerated
2- Lebanon can not get 3 million without chocking crisis,Lebanon will no longer be Lebanon.
3 This can not happen in few days, it will be preceded by immigration ,to foreign countries, possibly Iran.
4- After Assad is gone there will be civil war,also Assad can not survive as head of Alawi state,Alawi upheaval will follow.
April 8th, 2013, 9:22 am
Ghufran said:
استشهد 15 شخصاً وأصيب أكثر من 50 آخرين في تفجير انتحاري بسيارة مفخخة، وقع يوم الاثنين، في الطريق الواصل بين ساحة السبع بحرات وطلعة الشهبندر وسط دمشق، في حصيلة رسمية أولية
Thugs, looters and terrorists can not carry a revolution, people with brains have left a long time ago.
April 8th, 2013, 9:30 am
Tara said:
Interesting point.
If an Alawi state is formed and I believe this is quite unlikely, would Alawis keep Assad as their president-God?
Would they be that stupid?
April 8th, 2013, 9:32 am
Ghufran said:
استشهد 15 شخصاً وأصيب أكثر من 50 آخرين في تفجير انتحاري بسيارة مفخخة، وقع يوم الاثنين، في الطريق الواصل بين ساحة السبع بحرات وطلعة الشهبندر وسط دمشق، في حصيلة رسمية أولية
Thugs, looters and terrorists can not carry a revolution, people with brains have left a long time ago.
April 8th, 2013, 9:40 am
Visitor said:
“Mr. Landis said the day the revolution wins there will be three million Alawi flee to Lebanon.”
Dr. Landis says too many things that are not true. It is difficult to concede that he doesn’t know what is true to say. So, the obvious conclusion is that he says the non-true things on purpose. In this case I believe that Dr. Landis is using the supposed Alawite ‘future’ migration to Lebanon as some kind of scare crow, because he knows that Lebanese issues, such as its possible de-stabilization are soft spots, for US and Western concerns, and therefore they may do something about an imaginary problem before it comes to pass, according to Dr. Landis’ hoped-for effect from behind such scare crowing..
The truth of the matter is that Alawites are being kidnapped as they try to enter Lebanon even as they do it under the pretext of seeking temporary labor.
I cannot foresee Samir Franjieh, or the other clown Aoun continuing to voice their pro-Assad stances once and if their neighborhoods are flooded with squatting Alawites. Everyone knows that the various militias that fought the long Lebanese civil war are still armed to the teeth and are more than ready, capable and willing to use them once again.
April 8th, 2013, 9:46 am
revenire said:
Juergen my question to you is why report it here? A reporter in a war zone getting shot isn’t unheard of.
April 8th, 2013, 9:55 am
revenire said:
“The Russians and the Iranians can send in money, spare parts, and ammo. But they can’t ship in jets or tanks in large numbers.”
They can ship in anything they like dog-eater. Are you kidding? Who will stop them?
April 8th, 2013, 9:57 am
ann said:
Al-Qaeda Terrorists Struck Their Favorite Target Again: CIVILIANS!
Bomb blast rocks Damascus; at least 15 killed – April 8, 2013, 6:19 a.m.
“Does this please God, does this please anyone. Look what they have done to the area, look what they did to the street,” said one man interviewed on the street
Another cried: “Enough bloodshed”
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-damascus-car-bomb-20130408,0,3114753.story
BEIRUT — A powerful bombing in central Damascus killed at least 15 people and wounded 53 others on Monday, Syrian state television reported.
Details were still emerging as state news agencies offered contradictory accounts of what happened, with official news services calling it both a bombing and a suicide attack.
A state television channel showed video of flaming cars, mutilated bodies and charred buildings. Somber music played as images of bodies being lifted to ambulances were on screen.
Monday’s explosion occurred close to a state tax commission building and a SECONDARY SCHOOL.
[…]
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-damascus-car-bomb-20130408,0,3114753.story
April 8th, 2013, 10:07 am
mjabali said:
Visitor:
hahhhaaahha
Dude you have no clue as always: Samir Franjieh is anti Assad ya 7imar…
dude learn the politics of Syria and Lebanon before you open your mouth.
Again showing you how little you know is not that hard.
Funny when a man with limited education speaks badly of a respected professor…
April 8th, 2013, 10:08 am
Hanzala said:
Interesting how Israel drags the mighty America from thousands of miles away to make sure that they remain safe, and that the southern border is free from Islamists. America, despite all its might and glory, is simply just another Israeli stooge.
Train the traitors in Jordan, they will just end up being more meat in the meat grinder if they step out of line.
April 8th, 2013, 10:18 am
Johannes de Silentio said:
A Future Question on Jeopardy: who was the last dictator of Syria, now living in Belarus?
Answer: Bashar al-Assad.
April 8th, 2013, 10:34 am
Johannes de Silentio said:
The Iron Rule of the Syrian Civil War:
Dead opposition soldiers get replaced. Dead regime soldiers do not…
April 8th, 2013, 10:36 am
Visitor said:
البهيم Mjabali @10:08AM
All the names sound so similar in Lebanon, it is easy to confuse who’s who sometime.
Well I meant Suleiman. can’t you make the inference on your own? It is so amusing that you jump on such silly items.
I told you previously you are mentally unstable. You have suffered a psychological trauma under the Arabic literature teacher who exposed your Ajami background in front of all your peers who continuously beat you in Arabic poetry competition classes.
يعني بالعربي الفصيح الحمار لا بدوق عود ولا بيانو
فكيف بدو ينطق شعر؟
April 8th, 2013, 10:40 am
Alnusraenemy said:
Hanzala and Alaaroor are twins,they can’t think out of meat grinders.
Visitor and majed are right for once and dr Landis is wrong,3 mill Alawis will not
Migrate to Lebanon ,They will be hanged on trees instead .Wahabists are worse
Than human beings eaters in Africa,they will proudly cut necks by swords in the
Hands of their kids,you can’t blame them because that is their beliefs tought to them by Alkalb ibn Timeh.Alawis,Minorities and none-wahabist Sunni are fighting
A survival game.Very limited choices:die while you fight,die hanged on a tree,die
By cutting your neck, or Separate.
April 8th, 2013, 10:40 am
GEORGES said:
ZOO, what do you think of this?
April 8th, 2013, 10:53 am
majedkhaldoun said:
Thatcher is dead,Thatcher a woman was stronger than men, George Bush was convinced by Thatcher to fight Saddam,
April 8th, 2013, 10:55 am
revenire said:
Johannes why wouldn’t dead soldiers get replaced? That’s just stupid. You’re just a stupid dreamer.
April 8th, 2013, 11:02 am
revenire said:
Georges a coward with a suicide bomb murdered civilians today and you’re showing us someone shooting an ass?
April 8th, 2013, 11:05 am
Johannes de Silentio said:
45. MOSSIE
“Why wouldn’t dead soldiers get replaced?”
You need to learn to read, Mossie Baby. I said dead OPPOSITION soldiers get replaced. Dead REGIME soldiers do not. Because, let’s face it, no one wants to fight for Assad. SAA soldiers desert, the first chance they get.
A New Bashar Cartoon :
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/php/galleries/image.php/731/6/6.jpg
April 8th, 2013, 11:26 am
Johannes de Silentio said:
21. MARIGOLDRAN
“Jet fighters have much longer range than artillery”
They do, but they cost a lot more to maintain. And when shot down or damaged, they’re not being replaced.
April 8th, 2013, 11:33 am
apple_mini said:
News: Iraqi authorities inspected Monday an Iranian cargo plane headed to Syria using the Iraqi airspace, the Iraqi ministry of transportation said.
“The aviation authority today requested an Iranian cargo plane flying from Tehran to Damascus to land in Baghdad airport for a surprise inspection,” the ministry said in a statement.
The plane was only carrying medical equipment, it said.
Thanks for a choreographed show dedicated to US and some other interested parties.
I vision in the future a new Arab Treaty Organization can be formed including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and possible open seats for Egypt and Algeria.
April 8th, 2013, 11:33 am
Citizen said:
http://rt.com/news/syria-bomb–blast-damascus-491/
Death toll rises to 15 with over 50 wounded in central Damascus car bombing
April 8th, 2013, 11:45 am
Juergen said:
Reve
If Armbruster was shot by an rebel sniper you would have surely reported on it and you may have asked for the Assad pour le Merite medal.
You are right, the risk of getting shot in Assad Syria is very high for journalists. May be there is an ransom for each targetted journalist? I may recall the gracious offer of an Kuwaiti businessmen for each killed Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera journalist.
April 8th, 2013, 11:46 am
revenire said:
Juergen the fact is you don’t know who shot him. You can’t prove who shot him can you?
Again, when Maya Naser was murdered, Yara Saleh and Alex Thompson were kidnapped you said nothing.
Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera reporters are enemy combatants in my book.
You’re really a cynical, smug bastard Juergen. A hypocrite of the highest order.
Just for you each time a rat is killed today I will do a shot of Old Crow. If my posts get a little weird later on you know why.
April 8th, 2013, 12:08 pm
revenire said:
Johannes are you so weak you have to make things up? The SAA has plenty of soldiers. Show me a source that isn’t anti-Assad that says otherwise. I won’t hold my breath.
Stick to cartoons.
April 8th, 2013, 12:12 pm
ann said:
52. revenire said:
I will do a shot of Old Crow. If my posts get a little weird later on you know why.
CHEERS 😀
April 8th, 2013, 12:13 pm
revenire said:
SYRIAN HIGH COMMAND FOR THE ARMED FORCES ISSUES A DECLARATION TO THE PUBLIC CONFIRMING REMARKABLE SUCCESSES AGAINST TERRORISTS IN THE EAST GHOUTA.
“In defense of the nation’s glory and the honor of its sons; and with a firm, unbending determination; and with a will that does not admit hesitation, the heroes of our Syrian Arab Army continue their noble mission in pursuit of the criminal, murderous remnants of the Jabhat Al-Nusra terrorists and NATO’s mercenaries…….And in the framework of the High Command’s plan to rid the areas of rural Damascus of terrorism and after the successes which were achieved by our armed forces in the area of Daarayya, units of our forces, the day before yesterday, with the cooperation of honorable citizens, executed a uniquely qualitative operation in the area of the East Ghouta which resulted in the total encirclement of the entire area, all the while continuing the work aimed at putting to flight those terrorists who remain from all the lands of the Ghouta and rural Damascus in order to restore security to all the nation’s lands.”
All East Ghouta is now under SAA control. SYRIAN HIGH COMMAND ISSUES WARNING TO RATS TO SURRENDER OR BE DESTROYED. Rat cellphones in the Eastern Ghouta were inundated for 2 days with SAA demands that they throw down their arms and surrender in order to be legally processed in accordance with previous offers made by the government. All supply routes to the rats have been uncovered and destroyed.
Al-Nabak, SAA blocked a plan to smuggle earthenware pottery loaded with C-4. The operation was superbly executed with the explosives detonated from a distance. A firefight did ensue however and these rodents were sent on the choo-choo straight to Hell:
Ahmad Shihaada
Mustafa Qurqaar (?)
Another 7 could not be identified.
Jayrood and Al-Ruhayba in the Ghouta: A number of scavengers were killed along with 8 wanted fugitives. The only name sent by Monzer was:
Naasseef Jaaroodi
Another 4 could not be identified.
Southwest Adra, at Tal-Al-Sawwaan: SAA ambush nets unknown number of rats. No details.
Qaarra: Firefight with SAA on top. No details.
Al-‘Ibaada: at the Equestrian Club, an RPG and a 23mm machine gun were destroyed. No details.
Al-‘Utayba: Another pitched battle with 18 confirmed dead rats. All were foreign. No details.
Al-Shayfooniyya: Disaster for rats. They stumbled head-on into an SAA trap. The vermin are:
Sha’baan Al-Takli
Muhammad Hassnu
‘Umar Tilliss
Ahmad Jaamoos
Another 10 could not be identified. Some appeared North African. No more details.
Harasta: Congratulations to the family of:
Muhammad Fadhl Shaaker (nicknamed: “Shaykh Al-Qannaaseen” or “Sniper Pro”. yawn) He’s now sniping snipes in Hell.
http://syrianperspective.blogspot.com/2013/04/first-post-april-8-2013-syrian-army-on.html
April 8th, 2013, 12:14 pm
Citizen said:
“Mr. Landis said the day the revolution wins there will be three million Alawi flee to Lebanon.”
Mr. Landis spoke in the previous phase of religious and sectarian Engineering spoke about the Syrian retail. At this stage he is talking about one of the details of known to him plan. Is not it?
April 8th, 2013, 12:20 pm
Juergen said:
Reve
Your announcement is no news to us.
April 8th, 2013, 12:30 pm
ghufran said:
Samples of readers reaction to terrorist bombing in Damascus taken from aksalser site (opposition site):
الاسم : واحد من الناس
يعني لما بتقولوا اتهمت قناة الاخبارية من اسمتهم ( الارهابيين ) بين اشارتين تنصيص، هل هذا يعني انكم بتخالفوا هذا التعريف ؟؟؟ اللي عم يفجر بمناطق مدنية بنصف العاصمة مجرم وارهابي، وهي اعمال ثورتكم المباركة، لعنة الله عليها وعلى اوليائها…..بس معليش هي حلاوة الروح، كلما اندعسوا جرذانكم بدمشق وحلب ما بيقدروا ينتقموا غير من النساء والاطفال، الله اكبر عليكم يامجرمين وعلى هيك ثورة اجرام حقيرة….
Damascus is bleeding
العنوان : إلى السيد يوسف الحلبي [
فالج لا تعالج! تفضل هال نمرة! البلد اتدمر و هو و اشكالو ما كان يفهموا! المعارضة الشريفة تبعك اضرب من النظام! وقت إسقاط شخص صار اهم من الحفاظ عالبلد، المعارضة بطلت تمثل إلا أمثالك يلي التيوس فهمت اللعبة و هنة لسة!
April 8th, 2013, 12:58 pm
5 dancing shlomos said:
the u.s. and Israel have a long and well documented history of shooting with bullets, tanks, missiles reporters and news agencies.
not only reporters also women, children, the old, the infirm, anything that breathes, is warm. trees, water, air.
http://rt.com/op-edge/afghanistan-syria-womens-us-153/
“From Afghanistan to Syria: Women’s rights and US Propaganda” – Julie Levesque.
April 8th, 2013, 1:11 pm
Syrian said:
مراسل تلفزيون النظام يعترف بوجوده في مكان التفجير قبل حدوثه .!
The regime tv man admit to his presence at the explosion site before it happened
April 8th, 2013, 1:31 pm
ghufran said:
This statement was signed by 31 opposition groups representing more than 2 dozen Tansiqiyyats:
اشتد وطيس الخلاف بين المعارضين السوريين، حيث رفض قطاع كبير تعيين غسان هيتو رئيساً للحكومة، متهمين الائتلاف بأنه دبر تعيينه. وأشار المعارضون إلى أن كونه يحمل جنسية أميركية ولم يعرفه أحد في الثورة التي تستعر منذ عامين، سببان لرفض تعيينه والإصرار على اختيار شخصية سورية معروفة في هذه الظروف الصعبة.
وآخر بيان وقعه مئات من النشطاء والمثقفين والفنانين السوريين، ووقعته أيضاً تجمعات ثورية يطالبون بتوسيع الائتلاف ليضم بقية القوى المدنية والثوار، وتزامن صدور البيان مع عجز هيتو رئيس الحكومة السورية المؤقتة الذي عينه الائتلاف عن تشكيل حكومته حتى الآن.
وجاء في البيان أنه يطالب بفتح باب توسيع الائتلاف ليضم كل أطياف المجتمع من كل التيارات والأحزاب. وطالب أن يضمن تمثيلاً لشباب الثورة ورفض هيمنة اللون الواحد على القرار السوري.
وطالب البيان بأن تكون قرارات الحكومة والائتلاف وطنية غير مرتبطة بأي أجندة خارجية. وطالب الموقعون ترك شكل الدولة ونوعها يُصنع ضمن الدستور وصناديق الاقتراع بعد سقوط النظام.
“معاً لتوسيع تشكيلة الائتلاف”
وجاء البيان الذي حمل عنوان “معاً لتوسيع تشكيلة الائتلاف” ليضم التيار المدني وقوى ثوار الشارع السوري “إن الهيمنة الواضحة بصبغة واحدة مكوَّنة من لونين صارا معلنين على جسد الائتلاف الوطني لقوى المعارضة والثورة غير مقبول على الإطلاق. هناك المكوّن الأساس للثورة وهو غالبية الشباب الذين خرجوا منذ البداية وهم لا ينتمون إلى أي تيار سياسي أو تجمع، إنما هم ينتمون إلى الشارع السوري الذي قدم حتى الآن 100 ألف شهيد”.
وأضاف البيان إنه لا بد من فتح باب توسيع الائتلاف ليضم كل أطياف المجتمع والشارع السوري، من كل التيارات والتجمعات والأحزاب، وأن نضمن تمثيلاً لشباب الثورة ضمن الائتلاف ليكون صمّام الأمان لتجنب هيمنة اللون الواحد على القرار السوري، والأهم أن يكون القرار المأخوذ من كل الأطياف الأخرى قراراً وطنياً خالصاً غير مرتبط بأي أجندة عربية أو غربية، ولنترك شكل الدولة ونوعها يُصنع ضمن الدستور وصناديق الاقتراع بعد سقوط النظام.
Qardawi on the other hand is busy deciding which type of looting is Halah:
أكد الشيخ يوسف القرضاوي، رئيس الاتحاد العام لعلماء المسلمين، في تعليق على غنائم الجيش الحر، أن الغنيمة تكون فقط من جيش النظام و أدواته و أملاكه.
و أوضح القرضاوي، من خلال برنامج “الشريعة و الحياة” الذي بثته قناة الجزيرة مساء أمس، “يجب أن لا يستولي عناصر الجيش الحر على اموال الشعب و المدنيين، لأن ذلك يعد سرقة و هو أمر مرفوض”.
so, government institutions and government properties are not from amwal al-shaab?
tozz bihal sheikh wa amthaloh
April 8th, 2013, 1:52 pm
5 dancing shlomos said:
preparing for the day after…
thinking long term.
preparing for the day after never.
April 8th, 2013, 1:55 pm
Akbar Palace said:
After watching the video at the top of this thread, I now have the grades for each interviewer/interviewee:
1.) Ghida Fakhry: A+, excellent interviewing skills and command of the english language, nice pants suit, pretty face.
2.) Joshua Landis: A-, good descriptive and heartfelt explanation of how much danger Alawis are in for the Frankenstein they created and supported all these years.
3.) Yazan Abdallah: F, for giving the same BS we’ve all come to know and love these past 50 years. And thanks for telling us about a “negotiated settlement” option, now, after Syria has been reduced to rubble.
4.) Saleh Mubarak: C-, A for effort.
April 8th, 2013, 2:00 pm
Dawoud said:
60. Syrian
Yes, everybody in Syria really believes that the regime is behind these kind of “public relations” bombings. I hate to describe them so because real human beings die in these regime bombings. Syrians are now alert and they run away whenever they see that the governemnt Syrian TV is about to film something. They know that the regime is about to stage seomething and kill innocents.
Only the “the American Hizbistan,” who was trained by Lebanon’s Hizba@s,” believes in the official government line.
April 8th, 2013, 2:01 pm
Dawoud said:
63. Akbar Palace
Mr. Akbar Palace (BTW: what’s your real first name?):
1) I agree with your above grading. You nailed it 🙂
2) I disagree with your Zionist perspective, which-including on Syria (I am proudly the most anti-Bashar/anti-Hizbas@/anti-Iran commentator on this blog)-is seeing things in the racist/expansionist/colonialist Zionist lenses!
Free Syria, Free Palestine, Bahrain is Arab Forever!
April 8th, 2013, 2:13 pm
Citizen said:
Arms supplies to all sides of Syrian conflict should be halted
http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_04_08/Arms-supplies-to-all-sides-of-Syrian-conflict-should-be-halted-Putin/
It is necessary that arms imports to all sides in the Syrian conflict are halted, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said in Hannover, adding that Russia is ready to discuss this.
“As for Syria we don’t have a solution yet. What do I think should be done? Halt arms import to the country, but to all sides of the conflict,” he said at the annual industrial fair in Hannover.
In case of escalation of situation on Korean peninsula Chernobyl may look like a fairy-tale – Putin
Chernobyl may seem a “fairy tale” if the conflict in the DPRK escalates, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin believes, Voice of Russia correspondent Olga Denisova reports.
“I do not deny that we areconcerned about the escalation of the conflict on the Korean Peninsula, because we are neighbors,” – he said at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “And if, God forbid, something happens, the Chernobyl accident, which is well known, may seem just a children’s fairy tale”.
Russia hails US decision to postpone missile test so as to prevent further escalation of tensions on Korean Peninsula – Putin
“I think that the US made a very right step when it has postponed a ballistic missile test in order not to provoke the situation. I think that we all should thank the US authorities for this step,” Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted by Voice of Russia correspondent Olga Denisova as saying after his talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“I hope that this step will be noticed by our partners in North Korea and relevant conclusions will be made. I also hope that everyone will calm down and start a joint work in a bid to defuse tensions,” Putin added.
Russian authorities want to make NGO financing transparent, not ban them – Putin
The Russian authorities are not trying to close non-governmental organizations (NGO) financed from abroad, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
“All of our actions are not aimed at closing or banning, but at controlling the financial flows to Russian NGOs that are involved in domestic political activities, and this money is coming from abroad,” he told a press conference in Hannover.
One billion euros transferred to Russian NGOs would have been better used by EU for assistance to Cyprus – Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has advised the European Union to re-direct the funds provided for financing the operations of non-governmental organizations (NGO) in Russia to assist to problem countries, including Cyprus.
“This money – a billion dollars, which is a lot of money – could be used for helping problem countries, including countries such as Cyprus. In that case, there would have been no need to rob the poor investors,” Putin told a press conference following his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Putin earlier said that 28.3 billion rubles, or almost 1 billion euro, was deposited to the accounts of Russian NGOs involved in domestic political activities from abroad in the first four months of this year alone.
Responding to a question as to whether the situation in Cyprus can become a universal method for resolving the financial problems of the other countries of the Eurozone, Putin said he is convinced that will not happen.
“I am operating under the assumption that it’s a one time thing and such methods for resolving crises in problem countries of the Eurozone will not be used anymore,” Putin said.
Russia restructuring EUR2.5 bln Cyprus loan
Russia is restructuring a loan of 2.5 billion euro that it issued to Cyprus in 2011.
“We’re making our contribution [to solving the problems of Cyprus]. We have decided to restructure this debt at the European Commission’s request. This is our real contribution to solving the Cyprus problem,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a press conference in Hanover.
Putin also said he hoped the situation on Cyprus, where account holders lost some of their savings with major banks, would not be repeated.
“We work on the basis that this is an isolated instance, that such means to alleviate crisis in the euro’s problem zones will not be used again,” he said.
April 8th, 2013, 2:25 pm
Dawoud said:
66. Citizen
Wow! This Russian skunk, Vladmir Putin, is NOW and only now asking for weapons halted after months of supplying and re-supplying arms to the murderous dictator of Syria.
The only good thing I say about this Russian skunk’s statements is that he knows that the tide has changed and the opposition forces are now being supplied and in a good position to conquer Damascus very soon. Look at this latest posts about the southern front and how Jordan is involved.
Bashar’s and Hasan Nasras@ Days are numbered! Free Syria, Free Palestine!
April 8th, 2013, 2:32 pm
Akbar Palace said:
Sierra Mist Free
I disagree with your Zionist perspective…
Dawoud,
That’s OK. To be expected.
Free Syria, Free Palestine, Bahrain is Arab Forever!
Israel is already free.
April 8th, 2013, 2:40 pm
Dawoud said:
68. AKBAR PALACE
I agree with you that Israel is already free. It is free to colonize and steal somebody else’s lands!
April 8th, 2013, 2:57 pm
Citizen said:
67. DAWOUD
iS YOUR NAME DAWOUD OR DAVID ?
April 8th, 2013, 3:04 pm
Akbar Palace said:
I agree with you that Israel is already free. It is free to colonize and steal somebody else’s lands!
Dawoud,
If you don’t recongize Israel, that’s fine with me. If you sbeak with arab-Israelis, they’ll tell you how lucky they are habb.
April 8th, 2013, 3:18 pm
Uzair8 said:
Edward Dark was previously telling us the Sheikh Maksoud beheading was confirmed. He hasn’t tweeted since 4th April. I wonder what he will have to say about it now.
Tweeters are really going after him now. Check out Amjad of Arabia’s twitter line.
April 8th, 2013, 3:21 pm
Citizen said:
If you speak with arab-Israelis, they’ll tell you how lucky they are habb.
be lucky man like others and free !!!
but do not try to engage in global politics, to avoid losses the status of lucky and free!
April 8th, 2013, 3:37 pm
revenire said:
Syrian Perspective
All East Ghouta is now under SAA control. SYRIAN HIGH COMMAND ISSUES WARNING TO RATS TO SURRENDER OR BE DESTROYED. Rat cellphones in the Eastern Ghouta were inundated for 2 days with SAA demands that they throw down their arms and surrender in order to be legally processed in accordance with previous offers made by the government. All supply routes to the rats have been uncovered and destroyed.
F`
https://www.facebook.com/SyrianPerspective?ref=stream
April 8th, 2013, 3:51 pm
Citizen said:
The Russian army was once the most powerful in the world. I believe that soon it will become so again.
General guidance on the LG 2020
600 aircraft: Of 250 Su-34, Su-35 and T-50 (PAF-CA), and the MiG-35s, Su-25SM, An-70, Il-76MD-90A
1124 helicopter: Of 150 helicopters Ka-52 and Mi-26, Mi-8MVT-5, Mi-8AMTSh, Ka-52, Mi-28nm, Mi-35M. On helicopters all contracts for 8 years in advance have already been signed. Moreover a contract for the supply of an additional 27 Mi-35 helicopters, is preparing an additional contract for the supply of Mi-28N “Night Hunter” and an additional contract for Mi-8ATMSH
28 anti-aircraft missile regiments armed C-400
10 battalions of S-500 (under construction, serial deliveries from 2015).
10 brigade of missile complexes “Iskander-M”
51 surface ships (2 of them will be purchased abroad – Mistral project).
Of these, “Severnaya Verf” put 6 corvettes projects 23180 and 23185 (the upgraded project 23180), 6 frigates of Project 22350, 4 Project 20380 corvettes, two Project 22350 frigates and a special vessel communication project 18280.
16 attack submarines
8 strategic missile submarines of the “Borei”.
2,300 tanks, including 360 upgraded T-72, which means – the vast majority of tanks are new, not upgraded.
2000 self-propelled artillery systems
30,000 units of vehicles
7000 construction equipment rear: bowsers, autonomous field camps closed-loop life support systems, mobile medical operationally intensive care facilities and much, much more …
http://youtu.be/4KozOsno0hY?t=1s
April 8th, 2013, 4:01 pm
ann said:
It’s KILL CHRISTIANS Friday in Egypt
Christians Denounce Egypt’s Mursi as Violence Erupts at Church – Apr 8, 2013
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-07/copts-denounce-egypt-s-mursi-as-violence-erupts-at-church.html
Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi sought to contain growing sectarian turmoil as the death toll from days of Muslim-Christian clashes climbed to eight and the opposition seized on it as another example of his failures.
Clashes rekindled overnight in Khosous, the town outside Cairo where the fighting began over the weekend, killing one person and injuring 14, the state-run Middle East News Agency reported today, citing Health Ministry official Khaled el- Khateeb. Two others died and 89 were injured in fighting yesterday outside a Coptic cathedral in Cairo, where services had been held for four Christians killed in the weekend violence, el-Khateeb said, updating earlier reports of one dead.
Sectarian Violence
Egypt’s Copts, have voiced concerns about the Islamists’ growing power. At yesterday’s services, many called for Mursi to quit and denounced him as a “puppet president” of the Muslim Brotherhood, which fielded him for office.
‘Very Unresponsive’
Mourners leaving the Cairo service yesterday were pelted with rocks and bottles, police Major Mohamed Hassan said by phone.
Some worshipers retreated back inside the church, Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher who monitors religious freedom at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said by phone. “Security forces have been very unresponsive,” he said.
[…]
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-07/copts-denounce-egypt-s-mursi-as-violence-erupts-at-church.html
April 8th, 2013, 4:20 pm
Citizen said:
🙂 🙂 laugh for this review
Al-Jazara (the carrot) News is reporting that Moaz al-Khatib quit the Opposition to pursue a rap career. His stage name is Mo-zee (the banana).
His first song is called “Damascus Thugs”.
I am chillin in my beamer
The young cats call me the Sharia dreamer
As I pound my mango juice like a boss
I have a better voice than Diana Ross
I am Mo-zee
You wish you could be me
I sell rocks to support my revolution
My terrorists smell has increased Syria’s pollution
Ride or die
I choose to fly
In this jet I bought with our money
The girls call me honey
I smell like butter
What did you utter?
I’m da greatest
April 8th, 2013, 4:34 pm
Uzair8 said:
Saw this on AJE syria blog twitter line:
Benedict Moran @benmoran 5h
Karaoke night? RT @SANA_English: #Syria Event Calendar: 8th April 2013: Your guide to tonight’s events in #Damascus
[Karaoke Night @ Oliver’s Bar]
Poster:
https://twitter.com/SANA_English/status/321270983963054081/photo/1
*****************
Surely, in Oliver’s Bar, somebody’s bound to do Elvis Costello’s Oliver’s Army.
April 8th, 2013, 4:50 pm
zoo said:
The coward suicide bomb that killed civilians Damascus today was expected. The FSA is now begging Al Nusra to launch its suicide bombers as they are loosing one by one the “swaths” of their Swathiland (the 70% they were so proud of a few months ago).
The Syrian Army has been fully replenished with weapons and ammunition while the rebels have exhausted the Croatian gifts from KSA and now desperately begging their “Friends of Syria” for more. Until now, they are getting a “Maybe, but, if…”
In the meantime, the rebels are using some fanatic Islamist extremist dreaming of paradise as their weapons of predilection to create fear in Damascus. It does not seem to have affected the moral of the Damascene. It just disgust them more for that mess some insist on calling a “revolution”. The rebels are loosing the psychological war in Damascus.
If the Swathiland trio going to meet France and the UK this week won’t obtain weapons or a no-fly zone, they should say goodbye to their Swathiland government. It will stay on paper… in a ‘swath’ of Turkey.
The more car bombs they are, the clearer it shows that the armed rebels are loosing confidence in ever winning the ‘decisive’ war of Damascus they have been announcing repeatedly.
In the contrary, the Syrian army is showing that they are as strong and resilient as ever and as loyal as ever to their country.
April 8th, 2013, 5:00 pm
zoo said:
77. Citizen said:
“Al-Jazara (the carrot) News is reporting that Moaz al-Khatib quit the Opposition to pursue a rap career. His stage name is Mo-zee (the banana).”
He’ll do a great duo with Sheika Moza! Mo-zee and Mo-za in the Qatar Opera.
April 8th, 2013, 5:05 pm
zoo said:
A slap on Obama, Kerry and Netanyahu. Is Erdogan playing hard to get ?
Israel visit delayed as Mavi Marmara raid victims vow to fight on
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/israel-visit-delayed-as-mavi-marmara-raid-victims-vow-to-fight-on.aspx?pageID=238&nID=44523&NewsCatID=338
An Israeli delegation’s visit scheduled for this week has been postponed, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said today, hours after the Mavi Marmara victims declared that they would not withdraw their lawsuits against Israeli commanders for compensation.
…
However, raid victims yesterday insisted on legal action against Israeli soldiers who conducted the attack.
“Israel can only be persuasive if it takes legal action against their soldiers and punishes them,” Musa Coaş, one of the activists who was on board the Mavi Marmara, told reporters at a press conference organized by the Turkish nongovernmental organization Humanitarian Relief Foundation (İHH) on the Mavi Marmara ship in Istanbul.
Coaş said they would continue their cases and it was unacceptable to withdraw the cases in return for compensation.
April 8th, 2013, 5:13 pm
Juergen said:
The moment Sheikh Bouti was killed
April 8th, 2013, 5:30 pm
AIG said:
We had a short respite from the stench of desperation but Zoo is back and again the board is stinking up. Yes, you are “winning” Zoo. Only losers try so hard to convince others that they are “winning”.
April 8th, 2013, 5:30 pm
zoo said:
,,,
April 8th, 2013, 5:40 pm
zoo said:
No media at the meeting of the “Friends of Syria” (now reduced to 11 countries) in Cairo. It ends with the same empty talks as the previous ones.
No word on PM Hitto previous announcement of a Swathiland full government and Al Khatib continues to sing the same song begging the international community to intervene.
Except for France, the UK and Qatar, none of these countries has nominated a Swathiland ambassador.
Result… nothing new.
.
Egypt hosts international meeting on Syria
Joel Gulhane / April 8, 2013
http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/04/08/egypt-hosts-international-meeting-on-syria/
Officials from 11 countries express support for SNC and Al-Khatib
A statement published by the ministry on Sunday night reported that representatives from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan and Turkey attended the meeting. President of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) Ahmed Moaz Al-Khatib was also in attendance.
Al-Khatib informed the participants in the meeting about the situation in Syria and updated them on recent developments within the coalition. He “also discussed the forms of support he hoped the Syrian revolution would receive from the international community”.
…
The participants in the meeting expressed their full support for Al-Khatib’s efforts to “achieve the goals of the Syrian revolution in attaining liberty, justice, and human dignity”
April 8th, 2013, 5:43 pm
Tara said:
Juergen,
The video you linked of the final moment of Al Buti is very suspicious. We hear a single gun shot in the head was it? Isn’t that strange? How long after the supposedly suicide bomber committed suicide? Sounds strange. Why was there no chaos? I thought many died too? The scene is not consistent with the story. It doesn’t even look like a bomb. There was no explosion and no body parts. Al Buti’s body was intact. Were the others killed afterwards? How can someone with a gun pass the tight security?
One other murder curtesy of Bashar that is!
April 8th, 2013, 5:59 pm
zoo said:
Mistrust mars deal between Syria rebels and Kurdish fighters
April 09, 2013 12:39 AM
By Marie Roudani
….
A YPG commander says the Kurds’ priority is self-defense. “We are here to protect our people and residents of Sheikh Maqsoud, where the PYD has been present for years,” he says.
“Some FSA rebels are respectable, but others are here just to steal. They break into company premises and loot stuff,” adds the Kurdish commander.
Because of this, the fighters are well spread out in Sheikh Maqsoud. Arab rebels keep a lookout in residential areas of the district, while the YPG is responsible for the industrial part.
…
Because of the violence, Sheikh Maqsoud is becoming a ghost town.
At the district’s northern edges, civilians are leaving en masse, packing belongings including mattresses, carpets and electrical appliances onto pickup trucks. “We’re fleeing the bombing,” calls out one man, as the pickup he is in drives off.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Apr-09/213053-mistrust-mars-deal-between-syria-rebels-and-kurdish-fighters.ashx#ixzz2PvKe9qI3
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
April 8th, 2013, 6:05 pm
revenire said:
April 8th, 2013, 6:07 pm
Juergen said:
Tara
It is suspicious. A friend here from Berlin has lost her friend in this bombing, and the family was informed 2 days after the attack, and after the burial. They obviously didnt want people to see the bodies. I think you are right, this video does not look like an suicide bomb attack. I think only the Israelis or US forensic teams would know, Even samples of the carpet should still prove if explosives were used. What was strange from the first day was that you saw only wounds to the heads of the victims shown in videos. Gun shots are more likely to be the cause of death.
April 8th, 2013, 6:11 pm
ann said:
84. zoo said:
“”” The participants in the meeting expressed their full support for Al-Khatib’s efforts to “achieve the goals of the Syrian revolution in attaining liberty, justice, and human dignity” “””
Liberty, justice and human dignity
What happened to Obama’s democracy?!
HELLO-O!
April 8th, 2013, 6:12 pm
revenire said:
Tara today your friends “liberated” Damascus women and children of their lives.
DAMASCUS, (SANA) – A terrorist explosion rocked the area between al-Shahbander and Sabe’a Bahrat Square in Damascus on Monday, leaving 14 martyrs at least, 146 injured people and huge material damage in the surrounding area.
Director of Damascus Health Directorate, Dr. Adel Mansour, told SANA that the bodies of 14 citizens martyred in the terrorist bombing arrived at public and private hospitals, in addition to a container containing limbs and 146 wounded people among them women and children and some of the suffering from crucial injuries.
Mansour said that all medical and ER personnel have been put on alert to treat the wounded and perform emergency operations and procedures for the critically injured.
SANA reporter said that terrorists detonated a car bomb in a crowded area near Salim Bukhari school, Buaeir Mosque and residential buildings.
SANA reporter denied that any clashes took place in the area, as some malicious TV channels alleged, pointing out that some authority personnel fired gunshots in the air to open streets for ambulances.
One of the locals told SANA that the bomber chose a time when students were leaving schools and when people were going to pray at the nearby mosque.
A woman who was helping to get students from Salim Bukhari School away from the site of the bombing said that the bombing shook the school, and that some of the children were martyred or injured while the others were in a state of panic.
Prime Minister Dr. Wael al-Halqi visited the site of the bombing and inspected the damages it caused, affirming that Syria will continue its battle against terrorism until the end in order to achieve security and stability across Syria.
In a statement to journalists at the scene of the bombing, al-Halqi said that the achievements of the Armed Forces against terrorism and the failure of the terrorists and those who support them are the motives for committing such criminal acts.
He said that terrorists don’t hesitate to attack mosques similar to what happened in al-Iman Mosque because they seek to undermine the moderate and compassionate Islam which has been a mainstay of the Syrian people for centuries.
Al-Halqi added that this attack, which took place near the Central Bank of Syria, also targets the Syrian economy which has withstood two years of unjust sanctions and embargos, particularly in light of the recent stabilization of the Syrian Pound due to the government’s steps in this regard.
http://sana.sy/eng/337/2013/04/08/476396.htm
April 8th, 2013, 6:12 pm
zoo said:
Damascus: The Walls Are Rising
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/damascus-walls-are-rising
…
Official sources asserted that the above developments are proof that the regular army has fully regained the initiative. Other informed sources claimed that the army has greatly improved its intelligence-gathering and reconnaissance operations, and infiltrated the armed rebel groups.
On the political front, Syrian sources maintained that last week’s military developments would impact the ongoing negotiations over the crisis. They noted that US President Barack Obama had given his Russian counterpart two months to return to serious negotiations on Syria.
The same sources said that the recent army developments would prompt the countries backing the armed opposition to re-adjust their outlooks on Syria.
Military developments have also extended to the rest of the country. The Syrian army has managed to wrest control of several locations from the armed opposition in Aleppo and its countryside. In Homs, the Syrian army continues to make slow progress inside the city, as it attempts to break the opposition’s control of certain neighborhoods.
April 8th, 2013, 6:14 pm
zoo said:
Juergen
Are you implying that the Syrian government intelligence beats the CIA and the Mossad ?
I have no doubt that they do.
April 8th, 2013, 6:21 pm
zoo said:
Ann
Note that I have not seen any report on any high level official present in the “FOS” meeting in Cairo. Where are Davutoglu, HBJ, Fabius, Kerry ?
It seems these meetings are not only ignored by the media but they are attended by low level officials.
Were Hitto and Al Khatib the only “high level” officials?
Doesn’t the FOS realize how absurd it has become?
April 8th, 2013, 6:36 pm
Uzair8 said:
It does appear to be an explosion.
?
Can anybody make out the last words (and subject matter) of the Shaykh?
April 8th, 2013, 6:38 pm
zoo said:
After the ‘victory’ of the Moslem Brotherhood, Egypt soon bankrupted?
Egypt is perched on the precipice of chaos.
4 April 2013
…
By summer, Beblawi predicts, the government will be unable to import the wheat that sustains the poor—Egypt imports 10 million tons of wheat per year, the most of any nation—or the diesel that fuels bread ovens and transports 99 percent of everything that moves in this country of more than 85 million.
Egypt’s dilemma is this: it cannot politically afford to stop providing the costly subsidies to the poor that distort its economy. Poor Egyptians spend 70 percent of their income on food, versus 55 percent for Egyptians as a whole; Americans spend roughly 14 percent.
But unless it reduces these subsidies and adopts a pro-growth budget, Egypt cannot secure the $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan it needs to unlock what Angus Blair, a Cairo-based former investment banker and founder of Signet Institute, an economic think tank, estimates could be $14 billion in aid and investment. Egypt spends about 20 percent of its budget on fuel subsidies alone.
In other words, the government would be committing political suicide to do what economists say must be done to sustain the country’s economic viability. Only a government that enjoys public confidence can risk taking such steps. “Egypt’s economic crisis has political roots,” Beblawi says. “And a political solution is needed.” So far, he adds, none is in sight.
…
With their legendary “sabr,” or patience, nearly exhausted, Egyptians blame the lack of growth, jobs, fuel, services, security, and stability on what many call the “incompetence” of President Mohammed Morsi and his ruling Muslim Brotherhood.
And they blame the United States, too, for supporting Morsi, who eked out an election victory last year and took power last July thanks only to low voter turnout and a fractious, divided secular opposition. “People no longer trust Morsi,” Beblawi said, speaking for many among Cairo’s professional elite and middle classes.
April 8th, 2013, 7:42 pm
ghufran said:
it is hard to believe that any Syrian would detonate a car bomb just to kill people, but look at Iraq and Pakistan, Muslims today are behind most car bombs, most victims are also Muslims
نفى المنسق السياسي والإعلامي في “الجيش الحر” لؤي المقداد، يوم الاثنين، تورط “الجيش الحر” في تفجير السبع بحرات بدمشق، مشيرا إلى أن ذلك التفجير يعتبر عملا ارهابيا مدانا.
وقال المقداد في تصريحات صحفية، نشرها موقع قناة (روسيا اليوم) الالكتروني، إن “الجيش الحر غير مسؤول عن الجريمة التي حصلت بدمشق ويعتبرها عملا ارهابيا مدانا وجميع من سقط اليوم هم شهداء”، متسائلا “ما مصلحة الجيش الحر باستهداف المدنيين بسيارة مفخخة”.
كما نفى المقداد “ارتباط الجيش الحر بالمجموعات التكفيرية”، مؤكدا أن “الجيش الحر لا يعمل بالتنسيق مع جبهة النصرة وليس له اي علاقة عضوية او اديولوجية او تنظيمية معها”.
April 8th, 2013, 7:50 pm
revenire said:
“Can anybody make out the last words (and subject matter) of the Shaykh?”
Yeah he said his martyrdom will bring about the final defeat of the terrorists attacking Syria.
April 8th, 2013, 7:50 pm
ghufran said:
قال رئيس «هيئة التنسيق الوطني للتغيير الديموقراطي» في المهجر هيثم مناع إن النظام السوري يسعى إلى «استنساخ الحل الجزائري» للأزمة في البلاد، داعياً «أصدقاء» النظام إلى ممارسة الضغوط عليه للدخول في مفاوضات جادة لـ «إنقاذ من لم تتلوث أيديهم بدماء السوريين».
وأضاف مناع في حديث إلى أنه لا يوجد حل عسكري للصراع «ونحن بين الصوملة أو الحل السياسي، لذلك نحمل المسؤولية للنظام الذي يريد استنساخ الحل الجزائري، وهو لن ينجح»، كما أن المعارضة «لن تنجح في التوصل إلى حل عسكري». وزاد إن «النظام لم يتقدم حتى اليوم نحو مفاوضات جادة، بل يقوم بعلاقات عامة ويوافق على كل ما يقدم إليه، وعند التطبيق لا يوجد بعد عملي لهذه الموافقة».
وأعرب مناع عن اعتقاده بأنه إذا لم تتم الضغوط الجدية من «أصدقاء النظام» مثل روسيا والصين وإيران من أجل أن يدخل في مفاوضات جدية لإنقاذ من لم تتلوث أيديهم بدماء السوريين، فإن النظام لن يقدم «تنازلات مؤلمة وضرورية للانتقال الديموقراطي»، معتبراً أن النظام من دون ذلك لن يسند «الصلاحيات الرئيسية» لرئاسة الجمهورية إلى هيئة الحكم (حكومة انتقالية).
وتابع مناع إن الحل السياسي يعني أن تباشر مؤسسات برلمانية ديموقراطية العمل، لافتاً إلى أن سورية «تحتاج إلى 20 سنة حتى تتخلص من عاهات عبادة الفرد والنظام الديكتاتوري»، داعياً كل الأطراف التي يعنيها الشعب السوري إلى أن توقف توريد السلاح إلى أي طرف. وأوضح أنه وفقاً للمعلومات الأميركية فإن النظام يمكنه أن يصمد سنتين مقبلتين و «المشكلة أننا وضعنا الدولة والنظام في خانة واحدة». ولاحظ مناع تناقص الانشقاقات من الجيش وزيادة خوف الأقليات بسبب التشدد و «الأخونة» في إشارة إلى تزايد نفوذ تنظيم «الإخوان المسلمين».
وقال رداً على سؤال: «لدي قناعة بأن ذهاب الرئيس بشار الأسد لا يعني نهاية العنف في سورية»، مشيراً إلى أن «سقوطه بالعنف سيزيد من العنف».
April 8th, 2013, 8:00 pm
Syrian said:
UZAIR8
Here a 2nd clearer version of the assassination,
He was talking about if an atheist found out after 1,2,3 years that he was wrong and came back,God for sure will pull him towered him and keep him. That is not a problem
Then the explosion happened
http://youtu.be/gXTjtOtNfzY
http://youtu.be/gXTjtOtNfzY
April 8th, 2013, 8:42 pm
ann said:
Despite U.S. concerns, little prevents Islamists from joining Syria fight – Monday, 04.08.13
“Essentially, Turkey is running a rat line of jihadists into Syria the same way the Syrians ran a rat line into Iraq,” said Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and author of the blog Syria Comment. “Turkey, with America’s blessing, is doing the same thing and we’ve done nothing to stop them. It’s a wink nod-nod situation”
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/08/3330309/despite-us-concerns-little-prevents.html
WASHINGTON — For all the Obama administration’s vocal concern about Islamist extremists fighting in Syria, neither U.S. officials nor regional allies have taken significant action to stem the flow of jihadists to rebel ranks.
The jihadist pipelines – mainly via Turkey, but also through Jordan and Iraq – are an open secret, according to interviews this month with fighters and eyewitnesses, as well as analysts who’ve closely monitored the two-year-old uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime.
The “foreign fighters” [mercenaries] would be hard to miss for Turkish and Western intelligence operatives – they stay at established safe houses, openly recruit comrades and often stand out with distinctive appearances and habits – yet there’s been no overt effort to crack down on their presence in frontier towns.
“Even with this growing jihadist threat, there’s a reluctance to do anything more proactive on Syria,” said Elizabeth O’Bagy, an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War who recently spent two weeks traveling with ‘rebels’ in Syria, where she encountered Tunisian, Moroccan and Algerian fighters, she said. That observation was similar to what a McClatchy reporter witnessed during a recent trip to Syria, where he saw Egyptians and Libyans, as well as other nationalities, among ‘rebel fighters’.
“The pipelines are still open and ‘fighters’ are coming in quite freely,” O’Bagy said.
Such a laissez-faire approach not only runs counter to the alarmist public comments from the State Department on extremist elements trying to “hijack” the ‘Syrian rebellion’ but it’s also a marked change from the way the government dealt with the jihadist “rat lines” that once ran in the opposite direction – out of Syria into neighboring Iraq to fight U.S. forces before the American military withdrew at the end of 2011.
During the Iraq War, the U.S. government spent millions of dollars helping the Iraqis beef up border security and intercept the fighters and weapons that were streaming into the country. By contrast, McClatchy couldn’t find a single public mention of authorities arresting a suspected jihadist at the Turkish border or any signs that the U.S. was pressuring Turkey to be more vigilant at crossings such as Bab al Hawa, the Syrian town across the border from Reyhanli, Turkey, that’s firmly under rebel control.
“Essentially, Turkey is running a rat line of jihadists into Syria the same way the Syrians ran a rat line into Iraq,” said Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and author of the blog Syria Comment. “Turkey, with America’s blessing, is doing the same thing and we’ve done nothing to stop them. It’s a wink nod-nod situation.”
[…]
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/08/3330309/despite-us-concerns-little-prevents.html
April 8th, 2013, 9:07 pm
Johannes de Silentio said:
53. MOSSIE
“Johannes, stick to cartoons.”
I knew if I kept razzing you, you’d jump to the bait. I’m glad you’re finally accepting your name, you Israeli mole.
Mossie = short for Mossad.
April 8th, 2013, 9:23 pm
Johannes de Silentio said:
Memo to Ann:
Haven’t seen you for a few weeks. They must have let you out on good behavior. Careful on the STDs, girl…
A New Bashar Cartoon:
http://rackjite.com/wp-content/uploads/nraarmstreaty.jpg
April 8th, 2013, 9:28 pm
revenire said:
Names are fun. Knock yourself out. I don’t mind.
April 8th, 2013, 9:34 pm
Visitor said:
Today’s car bombing in Damascus proves that the regime of thuggocracy will never stop at anything in order to kill more Syrians.
It is obvious that the regime is resorting to suicide bombings after it found out that ballistic missiles are ineffective against civilian neghborhoods such as Jobar. So it chose one of its shabiha and made him detonate himself in the middle of Damascus in order to compensate for failed ballistic attacks. As the regime grows more desperate we will see more of these suicide bombings perpetrated by the regime and its henchemen.
The regime of killing and murder MUST go. We must encourage Nusra holy warriors to step up their holy war in order to exterminate the EVIL Assad and his evil thugs.
April 8th, 2013, 9:37 pm
ann said:
98. revenire said:
“Can anybody make out the last words (and subject matter) of the Shaykh?”
Yeah he said his martyrdom will bring about the final defeat of the terrorists attacking Syria.
He also said “KILL AL-QAEDA IN SYRIA”!
April 8th, 2013, 9:42 pm
revenire said:
Visitor the government is the one doing the suicide bombings? You’re growing increasingly smaller and weaker. That is the craziest thing I’ve heard today.
April 8th, 2013, 9:53 pm
Ghufran said:
Nusra thugs adding insult to injury by trying to shift blame for suicide bombing away from the natural suspect . Look anywhere you want, almost 100% of suicide bombing in the world today is done by Takfiri groups like nusra, alqaida and similar criminal enterprises.
Those murderes are not only committing the crime but they post videos bragging about it.
It takes a sick mind brainwashed by promises of heaven and glory to convince a young man that his future is not linked to finding a job or getting an education but rather transforming his body into a bomb to kill as many infidels as possible. Most people want to live but those Takfiri murders live to kill and die. It tells a lot about the mindset of those sick terrorists supporters that in 2013 they still believe that 911 attacks were done by the CIA !!
April 8th, 2013, 9:57 pm
Ghufran said:
عبد الباري عطوان
النظام السوري بسحبه لقواته من هضبة الجولان، يضع المعارضة السورية المسلحة، والجماعات الجهادية امام امتحان هو الاصعب منذ انطلاقة الثورة السورية، ويقول لهم باختصار شديد، انتم اتهمتموني بحماية الحدود الاسرائيلية لاكثر من اربعين عاما، دون ان اطلق طلقة واحدة ضد اسرائيل، هذا كلام جميل، تفضلوا انتم الآن، ونفذوا ما تقولونه، لقد سحبت قواتي، واصبحت كل الطرق لتحرير الجولان، ومواجهة الاسرائيليين فيها مفتوحة امامكم.
الجماعات الجهادية الاسلامية ستتلقف هذه الهدية من النظام السوري بسعادة غامرة، ولكن دون تقديم اي شكر، لان حلمها في الوصول الى الجبهة الاسرائيلية التي ظلت محكمة الاغلاق امامها لعقود، يبدأ في التحقق تدريجيا وفي الوقت المناسب وهذا ما يفسر قلق الولايات المتحدة، والفزع الاسرائيلي. الذي ينعكس في بدء اقامة جدار عازل على الحدود بين سورية والجولان المحتل.
الحكومة الامريكــــية وحلفاؤها العرب يعون جيدا هذا الاحتمال، ولذلك بدأوا التحضير له مبكرا، من خلال تدريب قوات ‘علمانية’ في الاردن، معظمها من الجنود المنشقين، للقيام بمهمة التصدي لهذه الجماعات، والحيلولة دون وصولها الى اهداف اسرائيلية.
Before you know it, southern Syria may become like south Lebanon in the 1980s
The rat line Joshua is talking about is not just in the north, it is being organized in the south too, the goal in the south is to protect Israel and in the north is to protect turkey ,both lines are done in the name of toppling the regime but we know better.
يا أمة ضحكت من جهلها الامم
April 8th, 2013, 10:10 pm
Tara said:
I will believe it is Al Nusra who did the Damascus suicide bombing when al Nusra claims responsibility. Claiming responsibility is a signature style of Al Qaeda. They do not shy away. Meanwhile, I believe the regime killed Al Buti and also committed Damascus Bombing.
How come no suicide booming has occurred in Akawi areas?
April 8th, 2013, 10:11 pm
ann said:
Syria: Suicide car bombing kills 15 in Damascus – April 8, 2013
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57578367/syria-suicide-car-bombing-kills-15-in-damascus/
TV images showed thick black smoke billowing from a wide street with several cars on fire. At least six bodies were seen lying on the pavement. Paramedics carried a young woman lying on a stretcher, her face bloodied, into an ambulance.
Shaken teenage students holding their backpacks were seen walking away. The blast occurred some 20 meters (yards) from the Bukhari School.
Among the buildings damaged was the state-run Syrian Investment Agency. Several cars in the building’s parking lot were set ablaze in the explosion. Witnesses said a suicide attacker tried to storm the building with his vehicle but was stopped by guards. He then detonated his explosives outside the building.
“I was in the square when I heard a strong explosion that threw me on the ground,” civil servant Hussein Khalil, 32, told The Associated Press at the scene. “I ran and saw what happened.”
Electrician Mohammed Ali Kheir, 21, said he was nearby and felt the pressure of the blast. “I immediately ran here and helped paramedics evacuate four wounded people,” he said.
“Is this the freedom that Qatar and Saudi Arabia want?” asked the man, referring to the Gulf Arab countries that have backed “Syrian rebels” fighting to overthrow Assad from power.
In Syrian TV footage, one woman shouted sarcastically: “Thank you, Hamad!” She was referring to the emir of Qatar, a major ‘rebel’ supporter. “Is this what you want?” she asked.
Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi, visiting the scene, said the blast targeted the Syrian economy.
“This is the work of cowards,” he said, vowing that the army would continue to crush all armed groups.
According to the TV footage, the dead included a young man whose face was blown off by the force of the blast. Shortly after, another man is seen covering the victim’s head with his T-shirt.
Nearby, several men are seen twisting the wreckage of a car, trying to rescue a man who appears motionless in the back seat of a car.
Fire fighters struggled to extinguish flames that engulfed the two buildings near the site of the explosion as well as a row of cars near the roundabout.
The last large explosion in central Damascus was on Feb. 21, just a few blocks away from Monday’s site, when a suicide car bombing near the ruling Baath Party headquarters killed 53 people and wounded more than 200, according to state media.
Last month, a suicide bomb ripped through a mosque in the heart of the capital, killing a top Sunni Muslim preacher and outspoken supporter of Assad and 41 others in one of the most stunning assassinations of the war.
There was no claim of responsibility for those two Damascus attacks and there was no immediate claim for Monday’s blast.
In the past, Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamic militant group with ties to al Qaeda that the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization, has claimed responsibility for some of the deadliest suicide bombings targeting regime and military facilities across the country.
[…]
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57578367/syria-suicide-car-bombing-kills-15-in-damascus/
April 8th, 2013, 10:14 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Shrug. The regime has done worse. What comes around, goes around. The war continues.
April 8th, 2013, 10:24 pm
|MarigoldRan said:
@ Badr
The media is ALWAYS impatient.
Guerilla wars like this always take a long time for the rebels to win so when I’m talking about buffer zones, I’m talking about establishing buffer zones several years from now.
But the rebels will in in the end because the regime is politically dead. The war continues.
April 8th, 2013, 10:28 pm
MarigoldRan said:
@ Badr
The media is ALWAYS impatient because they want the latest story. They do a terrible job of covering wars like this.
Guerilla wars always take a long time to win. When I’m talking about buffer zones, I’m talking about establishing buffer zones several years from now.
But the rebels will in in the end because the regime is politically dead. The regime can commit violence, but it can’t end the war because it is a foreign (Iranian) puppet and it has no one to talk to. The war continues.
April 8th, 2013, 10:30 pm
Syrian said:
As if it is really hard for the Syrian mafia regime to get someone from the over 100,000 prisoners, kill him and put him in a car then detonate it,
even forces him to make a confession tape. Anyone remembers the confession of Abo Addas who made to confess for murdering Rafic Hariri on tape,then no one heard from him again
The Syrian regime supporters, call your families in Syria and check with them how it is impossible to pass all the check points to get to the heart of damascus , then tell your family in Syria when you see one of regime TV truck parked for a while, tell them to run for thier lives!
April 8th, 2013, 10:33 pm
MarigoldRan said:
@ Johannes
The regime will run out of jets before it runs out of artillery. When it runs out of aircraft, that’s when a buffer zone can be established in southern Syria.
April 8th, 2013, 10:38 pm
revenire said:
The only buffer zone is in your head ape-boy.
April 8th, 2013, 10:42 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Glad to see I’ve had a beneficial effect on you, retard.
Speaking of adjectives, your head is empty and dark, like the state of your inept and meaningless soul.
April 8th, 2013, 10:46 pm
Syrian said:
Only an Ignoramus like Abdel Bari Attwan and his likes would come up with the an editorial that said the regime pulled his troop from the Golan heights so to open the front with Isreal and test the FSA
The regime is only pulling them because the regime is fighting for his life. And even if that is true. He did not condom him for doing that, but he goes on and accuse the FSA without any proof that they will be like the SLA of south Lebanon.Instead of attacking the Syrian regime for pulling the troop from the Golan to begin with.
April 8th, 2013, 10:55 pm
ann said:
Wider Use of Car Bombs Angers Both Sides in Syrian Conflict – April 8, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/world/middleeast/syria-explosion-damascus.html?_r=0
DAMASCUS, Syria — Jayda al-Kanna, 65, was cooking in her kitchen across from the Syrian Central Bank on Monday afternoon, a dish towel slung around her neck. Downstairs, children packed the Salim Bukhari primary school, and older students studied drawing at a technical school in the same building.
Without warning, an explosion shook the street, blasting a six-foot hole in Ms. Kanna’s living room wall, shattering the schools’ windows onto their students and blowing in the doors. Cars, body parts and broken glass flew through the air. Black smoke billowed.
The attack, witnesses and the government authorities said, was the latest of dozens of car bombs to rip through Syrian business districts and neighborhoods during the country’s two-year war. It again turned a wary but busy downtown commercial area into a scene of terror and chaos. The Syrian government blamed its opponents for Monday’s attack and said it had killed at least 15 people and wounded at least 53.
The proliferation of car bombs across Syria has frightened and enraged many on both sides in this battle, government supporters and opponents alike. The use of these powerful and indiscriminate weapons has undermined support for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad and left many Syrians angry at the government for failing to stop the bombings.
In Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Monday, some residents blamed the United States and its allies, which back the opposition, for the devastation.
A half-hour after the bombing, a drawing teacher, her hand bandaged, wept as she picked her way past bloodstains and shattered furniture inside what was left of the technical school.
“I was going to open the door, and it fell on me,” she said shakily, giving only her first name, Hanan. “Many students were injured.”
A man with her prevented her from talking and shouted: “This is America, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia! They are funding those people to do those explosions!”
The bombs have killed Syrians of all sects and views. In November, a car bomb hit the Damascus neighborhood of Mezze 86. News media speculated that the neighborhood had been chosen because it includes military families and members of Mr. Assad’s minority Alawite sect.
That characterization infuriated Salah, a graphic designer who lives there. Among the dead, he said in an e-mail interview, were his wife, Amal, and 7-year-old daughter, Hanan.
Salah, 31, who gave only a first name, said he was not an Assad supporter, nor, for that matter, an Alawite, though he stressed that attacking those groups was not justified. The bombing convinced him that Western-backed rebels aimed to destroy Syria because its army is one of the few in the region not “funded, trained and controlled by the United States,” he said.
In January, a series of car bombs killed dozens of people in Salamiyeh, a town with a vocal nonviolent antigovernment movement. Last month, a suicide bomber struck a mosque, killing Sheik Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Bouti, 84, Syria’s most prominent Muslim leader and a government supporter.
A taxi driver whose car windows had been shattered by the blast said he had seen a minibus, like those used to transport government employees, with a lone driver go through the checkpoint into the parking lot and explode.
“People were just sitting here working and doing their daily life, and suddenly this happened,” said a man whose curtain shop’s windows had been blown out.
People streamed away on foot, first in silence, then shouting into cellphones. A small boy clung to his father’s leg. “My daughter was in school, and they attacked the school!” screamed one woman in a bubble-gum-pink head scarf. “May God take them!”
[…]
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/world/middleeast/syria-explosion-damascus.html?_r=0
April 8th, 2013, 11:00 pm
ann said:
‘Huge shift in Syrian troops from Golan’ – 04/08/2013 09:15
‘The Guardian’ reports that Syria has carried out its largest troop redeployment from area in 40 years
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=309059
Syria has withdrawn at least several thousand of its troops from the Golan Heights western diplomats said, according to a report in The Guardian on Sunday. The redeployments near the Golan ceasefire line were the most significant in 40 years and the soldiers were moved to fronts closer to the capital Damascus, according to the report.
“They [the Syrian government] have moved some of their best battalions away from the Golan,” said a western diplomatic source The Guardian reported. The source added, “They have replaced some of them with poorer-quality battalions, which have involved reducing manpower. The moves are very significant.”
A result of the redeployments is that rebel groups have moved into the Golan, which have raised Israeli fears that jihadists will use the area as a staging ground for attacks on territory it controls, according to the report.
[…]
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=309059
April 8th, 2013, 11:22 pm
revenire said:
Marigoldran tell me where you get data on the army. LOL you’re just a clown wearing those big shoes and red nose we see at circuses.
But you bore me because you repeat yourself day after day like a parrot.
Check out Mr Cool Putin when these freaks tried to attack him:
April 8th, 2013, 11:23 pm
Ghufran said:
I still read otw blog which has not been updated since february 2013, the article was written in support of the claim that Syria is not Iraq. Unfortunately otw wrote a whole page without telling us why Syria is not like Iraq , the article did not mention nusra and other terrorist groups and failed to say anything about what otw thinks is the best way to end the war . May be it is not too bad after all that the blog has been silent for 2 months.
April 8th, 2013, 11:33 pm
Syrian said:
تحليل الاخ المخرج محمد بايزيد جزاه الله خيرا
تحليل تفصيلي لمقطع قتل البوطي:
– بداية الصورة آتية من كاميرا مثبتّة في المسجد لتصوير الدروس الدورية، وهو أمر شائع في مساجد دمشق.
– المقطع أدناه مصوّر بكاميرا جوّال متواضعة وذلك عبر شاشة تقوم بعرض الشريط الأصلي، هذا الأمر يتضح تماماً في الثانية 7 حيث عندما تغيب الصورة لثانيتين تقريباً من أثر الانفجار يظهر انعكاس الشخص الجالس أمام الشاشة، كما تهتز كاميرا الجوال قليلاً فزعاً من الانفجار، وبالنسبة لتصوير المقطع عبر شاشة فتخميني هو أن الأمن قام بمصادرة الشريط الخاص بهذا الدرس لاحتواءه على أدلّة تدينه، وهو ما يظهر جلياً أدناه، فقام أحدهم بتصوير المقطع خلسة.
– من الواضح أن قوة الانفجار متواضعة، فالبوطي أكاد أن أقول أنه لم يتأثر من الانفجار، ومن الواضح أن حتى كتبه وأوراقه بقيت مكانها ! حتى الكنبة التي يجلس عليها (وهي جسم رخو للغاية) لم تثقب أو تُحرق أو تتعرض لأي ضرر.
– من الواضح أن البوطي كان محافظاً على وعيه تماماً، تحركات يديه اللتان تحاولان الحفاظ على العمامة في مكانها، أيضاً سرعة إعادة رأسه وجذعه إلى مكانهما تدّلان على وعيه الكامل.
– القاتل يدخل الكادر في الثانية 13، بوضعية القاتل الاحترافية، اليد اليسار تحت عنق البوطي، اليد اليمين لإطلاق الرصاص (سلاح مع كاتم)، القتل حدث في الثانية 14 ويتضح ذلك عبر لغة جسد القاتل وجذبه للبوطي بشدة تجاهه ثم تركه غائباً عن الوعي تماماً في الثانية 16.
– القاتل يمثّل برداءة دور المفجوع بعد حركته الواثقة السابقة، يضرب بيده على جبينه ويغادر الكادر من جهة اليسار.
– البوطي بُعيد الانفجار لم يكن هناك آثار للدماء عليه، وبعد خروج القاتل مباشرة يفقد وعيه تماماً والدماء تسيل من فمه، من الواضح أن إطلاق الرصاص تم في الفم أو بجواره.
– الانفجار غير كاف أبداً لقتل بضعة أشخاص فما بالك بأكثر من 40 قتيل !! بعد مشاهدة الفيديو أجزم بشكل قاطع أن أغلب من قتلوا تم قتلهم لاحقاً بأسلوب مختلف.
– تحركات الأشخاص الذين دخلوا الكادر أخيراً احترافية ولا يبدو عليهم الجزع أو الخوف (تذكروا أنه من المفترض أنهم يتابعون مجزرة ل 40 شخصاً ! ناهيك عن قربهم منها دون تعرضهم لأي ضرر !)، كما لا يبدو عليهم أي احترام للبوطي وقدره من طريقة سحبه، أيضاً تذكروا أنه وفي الغالبية الساحقة من التفجيرات يهرع الناس خوفاً مبتعدين عن مكان التفجير فلا أحد يعلم إن كان سيحصل تفجير آخر في نفس المكان، بينما دخول هؤلاء الأشخاص بهذه الطريقة ينافي المنطق تماماً.
– تابعت الانفجار كادر كادر، وأجزم أنه من جهة الأسفل وليس من الأعلى كما أشيع من قبل البعض (صاروخ أو من السقف .. الخ).. عبر دراسة هالة التفجير يبدو واضحاً وبشكل قاطع أن مركز التفجير يقع على مستوى الأرض وبما لا يبعد عن البوطي أكثر من بضع أمتار قليلة.
– أخيراً حسب خبرتي الفيديو صحيح بنسبة تتجاوز ال95%، وأود رؤية النسخة الأصلية فرداءة الجودة حالياً تمنعني من رؤية سلاح الجريمة بوضوح في الثانية 13 تقريباً، ومرة أخرى في الثانية 16 بعد الانتهاء من القتل.
برأيي أن هذا المقطع يعتبر دليلاً على أن النظام هو من قام بقتل البوطي (شخصياً لا أحتاج إلى أي دليل يضاف إلى النقاط التي ذكرتها في بوست سابق)، وهي حجّة على من ما يزال يصدّق مسرحيات النظام المهترئة.
April 8th, 2013, 11:35 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Only when you tell us where YOU get your sources.
Sure, calling you a retard is repetitive. But it’s the truth. I guess I could vary it a little and call you a moron, an idiot, a douchebag, etc. etc. but I think retard works fine.
And if it bores you, that’s fine. After all, the point is to troll you.
April 8th, 2013, 11:37 pm
ghufran said:
while sultan erdo was talking tough on Israel, his son was doing business with the jewish state:
كشفت صحيفة «يديعوت أحرونوت» الإسرائيلية أمس النقاب عن قيام نجل رئيس الوزراء التركي رجب طيب أردوغان بعقد صفقات مع إسرائيل.
ونقلت الصحيفة عن مصادر في المعارضة التركية قولها إنه «خلال السنوات الثلاث الأخيرة ورغم العلاقات التي كانت في الحضيض بين تركيا وإسرائيل، كانت سفينتان تجاريتان تابعتان لشركة MB التي يساهم في ملكيتها أحمد براق أردوغان تبحران بين موانئ تركيا وإسرائيل وتنقلان البضائع ذهاباً وإياباً».
وهاجمت مساعدة رئيس كتلة «CHP» أمينة لوكر طرحان، خلال مؤتمر صحفي في أنقرة، رئيس الوزراء التركي على ازدواجيته، وسألت أردوغان: «هل ابنك معفى من الحظر التجاري على إسرائيل؟ هل هذا أخلاقي؟ أي نسبة من حجم التجارة مع إسرائيل حصلت عليه السفينة التي يملكها ابنك»؟!
وأضافت: «في فترة الأزمة بين إسرائيل وتركيا ازدهرت العلاقات التجارية بين الدولتين وبلغت نحو 4 مليارات دولار بارتفاع وصلت نسبته إلى 30 بالمئة».
Qatar has done the same thing.
April 9th, 2013, 12:02 am
Johannes de Silentio said:
115. MARIGOLDRAN
“Johannes, the regime will run out of jets before it runs out of artillery. When it runs out of aircraft, that’s when a buffer zone can be established in southern Syria.”
Exactly! The planes are old and the Assad Mafia is running out of pilots and spare parts. It’s getting to the point now that every time they send a pilot up, the fear is he’ll fly the plane to Jordan or Turkey…
April 9th, 2013, 12:16 am
revenire said:
LOL
April 9th, 2013, 12:47 am
Juergen said:
Here is the lenghty speech of Sheikh Bouti, minutes before the attack. The video which I posted last night, someone was filming the original footage from a screen.
Zoo,
I mean if Assad had the guts and want a true account on his claims that “terrorists” are responsible, then he should let forensic experts examine the sites, I have stated that before, but obviously the regime has a lot to hide.
April 9th, 2013, 1:01 am
Juergen said:
This is a longer version of the last speech of Sheikh Bouti, minutes before the attack. The video which I posted last night, someone was filming the original footage from a screen.
Zoo,
I mean if Assad had the guts and want a true account on his claims that “terrorists” are responsible, then he should let forensic experts examine the sites. This would bring worldwide I have stated that before, but obviously the regime has a lot to hide.
April 9th, 2013, 1:12 am
Juergen said:
PBS Frontline report
Syria behind the lines
The bombing of Al Bara
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/syria-behind-the-lines/the-bombing-of-al-bara/#bmb4
April 9th, 2013, 1:24 am
MarigoldRan said:
The most important power a government can have is LEGITIMACY. In other words, a belief that it is fit to rule.
In Syria, thanks to the actions of the regime, that legitimacy has been stripped from the regime. It can commit violence, but it can’t end the war or to convince the other side to accepts its rule or even to talk to it. The Assadists are increasingly viewed as a brutal foreign occupying power, supported by the Iranians.
This is the rebels’ greatest victory and the Assadists’ greatest defeat. The war continues.
April 9th, 2013, 1:37 am
Citizen said:
Brandon Turbeville
Ever since the Syrian destabilization effort began nearly two years ago, a significant portion of alternative media outlets have been exposing the fabricated story perpetrated against both the American and Syrian peoples regarding the nature of the so-called Syrian “rebels” who, in reality, are nothing more than foreign-backed death squads. While the mainstream media continually portrays these morally deficient mercenaries as “freedom fighters” and peaceful protesters, the ranks of the rebels are made up almost entirely of hired killers, religious fanatics, and other agents of the Anglo-American intelligence networks.
Even while the death squads have done everything in their power to assert their fanaticism in the face of the world, the mainstream media has typically remained silent on the issue; and Western governments who, up until the recent Libyan disaster, demanded that Americans surrender their most basic civil liberties due to the threat of al-Qaeda, now simultaneously demand that Americans support the same organization against the sovereign nation of Syria.
It is now common knowledge that the destabilization effort is being supported by the United States, Britain, France, and the whole of NATO, as well as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other feudal monarchies, in addition to the true Mad Dog of the Middle East, Israel. However, the level to which these countries and hence their military and intelligence agencies play a part has been largely shrouded in mystery.
Yet, at times, it is possible for those of us who are aware of the historical treachery and the levels of control over public perception held by both the mainstream media and Western governments to occasionally catch a glimpse of the true mechanisms of “color revolution” and destabilizations and, thus, put the pieces of the puzzle together.
April 9th, 2013, 1:43 am
Juergen said:
Havent seen anything like Olly Lamberts report. Its moving and you get a feeling what horrors ordinary Syrians are going through. There will be an other film aired tonight on PBS.
To all regime cheerleaders,
this might be an inspiration, Hafis al Assad carried in his car, couldnt get more nuts these days.
https://twitter.com/DarthNader/status/321499427833520129/photo/1
April 9th, 2013, 2:02 am
ghufran said:
Meet one of Nusra holy warriors, Eric Harroun:
(a former Army private from Arizona fighting with the Syrian opposition-source: NY Times)
that is what he said when he learned that state media declared him dead:
“Syrian Media must be smoking something,” the newspaper said he had answered, “because I am alive and well chilling in Istanbul having a martini at the moment.”
Prosecutors said Mr. Harroun, 30, who is accused of firing a rocket-propelled grenade while fighting alongside a designated terrorist group, might ultimately face charges carrying a minimum sentence of 30 years and a maximum of the death penalty.
Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis said Mr. Harroun had “actively and knowingly participated in fighting with a group the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization,” the Nusra Front, which the United States considers part of Al Qaeda’s branch in Iraq.
Nusra Front fighters suggested that he become their English-language spokesman, comparing him to Adam Gadahn, an American who has been a spokesman for Al Qaeda’s original core in Pakistan, prosecutors said. He turned down the offer, they said.
In addition to talking about wanting to fight the Israelis, Mr. Harroun had disturbed some of his neighbors in Tucson by hanging from his balcony the flag of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that the United States considers to be a terrorist organization.
Mr. Harroun has had “repeated run-ins with the authorities since 2000.”
Indeed, according to records and acquaintances in Arizona, those brushes included driving under the influence and disorderly conduct, as well as violent conflicts with his father, Darryl Harroun. In seeking a protective order that was served on Eric Harroun in jail in April 2009, his father said Eric had pointed a rifle at him and threatened to kill him in 2007 and in 2009 had “destroyed a door at my house by punching and kicking holes in it.”
April 9th, 2013, 2:22 am
Juergen said:
Riad Al Assad
“I only have one foot left, bu thats enough to burst Assads head!”
April 9th, 2013, 2:38 am
Citizen said:
Globalist Hidden Hand Revealed in Destabilization of Syria
http://www.pakalertpress.com/2013/04/09/globalist-hidden-hand-revealed-in-destabilization-of-syria/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Ever since the Syrian destabilization effort began nearly two years ago, a significant portion of alternative media outlets have been exposing the fabricated story perpetrated against both the American and Syrian peoples regarding the nature of the so-called Syrian “rebels” who, in reality, are nothing more than foreign-backed death squads. While the mainstream media continually portrays these morally deficient mercenaries as “freedom fighters” and peaceful protesters, the ranks of the rebels are made up almost entirely of hired killers, religious fanatics, and other agents of theAnglo-American intelligence networks.
Even while the death squads have done everything in their power to assert their fanaticism in the face of the world, the mainstream media has typically remained silent on the issue; and Western governments who, up until the recent Libyan disaster, demanded that Americans surrender their most basic civil liberties due to the threat of al-Qaeda, now simultaneously demand that Americans support the same organization against the sovereign nation of Syria.
It is now common knowledge that the destabilization effort is being supported by the United States, Britain, France, and the whole of NATO, as well as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other feudal monarchies, in addition to the true Mad Dog of the Middle East, Israel. However, the level to which these countries and hence their military and intelligence agencies play a part has been largely shrouded in mystery…… …
April 9th, 2013, 4:44 am
Visitor said:
I would like to say one more time that Al-Buti is one of those ‘scholars’ of debauchery that our Holy Prophet (PBUH) warned us about. Hassoun is another such عالم سوء. Al-Buti sold his soul to EVIL and made himself a mule for EVIL Assads to ride upon for the last few decades in order to spread EVIL in the land. EVIL came back and reclaimed what was sold to it as its own possession by killing the mule. There will be more such mules that will be reclaimed by EVIL Assads as we go along towards the final phase of this epic war that is being waged to rid Syria of this EVIL.
You can all rest assured that Al-Buti is now in an extremely horrible place that no one would ever want to enter. He is paying a heavy price for the deal he had with EVIL. He is now being questioned and made to pay for every letter of ‘knowledge’ he abused serving EVIL.
April 9th, 2013, 6:36 am
Citizen said:
Daily Press Briefing
http://webtv.un.org/media/daily-noon-press-briefings/
@ Alexey_Pushkov
In recent years the U.S. has made the norm violations of international law: Kosovo, Iraq, Libya.. and the world system went hawking. DPRK only takes the example of the United States.
April 9th, 2013, 6:58 am
Tara said:
Syrian@123
I wish someone sent the video to Robert Ford or even to al Jazeera to have American forensic experts analyze it and air the analysis and send it in a text massage to people in Syria. The composure of the people surrounded al Buti in a middle of an “explosion while he was being shot is not humanly possible unless they know what was happening in advance.
The video leaves no doubt that the regime killed al Buti?
Who is next? It is creepy..
Asma should better watch out. Her turn might be next
April 9th, 2013, 7:31 am
Dolly Buster said:
Salahaddeen Abu ‘Arafah was holding a pro-Assad speech in a mosque, and some guy rightly heckled him with the following: “Bashar kafir, aw mush kafir?”
And he replied angrily: “Have you seen him pray? Have you seen him pray?”
April 9th, 2013, 7:32 am
Akbar Palace said:
Is doing business with Israel the worse thing one can do?
while sultan erdo was talking tough on Israel, his son was doing business with the jewish state
Ghufran,
What is WORSE:
a.) doing business with the jewish state or
b.) murdering thens of thousands of Syrians and destroying their homes thus causing over 1 million displaced Syrians (aka the “Syrian Nakba”).
Just pick a. or b.), and then we can discuss your answer further.
April 9th, 2013, 7:35 am
zoo said:
Al-Qaida Iraq branch announces merger with Syria’s militant group fighting Assad regime
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/04/09/al-qaida-iraq-branch-announces-merger-with-syria-militant-group-fighting-assad/#ixzz2PygQTywB
CAIRO – The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq says it has merged with Syria’s extremist Jabhat al-Nusra, which has sided with the rebels fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, says the two groups will rally under the same al-Qaida flag. His announcement came in a 21-minute audio message posted on militant websites late Monday.
Al-Baghdadi says the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s Jabhat al-Nusra will be known as the “Islamic State in Iraq and Sham.”
Sham is a name for Syria and the surrounding region.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/04/09/al-qaida-iraq-branch-announces-merger-with-syria-militant-group-fighting-assad/#ixzz2PyfUCs4a
April 9th, 2013, 7:48 am
zoo said:
I opt for a sign of the guerilla opposition desperation.
Posted on 04/09/2013 by Juan Cole
http://www.juancole.com/2013/04/bombing-damascus-launches.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+juancole%2Fymbn+%28Informed+Comment%29
A car bomb killed at least 15 persons in downtown Damascus on Monday and wounded over 60. It is not clear if the bombing is a sign of the increased vulnerability of the capital to its guerrilla opposition or instead a sign of desperation on the part of rebels facing a massive and so far somewhat successful counter-attack by regime forces around Damascus and Aleppo.
April 9th, 2013, 7:53 am
Syrialover said:
The strength of Syrians. Coping with dignity and determination, helping each other, working to build a new normality.
Impossible to believe these people inhabit the same planet as the subhuman Assad regime bombing them!
LIFE UNDER AIRSTRIKES
Mona Mahmood has been speaking to Dr Muhammed Tinary, the first elected head of the local council following the revolution in Sermeen, Idlib province, in north-western Syria. He explained the work of the council:
“I established a field hospital for the rebels and civilians … There were more than 35,000 people living in Sermeen city, and two years after the revolution there only 17,000 people left.
“They need a local council to organise their life and daily needs, distributing aid and the donations we get from relief agencies, Syrians in exile and the Syrian National Council, as well as providing fuel and security …
“We tried repeatedly to open schools, and we did – pupils and teachers were working regularly – but shooting by planes and artillery frightened the pupils and spread panic among them. We sent mediators to the military compounds surrounding the city asking for them to halt the shooting during school hours. The army said it could not guarantee the shooting would not happen during those times.
“One of the main problems here is providing locals with bread. The Syrian regime has stopped providing these cities with wheat to keep bakeries working. We were able to buy wheat from Turkey and provide people with this basic foodstuff …
“We have a large number of unemployed, wounded and homeless, and we try to help them to survive by granting them food rations and some money. We try to secure medical treatment for the people who can’t afford to go to hospitals or clinics. Those whose houses were levelled by the shooting, if we have money, we rent houses for them, or we set up tents to host them with their families, till we find a solution for them. If the house sustains minor damage, we help the family with money to fix it.
“We have also formed a judiciary committee containing clerics, dignitaries and lawyers to impose security in the city and settle disputes among locals caused by loans or robberies … We have a small prison for those sentenced by the committee. The longest sentence issued so far by the committee was imprisonment for three months …
“Day by day, the city is getting more organised and people feel much better that their city is restoring some sort of normal life
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2013/apr/03/syria-conflict-warplanes-strike-damascus-live-updates
April 9th, 2013, 7:55 am
zoo said:
Juergen
“he should let forensic experts examine the sites.”
From France, the UK or the USA?
Would you accept Russian or Iranians forensics?
April 9th, 2013, 8:01 am
zoo said:
SL
“The strength of Syrians. Coping with dignity and determination, helping each other, working to build a new normality.”
The SNC and the FSA are excellent examples of such dedication by using the Moslem Brotherhood and Al Nusra to ‘help each other’.
April 9th, 2013, 8:03 am
Dawoud said:
Two Shia terrorists from Lebanon’s Hzba@s killed in Syria. Good Riddance!
http://www.aljazeera.net/news/pages/98e00d9d-41e4-4869-bda0-55fafecbc3c5?GoogleStatID=24
قتيلان لحزب الله داخل سوريا
أقر مصدر في حزب الله اللبناني بمقتل اثنين من عناصر الحزب كانا يحاربان إلى جانب قوات النظام السوري في منطقة القصير السورية الحدودية مع لبنان.
وقال المصدر لوكالة الصحافة الفرنسية إن العنصرين “كانا توجها إلى سوريا للمشاركة في القتال ضد المجموعات المسلحة بمنطقة القصير”، من دون أن يوضح ظروف مقتلهما.
وذكر المصدر أن هؤلاء كانوا “في معرض الدفاع عن النفس”، وأنهم “مقيمون في الأراضي السورية”، رافضا الكشف عن هويتيهما أو من أي منطقة ينحدران.
وبدوره، قال مدير المرصد السوري لحقوق الإنسان رامي عبد الرحمن إنه “لم يعد خافيا على أحد أن مقاتلي حزب الله هم الذين يقودون المعارك ضد مقاتلي المعارضة السورية في ريف القصير (محافظة حمص/ وسط البلاد) وفي السيدة زينب (بريف دمشق)، حيث يوجد مقام ديني يقصده الشيعة. كما أنهم موجودون في مناطق أخرى من حمص”.
وأشار المرصد إلى تعرض مدينة القصير القريبة من الحدود اليوم الاثنين لقصف بالطيران الحربي مما أدى لمقتل رجل وسقوط عدد من الجرحى.
يشار إلى أنه في 16 فبراير/شباط الماضي قتل ثلاثة لبنانيين “مدربين لدى حزب الله” في معارك مماثلة بالمنطقة نفسها، بحسب ما ذكره المرصد السوري لحقوق الإنسان في حينه.
[…]
Free Syria, Free Palestine, Bahrain is Arab Forever!
April 9th, 2013, 8:06 am
Tara said:
Zoo,
I would not accept Iranian or Russian forensic because they lie.
April 9th, 2013, 8:13 am
zoo said:
Juergen
Tara replied to you. Are you still asking for forensic experts?
April 9th, 2013, 8:17 am
Akbar Palace said:
“Iran is winning and Israel is losing.” NewZ
Zoo,
Thanks for posting the Juan Cole article.
Juan Cole’s ilk, that is, professional, tenured excuse-makers and cheerleaders for arab tyrants and despots are really “a dime-a-dozen”. Just ask our own beloved professor here.
Here’s one of several articles I found from Juan, just before Assad decided to ruin his own country:
Iran’s political breakthroughs in the region have dealt a perhaps irreparable blow to the hopes of the United States and Israel for a new anti-Iranian axis in the region that would align Iran’s Arab and other neighbors with Tel Aviv.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/leaks_suggest_iran_is_now_winning_in_the_middle_east_20101207/
April 9th, 2013, 8:21 am
zoo said:
Any comments, Mr Al Khatib ?
“after an Al-Nusra-style suicide car bomb attack in the heart of the Syrian capital Damascus”
Al-Qaeda in Iraq admits role in Syria war
DAMASCUS (AFP) – Al-Qaeda in Iraq confirmed on Tuesday long-held suspicions that Al-Nusra Front, a jihadist group fighting in Syria, is part of its network, an admission likely to sharpen debate on arming rebels.
“It is time to declare to the Levant and to the world that the Al-Nusra Front is simply a branch of the Islamic State of Iraq,” ISI’s chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi said in an audio message posted on jihadist forums.
The groups would be combined and called the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, Baghdadi said, describing Al-Nusra front leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani as “one of our soldiers”.
“We chose al-Jawlani… as well as other fighters to go from Iraq to Syria… We prepared plans and work policies. We gave them money and personnel support,” said Baghdadi.
The joint group would be willing to ally with other organisations “on the condition that the country and its citizens be governed according to the rules dictated by Allah,” he added.
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/16649423/al-qaeda-in-iraq-admits-role-in-syria-war/
His declaration came a day after an Al-Nusra-style suicide car bomb attack in the heart of the Syrian capital Damascus killed at least 15 people and wounded 146 other
April 9th, 2013, 8:22 am
Dawoud said:
146. Tara
سنحرر سوريا شبرأ شبرأ من بشار (بثار) وأي نفوذ ووجود ايراني وروسي على أرض سوريا
April 9th, 2013, 8:23 am
zoo said:
Scoop: Iran must be using radar-free flying carpets to send weapons to Syria
Iraq inspects second Syria-bound Iran aircraft
Iraq on Tuesday grounded and inspected a second Iranian aircraft bound for Syria in as many days, but found only humanitarian materiel, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s spokesman said.
April 9th, 2013, 8:29 am
majedkhaldoun said:
Al Buti mistake was he knew Quraan but he discarded Quraan and follow Hadiths that contradict Quraan,those Hadiths that contradict Quraan must be considered inaccurate,there is nothing top Quraan,If Hadith is consistant with Quraan,then it is acceptable, if Hadiths contradict Quraan ,they must be discarded as inaccurate.
Zoo wants russians to inspect the video,he may prefer Dunia channel (proAssad) to examine the video,or may be he wants Ghufran to judge this video,
Zoo those who should examine the video must be honest not liers.credibles not certified fabricators,respectable people not worthless not nonrespected people.
April 9th, 2013, 8:29 am
Tara said:
(…)
April 9th, 2013, 8:33 am
Dawoud said:
152. majedkhaldoun
al-Buti and Hassoun are علماء الملوك
In Sunni Islam, unlike Iran’s Aytollahs and the 12th Imam, WE DO NOT have established clergy nor human “Gods!” If we see a mistaken scholar or imam, we can disregard his advice! We can even wish him to go to hell. In addition, unlike what Ali or one of the pro-dictator Shia propagandists said, Sunni Islam does (Yes, DOES) give women the right of inheritance. Furthermore, unlike Shia Islam, Sunni Islam does NOT allow a husband to cheat on his wife by engaging in Zina through the so-called Shia Zawaj al-Mut’ah (pleasure marriage that lasts for a few hours or a day).
There is no ayatollah nor a pope in Sunni Islam. Anybody who has Islamic knowledge can lead prayers, and I don’t need to ask Buti or Hassaoun to talk to God and seek forgiveness for my sins. I can do that on my own!
Free Syria, Free Palestine, Bahrain is Arab Forever!
April 9th, 2013, 8:48 am
ann said:
NATO is giving AL-QAEDA a politically correct make over 😀 😀 😀
Al-Qaida admitted Syria’s Al-Nusra Front part of it: statement – 2013-04-09
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/09/c_132295567.htm
BAGHDAD, April 9 (Xinhua) — Al-Qaida terrorist group in Iraq said Tuesday that Al-Nusra Front, a terrorist group fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s administration, is part of its “Islamic state.”
“It is time to declare to the Levant and the whole world that Al-Nusra Front is not but an extension for the Islamic state of Iraq and part of it,” according to an audio message by Abu Baker al-Baghdadi, leader of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq group.
“We declare the cancellation of the name of Islamic State of Iraq, and the cancellation of the name of Al-Nusra Front and combine them under single name which is the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant,” al-Baghdadi said in the message which was posted on the Internet, adding that the leader of the Syrian part of the self-styled state will be a Syrian.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/09/c_132295567.htm
April 9th, 2013, 9:13 am
majedkhaldoun said:
Dear Dawoud
Shiitts they frequently don’t follow Quraan,Zoo admitted that,also there are numerous verses in Quraan that forbid considering a person as special saint(Wali) where people almost worship him,they don’t even pray as the prophet used to pray,the prophet never mentioned during praying that Ali Wali alllah, they don’t fast as God says from Dawn to sunset, once I had a shiia at my home and at the end of Ramadan I saw the new moon and showed him the new moon, that in Islam the end of Ramadan, next day he was still fasting and he fasted the day after.
Shiites are the simbol of disunity in Islam
Tara unearth a tomb is not forbidden in Islam, frequently a tomb is unearthed to bury another dead
April 9th, 2013, 9:15 am
ann said:
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are working very hard to free Palestine 😀
On Syria, Qatar’s UNGA Resolution Proceeds, Amid Vuk’s Smoke on Tribunals
http://www.innercitypress.com/syria1gaqatar040813.html
By Matthew Russell Lee, Scoop
UNITED NATIONS, April 8 — As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his German negotiator Angela Kane play chicken with the Syrian government on the scope of the requested chemical weapons probe, another move is afoot at the UN in New York.
Inner City Press has learned of another Qatar sponsored draft resolution making its way to the UN General Assembly. A draft was completed last Thursday, April 4. Issues include, of course, chemical weapons: and representation, Syria’s UN seat, a “first step on that issue,” as an Inner City Press source put it.
Also involved in drafting, the sources say, have been Saudi Arabia and the P-3 (France, UK and US, an acronym some use).
Last year when Qatar’s Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser was President of the General Assembly, the moves were more out in the open.
When Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari objected, asking under what rule the sponsors were proceeding, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser dismissed the question, saying merely, we have the votes.
Now Vuk Jeremic, Serbia’s former foreign minister, is General Assembly President. Ja’afari praised him.
[…]
http://www.innercitypress.com/syria1gaqatar040813.html
April 9th, 2013, 9:29 am
Alnusraenemy said:
Dawood
You really convinced us,can you tell us how to
Become wahabist like you? You are the chosen
People of god.نيالك يا عم you secure VIP room in heaven next to Majed,visitor and Tara,ولي عل حظنا
Zoo,Majbal,Ghufran and me will be deeply fried
In the worst rooms in hell next to Albuti.What
Can we do merciful wahabis will put us in meat
Grinding machines here,their merciful god will
Put us in boiling Mazola oil next to 85 years
Old cleric who happened to be not wahabist.
April 9th, 2013, 9:29 am
Akbar Palace said:
Free Willy
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are working very hard to free Palestine
Ann,
Considering the death tolls, do you think it is more important to free Syria or Palestine?
Simple question, no?
April 9th, 2013, 9:36 am
Alnusraenemy said:
من موقع الثوره السوريه
تحديث لإحصائية قتلى شباب ورجال العلوية ::
الله محيي الجيش الحر
52 ألف قتيل من جبال العلويين (طرطوس واللاذقية) من جيش إحتياط وشبيحة بالإضافة الى جيش نظامي بينهم 8 الاف ضابط منذ بداية الثورة.
.تكـــــــــــــــــــــــبــــــــــــير
تجاوزنا نسبة ال 10% من شبابهم ورجالهم وهذه نسبة كبيرة
April 9th, 2013, 9:39 am
Sami said:
All this talk about forensic specialists makes one wonder where is the UN team that wanted to investigate the Chemical attacks:
Syria rejects U.N. chemical weapons inspectors as proposed by Ban
I wonder how Sir Spin-A-Lot will tackle this one…
April 9th, 2013, 9:39 am
Alnusraenemy said:
Ammar Baloush,a criminal and a star of this wahabist revolution ,killed his friends in the university of Damascus,2 hours later he was
In Lebanon .lebanon gives freedom to killers
Of innocent university students!!
When this crime happened the same dogs
Barking about Albuti now were barking then
That the regime did it.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=gy4tYzevZvw&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dgy4tYzevZvw
April 9th, 2013, 9:46 am
revenire said:
Syria is already free.
April 9th, 2013, 9:48 am
Sami said:
حافظ الأسد وحقيقة تسليم الجولان يوم 10-06-1967
إعلان سقوط الجولان قبل 48 ساعة من إحتلالها
في يوم السبت العاشر من حزيران سنة 1967 أعلن وزير الدفاع السوري حافظ أسد الساعة 9.30 البلاغ العسكري رقم 66 وهذا نصه :
إن القوات الإسرائيلية استولت على القنيطرة بعد قتال عنيف دار منذ الصباح الباكر في منطقة القنيطرة ضمن ظروف غير متكافئة وكان طيران العدو يغطي سماء المعركة بإمكانات لا تملكها غير دولة كبرى ،وقد قذف العدو في المعركة بأعداد كبيرة من الدبابات واستولى على مدينة القنيطرة على الرغم من صمود جنودنا البواسل ، إن الجيش لا يزال يخوض معركة قاسية للدفاع عن كل شبر من أرض الوطن ، كما أن وحدات لم تشترك في القتال بعد ستأخذ مراكزها في المعركة .
كنت في جولة تفقدية في الجبهة وفي مدينة القنيطرة بالذات عند إذاعة بيان سقوط القنيطرة وظننت أن خطأً قد حدث فاتصلت بوزير الدفاع حافظ الأسد وأخبرته أن القنيطرة لم تسقط ولم يقترب منها جندي واحد من العدو وأنا أتحدث من القنيطرة ودهشت حقاً حين راح وزير الدفاع يشتمني شتائم مقذعة ويهددني إن تحدثت بمثلها وتدخلت فيما لا يعنيني . فاعتذرت منه وعلمت أنها مؤامرة وعدت إلى دمشق في اليوم الثاني وقدمت استقالتي .
ويقول سامي الجندي في(كتابه كسرة خبز) وسامي الجندي هذا كان وزيراً للإعلام وعضو القيادة القطرية ومن مؤسسي حزب السلطة (البعث)وهو الذي اعترف أنه أرسل سفيراً إلى باريس في مهمة سلمية ..:
ولست بحاجة ـ بعد ذلك للقول إن إعلان سقوط القنيطرة ـ قبل أن يحصل السقوط ـ أمر يحار فيه كل تعليل يبنى على حسن النية.
فوجئت لما رأيت على شاشة التلفزيون في باريس مندوب سورية جورج طعمة في الأمم المتحدة يعلن سقوط القنيطرة (وذلك من خلال البلاغ 66 الصادر عن وزير الدفاع حافظ الأسد) الذي أعلن وصول قوات إسرائيل إلى مشارف دمشق بينما المندوب الإسرائيلي في الأمم المتحدة يؤكد أن شيئاً من كل ذلك لم يحصل .
فلماذا يصدر الأسد البلاغ المشؤوم قبل وصول القوات الإسرائيلية
إلى القنيطرة بيومين؟
ولماذا يطلب الانسحاب الكيفي من الجيش؟
وشر البلية ما يضحك هذا التعليق فى اذاعة دمشق :
قال معلق راديو دمشق ذلك المساء:
الحمد لله! لقد استطاعت قواتنا الباسلة حماية مكاسب الثورة أمام الزحف الإسرائيلي، الحمد لله الذي أفسد خطة العدو وقضى على أهدافه الجهنمية، إن إسرائيل لن تحقق نصراً يذكر، طالما أن حكام دمشق بخير!!.
رواية دريد مفتي الوزير السورى المفوض في مدريد عام1967:
قال لي إبراهيم ماخوس وزير الخارجية السورى ليس مهماً أن يحتل العدو دمشق أو حتى حمص وحلب فهذه أرض يمكن تعويضها وإعادتها أما إذا قضي على حزب البعث فكيف يمكن تعويضه وهو أمل الأمة العربي
Last line is very telling of the sick Assadists/Baathist mentality and sheds light further on the brutal willingness for this criminal regime to destroy Syria for the sake of its own survival.
(Sorry no link I received this by email)
April 9th, 2013, 9:49 am
ann said:
Another UN corrupt investigator! Nothing but the best for Syria 😉
UN’s Syria Prober Angela Kane Was Under Investigation for UMOJA, Until Quashed
http://www.innercitypress.com/syria1umoja032313.html
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNdisclosed Location, March 23 — A top UN official now central to the Syria chemical weapons investigation, Angela Kane, was the subject of a corruption probe that got quashed for political reasons, according to a leaked formal complaint exclusively obtained and published by Inner City Press.
It involved the UN’s delayed and over-budget technology upgrade called UMOJA, which Kane oversaw for a time while she was Under Secretary General for Management.
Now, in a charade of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s “mobility” policy, Kane has stayed in New York but moved laterally to become Under Secretary General in charge of Disarmament.
Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky this week said that it will not be envoy Lakhdar Brahimi who will negotiate the chemical weapons investigation, but UN Disarmament, headed by Kane.
So while some chose not to cover internal complaints and corruption in the UN in favor of canned quotes about the hot topic of the day — once Sudan, now forgotten, then Libya and now Syria — the two beats come together.
The UN’s Syria investigator was herself under investigation — until it was quashed.
The memo, which we’re putting online here, recounts that the head of the Office of Internal Oversight Services Carman Lapointe at a meeting of Senior Management let it be known that she viewed the UMOJA case, 0303/11, as a “witch hunt” which should be closed.
On September 17, 2012, according to the memo, Angela Kane was told she was an “implicated staff member” and would be afforded due process — ironic, since as Inner City Press has found and reported, journalists are afforded no due process by the UN when stealth complaints like those of Voice of America and Reuters are filed against them, and are processed by the UN.
But two days after notice to Angela Kane, the memo to Ban states, OIOS’ director Michael Stefanovic closed the investigation. Then OIOS Assistant Secretary General David Kanja upheld this after a mere two day review of a detailed complaint.
The head of the UN’s “Ethics Office” Joan Dubinsky was informed, according to the memo, which was also cc-ed to Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson and Ban’s chief of staff (and personal envoy on the Eastern Congo) Susana Malcorra.
[…]
http://www.innercitypress.com/syria1umoja032313.html
April 9th, 2013, 10:19 am
Uzair8 said:
Iraq is really down on it’s luck!
Of all the Iranian planes it could have stopped and searched, they had to get the 2 carrying ‘humanitarian aid’! What were the chances of that!? Such rotten luck!
:FACEPALM:
April 9th, 2013, 10:36 am
GEORGES said:
Is it possible that a muslim who follows Islam not only opposes, but actively works against the establishment of the caliphate?
Is there any muslim in here who believes that having the establishment of the caliphate with sharia law as a goal makes one an extremist or radical?
I oppose shariah law and caliphate because as a non-muslim it would make my life less satisfactory, but I don’t believe that secularism and nation-state is necessarily superior to shariah law and caliphate. The only inconvenience that makes it such an issue is that the two cannot coexist together and one has to be imposed over the other.
Isn’t sharia law and caliphate part of Islam? If not then you believe that these two components should be abandoned or interpreted in another way. This means you believe that the alternative is better. In this case, under which logic for a muslim can secularism and nation-states be superior to shariah law and caliphate? Shouldn’t you believe that Islam is the answer for humanity, muslims and non-muslims alike, and that lack of Islam IS the problem?
Would you oppose sharia and the caliphate even if the population was 100% muslim?
I am trying to make sense of the apparent contradictions and achieve better understanding of fellow syrians. I guess instead of asking and creating tensions I could just rejoice when I see a secular muslim but it is better to ask and know rather than live in a cloud of uncertainty and questions.
April 9th, 2013, 10:44 am
zoo said:
Georges
All religions are full of contradictions because they have been developed and interpreted by men on the basis of old books, “messages” from God to some selected men called prophets (there are no women prophet), culture and traditions.
Don’t try to find any logic in religions, there isn’t.
I have sympathy for people who try to find reassuring religious daily life recipes to make sure they’ll go to Heaven. They must leave in constant fear of failing.
No one ever came back to confirm if these recipes work or not.
I think many of them will be on for a big shock when they’ll die.
April 9th, 2013, 11:24 am
Visitor said:
Georges,
You ask good questions. I am extremely busy today. I will answer in detail later on. However, briefly, Islamic Law must be upheld.
April 9th, 2013, 11:26 am
revenire said:
There isn’t anything illegal about arming Syria. There is something illegal about arming the terrorists fighting Syria though.
What’s your problem Uzair8?
April 9th, 2013, 11:30 am
zoo said:
A Rare Glimpse Inside A Syrian Loyalist Stronghold
(A video of the Alawite Aziziya village from PBS)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/syria-behind-the-lines/a-rare-glimpse-inside-a-syrian-loyalist-stronghold
April 9th, 2013, 11:30 am
Tara said:
Georges,
I (as you know a professed Sunni with religious pedigree) oppose caliphate rule and imposing the Shariaa rule the way it is understood (stoning, cutting hands, etc..). And dare I say it…I consider myself a pious but not a conservative Muslim.
Hope that would help.
April 9th, 2013, 11:33 am
zoo said:
“Turkey military attack on Syria would be the end of Erdogan’s presidential dream”
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/why-turkey-wont-attack-syria/274806/
Throughout his decade in power, his greatest political asset has been Turkey’s phenomenal economic growth, averaging over 5 percent annually. Erdogan wins because Turkey grows, and Turkey is growing because it is the only stable country among its European and Middle Eastern neighbors.
If this virtuous cycle continues, Erdogan will win the next elections. If, however, Turkey enters a war in Syria, it could slide into the ranks of the “problem states” in its neighborhood. This would break Erdogan’s recipe for political and economic success by putting in jeopardy the more than $40 billion that comes into the Istanbul stock market annually, driving the country’s growth.
The odds are against unilateral Turkish action against Assad. Yet, at the same time, Ankara cannot tolerate Assad in power, or live with a sectarian civil war next door.
Turkey’s leaders are acutely aware that war will spill over into Turkey, stoking violence between the country’s Alawites and Sunnis and tarnishing Turkey’s coveted reputation as a “stable country in an unstable region.” This would also end Erdogan’s presidential dream.
April 9th, 2013, 11:35 am
zoo said:
Peace Plan Nixed: How the West Fueled the Ever-Growing Carnage in Syria
The actions of the United States and its allies in Syria have only led to escalating violence and chaos.
http://www.alternet.org/world/peace-plan-nixed-how-west-fueled-ever-growing-carnage-syria
..
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has committed serial aggression, isolating, demonizing, dividing and destroying Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria. In each case, it has cited higher motives and good intentions, even as it concealed its own covert role in igniting, fueling and militarizing internal conflicts.
As Harold Pinter said, “It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide, while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
..
For a consummate media manipulator like Obama, who was named “Marketer of the Year” for 2008 by the American advertising industry, hiding a policy of covert war and assassination behind a dovish public image was an irresistibly “witty” global masquerade. His smiling face still beams out from Shepard Fairey’s iconic campaign posters as his assassins ply their trade on a dozen manhunts each night.
April 9th, 2013, 11:54 am
zoo said:
That’s it! The war between the FSA and Al Nusra is finally about to start. Any comment from the SNC’s ex-president, an eager defender of Al Nusra?
Syria rebels distance themselves from Qaeda Iraq ally
Syrian rebels distanced themselves from Syrian Jihadist group, Al-Nusra Front, soon after Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed links to it
AFP , Tuesday 9 Apr 2013
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/68868/World/Region/Syria-rebels-distance-themselves-from-Qaeda-Iraq-a.aspx
The mainstream Syrian rebel command distanced itself from the jihadist Al-Nusra Front on Tuesday after Al-Qaeda in neighbouring Iraq confirmed that it spawned and supervised the group.
The Free Syrian Army insisted that alliances it has struck with Al-Nusra fighters on the ground were only tactical, local and time-limited, as Al-Qaeda openly admitted the Iraq links of one of the spearheads of the armed uprising against the Damascus regime.
“We don’t support the ideology of Al-Nusra,” FSA spokesman Louay Meqdad told AFP.
“There has never been and there will never be a decision at the command level to coordinate with Al-Nusra. The situation on the ground is what has imposed this.”
April 9th, 2013, 11:59 am
Visitor said:
Georges @10:44AM
You ask good questions. I am very busy today. However, read the following and judge for yourself,
اتَّخَذُوا أَحْبَارَهُمْ وَرُهْبَانَهُمْ أَرْبَابًا مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ وَالْمَسِيحَ ابْنَ مَرْيَمَ وَمَا أُمِرُوا إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُوا إِلَهًا وَاحِدًا لا إِلَهَ إِلَّا هُوَ سُبْحَانَهُ عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ
And,
: ومن لم يحكم بما أنزل الله فأولئك هم الكافرون
Please pay particular attention to the first one. This was interpreted by the Prophet (PBUH) himself based on a question he was asked by a non-Muslim. The story is well known and you can research it on your own.
And there are several such verses throughout the Qura’n.
It is NOT possible to get around this issue on so-called interpretations.
Won’t be back until the evening.
April 9th, 2013, 12:24 pm
Observer said:
There is a problem with any tyranny be it that of a fundamentalist secular entity represented by the Baath party or that of the Velayet Fagih or that of any religious or political or ideological persuasion and in the name of this or that deity. Secularists do it in the name of secularism and Islamists in the name of Allah and so on and so forth.
People have to decide their fate, their future, their form of government, and the laws that govern them in freedom.
There is no such thing as eternal immutable law be it called Sharia or Republicanism that is absolute.
Visitor is a mirror image of the Revenire one for Sharia and the other for Secularism a outrance.
Sharia will not and cannot legislate all of our lives except under one condition: a static unmoving society where the lifestyle does not change one iota over the centuries. It is like the Amish in America where they choose to live a 19th century life without electricity and without change yet they are in this world but not of this world if you understand what I mean.
Their virtue is that they do not impose it on others. The problem with Visitor is that he considers any man made legislation to be blasphemous. Well no one can legislate morality. It is not possible except in a Gulag and that of course is the antithesis of what God has wanted for his creation.
The region will lurch from crisis to crisis and from revolution to revolution and there may well be a Sunni Shia war that will explode in the area and there is absolutely not one iota of a solution coming from the Salafists for they are mirror images of the regime mafia thugocracy and are as brutal and tyrannical as the regime itself.
I do not consider the Quran to be a valid source of legislation in 2013. It is a cultural and historical document of immense importance and relevance and a source of great piety and tolerance and faith and guidance but a legislative book it is not.
I love seeing the MB and their cohorts fail and hopefully learn and evolve. Otherwise the only result is a Taliban life style.
As for the Caliphate the problem is actually trying to bring the modern world to the concept of a leader that worked for barely a few years under the first four successors in 7th century Arabia rather than trying to define the leadership of the Umma in our actual times and how to overcome our huge problems not the least of which is the one track mind set of Visitor and Revenir that are dragging everybody into hell.
ZOO it does not matter if the FSA and Nusra fight, your regime will not survive.
The question is whether the Syrians and the dirty hands playing in Syria will untangle the fate of the Alawi community from that of the mafia families in time to avoid a Rwanda or not.
If the Alawis are smart they should start to think with their heads and stop reacting with their fears otherwise they will be realized I am afraid.
Today was not a good one for the regime: No news at all on its offensive from any of the pro regime sites
April 9th, 2013, 1:01 pm
ghufran said:
Let us get this straight:
most of the military advances ,according to many of you, are made by Nusra and its affiliates, you support the type of war rebels are waging against the regime, Nusra is a terrorist organization, obviously, what doe that make you?
أعلن زعيم تنظيم “القاعدة” في العراق، أبو بكر البغدادي، في تسجيل بث على مواقع انترنت، يوم الثلاثاء، أن “جبهة النصرة” في سوريا “امتداد للقاعدة في العراق وجزء منه”، موضحا أن هدفها يتمثل في “اقامة دولة اسلامية في سوريا”.
وقال البغدادي في تسجيل صوتي بث على موقع “يوتيوب” نسب له، ونشرت مضمونه وكالة الأنباء الفرنسية (أ ف ب)، الاثنين، إنه “لقد آن الاوان لنعلن امام اهل الشام والعالم باسره ان جبهة النصرة ما هي الا امتداد لدولة العراق الاسلامية وجزء منها”.
وأضاف البغدادي، “إنه لما وصل الحال في الشام إلى ما هو من سفك للدماء.. واستنجاد أهل الشام وتخلي أهل الأرض عنهم، ما كان لنا إلا أن نهبّ لنصرتهم فانتدبنا عنهم (الجولاني) وهو أحد جنودنا ومعه مجموعة من أبنائنا ودفعنا بهم من العراق إلى الشام على أن يلتقوا بخلايانا في الشام”، ولفت إلى أن التنظيم “وضع لهؤلاء الخطط ورسم لهم سياسة العمل وزودهم بالمال شهرياً وأمدهم بالرجال”.
وأردف البغدادي، “نمد ايدينا وقلوبنا واسعة للفصائل المجاهدة في سبيل الله والعشائر الابية في ارض الشام على ان تكون كلمة الله هي العليا وتحكم البلاد والعباد باحكام الله تعالى دون ان يكون لغير الله تعالى اي نصيب في الحكم”، مطالبا بألا يجعلوا الديمقراطية “ثمناً للدماء والتهجير.. فإنها بئس ثمن”، وقال “إياكم أن تحكموا بالقوانين الوضعية”.
كما أشار البغدادي إلى “الغاء اسم دولة العراق الاسلامية والغاء اسم جبهة النصرة وجمعهما تحت اسم واحد هو الدولة الاسلامية في العراق والشام”.
As for the video of the assassination of albouti, I find it amusing that killers of albouti will film themselves committing the crime then leak the video. Forensic experts may have a number of things to say about the crime scene, the video mentioned, bodies of victims,etc and We may argue for days about what the video tells and what it means but the fact that is indisputable is that Al-Bouti received many threats from rebels and was attacked daily in social media, and here on SC, and was called a traitor, etc. Coming now trying to convince the crowd that rebels are innocent of al-bouti’s murder is too little too late, rebels have killed scores of Syrians based on the political affiliation of those Syrians, you do not need to kill to get killed in Syria today, the standards for justice have fallen to a level only fit for the animal kingdom and I am afraid we will have to deal with this for years to come, most crimes in Syria are going unpunished, murdering albouti, 86 years of age, may well be just anther unanswered crime, the noise from belly dancers and their drummers here will not change anything.
April 9th, 2013, 1:08 pm
zoo said:
Israel worries over Syria’s Golan pullback
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2013/04/09/Israel-worries-over-Syrias-Golan-pullback/UPI-74411365525743/
The threat of the intensifying war in Syria dragging in Israel has grown with the Damascus regime’s withdrawal of thousands of troops from the disputed Golan Heights to reinforce the beleaguered capital.
…
Reports in Israel indicate the regime of President Bashar Assad had pulled out two divisions — around 20,000 troops — to bolster the defense of Damascus.
“They’ve moved some of their best battalions away from the Golan,” a Western diplomatic source observed.
“They’ve replaced some of them with poorer quality battalions which have involved reducing manpower. These moves are very significant.”
The withdrawal and the growing encroachment by rebel forces also threatens the 1,200-strong U.N. observer force stationed on the Golan since 1967. Several countries have already withdrawn their contingents.
The al-Nusra Front is the most powerful and most effective of the jihadist groups fighting in the two-year-old uprising to topple Assad and has been closely linked to al-Qaida in Iraq.
April 9th, 2013, 1:17 pm
Tara said:
Ghufran
Buti was a traitor to Islam and to Syrians but the regime killed him to induce sedition. Any one with an average intelligence can analyze the video and reach that conclusion. No forensic needed. Just watch the behavior of the men around him wham he expired.
April 9th, 2013, 1:32 pm
Hopeful said:
#175 Ghufran
It is also an indisputable fact that the regime is totally capable of committing the crime. It is in the DNA of the Syrian secret services and security apparatus to plan and commit such operations. They are experts at murder and deciept.
It is also indisputable that the FSA and the opposition leaders do not condon crimes like these and no sane person can attribute the crime to the FSA – at least not to the formal structure of it.
In my opinion, the FSA did make a mistake by associating itself with, and defending Al-Nusra. They fell in a trap built for them by the regime. The sleeping cells of Al-Nusra inside Syria are all people very well known to the Syrian security – after all, they used to train them and send them to Iraq.
If the regime did not murder Al Butti, it would be easy for it to prove it by allowing a neutral organization to examine the body for gun shots. If they do not do it, and soon, then there is no doubt in my mind that they did it. This is not an unanswered crime.
April 9th, 2013, 1:39 pm
annie said:
Do watch this mentioned by Josh and by Juergen
brave journalist and the horror of seeing this close by
The bombing of Al Bara
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/syria-behind-the-lines/the-bombing-of-al-bara/#bmb4
When FRONTLINE filmmaker Olly Lambert sat to interview Jamal Maarouf, a Syrian rebel commander, he did not anticipate that bombs from government jets would begin to fall just 300 meters away.
Though the first blast knocked him to the ground, Lambert kept his camera rolling. He spent the next hour documenting the impacts of the Oct. 28, 2012 bombing of al-Bara, a village in Idlib province an hour south of Aleppo. The result is a rare, immersive portrait of the immediate aftermath of Syrian government air strikes on a civilian population.
FRONTLINE has condensed the footage into this 36-minute digital feature, vividly narrated by Lambert. It captures the chaos on the ground as villagers try to rescue family and friends trapped under the rubble, the bombing’s effect on ordinary civilians whose lives literally have just been blown apart, the terrible fear when the government jets return for a second bombing run, and the ensuing calls for revenge that illustrate the country’s descent into a no man’s land of hatred, suspicion and terror.
“It’s only when you see things like this that you realize the real impact of civilian casualties in a civil war,” Lambert says about the scenes he witnessed. “When I first arrived in Syria, people would often say to me, ‘Here your life can end in a moment. Any minute now you could be dead.’ And at first I didn’t believe them, but certainly after an experience like this, it’s hard not to feel that they’ve got a point.”
April 9th, 2013, 1:49 pm
ghufran said:
I disagree, Tara,
people are taking positions on albouti murder based on what rebels did in the past to many regime supporters and the daily attacks bouti was exposed to in opposition media, many have openly called for bouti’s death.
I need some of you to tell me what did the regime gain by the death of albouti, saying that they did it to make rebels “look bad” is not good enough.
The video is not a proof of anything except that it raises questions about how tens of people got killed if the explosion was not as massive as initially stated, it also suggests that the initial explosion, which opposition media denied that there was one, may not have killed albouti right away, the behavior of the man who came after the explosion sure looks suspicious but we do not see a weapon and we can not tell, based on the video alone, whether bouti was actually shot or not. I certainly support an investigation and an impartial examination of the body, I am not sure this will even happen, most Syrians today are dying for nothing, I personally think the country is damaged beyond repair for long years to come, we may have to wait for decades before a sense of normalcy and security returns to Syria, that is exactly why I was against the use of violence and counter violence, I knew the consequences,many of you were simply overwhelmed by anger, hatred or ideological garbage, enjoy the wreckage !!
April 9th, 2013, 2:14 pm
Dolly Buster said:
Yeah but terrorist is just a meaningless label used by morons like the Crusaders and the Shia.
Do you expect us to adopt the terminology of these 2 morally bankrupt groups ?
April 9th, 2013, 2:18 pm
Citizen said:
Iran, China, Russia to provide military assistance to Syria!
Syrian President Mr. Bashar al-Assad
President of Russia Mr. Vladimir Putin
Chinese President, Mr Xi Jinping
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
APPEAL
Members of the international movement “Syria will stand and win!”
Convening an international summit of on providing military assistance to the Syrian people to combat international terrorism
Due to the increasing aggression against the sovereign state of Syria by international terrorist groups, supported by the U.S. and its NATO allies, Israel, the Arab League, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and some other countries, which resulted in killing civilians Syria, Syrian cities are destroyed, destroyed the democratic foundations of the world order, violated international law and legislation, given the complete inactivity in stopping terrorist robbery UN, represented by its Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other international organizations, funded by the international community
We, citizens of different countries,
– Encourage all of you to initiate and to convene as soon as possible SUMMIT ON THE SUMMIT WITH HEADS OF SYRIA, RUSSIA, CHINA, IRAN to develop a plan of joint measures on the organization of military-technical assistance to the Syrian people and adopted comprehensive MEASURES FOR EXEMPTION FROM SYRIAN FOREIGN bandits.
– REMEMBER THAT ANY DELAY ON THE ORGANIZATION FOR THE SUMMIT personally responsible to each of you for the death of civilians and rolling WORLD chaos and bloodshed, and the subsequent nuclear disaster for him and destruction of the planet!
http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdemocrator.ru%2Fproblem%2F11221
April 9th, 2013, 2:20 pm
Citizen said:
color lizards jeep
http://youtu.be/pmAcjEZnW88
April 9th, 2013, 2:26 pm
majedkhaldoun said:
Observer
What is against Civil law where everyone is equal under the law,the law is agreed upon by both religious and secular judges?
Al Bouti survived a small explosions,he fixed his fez,then a man with black clothes came close to Bouti did something then Bouti fell again,this is the guy who killed him,not the explosion,initially there was no blood in Bouti mouth,after this man shot him ,blodd seen coming of his mouth,the picture of this guy is on Arabiyeh and FSA are looking for him.
This proved the idea that the regime killed him.
Tara
The penalty for sinning initialy was stoning to death,this is not in Quraan,later Quraan made it clear the penalty is wiping,not stoning
April 9th, 2013, 2:30 pm
Akbar Palace said:
Where I come from, Citizens usually Vote
Citizen,
That was a nicely worded letter.
Can you explain what you meant by this:
“… which resulted in killing civilians Syria, Syrian cities are destroyed, destroyed the democratic foundations of the world order…”
Why are you so suddenly concerned with “democratic foundations”?
April 9th, 2013, 2:31 pm
Hopeful said:
#180 Ghufran
I, too, was against the counter violence. But then I realized that saying that is like saying I was against “earthquakes” or “tornadoes”. The counter violence was going to happen, whether we liked it or not. The French revolution was ugly and violent. The Russian revolution was ugly and violent. The war against Hitler was ugly and violent. But no one could have stopped them other than the people who caused them: the kings, the czars, Hitler.
It is naive and unfair to say that the external opposition or Qatar or Turkey or the US led this revolution. The brave people of Syria did. They wanted change, and when they were killed and murdered in cold blood, they revolted and carried arms to defend themselves. The external opposition figures, Turkey, the US, Qatar and everyone else rode the wave, but the Tsunami was already happening. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to rewrite history.
April 9th, 2013, 2:40 pm
Citizen said:
Western politicians and journalists refer to the “Syrian people” as if they have a monopoly over them. That is subliminal propaganda.
Or that they are a wholly monolithic citizenry with identical political aspirations—as espoused by their Western ‘friends’.
April 9th, 2013, 3:01 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Stop your whining. Your side tries to do the same. Your only complaint is that the West does it BETTER.
April 9th, 2013, 3:06 pm
Citizen said:
186
Included a link for not asking ! there are 109 Members of the international movement “Syria will survive and win!” I’m not interlocutor
April 9th, 2013, 3:11 pm
ghufran said:
This from SOHR,not SANA, some of you got upset when I said that rebels committed human rights abuses in sheikh Maqsoud:
علم المرصد السوري لحقوق الانسان من مواطنين تم الافراج عنهم بعد اعتقالهم عند اطراف حي الاشرفية بمدينة حلب لعدة ايام من قبل كتيبة مقاتلة يقودها المدعو خالد حياني انهم تعرضوا للتعذيب الجسدي الشديد بالاضافة للشتائم والسطو على املاك البعض من الذين كانوا نازحين من حي الشيخ مقصود الذي يشهد اشتباكات عنيفة وقصف منذ نحو اسبوعين وقال احد الذين تعرض للتعذيب على يد عناصر هذه الكتيبة وافرج عنهم امس ان عشرات المعتقلين العرب والكرد معتقلين لدى هذه الكتيبة ويتعرضون للتعذيب الجسدي على مدار الساعة وان غالبية المعتقلين تترواح اعمارهم مابين الـ18 و 20 سنة كما اشتكى الكثير من الاهالي النازحين من حي الشيخ مقصود ان عناصر هذه الكتيبة تقوم بفرض اتاوات عليهم لاتختلف عن التصرفات التي كانت تقوم بها عناصر موالية للنظام سابقا وينشر المرصد السوري لحقوق الانسان صور تظهر التعذيب الوحشي الذي تعرض له مواطن على يد
عناصر هذه الكتيبة
as for who killed Bouti, most people have made up their mind, a video will not change their opinion, I see the video as a sign that rebels have started to feel public pressure, that is why rebels are also trying to blame the regime for car bombs, the case against the regime in Bouti’s killing is weak, to say the least, I am glad that some of you are good criminologists now,at least that does not require good spelling.
April 9th, 2013, 3:12 pm
Johannes de Silentio said:
Maybe God doesn’t like Iran….oh wait, you people are atheists…never mind….
A powerful earthquake struck close to Iran’s only nuclear power station on Tuesday, killing 32 people and injuring 850 as it destroyed homes and devastated two small villages. The 6.3 magnitude quake totally destroyed one village, but the nearby Bushehr nuclear plant was undamaged.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/09/us-iran-quake-idUSBRE9380HA20130409
A New Bashar Cartoon:
http://media.cagle.com/78/2013/04/08/129923_600.jpg
April 9th, 2013, 3:13 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Anyone can go online and start an “international movement.” It’s nonsense.
What matters is that the regime loses ground with each passing month. The rebels now control Deir El Ezzor, Raqqa, Daraa, most of Aleppo and Idlib, and half of Damascus. The war continues.
April 9th, 2013, 3:13 pm
Tara said:
Hehe. It is in the international press.
Again… Who is next. Asma worshipers on this blog need to start worrying. If Bashar killed his slave Mr. Buti, he sure can kill his wife too.
Syria ‘death video’ of Sheikh al-Bouti poses questions
By Jim Muir
BBC News, Beirut
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22086230
The regime accorded his death massive coverage in the official media, far more than any other single event since the uprising began more than two years ago.
It said the heavily-guarded sheikh was assassinated by a suicide bomber who blew himself up in the mosque in a huge explosion that also killed around 50 students and Sheikh al-Bouti’s grandson, leaving many others badly injured.
That version of events is not borne out by the video, the authenticity of which has not so far been seriously challenged.
A flash, a bang, some smoke
The video clip shows Sheikh al-Bouti sitting at a desk in the al-Iman mosque in central Damascus apparently addressing religious students, as he was reportedly doing at the time of his death.
As he is speaking, there is a small explosion in front of the desk. It produces a flash, a bang and some smoke, but is not strong enough to disturb the desk or to shake the camera.
It is definitely Sheikh al-Bouti in the video, giving a talk, and 29 seconds later, he is either dead or mortally stricken – but by what?”
Within three seconds the smoke clears enough for the viewer to see the Sheikh, who has slumped sideways to our left clutching his head. He straightens himself up groggily, adjusting his headgear which had slipped.
Although there is still some smoke, no obvious injuries are visible. The sheikh is also strong enough to sit back up without using his hands to push himself upright – they are busy straightening his turban.
At that point, just five seconds after the explosion, a man dressed in dark clothing moves forward in front of the camera and approaches the sheikh, blocking him from view.
He appears to do something to the sheikh and lays him back sideways to our left, leaving him slumped and inert as the man himself moves off camera to the left, after an appearance lasting only five seconds. He does not reappear.
Five more men then move forward around the desk and pull the sheikh up and away to the right. By now he is already limp and is bleeding heavily from the mouth and from a wound to the left side of his head.
The video ends at that point, after just 29 seconds.
While the sheikh’s voice is audible – at the moment of the blast he is saying: “That’s not a problem…” – and the explosion is also heard, the subsequent scenes are acted out in silence with just a low crackling sound.
The video has many disturbing and peculiar aspects to it. It raises numerous questions, and leaves them unanswered.
No panic or chaos
A few facts are clear. It is definitely Sheikh al-Bouti in the video, giving a talk. And 29 seconds later, he is either dead or mortally stricken.
Mystery surrounds the actions of a man who approached the sheikh straight after the blast
But by what?
The blast itself clearly did not kill him outright. While he may have sustained injuries, they appear to have left him shaken and dazed but not disabled.
It was not a big explosion. His desk and the books and papers on it were not disturbed. Had the bomb been under the desk and inflicted internal injuries, the desk would have been blown over.
The blast seems to have gone off some distance in front of the desk, and the men who subsequently approached him walked through that area apparently unruffled, with no sense of panic or emergency.
Their movements, and those of the man in dark who first approaches the sheikh, have a strangely choreographed feel to them. They appear detached and almost professional.
There is nothing of the panic and chaos that accompanies big bomb explosions in crowded places.
Much hinges on the actions of the man in dark, which cannot be seen clearly. He is clearly not moving in to provide first aid to the sheikh. He does not run around the desk to help him. He approaches from the front, does something to him, lays him to the side, and moves away.
From his movements, seen from behind, he does not appear to be either shooting or stabbing the sheikh with force. He could be sliding or injecting something into him. If so, it is done very calmly and professionally.
What is clear is that as that man moves away, the sheikh is dead or dying.
Much more…
April 9th, 2013, 3:18 pm
Tara said:
Continue from above…
From the evidence in the video, it is inconceivable that such a small blast could have caused the death of around 50 other people, as reported by the state media – but also, curiously, by the opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Sheikh al-Bouti’s death received more state media coverage than any other single event since the uprising began more than two years ago.
The implication of the video is that the sheikh was the only victim, since the men who approach him after the explosion are there within a few seconds and come from the direction of the blast.
On the day of the event, Syrian TV carried pictures of the aftermath, mainly shot outside or on the steps of the mosque.
Images from inside showed some superficial debris, but not the kind of structural damage or bloodbath that would be expected from a huge bomb killing 50 people in an enclosed space.
The regime’s account was that the blast was the work of a lone suicide bomber who had infiltrated the students attending Sheikh al-Bouti’s talk.
But the video shows a group of men, one of them wearing a suit, working together to remove the sheikh’s body swiftly, apparently in coordination with the man in dark who had moved away.
The implication seemed to be that the sheikhs’ killing was the work of the regime – an accusation immediately levelled by the opposition at the time and repeated by many of those drawing attention to the video.
But why would the regime kill an elderly, highly distinguished Sunni cleric who had stood by it through thick and thin and castigated the rebels as terrorists and mercenaries?
His murder was condemned not only by the regime, but also by the opposition.
April 9th, 2013, 3:32 pm
Citizen said:
Maybe God doesn’t like Iran… and Moscow… and some others …
done by High Frequency Active Auroral Research? http://youtu.be/foLDKQ00XJc?t=18s
“Smoke on the Water” http://youtu.be/How_sbWXbGs?t=1m23s
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/04/nazi-sun-gun-space-mirror_n_3015475.html
http://youtu.be/InV0cVH6KZc?t=17s http://www.care2.com/news/member/185341883/759252
April 9th, 2013, 3:37 pm
MarigoldRan said:
The suspicions that the regime committed this act is more than enough to offset whatever gains the regime hoped to use from this incident.
It doesn’t even matter if Al Bouti was assassinated by the regime or otherwise. The suspicions are enough.
April 9th, 2013, 3:40 pm
Syrialover said:
World headlines! Shock and drama inside Iran. An earthquake there has just has killed 36, injured 800 and destroyed buildings leaving many homeless.
Would Iranians believe that their “government” facilitates identical-scale incidents daily in Syria? And that it’s been viciously doing this for many months and has no intention of stopping.
All Iranians are being betrayed and debased by what is being done with their resources and in their name to the people of Syria.
April 9th, 2013, 3:44 pm
Syrialover said:
TARA,
Before the crisis emerged, remember the “al qaeda bombings” the Syrian authorities routinely staged in Damascus?
No proper forensic investigations of these incidents were allowed by the regime. And that’s how it’s been with all the “terrorist suicide bombs” that have happened in the last two years.
Many of these incidents aroused suspicions because they’ve taken place in areas which security would have made impossible to penetrate, and at times and circumstances which seemed to result in little damage to government personnel and facilities.
As HOPEFUL says above: “It is in the DNA of the Syrian secret services and security apparatus to plan and commit such operations. They are experts at murder and deciept”
They are also stupid and poorly trained and directed, and assume the rest of the world is at the same level.
But this time, the video evidence has caught them out.
April 9th, 2013, 4:04 pm
zoo said:
Ghufran
After Al Qaeda public announcement of its Al Al Nusra links that Al Khatib denied a few weeks ago, comes now the overwhelming evidences that members of a FSA unit “Ahrar Surya” are commonly torturing civilians, kidnapping and practicing extorsion in Aleppo.
The FSA is under a heavy pressure to show they are the ‘good’ fighters who will make “good” use of the weapons promised by the West.
I doubt very much they can come out clean unless they enter into violent fights against the ‘bad’ fighters: The FSA must play the police within its ranks and renounce to Al Nusra’s military forces that helped them in ‘liberating’ critical areas.
I therefore expect more and more internal conflicts within the armed rebels especially in view of the scarcity of ammunition and weapons.
http://www.voanews.com/content/syrian_opposition_group_condemns_rebel_unit_for_torture/1638083.html
BEIRUT, LEBANON — The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights denounced on Tuesday a rebel battalion it said has tortured and extorted residents in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo.
Torture, kidnapping and summary killings have become a daily aspect of Syria’s uprising-turned-civil war.
But the Observatory, a British-based group with a network of activists across Syria, said it felt compelled to single out the Aleppo unit of the Free Men of Syria Brigade [Ahrar Suriya] after collecting a large number of witness testimonies that point to frequent cases of detainment and torture.
April 9th, 2013, 4:04 pm
revenire said:
Marigoldran the suspicions are enough to do what? Convince you, Tara, Syrialover, etc. of something that you can’t put into words?
When you find your brain maybe give me an answer.
April 9th, 2013, 4:15 pm
Syrialover said:
ZOO asked:
“Would you accept Russian or Iranians forensics?”
No. Would you, if was for something serious?
1. they are scientifically way behind the west
2. like Syrians, they have no official body of skilled people, expertise or institutions set up to properly investigate crimes. They only have the security services doing their usual dirty work and tricks.
April 9th, 2013, 4:16 pm
revenire said:
“The rebels now control Deir El Ezzor, Raqqa, Daraa, most of Aleppo and Idlib, and half of Damascus.”
And all of your brain.
There is no evidence the rebels control anything except their propaganda. Aside from that what can you show us to prove your point?
April 9th, 2013, 4:18 pm
Tara said:
Syrialover,
Not only that but please notice that the regime never announced the identity of the alleged “suicide bomber” who killed the heavily guarded Al Buti,
I can’t even even imagine the evilness of this regime. They killed al Buti with a gun shot after a make-believe fake small explosion then opened fire and killed 40 of his students.
Watching the link, I have no doubt in my mind that it is all staged. The man was very confident and composed approaching Buti from where the explosion came not showing any fear which is physiologically impossible a situation like that. The lack of chaos is incriminating because it is just not possible. What a murderous regime that is and if indeed died at the regime’s hand, then an ironic divine justice has truly truly been served!
April 9th, 2013, 4:19 pm
majedkhaldoun said:
All americans must leave Syria immidiately
April 9th, 2013, 4:19 pm
Citizen said:
https://twitter.com/geydardzhemal
The main statement of the political situation in the Islamic world is the lack of dialogue between Sunnis and Shiites. Forces interested in a similar dialogue today is very weak and marginal. However, the dominant common setting to thwart any attempt for such a dialogue. All this is happening against the background of a direct military confrontation between the forces of the Lebanese Hezbollah and the international Salafis in Syria.
http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.poistine.com%2Fpolitics%2Fvtoraya-grazhdanskaya-vojna-v-islame
April 9th, 2013, 4:21 pm
zoo said:
This news is sending a shock wave in the West. What is now the highest priority? Stop Al Qaeda’s expansion in the Middle East that will threatened Israel and the USA regional allies, or topple a resilient secular regime supported by a strong army, powerful international allies and a large part of the population?
Qaeda merges with Syria militia
http://news.kuwaittimes.net/2013/04/09/qaeda-merges-with-syria-militia/
Last week, Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri called in an Internet statement for the establishment of an Islamic state in Syria after Assad’s ouster, as a step towards the Islamist goal of re-establishing an Islamic caliphate over Muslim lands.
…
That prospect alarms many in Syria, from minority Druze, Christians, Alawites and Shiites to conservative but tolerant Sunnis who fear Al- Nusra would try to impose Taleban-style rule. “Do all you can to ensure that the fruit of your struggle, God willing, is an Islamic state … a state that would be a building stone in the return of the rightly-guided caliphate,” he said. — Reuters
April 9th, 2013, 4:28 pm
zoo said:
From Israel, US Secretary of State John Kerry says he’ll meet Syrian rebels in London.. without Al Khatib
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1754742/Kerry-will-meet-Syria-opposition-in-UK
“I will be meeting with the Syrian opposition in London,” he told reporters before departing from Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv after three days of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
But he said that Syrian rebel leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib was not expected to attend the meeting which would be hosted by British Foreign Secretary William Hague.
“We’re working on a list of attendees,” he said.
The US “preference… is to have a diplomatic solution” to the conflict and “a legitimate transfer of governing responsibility to an independent entity,” Kerry said.
“It sounds good, (but) the problem is you can’t get there if President Assad is unwilling to decide that he should transfer that authority,” he added.
April 9th, 2013, 4:34 pm
Tara said:
The news is not causing any shock wave. We knew that already… The day the US classified Al Nusra as a terrorist organization. To the contrary, I believe the West is very soothed by the FSA’ s recent declaration declaring their prior relation with al Nusra was tactical and that the FSA does not share al Nusra’s ideology.
One thing about al Qaeda or al Nusra is that they do not hide their animosity towards the West and the US so when the FSA and Al Khateeb declare they do not share their ideology, they are believed.
The declaration by the FSA is a job well done.
April 9th, 2013, 4:36 pm
zoo said:
#208 Tara
Do you seriously believe that the West is going to buy these late repentance and denials after Al Khatib and other leaders of the SNC and the FSA publicly exhorted the USA to remove Al Nusra from the terrorist groups list?
Now there are more news of abuses within the FSA appearing in the main stream media from pro-opposition sources. The Damascus bomb is worrying the West as it resembles Al Qaeda attacks in Iraq. The annoucement by Al Qaeda of its close connection to Al Nusra leaves no doubt of who is behind suicide bombings.
The credibility of the FSA is in steep decline and its unreliability increasingly apparent.
Instead of weapons they’ll probably get some vague promises at the condition they are able to unite and get rid of the ‘bad’ rebels….
The military adventure of the FSA is about to end on a negotiation table..
April 9th, 2013, 4:52 pm
Citizen said:
http://youtu.be/XxzTikgduDI?t=38s
April 9th, 2013, 5:01 pm
Tara said:
Zoo,
I sure do. It is a learning curve. And the US knows that. I also called on Obama once to reconsider. The more apparent al Nusra’s alliances with al Qaeda, the more Syrians will distance themselves. That is not to say Syrians would choose the regime over al Nusra. I would accept any alternative to the regime no matter what the alternative is. The disdain we developed towards the regime may be difficult for you to grasp, just because you’re seeing with your own eyes as opposed to ours. Additionally, it was a marriage of convenience if you will and Syrians had no choice not to accept help when the world was silently watching their slaughter. The US and Ford aren’t stupid to figure all of that. It isn’t rocket science. They are just not motivated by plain humanitarian causes or let me say for an oil-less country bordering Israel, it would take them a bit more to react…just like Bosnia.
April 9th, 2013, 5:13 pm
Tara said:
My original comment is awaiting moderation
I am copying it
*YOUR COMMENT IS AWAITING MODERATION.*
Zoo,
I sure do. It is a learning curve. And the US knows that. I also called on Obama once to reconsider. The more apparent al Nusra’s alliances with al Qaeda, the more Syrians will distance themselves. That is not to say Syrians would choose the regime over al Nusra. I would accept any alternative to the regime no matter what the alternative is. The disdain we developed towards the regime may be difficult for you to grasp, just because you’re seeing with your own eyes as opposed to ours. Additionally, it was a marriage of convenience if you will and Syrians had no choice not to accept help when the world was silently watching their slaughter. The US and Ford aren’t stupid to figure all of that. It isn’t rocket science. They are just not motivated by plain humanitarian causes or let me say for an oil-less country bordering Israel, it would take them a bit more to react…just like Bosnia.
April 9th, 2013, 5:19 pm
Syrialover said:
HOPEFUL,
Thank you for your comments. When I see a post by you I always see decency and reason.
I was just reading online comments by Maysaloon, a UK-based Syrian commentator. He points out that designating Syria a proxy war is being used to remove the blame from Assad and deny that Syrians have any reason to oppose him.
I also found value in Maysaloon’s latest blog essay where he tackles those who say “History is not essential” and puts a clearer perspective on the revolution in Syria.
He exposes the thinking of those who deny there is a revolution or refuse to support it.
http://www.maysaloon.org/
(NOTE: Maysaloon a few months ago wrote than brilliant piece about “closet shabiha”, or people who pretend to be impartial about what is happening in Syria.
See: http://www.maysaloon.org/2012/10/a-letter-to-closet-shabiha-assad.html)
April 9th, 2013, 5:29 pm
MarigoldRan said:
It doesn’t even matter. The regime is worse than either Al Nusra or Al Qaeda.
The war continues.
April 9th, 2013, 5:29 pm
Syrialover said:
Still wondering about ZOO and his dogged loyalty to the Iranians and Russians (#143)
If he or anyone close to him was the victim of a serious crime, would he reject efforts to solve it by western-trained and equipped forensic experts and say, “get out of the way, I prefer to bring in some crack investigators from Russia or Iran”.
Would you, ZOO?
April 9th, 2013, 5:45 pm
Syrialover said:
MAJEDKHALDOUN said in #204:
“All Americans must leave Syria immidiately”
That’s it? Not Iranians and Russians and Lebanese Hezbollah?
Just the very small number of Americans brave enough to still be there, most of them involved in relief work.
April 9th, 2013, 5:50 pm
revenire said:
Americans have to leave Syria? What Americans would be left in Syria now?
April 9th, 2013, 6:02 pm
Tara said:
It is funny that regime supporters were muted in regard to al Buti’s assassination.. Nothing to say? I understand. Nothing intelligent could be said. It is pretty damning.
Moving on, the opposition has integrity. It calls rebels out when human right abuse occur. Have the regime called out or investigated a single crime perpetrated by its
http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-opposition-group-denounces-rebel-unit-torture-173816263.html
Syrian opposition group accuses rebel unit of torture
Reuters
..
April 9th, 2013, 6:09 pm
revenire said:
Tara does anyone care? Yes Assad had a cleric who supported killed. The reason? It just seemed like a good idea that day. It was Asma’s idea. She did it because she is banned from shopping in Paris. You’re a joke Tara.
No one took your bait. You are your terrorist friends here can talk about Assad murdering anyone. Who cares?
You have been screeching on this forum for years. It is beyond predictable.
April 9th, 2013, 6:23 pm
Ziad said:
الشيخ توفيق البوطي ينفي مقتل والده بالرصاص ويؤكد وفاة والده وابنه جراء تبعات الانفجار الذي استهدفه في مسجد الإيمان
April 9th, 2013, 6:41 pm
Tara said:
Retard,
When I was referring to regime supporters, you were excluded. You carry no weight . Sorry.
April 9th, 2013, 6:48 pm
revenire said:
Who were you talking to then Tara?
April 9th, 2013, 6:53 pm
revenire said:
Syrialover go play games about chemical weapons with someone else. Your rats used them and the UN is bought and paid for. So what else is new? It is a big yawner. Russia said what it is and was clear. You hate Russia so sit on it “secular” terrorist.
April 9th, 2013, 6:55 pm
revenire said:
FYI Tara SOHR has been reporting terror atrocities for a long time now – the pro-terrorist Western media just hasn’t covered it. Don’t believe me? Go check it out.
April 9th, 2013, 7:21 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Actually, lots of people care.
You don’t. But that’s because you’re a retard.
April 9th, 2013, 7:29 pm
revenire said:
Who? Beside people who want Assad gone who else? What do a gaggle of expat misfits have to say Mari? They can’t even go to Syria legally.
No one cares. If they do show me. Prove it.
U “got” nothing except words.
April 9th, 2013, 7:33 pm
Syria no kandahar said:
FSA is as dirty as JN.Watch Tara friend bragging about 5 minorities university students.He enjoying freedom in Lebanon !!One year ago the same sharameet
Blaming the regime for Albouti crime were blaming (SHABEEH student)for
Killing (revolutionary students).It is a shame on humanity that this ibn alzania
Is free after killing 5 innocent people:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8XrPiCKfoLI
April 9th, 2013, 7:45 pm
Ghufran said:
The head of Egypt’s Coptic church has strongly condemned the country’s Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, for failing to deal properly with last weekend’s sectarian violence that ended with six Christians being killed and the country’s largest cathedral besieged by police and armed civilians.
In an outburst unusual for its tone and directness, Pope Tawadros II called a live current affairs programme on Monday night to criticise what he sees as Morsi’s negligence. On Sunday, Morsi had claimed that any attack on the cathedral was an attack on him personally and telephoned Tawadros to promise to do everything he could to protect it.
“But in reality he did not,” said the pope, arguing that Morsi’s action “comes under the category of negligence”. Police continued to fire teargas into the cathedral precinct after Morsi’s phone call – though it is unclear how much control Morsi exerts over security services.
April 9th, 2013, 7:57 pm
MarigoldRan said:
The people who want Assad gone are 75% of the Syrian population. Along with most of the West, and most of the Arab world.
I think that’s a size-able chunk of people, retard.
April 9th, 2013, 8:04 pm
revenire said:
When did they vote on that? Prove it. Source it for me dog-eater. Oh yeah, you can’t source it so you’re just running your mouth again like a chicken with its head cut off.
Most of the West my ass. Most of the West doesn’t care one way or the other about Syria you clown.
You can’t prove anything. You act like the government has no countermoves either. How stupid.
Got any more gems?
April 9th, 2013, 8:26 pm
Syrialover said:
REVENIRE #223
You’re too busy giggling to yourself about what you are going to write next (and giving yourself instant multiple thumbs up) to follow what others are writing.
I didn’t discuss chemical weapons.
Where is Syrian Commando when your team needs him! He never lost his focus – until he lost his faith in Bashar.
Maybe that’s what’s happened with you.
April 9th, 2013, 8:32 pm
Ghufran said:
This what bouti’s son said:
قال توفيق البوطي أن الرجل الذي ظهر أمام الشيخ البوطي ليس الا نجله أحمد الذي كان من ضحايا الانفجار ايضا
و قال “البوطي ” أنه فهم من الموجودين من المصابين أن انسانا دخل المسجد و بعد دقائق فجر نفسه على مسافة ستة أو سبعة أمتار من والده ، ما أدى إلى استشهاد و اصابة كل الجالسين في المسافة بين الانتحاري و والده.
و أوضح أن احدهم وصف المشهد له بأن رجلا” دخل و ليس في يديه شي جلس في يمين المسجد في مؤخرة المصلين و بعد 7 دقائق تقدم خطوة او اكثر ثم حدث الانفجار و عندما حدث الانفجار انقطع التيار الكهربائي و عم المكان ظلمة دامسة”.
و نقل “البوطي” عن احد الشهود أن الشيخ مال ثم عدل عمامته ، قبل أن يقوم حفيده الذي استشهد ايضاً بالتقدم نحو جده غير شاعر بالذي اصابه ثم وضع يده فوق راسه و سقط ايضا.
و أضاف” ان ولده كان يجلس قرب جده و كان اول من اتجه نحوه بعد الانفجار ثم قدم صديقان يخدمان العلامة و قاما بحمله”.
و قال ان المسجد لم يحصل فيه اطلاق رصاص أو اي شي أخر ابدا، في اشارة الى الروايات التي تحدث بها معارضون عن اغتياله بعد الانفجار .
و وصف الاتهامات للنظام بالهراء، مشيرا الى أن من يتهم النظام مجرمون نفذوا الجريمة و يريدون الصاقها بغيرهم.
April 9th, 2013, 8:32 pm
revenire said:
SL laughing is healthy for a person. I do it all the time. When I see the Syrian air force bombing rats I can’t stop laughing.
Tell me more about the moderate, secular FSA so I can laugh some more.
April 9th, 2013, 8:35 pm
revenire said:
Now I will laugh at Mari “dog meat” Goldran saying 75% of Syrians want Assad out. If that was the case he’d be gone. That is the stupidest, more ignorant statement I’ve seen here today. If he had said “75% of Syrian want Assad” he’d be headed in the right direction.
A howler to be sure.
April 9th, 2013, 8:37 pm
Tara said:
Ghufran
Buti’s son can say anything but the facts on the ground does not corroborate his story.
The son’s story is NOT consistent with the video. People around the Buti were not killed. Buti expired while everyone around him were alive.
It is a country of greed. The son sells the father and the father disavows the son to maintain perceived privileges. No wonder we collectively deserve what falls upon us.
April 9th, 2013, 8:44 pm
zoo said:
Tara
You don’t have to tell me again about your blind hatred for Bashar al Assad, his wife Asma and the rest of the family. You’ve been repeating that enough.
The trouble is that you keep convincing yourself that you represent the majority of Syrians.
For me, you just represent a small minority of nostalgic expats, like Majed and Visitor, each fantasizing on a different kind of Syria, all incompatible with each other.
Just like the SNC…
April 9th, 2013, 8:47 pm
Syrialover said:
REVENIRE even thinks it’s funny that the considers Bashar Assad burning Syria is a joke.
And ordinary Syrians are “rats” that he boasts of laughing at when their homes and lives are destroyed by the regime’s airstrikes.
What a daring cyber-warrior we have here!
But I bet he does a meek, earnest “closet shabiha” act in real life – see description linked in #213.
That (formerly) pro-Assad Syrian Commando, he was the real deal. An authentic persona, not a cyber game character.
April 9th, 2013, 8:50 pm
revenire said:
Tara the guy with his back to the camera is Bashar himself – CIA forensics have proven it.
April 9th, 2013, 8:50 pm
revenire said:
SL I don’t accept your version of events. The SAA is fighting Al-Qaeda.
Don’t cry about burning a country or dead Syrians when you support doing just that. You support burning it. You support killing Syrians.
The people who support the government are being murdered. They’re Syrians. Who is killing them?
You are just a little wound up hypocrite with dreams of a revolution that never existed. Go play on Twitter.
April 9th, 2013, 8:55 pm
Ghufran said:
So, what facts on the ground are we talking about ,Tara ?
Are we supposed to call bouti’s own son a liar and accuse him of selling his father but accept the “expert” analysis of few expats who live thousands of miles away ?
Any idea why anti regime western media is still silent about this ” shocking” evidence?
April 9th, 2013, 8:58 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Last time I checked, there was a civil war going on in Syria. The Assadists HAVE been kicked out of 70% of what was formerly known as Syria. They’ve evacuated Raqqa and Daraa recently because they couldn’t hold it anymore against the revolution.
You’re a retard, retard. Stop arguing with your betters. I’m not even going to bother asking for your thoughts, since we all know it’s going to be retarded.
April 9th, 2013, 9:00 pm
Tara said:
Zoo,
Every Syrian I know except may be 10 who are literally in bed with the regime feels exactly the same. I think my emotions in regard to the regime represent the emotions of 3/4 Syrians minus 10. Majed, Visitor, and I may have different fantasies about future Syria, but we all share the same intense hatred to this criminal regime. Ask them.
And I promise you I have never told you a lie.
April 9th, 2013, 9:01 pm
revenire said:
Who said they’re running low on manpower? You?
70% where? What area is the government not in?
You said this months ago. You were unable to prove it then and not able to do so now.
Your only source is anti-Assad propaganda.
April 9th, 2013, 9:03 pm
Tars said:
Ghufran
Are we supposed to believe the son and not our own eyes? Look at the video yourself or even better, review it with a trauma surgeon. I am sure you know a few.
April 9th, 2013, 9:04 pm
MarigoldRan said:
In this the rebels have already succeeded. The regime has no legitimacy. It can commit violence but it is increasingly viewed as a hostile puppet of a foreign power (Iran).
The war continues.
April 9th, 2013, 9:05 pm
revenire said:
Mari you’re out of your mind. You have NO source that isn’t anti-Assad propaganda.
April 9th, 2013, 9:05 pm
MarigoldRan said:
A regime supporter criticizes others about reliable, objective SOURCES?
What a retard. That’s as laughable as Zoo criticizing others about international law.
April 9th, 2013, 9:06 pm
Syrialover said:
I’ve just read estimates that one third of Syria’s housing stock is now damaged or destroyed. ONE THIRD. It took a lot of determined air and tank attacks to achieve it.
REVENIRE will wet his pants he’ll be laughing so hysterically about that.
April 9th, 2013, 9:07 pm
Visitor said:
It is a great Blessing from Allah the Al-Mighty that caused these Hizbistani thugs to be eliminated wholesale in Damascus on the hands of our holy warriors, who were granted the upper hand while the Mullah stooges found their way to eternal damnation,
http://www.alarabiya.net/ar/arab-and-world/2013/04/09/12-من-حزب-الله-اللبناني-قتلوا-في-كمين-بالقرب-من-دمشق.html
April 9th, 2013, 9:07 pm
revenire said:
Who said it has no legitimacy? Tara? LOL
April 9th, 2013, 9:09 pm
revenire said:
Syrialover you can list stats all day long. Get out a box of Kleenex.
🙂
April 9th, 2013, 9:10 pm
revenire said:
It wasn’t enough for NATO’s Wahhabi stooges to kill the top Islam scholar martyr sheikh Muhammad Saeed Ramadan Buti, they immediately accused the Syrian state late Buti stood beside in killing him, and when they failed to abuse his blood in their favor, they played a video they ‘obtained’ somehow showing the last momenets when the sheikh was killed, although there’s an explosion showing in the video, they insist that the Syrian state sent someone to finish late Buti when not dead from the first explosion.
They insist on killing him again and again and to hurt his beloved ones by seeing watching how he died.
His son spoke with Syrian TV today.
April 9th, 2013, 9:11 pm
MarigoldRan said:
The tens of thousands of people with the guns and anti-tanks missiles who are shooting at the Assadists believe the Assadists have no legitimacy.
For that matter, the Arab league no longer believes the regime has any legitimacy.
Oh yeah, also the West and its allies have closed all of the regime’s embassies and sent them packing. They also no longer recognize the Assadists as a legitimate government.
And then of course there are all the villages that have been shelled by the Assadists. And I’m not even going to bother mentioning the millions of refugees in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. I don’t think have many good things to say about Assadists either.
You’re stretching it here, retard. As I’ve said before: even as a troll you’re a failure. I guess what they say is true: once a loser, always a loser.
April 9th, 2013, 9:16 pm
majedkhaldoun said:
I know the grandson of Bouti, they all skinny people,the guy that we see in video is heavy one there is no way he could be his grand son.enough lies from you Ghufran.
Darayya is the city of heroes to say Dayrani should be equivalent to be Syrian Heroe,five months and the city is resisting, massacres bombardments,its people are the people who give water and help to all wounded,so many tanks belong to Assad thugs has been desroyed there,Darayya is the graveyard to Assad thugs,now those tanks are shields the rebels are using to fight new waves of tanks brought to subjugate Darayya.
It is funny that some Assad thugs are praising Russian and Korean weapons,as Feisal Qassem said you are bald but you are proud of your aunt hair
April 9th, 2013, 9:16 pm
revenire said:
You have no proof who those people are. None.
The Arab League is the illegitimate one and has nothing to say about Syria.
As I said, you can’t back up your silly claims except with garbage.
You’re a degenerate. Everyone here sees that.
April 9th, 2013, 9:26 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Well, at this point you aren’t even acting like a troll. You’re acting more like a delusional psychopath than anything else.
Then again, many trolls are delusional psychopaths. So congratulations, retard, you’ve now proven that you’re delusional and have no contact with reality.
April 9th, 2013, 9:31 pm
revenire said:
Refugees? They don’t support the terrorists. They FLED from them. You are a clown.
April 9th, 2013, 9:31 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Well, at this point you aren’t even acting like a troll. You’re acting more like a delusional psychopath than anything else.
Then again, many trolls are delusional psychopaths. So congratulations, retard, you’ve now proven that you’re delusional and have no contact with reality.
The point of the matter is that it is impossible to argue with someone who is mentally unstable and delusional. But it is possible to insult them. Or to feel pity towards them.
Revenire, I feel pity towards you. You’re such an easy target that the only emotion I feel towards you right now is pity. Revenire, how did you become such a big loser? What did you do wrong in your poor, pathetic life?
April 9th, 2013, 9:32 pm
MarigoldRan said:
The point of the matter is that it is impossible to argue with someone who is mentally unstable and delusional. But it is possible to insult them. Or to feel pity towards them.
Revenire, I feel pity towards you. You’re such an easy target that the only emotion I feel towards you right now is pity.
Revenire, how did you become such a big loser? What did you do wrong in your poor, pathetic life? What horribly wrong choices did you make in the past? No one deserves to be like you, Revenire. Even you. Is there a way we can make it better?
April 9th, 2013, 9:34 pm
revenire said:
No proof for anything you say. You might as well come here and type in recipes.
April 9th, 2013, 9:44 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Why are you such a horrible person, Revenire ? Why is it that you have no friends and spend your life on the comments section of a blog, getting your butt kicked by people who are better and smarter than you?
What horrible mistakes did you make in your PREVIOUS life that caused the gods to make you into such a horrible and pathetic person THIS life? Is there anything we can do to ease the pain of your pathetic existence?
April 9th, 2013, 9:46 pm
revenire said:
Just to show you how stupid you are let’s look at one thing again: 75%.
If 75% of Syrians were against Assad he’d be dead right now.
That’s how utterly stupid you are Marigoldran.
You bring up the Arab League (KSA + Qatar) or the West (but when you say “West” you mean the corrupt governments not the people – who don’t care at all, not one little bit).
You report on victories but where do you get news from? Anti-government sources. It is worthless except it is funny.
April 9th, 2013, 9:47 pm
revenire said:
Back just ONE thing you say up about Syria with a source. ANYTHING will do.
You can’t. It is all just BS blabbing from you.
You act like the Syrian government is the stupidest ever and the army is worthless. You say childish things. You’re really a pig.
April 9th, 2013, 9:52 pm
Syrian said:
SNK.@7:45
So you have no problem with the 80 thousands killed by Bashar but you choked on those “5 minorities university students” from last year that made you to come out from lurking in the back.
That kid is the product of Hafez and Bashar systems,they wanted sectarian system and they got a sectarian youth.
Let me remind you that 3-4 years ago your types were attaking Albouti as much as you are attaking JA now, vile hypocrite
So now In addition to watching out for you neck from JA,your ass from the resurging Ottomans,you have to watch your back from Hafez’s kids,
You sound so bitter. Is that because you did not make it in time to Canada like the smarter than you ZOO,who saw the writing on the wall and left that secular heaven,especially now that everything you own is probably worthless and all of your saving is gone,?
Oh yeah watch out also for any parked regime TV trucks
Enjoy the mafia rules!
April 9th, 2013, 9:54 pm
MarigoldRan said:
@ Retard
As I’ve said: you’re delusional and mentally unstable. There’s no point in arguing with a delusion and mentally unstable person like you [though it is fun trolling you].
If you aren’t willing to accept that there’s a big civil war going on in Syria right now, and that the Assadists are losing, then so be it. But it’s the truth.
The war continues and the Assadists continue to lose ground. Look at the territory the rebels hold today. Compare it to the territory they held two years ago. Results, retard, results. A concept that you probably don’t understand. The rebels have shown results. The Assadists have lost ground. Point proven.
April 9th, 2013, 9:57 pm
revenire said:
It is okay. I knew you couldn’t back it up. You’re just a kid. No problem man.
April 9th, 2013, 9:59 pm
apple_mini said:
Let us all do some reflection here. Can anyone name one who switched side because of convincing facts and logic? Of course not.
A very devout and open-minded Sunni women in Damascus used to love Al-Buti unconditionally. She got a little distressed by Al-Buti’s Jihad against foreign aggression speech. Does she believe the regime was behind the killing of Al-Buti? Of course not.
Syrians in the middle without siding anyone do not buy those craps even they do not have sympathy towards the regime. So what is the point to try so hard?
You need only state facts and logic once. Of course those perps will pile up all their ”evidence” and do their best twisting and smearing with all the help they can get from MSM who have been their mouthpieces from the very beginning. Remember how those MSM had achieved before Iraq invasion started?
Anyhow, there are current two freak shows on now: One is mentioned above and the other one is instead of focusing on the alleged chemical weapon attack with the most compelling evidence in Aleppo, UN wants to extend to all alleged chemical weapon incidents and France accuses the regime trying to hide something when the regime protests the biased investigation.
Behind those scenes, the open declaration of alliance and affiliation of Nusra in Syria and Al Qaeda in Iraq will have profound impact on the development of situation on every fronts: The west will feel more political pressure to make any move help the rebels, especially the policy of US administration will be under spotlight by media and the Congress. Consequently, the west will exert more pressure on the opposition and FSA. FSA is taking stand to distance themselves from Nusra but that is a double edged sword, as we all know who are those doing the most fighting among the rebels. The regime has a powerful smoking gun to back up their claim: the conflict has been a proxy war and terrorists waging it. It also provides political momentum for the regime and Iraqi government to seek closer ties. Jordanian government have to think twice how deep they are going to get involved with their dirty and secret assistance to the rebels.
This new development will be very significant in the days to come.
April 9th, 2013, 9:59 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Once again, a regime supporter is arguing about using objective sources? Did I read that correctly?
You’re like Zoo, trying to argue international law. It’s laughable.
April 9th, 2013, 10:02 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Apple_Mini
You’re accusing other people of things that you do yourself. You know it, we know it, everyone knows it.
You’re a regime supporter trying to argue about morality. Give it up. That’s an oxymoron. Regime supporters have no morals. Drop the pretentious act.
April 9th, 2013, 10:04 pm
Tara said:
Mari
I like reading your direct and to the point posts. You are pretty sharp. They balanced out the retarded comments. I hope you stay with us on SC until we take our country back.
April 9th, 2013, 10:17 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Thank you, Tara!
The rebels are not perfect. But the regime is worse.
April 9th, 2013, 10:18 pm
revenire said:
I hope so too. Mari provides an easy target to show how stupid terrorist supporters are and a good laugh. It’s cheap entertainment. 🙂
April 9th, 2013, 10:20 pm
ghufran said:
This channel claims that the video of Bouti was a fabrication:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=117_1365531214
April 9th, 2013, 10:32 pm
revenire said:
So much for Tara, Syrialover, Mari and the rest. The video is a fake.
April 9th, 2013, 10:35 pm
majedkhaldoun said:
Germany announced they will take 5000 syrian refugees,They prefer to be christians
April 9th, 2013, 10:56 pm
majedkhaldoun said:
I think US should take 200,000 syrian refugee too,and give them visa,germany said there are 40,000 syrian refugee in germany now
April 9th, 2013, 11:04 pm
ghufran said:
Fares and most Syrians wanted a revolution that brings them freedom and dignity, what they got was a war that destroyed their country. That is what Fares Al-Hilu said:
فارس الحلو
الثورة السورية أشعلها البسطاء
وحمل مشاعلها الشجعان والشرفاء
ويقتات عليها الأنذال والجبناء
April 9th, 2013, 11:08 pm
ghufran said:
tara:
“Are we supposed to believe the son and not our own eyes? Look at the video yourself or even better, review it with a trauma surgeon. I am sure you know a few”
our brain, tara, tells our eyes what to believe, you know what I am talking about. I think the video was a fake, sorry.
I never suggested that the regime is unable or unwilling to kill,I know better. The problem is that the opposition story is hard to believe and their video ,like some other videos doctored by both sides, is not good enough for the careful unbiased eye, not that I am claiming to be careful or unbiased.
April 9th, 2013, 11:35 pm
Juergen said:
a must watch
syria behind the lines, PBS Frontline report
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/syria-behind-the-lines/
April 10th, 2013, 12:32 am
apple_mini said:
Another accomplishment by the cooperation between the Syrian government and the Iraqi government with shadow assistance from Iran:
Iraq inspected a Syrian-bound Iranian plane on Tuesday, but found only civilian goods onboard during the second such search this week which came after Washington urged Baghdad to stop weapons reaching Tehran’s ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Now I wish Iraqi government can also intercept flights bounded to Jordan from Croatia.
April 10th, 2013, 12:55 am
ann said:
AL-QAEDA flag unfurled over the Jordanian Capital!
Supporters of Salafi Jihadi [Al-Qaeda] group hold protest in Jordan – 2013-04-10
Just look at these filthy monsters!
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/2013-04/10/c_132296378.htm
CHEERS
April 10th, 2013, 1:25 am
revenire said:
Juergen you can already see PBS decided not to translate Arabic as it was spoken but how they wanted the viewers to hear it. Let’s not be coy. If you speak Arabic you know what I mean.
Do you ever post something that isn’t propaganda?
April 10th, 2013, 1:30 am
Mina said:
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/68867/Egypt/Politics-/Only-negotiated-settlement-will-end-Syria-crisis-O.aspx
haytham manna in al ahram
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/68884/Egypt/Politics-/ElBaradei-should-face-trial-for-Iraq-war-role-Brot.aspx
more MB hypocrisy
April 10th, 2013, 1:59 am
revenire said:
Juergen I liked the parts when the jets bombed the rats and they all scurried around like cockroaches.
April 10th, 2013, 2:01 am
Juergen said:
Reve
I assume as long its not Sana or PressTV or Russia al yaum, you will always refer it to be propaganda. I found this report remarkable, and both sides were given a chance of stating their opinion, to me thats what journalism should always bring out. If you find it propaganda that innocent refugees cry out their despair of losing loved ones, then you stopped having a heart a long time ago.
April 10th, 2013, 3:21 am
Mina said:
more on jabhat al nusra
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/68891/World/Region/Qaeda-in-Iraq-Syria-role-boast-could-backfire-Anal.aspx
“democracy” in an MB ruled patriarcal context
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/68890/Egypt/Politics-/New-allegations-against-Bassem-Youssef.aspx
April 10th, 2013, 4:42 am
annie said:
why are my last two posts blocked ?
April 10th, 2013, 4:53 am
Johannes de Silentio said:
275. MAJEDKHALDOUN
“I think US should take 200,000 Syrian refugees”
No fucking way.
Hey, I’ve got an idea. Send them to Myanmar. They like Muslims in Myanmar. Really, they do.
A New Bashar Cartoon:
http://otherwords.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/syrian-butchers-cartoon-1024×795.jpg
April 10th, 2013, 4:55 am
Johannes de Silentio said:
263. MOSSIE
“You act like the Syrian government is the stupidest ever and the army is worthless”
Because it is and it is, Mossie Baby…
April 10th, 2013, 5:00 am
syria no kandahar said:
Syrian 264
All my post was about condeming killing of innicent university students by a criminal you jumped to defend.I feel sad for any syrian getting killed: sunni,alawi,christian,moslem,kurd,durzi..
i dont cheer for any one killing like you.You and your revolutionists are uncivilized.you live like parasites in western
societies like all the other terrorists supporters on this blog
while you desrespect their cultures and religions.your only appropriate places are the liberated areas in syria or caves in afghanstan where you belong.why is it that 70% of syria is free now
you dont go and enjoy the heaven you are aadvocating for?JA will
take good care of you,you can bring alqaeda flags with you and hang them outside your door in your koffar residecy country.you
and Tara,visitor and majed can have a strret in clorado named Janhat Anusra Ave you guys can line it up with Allah Akbar black
flags and Alqaeda songs in Iraq and Syria can be played around the
clock,It will be a tourists attraction and it will show your real revolution to the world.
You are delusional about your status as victims,you are criminals supporters,Sunni in syria were never victims,they were treated
with respect and had good lifes in syria,even you lairs most of you are graduates of free syrian education systems,some of the
sunni revolutiion people with neck wrapped with french flag i know
entered syria universities after going dawrat saeqa.Most of the criminials floating around in Syria are wahabist sunni,sunnis
were never ever victims because they were sunni,most of sunnis
in syria will be thrilled if you,your revolution,JA,FSA,Erdoghan,Hamad..go to hell next to Alaaroor,Bin
Laden,9/11 hijackers,Alzarqawi..where all of you can have sex with
your 72 virgins while sitting on a holly kazook custom made for
you and HBJ between the rivers of wine and yougurt.
These are your fucking terrorists Janjaweeds in Deeralzoor in action:
http://www.syriatruth.org/news/tabid/93/Article/9535/Default.aspx
April 10th, 2013, 6:37 am
Citizen said:
http://www.nakhelnews.com/pages/news.php?nid=25139
اندماج العراق الاسلامية وجبهة النصرة السورية باسم “الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام”
لنخيل-اعلنت ما تعرف بـ”دولة العراق الإسلامية”، الثلاثاء، وهي جناح تنظيم القاعدة في العراق أن جبهة النصرة المعارضة في سوريا هي فرعها هناك وأن الجماعتين ستعملان تحت اسم واحد هو”الدولة الاسلامية في العراق والشام”.
وقالت خدمة سايت لمراقبة المواقع على الانترنت ومقرها الولايات المتحدة الامريكية إن دولة العراق الإسلامية وهي جناح تنظيم القاعدة في العراق أعلنت أن جبهة النصرة المعارضة في سوريا هي فرعها هناك وأن الجماعتين ستعملان تحت اسم واحد.
ونقلت سايت عن زعيم ما يعرف بـ”دولة العراق الإسلامية” أبو بكر البغدادي قوله إن جماعته وجبهة النصرة السورية ،المدرجة على القائمة السوداء للولايات المتحدة، سيتوحدان تحت اسم الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام.
It is a Production of US planners !
April 10th, 2013, 6:40 am
zoo said:
Tara
Your allegation of 3/4 is totally subjective and based on expats of a certain social rank. I doubt you are acquainted with many local ‘peasants’ as you call the others.
If this was true, Bashar would have been long gone like Mobarak and Ben Ali. Neither Mobarak, nor Ben Ali had the army solidly its. Bashar Al Assad has, even after two years of hardship and an estimation of 10,000 soldiers dead.
Bitter or nostalgic Syrian expats who run away for years are unable to face the realities of today’s Syria. Their identity is getting blurred through the prism of their life as exiles.
Like all exiled or emigrants, they will always see Syria as a fantasy word.
April 10th, 2013, 7:37 am
revenire said:
Juergen you’re kidding right? Both sides? Are you that blind? It shows both sides because it has to for it even to be considered journalism but leans toward one side.
April 10th, 2013, 8:14 am
apple_mini said:
Moaz al-Khatib, the president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, claims al-Qaida in Iraq’s statement that Jabhat al-Nusra is its representative in Syria and that they are now fighting under the same banner, is untrue. In a Facebook update, Khatib, who tendered his resignation last month, only to have it rejected, says that the al-Nusra front was not consulted about the statement and that al-Qaida is trying to impose itself on the Syrian group.
Despite the protestations of Syrian opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib, Charles Lister, an analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre says Jabhat al-Nusra’s leader has sworn allegiance to al-Qaida.
It’s official – Jabhat al-Nusra leader Al-Golani has sworn allegiance to Al-Qaeda – in a 7-min audi message posted 15 mins ago – #Syria
Al-Khatib made a dangerous gamble here. I do not know whether he has personal opinion about those Nursa fighters or he was trying not to put himself so confrontational to those Nursa since those Nusra fighters are so indispensable for fighting against the regime. He did not want to deepen the rifts of rebel ranks and making it militarily weaker.
Either way, his western backers will not be happy about it. And the regime will have hard time to work with him even there might be a potential open window for dialogue.
We somehow can take it as a warning sign that Al-Khatib might be a person we need to watch out for association with those extremists.
April 10th, 2013, 8:58 am
Syrialover said:
ANNIE #286
We need your posts to offset the pro-Assad propaganda-fest going wild here at the moment.
There is no reason for posts being held up, it just happens randomly.
Try re-submitting them with slightly different introductory words and see if that works – it should.
Meanwhile, APPLE_MINI has dropped any effort to appear neutral and has come out with a surge of “creative reporting”.
And SYRIA NO KANDAHAR is talking hyper-excitedly, making so many accusations and insults to everyone it’s too tangled to follow. I think the upshot of what SNK is saying is that if you don’t support Bashar Assad you must be mad and evil – unlike SNK who is a caring Good Guy.
April 10th, 2013, 9:18 am
zoo said:
In Syria, some brace for the next war (FSA vs Al Nusra)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-syria-some-brace-for-the-next-war/2013/04/09/284fa018-a11d-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story_1.html
“Fighting is unavoidable,” said Abu Mansour, a commander with the rebel Free Syrian Army’s Farouq Brigades, whose men clashed last month with those of the extremist Jabhat al-Nusra movement in the border town of Tal Abiyad, one of several instances in which the tensions have erupted into violence. “If it doesn’t happen today, it will happen tomorrow.”
Jabhat al-Nusra, the group designated a terrorist organization by the United States because of its suspected ties to al-Qaeda, is among several groups advancing in the region, but it is emerging as the most divisive and the strongest.
…
“The Syrian revolution started for democracy, and Jabhat al-Nusra are not fighting for democracy. But they are Syrians, and we don’t want any clash with them,” the spokesman added.
…
It is no accident, say more-moderate rebel leaders, that Jabhat al-Nusra has chosen to concentrate its efforts in this region. The group has seized control of nearly 90 percent of Syria’s oil wells, its granaries and its stores of cotton, and it has set about selling the stocks to raise money, according to Nawaf al-Bashir, a tribal leader.
..
“They have the Syrian economy in their hands, and they are very strong. You can see their black flags everywhere you go,” he said in an interview in the Turkish border town of Sanliurfa.
April 10th, 2013, 9:41 am
zoo said:
Apple_mini
“Al-Khatib made a dangerous gamble here.”
It’s no gamble, it is immaturity. He is discredited for good in the eyes of the West.
April 10th, 2013, 9:44 am
Tara said:
Zoo,
Can you please spare me the army is solidly behind Bashar argument and Munarak/Ben Ali quick fall. The army is a sectarian army. You know that and if you forgot, read Kheder from 2years ago to review the structure of the army and the security system where Alawis have a tight control and every Sunni is spied on by an Alawi. This is why the army supports Bashar and your point is not valid.
April 10th, 2013, 9:50 am
zoo said:
In London, Kerry snubs Al Khatib
Syrian forces counter rebel push into Damascus
http://thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=Syrian+forces+counter+rebel+push+into+Damascus&NewsID=372335
In London, Kerry was meeting with the opposition’s interim prime minister, Ghassan Hitto, and other senior figures from the Syrian National Coalition.
The Western-backed alliance has been marred by severe divisions in its ranks since its formation late last year in Qatar, and its leaders are mostly seen as disconnected from the myriad rebel forces fighting inside Syria.
Hitto, who has lived in the United States for many years, was elected last month to head the SNC. On Saturday, the coalition said he has started reviewing candidates for a planned rebel interim government that will consist of 11 ministries and will be based inside Syria.
The coalition said the candidates are not allowed to have ties to the Assad regime and must be advocates or supporters “of the Syrian revolution.”
In London, Kerry will have a one-on-one meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later Wednesday. Russia has been Assad’s staunch ally, supplying Damascus with weapons, shielding the regime from tougher U.N. sanctions and supporting Assad in his resolve to remain in power.
The opposition leaders insist Assad must step down before they can hold talks with Damascus on a political transition.
During his stop in Israel, Kerry said the Obama administration was holding intense talks on how to boost aid to Syria’s rebels and that it was important to increase pressure on Assad’s regime to get it to the negotiating table.
April 10th, 2013, 9:50 am
Jasmine said:
Some food for thoughts by Otrakji
http://creativesyria.com/syriapage/?p=357
April 10th, 2013, 9:53 am
Syria no kandahar said:
Syrialover
You as a wahabist strategist has the wahabi degenerative virus which is making your wahabi brain so wahabically atrophied that it has stopped maturing it remained at
2 years old mentality attributing all the evils on the univers to Bashar.If Bashar get killed
Today is Syria going to be a heaven ?
This evil jihadis,Takfirist,Islamic,wahabist criminal revolution is a shame on modern ages.
It belongs to beginning of Islam ages,it wants to take Syria to those ages.Not a single
Islamic country out of 1.4 billion Moslems all over the earth had one successful political
Islam.Islam and politics mix is a poison to civilization and democracy.Syrians eventually
Would have to clean their behinds with the beards of all the wahabi terrorists if they ever
Want to become a civilized society ever again,
April 10th, 2013, 9:53 am
ann said:
Window Dressing! 😀
Israeli Arab accused of joining ‘Syrian rebels’ – 2013-04-10
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/10/c_132299123.htm
JERUSALEM, April 10 (Xinhua) — Israel’s state prosecutors on Wednesday charged an Israeli Arab, who joined ‘rebels’ fighting against Syrian governmental troops, with contacting a foreign agent and illegal military training, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Masrawa was arrested on March 19 for sneaking into Syria, where he joined a jihadist group and underwent military training, the report said, citing a statement by a Shin Bet security service.
During the interrogation, Nasser Masrawa, 19, a resident of the northern town of Taibeh, said that he refused offers to carry out a suicide bombing in Syria
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/10/c_132299123.htm
April 10th, 2013, 10:21 am
SYRIAN HAMSTER said:
Otrakji… ha ha … food for thought… bigger ha ha .
Who doesn’t love the deceptive use of beuatifuly constructed “sceinterrific” graphics…. Nice renditions of pacman….
Otrakji as usual manipulates every single paragraph to lead to the conclusion… Athad is not bad and he is popular. A secondary conclusion says that Otrakji is one heck of a sectarian and a master in abusing secularism in every single instance he gets the opportunity to.
He’s got groupies, no doubt about that… but every single “scienterrific” work of his can easily be shredded to pieces including his “online” poles which are well known to be screwed before being skewed given the regime and its friends obsession with “winning” on-line poles.
Now I wait for Otrakji, his groupies, or his reps on SC to respond and tell me what a hateful person i am…..
April 10th, 2013, 10:25 am
ann said:
Unlike NATO’s Idea Of Humanitarian Aid “Bullet Proof Vests” 😉
Russia flies another humanitarian cargo for Syrian refugees – 2013-04-10
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/10/c_132299129.htm
MOSCOW, April 10 (Xinhua) — A Russian plane has delivered over 26 tones of humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees, the Emergency Situations Ministry said Wednesday.
“An Il-76 carrying 26,700 kg humanitarian consignment has landed in Beirut airport in Lebanon at 13:55 Moscow time (0955 GMT),” the ministry’s website said.
The cargo consisted of portable power stations, 1500 blankets, 500 sets of dishes, baby food and various preserved foods, it said.
This is not the first Russian aid supply for the refugees fleeing war-torn Syria. Earlier in April, another Russian plane has delivered 37 tones of humanitarian aid to the Syrians who took refuge in Lebanon.
“Deliveries of Russian humanitarian aid for refugees from Syria who currently live in neighboring countries will continue in the near future,” the Foreign Ministry said on April 3.
On Thursday, one more Russian plane is expected to depart to Jordan with humanitarian cargo, including electric power generators, food for children and other staples for the Syrian refugees staying in that kingdom.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/10/c_132299129.htm
April 10th, 2013, 10:40 am
Akbar Palace said:
He’s got groupies…
President Hamster,
The owner here, apparently, is one such groupie.
Otrakji was an Assad apologist extraordinaire… I wonder if he’s seen the light?
April 10th, 2013, 11:03 am
ann said:
Blast rattles Syria’s Idlib, causing casualties – 2013-04-10
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/10/c_132299188.htm
DAMASCUS, April 10 (Xinhua) — An explosive-laden vehicle went off Wednesday in the west of northern Syria’s Idlib province, causing a number of casualties.
The blast took place between the western towns of Failoun and Bakfalloun.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/10/c_132299188.htm
April 10th, 2013, 11:06 am
zoo said:
Tara
Everyone has fantasies. The reality speaks by itself.
After two years, the “revolution’s ideals” have turned the country into a national disaster and a cheap prey for investors.
April 10th, 2013, 11:15 am
zoo said:
Iraqi Shi’ite militants start to acknowledge role in Syria
Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:59 GMT
Source: reuters // Reuters
* Iraqi Shi’ite militias look to build momentum in Syria
* Fighters starting to openly acknowledging role there
* Shi’ite militants see Syrian cause as legitimate
By Suadad al-Salhy
BAGHDAD, April 10 (Reuters) – Iraqi Shi’ite militias have begun openly acknowledging they are fighting in Syria, in what they see as a worthy battle against rebels seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad, especially his hardline Sunni opponents.
By recognising their role in Syria’s war, Iraqi Shi’ite fighters may gain recruitment momentum to help Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, in a war that is splitting the region along sectarian lines.
The war has already pulled in Sunni Islamists from outside Syria to join rebel ranks. Syria, for its part, has begun sending militias loyal to Assad for training at a base in Shi’ite Iran, Assad’s key ally, fighters say.
April 10th, 2013, 11:19 am
zoo said:
Meet the Ladies of the Free Syrian Army
They Have Guns, Dead Families and Nothing to Lose
http://assets.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/no-slug/34351c08c0c834450d1aaeaabf9e26e1.jpg
Jabhat al-Nusra, for example, support the women in theory but refuse to fight alongside them or allow them to carry their weapons openly. Even though they’re all opposed to Assad, the Islamic rebel groups are determined to create an Islamic state in Syria, while most Syrians are opposed to this idea. Am and her brigade are devout Muslims, too, but they don’t want an Islamic state; they want a democracy.
…
Before my trip, I envisioned them firing their guns and operating checkpoints but quickly realised that I had been a bit delusional – even though they are ready to fight, their Islamist frenemies won’t let them. I wondered how extremist groups could prevent women from fighting when, according to most interpretations, the Quran states that jihad is for women too. Our fixer, Safa, suggested that I speak with some members of the Jabhat al-Nusra.
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/meet-the-ladies-of-the-free-syrian-army-000833-v20n4
April 10th, 2013, 11:27 am
Jasmine said:
Only for Syrians
http://creativesyria.com/dialogue/?lang=ar
April 10th, 2013, 11:28 am
zoo said:
Qaeda in Iraq Syria role boast could backfire: analysts
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/qaeda-iraq-syria-role-boast-could-backfire-analysts-094848905.html#yyTX4Lh
In a Facebook post shortly after the announcement, Abu Baseer al-Tartusi, a well-respected adviser to the Syrian Islamic Front, a militant group that, though not as radical as Al-Nusra is still regarded as hardline, said it could lead to infighting among rebel groups and give pro-Assad forces a rallying cry.
“The biggest losers from this announcement are the oppressed and violated Syrian people, and their blessed, orphaned revolution,” he wrote.
April 10th, 2013, 11:31 am
majedkhaldoun said:
i don’t like what is going on
April 10th, 2013, 11:46 am
revenire said:
It is nice our Iraqi brothers are helping. I knew that something good had to come out of Bush’s wars. Bravo USA!
April 10th, 2013, 12:00 pm
ann said:
311. majedkhaldoun said:
i don’t like what is going on
I gave you thumbs UP 😉
April 10th, 2013, 12:01 pm
mjabali said:
Syria no Kandahar said:
“Islam and politics mix is a poison to civilization and democracy.”
That is correct my brother and my countryman mr. Syria No Kandahar. You said it many times on this board. Democracy is not understood by the masses because of Islam.
There is no democracy in Islam. al-Quran states many times if you are not a Muslim you are not equal. The practice of Muslims, since the birth of Islam till now, never showed any inclination but to dominate and force the others to accept a less than equal status.
Look at what is taking place in Egypt. See the ease the Muslim mob attack and kill the Copts. See how they treat them and tell me.
April 10th, 2013, 12:15 pm
ghufran said:
Now that Nusra and Al=Qaida are officially in bed together and after confirming that rebels are dominated by Islamists, no western country will be able to justify to its citizens sending weapons and troops to Syria, even political support for the NC is at risk now, this change, if you think it is a change, will also affect Arab countries that can not say NO to the US.
What the opposition and the FSA need to do is accept mediation to stop the war and enter into negotiations to form a government, I think the road to a political settlement will be long and bumpy but the alternative is the continuous destruction of the country, something a number of foreign posters here want and call for openly.
Assad,again, is being helped by the mistakes of his enemies, however, I do not think he now has a political future unless Syria gets divided.
April 10th, 2013, 12:16 pm
ann said:
This is getting better by the minute 😉
Where’s Victoria Nuland when you need her?!
Vicky! HELLLO-O!
Syria’s radical jihadist group pledges allegiance to AL-QAIDA – 2013-04-10
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/10/c_124564946.htm
DAMASCUS, April 10 (Xinhua) — Syria’s radical jihadist group al-Nusra Front on Wednesday pledged allegiance to al-Qaida, the pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV reported.
The pledge was made by leader of al-Nusra Front, Abu Mohammed al-Jawalani, in an audio message, a day after al-Qaida in Iraq said the rebel group in Syria is part of its “Islamic state.”
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of al-Qaida branch in Iraq, said Tuesday “It is time to declare to the Levant and the whole world that al-Nusra Front is not but an extension for the Islamic state of Iraq and part of it.”
“We declare the cancelation of the name of Islamic State of Iraq, and the cancelation of the name of al-Nusra Front and combine them under (a) single name which is the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant,” al-Baghdadi said in a message posted on the Internet, adding that the leader of the Syrian part of the self- styled state will be a Syrian.
The announcement was made a couple of days after al-Qaida’s central leader Ayman al-Zawahiri urged the unification of the jihad in Syria.
Al-Jawalani said Wednesday his group had not been consulted on the merger with al-Qaida beforehand. But he appeared to have formally accept it considering his vow of allegiance to the universal terror group.
However, the Syrian opposition at home dismissed the mergence declaration.
Head of the National Coordination Body, Hasan Abdul-Azim, told Xinhua that such a move will not succeed due to the lack of supportive climate in Syria.
“It will not succeed … they will not find a supportive environment in Syria and will eventually have to pull out,” he said.
“That is their dream to establish an Islamic emirate … Syrian people want to liberate from tyranny and corruption and want to choose their own leadership, but al-Qaida’s declaration contradicts the dreams of the Syrian people,” said Abdul-Azim.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/10/c_124564946.htm
April 10th, 2013, 12:20 pm
mjabali said:
What is going on the the Copts in Egpyts shows the real intentions of certain Muslims towards the non-Muslims.
The establishment of the Qaeda/Nusra state in Syria and Iraq shows the real intentions of many.
The cries of many on this board to form one Sunni State is a clear message to others: You do not belong with us.
April 10th, 2013, 12:22 pm
revenire said:
Syrian Air Force
In Qusayr Homs, a border town adjacent to Lebanon devoid of Syrian unarmed citizens and filled to the brim with terrorists, the Air Force has conducted general air strikes on terrorist concentrations, while simultaneously tightening the siege in the surrounding villages. Qusayr is home to upwards of 20,000 terrorists and foreign fighters having ejected its former population into outlying cities.
Qusayr will eventually be vacated but the structural damage will be extensive. The town is regarded as a sunk cost and the Air Force and army attack will ensure the terrorists are buried in their alongside the rubble.
April 10th, 2013, 12:59 pm
revenire said:
Syrian Air Force
Air strikes have continued over Damascus countryside, where the army is moving at a rapid pace due to and orderly pull out of the Jordanian and Golan borders to secure the capital from security tampering.
A change of tactics was ordered several days ago, the details of which will be published when it is expedient. Needless to say, the terrorists around Damascus are suffering the same shock that their ancestors in Grozny suffered in 1999.
April 10th, 2013, 12:59 pm
mjabali said:
Majedkhaldoun:
I agree with you because there are more Shia fighters in Syria, plus more Salafi fighters. Salafis and co. are getting more weapons, the same could be said about the Shia fighters. This means bad news for Syrians. You know that prolonged fighting is serving no one, except for the destruction of our beloved Syria.
April 10th, 2013, 1:00 pm
revenire said:
“311. MAJEDKHALDOUN said:
i don’t like what is going on”
Majed I also gave you BIG THUMBS UP brother.
April 10th, 2013, 1:01 pm
AIG said:
So the regime idiots admit that Assad had to pull back his forces from the Jordanian and Israeli borders because he is “winning” there and in Damascus. Talk about people who can’t face reality.
April 10th, 2013, 1:13 pm
revenire said:
AIG do you have access to Google?
April 10th, 2013, 1:34 pm
revenire said:
Rebel battalion detaining and torturing civilians in Aleppo
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
The SOHR interviewed several civilians who have recently been released after several days in a rebel detention centre on the edges of the al-Ashrafiya neighbourhood. The operation is headed by a rebel battalion who’s leader is called Khaled Hayyani. The interviewees were badly tortured and beaten by the rebel battalion. One of the torture victims, who was released yesterday, stated that the rebels have tens of Arab and Kurd civilian captives, mostly men aged between 18 and 20, and that people are being tortured there around the clock. Attached are some images of the body of a released torture victim.
This battalion is also responsible for the abuse, theft and forcible take over of property of many refugees who have been fleeing the neighbouring Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood, which has been a scene of intense violencve recently.Many former residents from Sheikh Maqsoud have complained that the battalion is racketeering and forcing them to pay protection money, which some claimed is no different to the practices formerly conducted by the pro-regime gunmen.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights condemns such war crimes and demands that the rebel battalion headed by Khaled Hayyani ceases immediately. We demand the immediate release of all detainees, that all confiscated and stolen property be returned immediately, and that those responsible be brought to justice. Such actions are a reproduction of the brutalities committed by the Syrian authorities, and they were the main reason many Syrians took to the streets to demand their rights to freedom, justice and dignity. Rebel battalions are responsible for all injustices that take place in the areas which they control, if they are in power in an area they must ensure and respect the essential rights of the civilian population.
LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION! WINNING THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF SYRIANS!
April 10th, 2013, 2:13 pm
Tara said:
Moaz al Khatib, a prototype pious Syrian, condemns al Qaeda ideology. Now we will hear from mnhebaks that Moaz does not represent the Syrian revolution. Of course they cherry pick “who represents the revolution”. Anyone who reinforces their scaremongering tactic to stop the west from arming the FSA will do. Intellectual honesty does not matter. Lies and deceit are permissible as long as it help with their “noble” goal of keeping the God-boy stuck to the chair.
—
Moaz al-Khatib, the president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, claims al-Qaida in Iraq’s statement that Jabhat al-Nusra is its representative in Syria and that they are now fighting under the same banner, is untrue. In a Facebook update, Khatib, who tendered his resignation last month, only to have it rejected, says that the al-Nusra front was not consulted about the statement and that al-Qaida is trying to impose itself on the Syrian group.
He has previously criticised extremists in Syria but also called on the US to reconsider its decision to list Jabhat al-Nusra as a foreign terrorist organization, saying no action should be taken against any rebel forces whose goal is “the fall of the regime”.
#Breaking Moaz Khatib: “The bottom line is Al Qaeda ideology doesn’t suit us & rebels in Syria have to take a clear stance about this”
— Hassan Hassan حسن (@hhassan140) April 10, 2013
Moaz Khatib: There’re those who want to impose themselves even on Jabhat al-Nusra, we reject any imposition on any rebel group in Syria.
— Hassan Hassan حسن (@hhassan140) April 10, 2013
Moaz Khatib says Jabhat al-Nusra has nothing to do with the statement from Iraq Al Qaeda, wasn’t consulted & doesn’t know about it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/10/syria-crisis-g8-foreign-ministers-seek-breakthrough-london-meeting#block-5165269a95cb5a3326d675e9
April 10th, 2013, 2:28 pm
Dawoud said:
Bahrain has courageously and rightly labeled Lebanon’s Hizba@s as a “terrorist organization.” A poll in Egypt today has found that 81% of Egyptians oppose any normalization with Iran. Yes, No normalization while Iran is sending arms and shabiha to Syria to kill Syrians.
Free Syria, Free Palestine, Bahrain is Arab forever!
April 10th, 2013, 2:33 pm
Dawoud said:
What do you think TARA, MajedKhaldoun, Syria Lover, other anti-Bashar commentators about the following?
http://almesryoon.com/permalink/119851.html
81% من المصريين يرفضون التطبيع مع إيران
فتح الأراضى الإيرانية لعلماء السنة.. ورفع الدعم عن بشار.. وإعادة جزر الخليج المغتصبة.. وعدم اضطهاد “السنة”.. ومنع العلاقات العسكرية
كشفت دراسة، أعدها المركز المصري لدراسات الإعلام والرأي العام “تكامل مصر” عن 5 شروط، صعبة التحقيق، وضعها مواطنون مصريون لقبول التطبيع المصرى الإيرانى، تتعلق بمعاملة الشعب الإيرانى والشيعة للطوائف السنية وإنهاء الأزمات السياسية فى البلدان العربية المختلفة التى ترتبط طهران بعلاقات وثيقة بقادتها.
وقالت الدراسة، التى نشرتها جريدة الوادى، وأعدها الباحث مصطفى خضرى، إن الشروط التى وضحتها الدراسة لقبول التطبيع المصرى الإيرانى، والتي يطالب بها ما يقارب من ثلث المجتمع المصري تكاد تكون مستحيلة، حيث اشترط 88% من تلك الفئة فتح الأراضي الإيرانية للعلماء السنة المصريين بدون شروط، أو تحديد خطوط سير من جانب السلطات الإيرانية، بالإضافة إلى تعهد الحكومة الإيرانية بعدم التضييق عليهم.
وطالب 81% باقتصار العلاقات المصرية الإيرانية على العلاقات الدبلوماسية العادية المماثلة للعلاقات المصرية مع أي دولة أجنبية بدون الدخول في تحالفات سياسية أو إستراتيجية أو عسكرية، في حين شدد 76% منهم على تعهد النظام الإيراني بعدم التدخل في الشئون العربية، سواء في الأراضي السورية أو العراقية أو البحرينية أو الكويتية أو اليمنية أو السعودية أو اللبنانية، وهي مناطق نفوذ النظام الإيراني في المنطقة العربية، ويرى هؤلاء أن هذا الشرط بالذات لن تستطيع الدولة الإيرانية تنفيذه؛ لأنه يتناقض مع طبيعتها الاستعمارية الرامية إلى تكوين مناطق نفوذ شيعية ذات تمدد جغرافي، تمهيدًا لبناء الإمبراطورية الفارسية.
ودعا 71% الدولة الإيرانية بالانسحاب من كافة الأراضي العربية المغتصبة، مثل جزر الإمارات الثلاثة وإقليم عربستان التي تحتله إيران منذ ما يقارب من 88 عامًا، فيما كان آخر أهم الاشتراطات اللازمة لقبول العلاقات المصرية الإيران
[…]
April 10th, 2013, 2:41 pm
Tara said:
Zoo @306
I am concerned for you that one day you will wake up and realize that all what you have believed in and fought for wasسراب And that supporting the one man in power was not worth the cost.
April 10th, 2013, 2:44 pm
Syria no kandahar said:
If iy was not for Alqaeda and JA , your beloved معزايه الخطيب كان اكل بصل
All terrorists victories you and your beloved Meziah enjoyed are a service of Alqaeda and co.صرماية any soldier in the SYRIAN AA اشرف من معزايتك وكلاب جبهة النصره اللي ٩٠باللميه منون
مو سوريين متل شاكلتك
April 10th, 2013, 3:14 pm
Observer said:
The argument that what would come could be worse therefore we should accept what we have does not hold for the following reasons:
1. The regime cannot be reformed. Some have said to me that once Glasnost happens the regime will naturally fall. I disagree for the regimes of the likes of Syria have learned never to jump on board any reform train lest they end up obsolete
2. The regime incapable as it is of reform will only postpone the inevitable and an explosion of anger would have occurred in another 5 years or so anyway.
3. The extremism of the regime and there are ample examples of it on this forum will generate an equal extremism on the other side.
4. Tom Friedman just got a NYT article that showed that the region is heading straight into a 30-50 year internal war and I must agree with him.
5. It has always been by far mainly the regime’s utter brutality and incompetence that is responsible for the outcome and this idea that the worst is yet to come even it is true does not exonerate the regime from its brutality
6. Some lament the rule of Saddam and of Ghadafi as if the people of the ME cannot have but these two horrible choices a Malkii or a Saddam an Athad or Zwahiri. Hogwash this is pure racist ideology.
7. I ask pro regime trolls here how come Israel which essentially lives in a permanent state of war does not have an emergency situation, a ruling military junta, a mafia like dictator, and fake elections with a stooge show as a constitution?
You ain’t seen nothing yet in terms of revenge I am deeply sorry to say.
April 10th, 2013, 3:16 pm
Mina said:
bankruptcy had the last word
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/68953/Egypt/Politics-/BREAKING-Egypts-Morsi-withdraws-all-legal-complain.aspx
April 10th, 2013, 3:18 pm
Citizen said:
US expected to increase aid to Syrian rebels
http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/us-expected-to-increase-aid-to-syrian-rebels/
Body armor and night-vision goggles among nonlethal equipment that would join food and medical supplies
The Obama administration’s next step in aid to Syrian rebels is expected to be a broader package of nonlethal assistance, including body armor and night-vision goggles, as the US searches for ways to stem the bloodshed from Syria’s civil war.
Administration officials say an announcement of the new aid is not imminent. But Secretary of State John Kerry says the administration had been holding intense talks on how to boost assistance to the rebels fighting forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“Those efforts have been very much front and center in our discussions in the last week in Washington,” Kerry said Tuesday, a day before meeting with Syrian opposition leaders in London. “I’m not sure what the schedule is, but I do believe that it’s important for us to try to continue to put the pressure on President Assad and to try to change his calculation.”……
April 10th, 2013, 3:26 pm
Citizen said:
http://youtu.be/sCtdf5d3xwQ?t=13s
April 10th, 2013, 3:34 pm
ghufran said:
There is a reason why Nusra and other militant Sunni groups are receiving support and aid from wealthy Muslim individuals and governments, it has a lot to do with Iran, a country that is seen as a threat to Israel,the West Iraqi and Lebanese Sunnis and the GCC, Nusra et al are the whores of this prostitution ring financed by the GCC,especially Qatar, and directed by bigger players.
There is a strong conviction among many sunnis especially in Iraq, the GCC countries and Lebanon (especially in the north) that Hizbullah and Shia militias should not be allowed to run unchallenged and that the war on Iraq and the assassination of Hariri was a shia-iranian conspiracy, and I indeed agree somewhat when it comes to Iraq where the CIA was basically duped by double agents who found welcoming ears (Bush-Cheney) and the Neocons (pro Israel group), those guys wanted to destroy Iraq but they ended up making Iran stronger, some fellows think that was intentional. When you look at it you will see that arab blood is being spilled, arab money is being spent and arab countries are being destroyed. The GCC ,Israel and their western friends are fighting a proxy war with iran but they are not the ones who are dying, WE ARE.
April 10th, 2013, 4:00 pm
ann said:
Interview: UN, Syria close to agreement on probe of chemical weapons, senior official – 2013-04-11
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/11/c_124564955.htm
UNITED NATIONS, April 10 (Xinhua) — The United Nations and the Syrian government are close to an agreement on the international probe of chemical weapons in Syria, a senior UN official said.
“Right now we are waiting for the final agreement with Syria, and we are very close to that,” Angela Kane, UN high representative for disarmament affairs, said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
Kane is currently in discussions with the Syrian government and making arrangements to deploy a mission that will investigate an allegation of chemical weapons use that Syria raised to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last month.
France and Britain followed Syria’s request with a letter to Ban as well, requesting he investigates two other incidents of possible chemical weapons use.
Under a little-known UN process called the Secretary-General’s Mechanism (SGM), created under a General Assembly resolution 20 years ago, Ban can appoint a team to investigate any member state’s allegation of chemical weapons use at his discretion.
A small team has been assembled including Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom and officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
In response to a question of whether Syria will grant unfettered access to the investigation, Kane said, “I think we are very close to that.”
“What is not going to be easy is the current security situation in the country. I have very great respect for these scientists and that they have agreed to be a part of this mission because I think it will not be without risk. It is clearly a difficult situation,” said the high representative.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/11/c_124564955.htm
April 10th, 2013, 5:00 pm
ann said:
Libyan arms fueling warfare in Syria, Mali, Gaza Strip – UN report – April 10, 2013
http://rt.com/news/libya-arms-un-report-620/
Arms out of post-Gaddafi Libya are empowering militant groups, including terrorists and criminal gangs across the Middle East and Africa, a UN report said. Twelve countries are involved in the illicit trade of weapons, including portable SAM missiles.
Eighteen months after the civilian conflict and NATO bombing campaign ousted longtime Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, most of the weapons in the country remain in control of civilians and militias, according to a UN Security Council report. The trafficking of those arms is both a lucrative business and a major security threat to the entire region, the report revealed.
“In the past 12 months, the proliferation of weapons from Libya has continued at a worrying rate and has spread into new territory: West Africa, the Levant and, potentially, even the Horn of Africa,” the panel said. “Illicit flows from the country are fueling existing conflicts in Africa and the Levant and enriching the arsenals of a range of non-state actors, including terrorist groups.”
The recipients are empowered not only by the sheer number of new arms in their possession, but also by new kinds of weapons.
“Cases, both proven and under investigation, of illicit transfers from Libya in violation of the embargo cover more than 12 countries and include heavy and light weapons, including man-portable air defense systems, small arms and related ammunition and explosives and mines,” experts wrote in the 94-page report.
Proliferation of portable surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) has long been deemed one of the most alarming consequences of the turmoil in Libya, as such weapons may be used by terrorists to shoot down civilian aircraft. Experts claim they have confidential information that 30 SAMs have been trafficked from Libya to Chad’s capital Ndjamena.
Egypt is facing the worst influx of Libyan arms, the report says, with a large portion being directed to armed groups in the Sinai; this poses a serious internal security threat for Cairo amid its unending political turbulence.
Libyan arms in Egypt are then smuggled into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip; militants there purchased modern assault rifles and anti-tank weapons from Libya, the document warns.
Other trafficking destinations for these weapons include Syria and Mali, both of which have witnessed violent conflict and seen radical Islamist groups gain significant influence. Some Libyan ammunition has been found in Somalia, where Islamist group Al Shabab is rebelling against the weakened central government.
UN experts said that the arms trafficking had been organized from various locations in Libya, including Misrata and Benghazi, through Turkey or northern Lebanon: “The significant size of some shipments and the logistics involved suggest that representatives of the Libyan local authorities might have at least been aware of the transfers, if not actually directly involved.”
The experts also said they found that Qatar and the United Arab Emirates had violated the arms embargo on Libya during the 2011 conflict, supplying weapons and ammunition to anti-Gaddafi forces. Qatar denied the accusation, while the UAE had not responded, the report says. The transfers also involved Armenia, Albania and Ukraine, according to the panel.
A separate embargo violation mentioned in the document was the reported transfer of a drone to the rebels by a Canadian company. The case is under investigation, Canadian authorities said.
Last month, the UN Security Council eased sanctions against Libya to allow the supply of non-lethal military equipment, including ballistic armor and armored vehicles to its government. Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zidan’s cabinet is struggling to bring the country under control, disarm local militias and provide some degree of security to the population.
[…]
http://rt.com/news/libya-arms-un-report-620/
April 10th, 2013, 5:14 pm
Citizen said:
Syria, North Korea top G8 meeting in London
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/10/uk-g8-foreign-ministers-preview-idUKBRE93900220130410
(Reuters) – Western and Middle Eastern nations trying to help the Syrian opposition in its war against President Bashar al-Assad will meet in Turkey on April 20, a U.S. official said on Wednesday as G8 foreign ministers gathered in London for a summit.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will attend the meeting of the so-called Friends of Syria “core group” in Istanbul, said the official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.
The G8 talks, which began in London over dinner on Wednesday and were due to end on Thursday, will also be the first chance for the ministers to discuss face-to-face the failure of last week’s meeting in Almaty on curbing Iran’s nuclear programme.
North Korean threats of war also will be high on the agenda of the Group of Eight nations – the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia – meeting.
Britain was expected to call for more help for the Syrian opposition but there are no signs of a major shift in policy……
April 10th, 2013, 5:46 pm
Juergen said:
I believe Olly Lambert deserves the Pulitzer price for this outstanding work.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/syria-behind-the-lines/
April 10th, 2013, 5:48 pm
revenire said:
Tara I don’t know what sort of idiot you think we all are but this is what the rat’s views are:
“The leader of the National Coalition for Opposition Forces and the Syrian Revolution, Moaz al-Khatib, called on the US to reconsider its decision to list the al-Nusra Front as a foreign terrorist organization; al-Khatib has stated that all rebel forces whose main goal is the ‘the fall of the regime’ should be left alone.”
“Moaz al-Khatib has also called on the US to reconsider its Autumn 2012 decision to list the foreign and Syrian fighters of the Al-Nusra Front, as a foreign terrorist organization. Khatib condemned the listing of Al-Nusra as a terrorist organization, Khatib instead publicly stressed that the Al-Nusra Front is a major military force and ally in the rebellion to topple the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2012/1212/For-newly-recognized-Syrian-rebel-coalition-a-first-dispute-with-US-video
Khatib said right there he supports Nusra which is Al-Qaeda.
April 10th, 2013, 5:50 pm
revenire said:
Juergen he should win an Oscar as well. Maybe Nusra can make him their spokesperson.
April 10th, 2013, 5:52 pm
Citizen said:
Since the 1979 Iranian revolution and the downfall of the US Puppet Ruler the Shah, Iran has been an Islamic state. In that interval of time, 1979 to the present, Iran has not invaded anyone. Not once. People of all religions live in peace in Iran, even Jews, who find life so comfortable in Iran they refused an offer by the government of Israel to emigrate!
In the same period of time, Israel, a self-declared Jewish state, attacked Iraq in 1981, bombing the power station at Osirik, claiming it was a clandestine weapons factory. Subsequent examination of the ruins following the 2003 invasion proved Israel had lied. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. This led to the Massacres at Sabra and Shatilla. In February 2003 Israel staged incursions into Gaza and Nablus. In September 2007 Israel bombed Syria, again insisting they were destroying a clandestine weapons laboratory. Again there was no evidence to support Israel’s claims. In 2006, Israel attacked Lebanon, killing 1200, mostly civilians, several UN observers, and littering the landscape with land mines on their way out. In February 2008 Israel again raided Gaza, killing over 100. HAMAS agreed to a cease fire and kept it for 6 months until November 4, when Israel again attacked without warning, killing 6 HAMAS members, and launching operation CAST LEAD. 1300 Gazans, mostly civilians, were killed. Israel lost 13 soldiers. Violations of international law included the use of White Phosphorus incendiary bombs against civilians and non-military targets. The United Nations investigated, but Israel refused to cooperate. In May 2010, Israel attacked an international aid flotilla bringing food and medical supplies to Gaza in international waters. 9 people were murdered including an American from New York.
In the same period of time, the United States, officially a secular nation but predominantly Christian, attacked El Salvador (1980), Libya (1981), Sinai (1982), Lebanon (1982 1983), Egypt (1983), Grenada (1983), Honduras (1983), Chad (1983), Persian Gulf (1984), Libya (1986) , Bolivia (1986), Iran (1987), Persian Gulf (1987), Kuwait (1987), Iran (1988), Honduras (1988), Panama (1988), Libya (1989), Panama (1989), Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru (1989), Philippines (1989), Panama (1989-1990), Liberia (1990), Saudi Arabia (1990), Iraq (1991), Zaire (1991), Sierra Leone (1992), Somalia (1992), Bosnia-Herzegovina (1993 to present), Macedonia (1993), Haiti (1994), Macedonia (1994), Bosnia (1995), Liberia (1996), Central African Republic (1996), Albania (1997), Congo/Gabon (1997), Sierra Leon (1997), Cambodia (1997), Iraq (1998), Guinea/Bissau (1998), Kenya/Tanzania (1998 to 1999), Afghanistan/Sudan (1998), Liberia (1998), East Timor (1999), Serbia (1999), Sierra Leon (2000), Yemen (2000), East Timor (2000), Afghanistan (2001 to present), Yemen (2002), Philippines (2002) , Cote d’Ivoire (2002), Iraq (2003 to present), Liberia (2003), Georgia/Djibouti (2003), Haiti (2004), Georgia/Djibouti/Kenya/Ethiopia/Yemen/Eritrea War on Terror (2004), Pakistan drone attacks (2004 to present), Somalia (2007), South Ossetia/Georgia (2008), Syria (2008), Yemen (2009), Haiti (2010), etc. etc. etc. etc.
So, who is the danger to world peace?
April 10th, 2013, 6:01 pm
Ghufran said:
كشف موقع “ويكيليكس” عن وثيقة سرية خاصة بالسفارة الأميركية في سوريا عن اعتماد الرئيس بشار الأسد على أربعة رجال في إدارة أصوله وأمواله في الداخل والخارج، وهم زهير سحلول، نبيل الكزبري، محمد مخلوف، وفواز الأخرس.
ففي مفاجأة طارئة كشفت وثائق “ويكيليكس” خبايا وأسرار جديدة عن نظام بشار الأسد، فقد كشفت برقية سرية خاصة بالسفارة الأميركية في سوريا حملت عنوان: “مهاجمة أموال بشار الأسد” أسماء الأشخاص الأربعة الذين يعتمد عليهم الرئيس السوري في تحريك أمواله وتحقيق مكاسبه غير المشروعة.
Nobody knows for sure how much money Assad and his inner circle have but it is in the tens of billions of dollars. This is why those thugs needed one of them, BASHAR,to be president. That happens while most Syrians live in poverty, even the widows of fallen soldiers who died defending Assad are running in circles to get a death compensation , around $ 5,000, and a modest monthly salary to feed their kids.
يا حرام يا بلد
يهرب السوريون من النظام الفاسد ليقعوا تحت رحمة العصابات الاسلاميه وكلاب الخليج
Syrian refugees have no real friends, only 25% of the promised GCC money was received, Russia sent $2 per refugee to Lebanon .
April 10th, 2013, 6:13 pm
zoo said:
Al Khatib makes overdue U-turn. Friends of yesterday are enemies of today. He has declared a deadly war to his old allies
Syria rebel chief Al Khatib urges rejection of Al Qaeda
As merger between Syrian rebel group and Iraq Al Qaeda affiliate are made public, opposition leaders are distancing themselves from radical Islamists. Phil Sands reports
…
So, just as SNC leader Mr Al Khatib, of Syria’s moderate opposition alliance, can ill afford to alienate powerful and popular militant groups ranged against the regime, nor can Al Nusra allow its behaviour to become too extreme for fear of turning ordinary Syrians – and moderate rebels – wholeheartedly against it.
http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/syria-rebel-chief-al-khatib-urges-rejection-of-al-qaeda
April 10th, 2013, 6:13 pm
zoo said:
Tara
“I am concerned for you that one day you will wake up and realize that all what you have believed in and fought for wasسراب ”
I am concerned about you too for the same reason as you may find Syria divided if ever you come for a visit.
I guess you wouldn’t care as long as Asma and Bashar not there to stimulate your hatred.
April 10th, 2013, 6:25 pm
Ghufran said:
I would believe it when I see it:
اعلن وزير الخارجية الروسي سيرغي لافروف ان بلاده بالاتفاق مع واشنطن ستسعيان الى حمل المعارضة السورية على تشكيل فريق لإجراء مفاوضات مع الحكومة السورية.
وقال لافروف اليوم ان الهدف هو تشكيل وفد من المعارضة السورية لإجراء مفاوضات مع وفد الحكومة السورية وأن وزير الخارجية الامريكي اكد على انه سيسعى عند الاتصال مع المعارضة الى نفس المسعى الروسي لتحقيق هذا الهدف.
وجاءت تصريحات لافروف عقب محادثاته مع نظيره الامريكي جون كيري في لندن حيث اعتبر ان استمرار طرفي النزاع في سورية بحالة الحرب حتى النصر أمر غير مقبول.
Why do we have to lose 100,000 Syrians and $ 200 billion before we start talking to each other?
The big daddies now realize that their boys can not win, the refusal to make concessions is the reason why the dogs of nusra are now a real threat to all.
April 10th, 2013, 6:36 pm
zoo said:
Tara
The Al Khatib and company are so pathetic. They crawl in front of Kerry, Obama, HBJ, Holland, begging, sulking, hoping that someone will take Syria out of the mess their understaffed and polluted “revolution” has created.
One day they want NATO, the next day Turkey, then France, then Al Nusra, then the USA… They turn and squeak like headless hens.
Even if they ever take exclusive power of areas of the country, which I seriously doubt, they won’t last a week or too. No one can have any respect for prostitutes to the West or to Qatar.
April 10th, 2013, 6:41 pm
zoo said:
Ghufran
By standing openly against Al Qaeeda, Al Khatib has send a negative signal to his allies Al Nusra. Yet he is naive or stupid enough to believe that the USA will change and rehabilitate Al Nusra. How little he knows about the USA.
I think the FSA’s military offensives against the Syria army is over.
Without the Islamists, the FSA is useless.
The time for negotiations is nearing.
April 10th, 2013, 6:56 pm
Tara said:
Ghufran@ 342
Note that Fawaz al Akhrass is Asma’s father.
Laundering blood money for Bashar? Shame shame ya Fawaz. What an ugly family!
April 10th, 2013, 7:17 pm
ann said:
Ottoman “Divide and Conquer” along religious lines 😉
http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/nations/syria/2013/04/10/Syria-Christian-refugees-get-own-camp-Turkey_8532021.html
(ANSAmed) – ANKARA, APRIL 10 – As the number of Syrian Christians fleeing the war across the border continues to rise, Turkish authorities have agreed to establish a separate camp for them. It will be located in the Midyat province not far from the Mor Abraham Syriac monastery, say Turkish media.
The new camp will have a holding capacity of 4,000 people, reports Zaman online, while another camp for Kurds and Arabs will be set up in different area of the same province. Turkey currently hosts approximately 190,000 Syrian refugees, mostly Sunni Muslims from the Aleppo and Idlib regions.
Sources from the Syrian Christian community say the increase in Christian refugees is largely due to advances made by Sunni fundamentalist groups in northern Syria. The FIDES agency reports that over the past three days more than 500 Syrian Christians have crossed the border into Turkey, fleeing violence and discrimination. Sources from the Assyrian Church of the East say that the refugees are mostly in the Gaziantep province, 50 kilometers from the border in south-eastern Anatolia. The churches and the monasteries in Turkey’s mountainous region Tur Abdin, the historic cradle of Syriac Christianity, already host more refugees than they can handle. The Syriac Christian communities of northern Syria, reports FIDES, have been hit especially hard by violence, hostage taking and dispossession. Entire family clans have been forced to leave their homes on the threat of death.
[…]
http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/nations/syria/2013/04/10/Syria-Christian-refugees-get-own-camp-Turkey_8532021.html
April 10th, 2013, 7:24 pm
Tara said:
Zoo @346
“I guess you wouldn’t care as long as Asma and Bashar not there to stimulate your hatred.”
For what it is worth, my concern was a genuine emotion. It has nothing to do with Batta and wife. Your fixation on what motivates me to support the revolution is not curable.
And you know what, I feel sorry for you that you know no emotion except your love for them.
…
April 10th, 2013, 7:27 pm
Tara said:
Reve,
“Tara I don’t know what sort of idiot you think we all are”
Since you asked, I will just answer:
Extreme idiots… Some of you
April 10th, 2013, 7:32 pm
zoo said:
Syrians in Edlib and Aleppo: We prefer al Nusra to the FSA
Al Qaeda’s Syria Play
by Jamie Dettmer Apr 10, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/10/al-qaeda-s-syria-play.html
A merger between terrorist groups spells even more trouble for Syrians caught in the middle. By Jamie Dettmer.
Syrians battling to oust President Bashar al-Assad shouldn’t settle for democracy as the reward for their sacrifices but should embrace strict Islamic sharia law when the Syrian regime has been finally defeated, says the emir of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
…
Al-Baghdadi is a highly effective if brutal leader. He has been responsible for directing large-scale operations in Iraq such as the August 28, 2011 attack on the Umm al-Qura mosque in Baghdad that killed prominent Sunni lawmaker Khalid al-Fahdawi. He has had deep experience in setting up jihadist groups and organized the flow of fighters from Syria and elsewhere into Iraq, a recruitment process that strengthened Al Qaeda in Iraq, say U.S. intelligence sources. He became the emir of Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2010.
…
In his audio message al-Baghdadi says the new merged group will not abide by geographical borders or be constrained by ethnic affiliations. That echoes what al-Nusra has said in recent months to other smaller Jihadist groups fighting in Syria
…
The group has been careful in the past to limit its jihadi messages when interacting with locals in rebel-held territory and has talked more in terms of assisting the poor. It has basked in growing popularity in the rebel areas of Idlib and Aleppo provinces tucked under the border with Turkey. Civilians contrast the discipline and honesty of al-Nusra fighters with some FSA fighters and argue the jihadists share war spoils with civilians unlike FSA units.
In the city of Aleppo, German filmmaker Marcel Mettelsiefen, who spent several weeks in the city, told The Daily Beast last month that “you see streets being cleaned by al-Nusra and schools organized by al-Nusra…radical Islamists are doing well; they are very efficient and have more funds … Most civilians are saying they may be quite radical, but at least they are helping and doing things, and the strategy is working.”
April 10th, 2013, 7:43 pm
zoo said:
…
April 10th, 2013, 7:46 pm
zoo said:
Tara
And you know what, I feel sorry for you that you know no emotion except your hatred for them.
I have never expressed love for anybody in the Syrian conflict, while more than half of you posts are expressions of your hatred for Bashar al Assad and Asma al Assad whose death and humiliation you are calling for repeatedly.
Curiously almost none of these violent expressions are addressed to the other members of the regime. One may wonder why…
April 10th, 2013, 7:52 pm
Tara said:
• The leader of Syria’s Jihadist Jabhat al-Nusra group has pledged allegiance to al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri but denied that the al-Nusra front had merged with al-Qaida in Iraq or that the two groups will now share a common name. Abu Mohammad al-Golani’s statement came in an audio recording that was a response to al-Qaida in Iraq’s announcement on Tuesday that the two groups were merging. Golani said he was not consulted about Tuesday’s announcement. The US had already designated the al-Nusra front as a terrorist organisationlast year, saying it was “an attempt by AQI to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes”.
The Guardian
April 10th, 2013, 7:56 pm
zoo said:
Tara
Do you recognize yourself? I think that outfit will suit you very well when you will spend your holidays in Al Raqqa and Azzaaz.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/02/12/blogs/20130212POD-slide-2OXN/20130212POD-slide-2OXN-articleLarge-v2.jpg
Sisters in Arms Join the Fighting in Syria
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/world/middleeast/sisters-in-arms-join-the-fighting-in-syria.html?_r=0
April 10th, 2013, 7:57 pm
Tara said:
Zoo@ 353
You need not to feel sorry for me for that particular reason. I have other emotions
And to answer your last paragraph, not that my answer would change your fixation but since it doesn’t hurt to state the obvious…again, here you go: The president of a country carries full responsibility for the death, crimes, and atrocities that occur under his watch. Whether it was Batta, Alan Dilon, or Mickey mouse, I would still hold him responsible. Why is that concept too impossible for you to realize?
April 10th, 2013, 8:10 pm
Tara said:
Zoo,
“Do you recognize yourself? I think the outfit will suit you?
I think so too. Needs some tailoring here and there to fit me perfectly.
April 10th, 2013, 8:21 pm
Dolly Buster said:
The negotiations will be:
1. Bullet in Bashar’s head
2. Brutal execution of his family on CNN
3. Mass scale genocide against Shia and Christians
4. Establishment of Islamic State spanning Iraq and Syria
Al yauma yaumul malhamah !!
April 10th, 2013, 8:23 pm
zoo said:
#355 Tara
Oh I see, it’s the regime propaganda to discredit the FSA.
Brilliant.
April 10th, 2013, 8:32 pm
Tara said:
Zoo@360
Possible. Remember Abu Something Al Iraqi was most likely created by Syria to destabilize Iraq in the old days. Syria being his ex-patron can make out with him any time and instruct him to say certain things.
I believe Abu Muhammad al Jolani more…
April 10th, 2013, 8:41 pm
Syrialover said:
DAWOUD (#327),
What do I think? It’s a shock to realise that Egyptian public opinion on this, like so many other issues, will probably not have any impact on the Muslim Brotherhood’s stupid and sinister agenda.
The MB for years have had a warm back door relationship with Iran, and there are signs that this is is revving up as Iran tries to cement its position in the ME before Assad falls (see links 1 and 2 below, among many examples available).
Morsi has been suspiciously vague and evasive in his stance about Iran’s activities in Syria. He also seems to have had little problem with Iran’s plans for Iraq.
Its secret rapport with Iran is just one of many reasons why the duplicitous, parasitic MB with its efforts at hijacking the Syrian revolution is an insult and threat to Syrians.
Meanwhile, every day there’s fresh evidence of the MB’s contempt for the opinions and welfare of Egyptians. What do the MB care, they are now living their dream of power with a foot on the accelerator – driving Egypt into isolation, deeper poverty and social conflict.
If you want proof of how irrational, stubborn and selfish the MB’s priorities are, look at how they are treating the Egyptian tourism industry.
Not only are they failing to support this core industry’s struggle to come back to life (by promoting anti-western ideologies and failing to protect key heritage sites etc) but are actually aiming sledgehammer blows at it. (see link 3.)
1. Iran’s spy chief advising Egypt -http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/09/report-irans-spy-chief-secretly-advised-muslim-brotherhood-in-attempt-to-send-a-message-to-america/
2. Iran’s courtship of Egypt – http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/irans-desperate-bid-to-court-egypt
Quote: “Out of all the Islamic groups, the Muslim Brotherhood is the closest to Tehran ideologically … and Iran supports the Muslim Brotherhood,” the writer quoted [former Iranian foreign minister and current key government adviser] Velayati as saying.
(and see the anemic response by the MB to questions about this )
3. MB’s blow to tourism industry – http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/tourism-union-speaks-out-against-fuel-subsidy-removal-plan
April 10th, 2013, 8:56 pm
ann said:
Syrian Rebel group pledges loyalty to al-Qaida – 04/10/2013
http://www.jpost.com/Syria-Crisis/Syrian-Rebel-group-pledges-loyalty-to-al-Qaida-309360
.. and what does Obama do?!
U.S. closer to widening “Syrian rebel” aid – Wednesday, April 10, 8:12 PM
Kerry said this week that the Syrian stalemate had left “no choice” but to increase outside pressure on Assad. The secretary provided no details, saying that an announcement would come from the White House
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/us-closer-to-widening-syrian-rebel-aid/2013/04/10/25b97ac8-a1f3-11e2-bd52-614156372695_story.html
President Obama is moving toward final approval of battlefield support for Syria’s military opposition, including nonlethal items such as body armor and night-vision goggles, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
The development comes as the State Department has pushed the White House to join allies such as Britain and France, which have said that they will expand their supplies to the Syrian rebels.
“The president has directed his national security team to identify additional measures so that we can increase assistance” and coordinate with other countries, a senior administration official said. A decision is due “in the coming weeks,” the official said. “There are a good number of details that still need to be worked out.”
Kerry said this week that the Syrian stalemate had left “no choice” but to increase outside pressure on Assad. The secretary provided no details, saying that an announcement would come from the White House.
[…]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/us-closer-to-widening-syrian-rebel-aid/2013/04/10/25b97ac8-a1f3-11e2-bd52-614156372695_story.html
April 10th, 2013, 9:11 pm
zoo said:
357 Tara
Unfortunately after your infinite and constant display of hatred and personal attacks toward Bashar and his wife, I have hard time believing what you think beyond that.
April 10th, 2013, 9:22 pm
Syrialover said:
For those uncertain about dear little Mrs Asma Assad, thinking she could be just an innocent bystander, unfairly smeared by association, here’s some interesting information. It shows that not only is she a keen part of Team Assad, her father is too.
From article on wikileaks discoveries on who’s managing Assad’s wealth:
“Akhras, Assad’s father-in-law, is extremely active in Syria’s business sector, using his family ties with the president to expand his influence, the document stated.
“Tracking Akhras’s account activities, and the amounts of money he has transferred, confirms speculation about his role in making a large portion of the president’s money disappear.”
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/04/10/Four-men-manage-Assad-s-wealth-WikiLeaks.html
COMMENT: Add to this, those leaked email revelations that Asma’s daddy in the UK was busy advising Bashar on how to deal with damning evidence of atrocities by his security services and soldiers quite early the conflict.
April 10th, 2013, 9:23 pm
zoo said:
#361 Tara
You are right, Bashar is a genius strategist.
April 10th, 2013, 9:24 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Bashar Assad and his cronies ran the country into the ground. There is more than sufficient justification to hate him. Since he is the leader in charge, the responsibility and the blame for the civil war and the destruction is with him.
A legitimate government has responsibility for its people. Since the Syrian regime shows no responsibility towards the majority of Syrians, that means the Syrian regime is illegitimate and is therefore not a government.
The right to rule is EARNED. It is not INHERITED.
April 10th, 2013, 9:30 pm
Syrialover said:
ZOO,SNK, REVENIRE, CITIZEN and co that Dr Akhras, he’s a clever guy, huh? (#365)
I guess you desperately wish some woman in your family had managed to marry into the Assad clan.
…Or maybe they have.
April 10th, 2013, 9:32 pm
zoo said:
Egypt PM looking forward for pious Iranians tourists to boost the crumbling tourism industry
Egyptian PM Qandil positive about Iranian tourism
Iranian tourism flights to Egypt were recently suspended after protests by Egyptian religious conservatives concerned about spread of Shiism
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/1/68944/Egypt/Egyptian-PM-Qandil-positive-about-Iranian-tourism-.aspx
Egypt’s Prime Minister Hisham Qandil said on Wednesday that Iranian tourists had spent more money per person in Egypt than European tourists, resulting in a boost to tourism.
Qandil explained that the average spending of an Iranian tourist in Egypt is 120 dollars a day, while a European tourist spends on an average 74.1 dollars a day.
Iranian tourists were very keen to visit Egypt for religious reasons, the prime minister said, for example to complete pilgrimages to religious sites like the tomb of the Prophet Mohamed’s grandson Imam Al-Hussein at Old Cairo’s Al-Hussein Mosque.
However, unfortunately there are individuals who attack this kind of tourism, fearing it will lead to the spread of the Shiite sect, he added.
He also stated that the Iranian tourism is on hold until “things improve.”
Egypt has decided to suspend all incoming flights from Iran until the second half of June to evaluate the experience so far, according to comments by tourism minister Hisham Zaazou.
April 10th, 2013, 9:33 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have done a better job ruling Egypt than the Assadists have in ruling Syria.
Say what you want, but Egypt is a better country than Syria.
April 10th, 2013, 9:36 pm
zoo said:
Qatar grabbing Egypt’s economy
Updated: Qatar pledges additional $3 billion aid to Egypt
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/3/12/68914/Business/Economy/Updated-Qatar-pledges-additional–billion-aid-to-E.aspx
Aid to be provided in form of Egyptian treasury bonds or deposits in central bank in coming days, Qatari PM says
…
The source, who requested anonymity, added that Egypt would pay back the debt at an interest rate ranging between 3 and 4 percent.
T he oil-rich Gulf nation has already granted cash-strapped Egypt $5 billion, including a $1 billion grant and $4 billion worth of deposits at the CBE, since the country’s January 25 Revolution.
Bin Jassim’s announcement contradicts a statement made early last month by Qatari Finance Minister Youssef Kamal that his country did not expect to give further financial aid to Egypt “in the immediate term.”
The Qatari prime minister also declared the emirate’s intention to export natural gas to Egypt, to help the most populous Arab nation meet its increased energy needs during the summer.
Roughly 56 percent of local natural gas consumption in Egypt goes to the electricity sector, a proportion which increases significantly in the summer as gas is diverted from other sectors to meet rising demand for electricity.
Egypt had entered into negotiations with Qatar in September 2012 over importing liquefied natural gas, but no agreement was reached.
Sheikh Hamad also vowed to ease financial restrictions for Egyptian businesses operating in Qatar.
April 10th, 2013, 9:44 pm
Johannes de Silentio said:
370. MARIGOLDRAN
“Egypt is a better country than Syria”
Syria is not a country.
April 10th, 2013, 9:47 pm
Johannes de Silentio said:
364. ZOO
“I have hard time believing what you think”
We’re having a hard time thinking about what you believe, paki boy…
A NEW BASHAR CARTOON:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/php/galleries/image.php/731/2/2.jpg
April 10th, 2013, 9:54 pm
syria no kandahar said:
Alaaroor lover 368
And you are in love with Um Jaafar.She is the head of mojahidat alnikah,a previous dancer,current prostitutional revolutionists in your sharameet JA revolution.You get um jaafar now,72 virgins credit later,HIV and Hepatitis come for free.
April 10th, 2013, 9:54 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Well, ok. The people living in Egypt are doing better than the people living in the country formerly known as Syria.
How about that?
April 10th, 2013, 10:00 pm
majedkhaldoun said:
Jabhat AlNusra pledged allegiance to Zawahiri,Iraq Islamist front announced loyalty to JN,what is that mean
USA and Europe will not arm the opposition,so JN will continue to be the strongest opposition in this revolution, this could be the reason why this has been announced now.
All fighters who support Alqaida will now flock to Syria from all islamic countries and the number of JN will swell from 5-10 thousand to become 50-100 thousand,these people are disciplined agressive courageous determined motivated fighters,if the Assad thugs just look at any one of them they will fall and collapse.
This is bad news to Assad thugs.
JN will be an effective force against HA.
Another possibilty is US recognizes this and starts arming the FSA to create an opposition to JN,this is bad news to Assad thugs too,but down the road there will be conflict between JN and FSA.
I don’t believe the story about Sufiani,but could it be Jawlani is Sufiani?
Both Lebanon and Jordan can not continue to disassociate themselves from the fight in Syria,as million became refugee there,
April 10th, 2013, 10:03 pm
revenire said:
Majed that’s OK – Iraq is sending 300,000 fighters next Monday. They’re all Shia and they’re going to kill all the Nusra rats they can. (They hate them.)
The week after that it is Iran’s turn – they’re sending 1,000,000 soldiers. They said they can’t wait to get there and kill anyone against Assad.
The following week it is Hezbollah’s turn.
After that Russian commandos are going to take out Hitto and Khatib.
The Chinese are itching to get in on the fun too.
April 10th, 2013, 11:27 pm
apple_mini said:
There have been some large scale military operations going on in Deraa area by SAA.
And we no longer hear those cheerful hurray of victory about Deraa on MSM or here.
Looks like the fall of Deraa and establishing a southern front with Jordan being home base for the rebels are not going to be materialized anytime soon.
It is an interesting coincidence with the news about Israeli government showing concerns after SAA pulled out their elite troops from Golan Heights. They are thousands strong.
After all, no one is really worried a war between Syria and Israel would actually happen during Syrian crisis.
I must admit so far SAA has been showing us they have good and solid plannings and execute those well. Even though, the army itself has some weakness here and there, but nothing fatal. And keep in mind, professionalism and experience are organic. While morale grows as part of defense mechanism against those every more brutal rebels’ acts.
April 10th, 2013, 11:41 pm
Ghufran said:
It took the Iraqi government 10 years to admit that debathification was a mistake, that process which deepened divisions inside Iraq was implemented with the blessing of one of the most incompetent US diplomats, Paul Bremmer and was only possible after the US invasion:
فجرت موافقة الحكومة العراقية على التخفيف من الاجراءات المتخذة ضد البعثيين غضب زعيم التيار الصدري، مقتدى الصدر، الذي هاجم رئيسها نوري المالكي بشكل غير مسبوق واصفًا اياه بأعمى البصيرة، ومؤكداً انه لن يشرفه البقاء في حكومة يرتع فيها البعث وفدائيو صدام والإرهابيون.
وهاجم الصدر اليوم الأربعاء بعنف رئيس الحكومة نوري المالكي ونائبه صالح المطلك اثر موافقة الحكومة خلال اجتماعها الأحد الماضي على إعادة مسؤولين في حزب البعث المحظور إلى السلطة وإحالة عناصر تشكيلات فدائيي صدام على التقاعد. وقال إنه لا يشرفه البقاء في حكومة يرتع بها البعث والفدائيون والارهابيون .. مشددًا بالقول: “بل قد يكون البقاء في هذه الحكومة إن لم يُتراجع عن هذا القرار، أمراً محرماً وغير مقبول عقلاً وشرعاً”.
واعتذر الصدر في بيان الى الشعب العراقي وضحايا النظام السابق وكل المظلومين “عن موافقة مجلس الوزراء على التعديل الاخير لقانون المساءلة والعدالة لأنه ظلم”. وقال “أسفي لمن يريد أن يبقى على كرسيه وأعمت تلك الشهوة بصيرته عن كل حق وباطل (في اشار الى المالكي) فصار إرجاع البعث العفلقي وميليشياته جميلاً بنظره”. ودعا مجلس النواب الى عدم المصادقة على القرار.
Sunnis in Iraq who were the backbone of the Iraqi Ba’ath felt targeted by the debathification which was done in the name of justice but made things worse in Iraq, i think that doing the same to Baathists in Syria will be a mistake despite my personal objections to albaath policies since 1963..
Exclusionary policies in Syria played a major role in Syria’s current war but we still hear opposition figures and posters here calling for similar policies instead of limiting any future legal measures to Syrians who committed crimes.
April 10th, 2013, 11:43 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Haha, by “large scale military operations” Mini means “I just made some shi- up.”
Most of Daraa is and remains in rebel hands. The regime lacks the manpower even to defend the territory it already has.
April 11th, 2013, 12:01 am
ann said:
Stop Supporting AL-QAEDA Killers in Syria Mr. President!!!
Al-Qa’ida in Iraq declares takeover of leading ‘Syrian rebel’ group – 11 April 2013
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/alqaida-in-iraq-declares-takeover-of-leading-syrian-rebel-group-29189183.html
Al-Qa’ida in Iraq has said it has united with “Syrian rebel” group, the al-Nusra Front, in a move likely to embarrass Western countries supporting “Syrian insurgents” seeking to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
[…]
April 11th, 2013, 12:35 am
Observer said:
ZOO it is perfectly normal to hate someone that is despicable lying murderous brutal dictator who once preached that having emotions when it comes to executive decisions is a weakness. You cannot legislate feelings and you cannot legislate thinking. What you can object to are acts that are considered immoral or unethical or illegal.
Now to the news:
Cham Press has published that the ministry of foreign affairs accepted the resignation of Makdisi after the end of his vacation. Where he is it did not say.
Cham Press has published that the Central Bank President will support the Syrian pound therefore an admission that it has fallen further and that there is no need for panic.
Manar is all over the place about the Nusra and Qaida and all of that as it portrays the Islamists in Syria as terrorists and takfiris. Well if it does do such editorializing on the news then it clearly is worried about sectarian hues to the conflict. Well it got what it wanted as it rushed to the Bahraini (legitimate in my opinion) revolt and to the regime side (illegitimate in my opinion) in Syria.
J’amuse Jaffarri is talking about Ban Ki Moon under pressure from Britain and France and so it should be: he is not like Athad a dictator in charge and he is responsive to the UNSC and to the UN general assembly members including Syria and others. I think it is only fair that chemical weapons experts demanded by the Syrian regime go in and investigate all claims after all there are protagonists in this conflict. But the dumb demand for an investigation is coming to haunt the regime on several fronts not only on the actual fact finding mission but on the legitimacy of the other side in asking for such an investigation it puts the opposition on an equal footing with the regime.
RT says that Lavrov has declared an agreement with Washington to bring the opposition to the negotiating table.
It is possible that the two sides will have their ears pulled into a negotiations table at some point but not now as the two sides are neither exhausted nor on equal footing.
The main change coming out of Russia is that now that it is convinced the regime cannot win it is not sure that the regime will survive: it can lose and lose to the jihadists.
I will finish with ZOO again: what is so bad about dividing the country?
Majbali poses an important question about whether Islam is compatible with democracy. I agree with him Salafi Islam is not and maybe even any ‘political” Islam as well. As a matter of fact I would say keep religion out of politics and keep it personal and cultural and for God’s sake evolve.
If on the other hand there is no possibility of protecting the minorities in Syria from the coming disaster then maybe we should let them live alone in a separate country.
That is why I have called for a truth and reconciliation commission so that the crimes of all can be put forth and the innocence of communities from the crimes of the few be exonerated. Like Alawis who paint all Sunnis and Sunni Islam as evil with a single stroke, Sunnis doing likewise is as bad. Two wrongs do not make a right.
I am quite pessimistic about the future.
April 11th, 2013, 12:42 am
Syrialover said:
Al-Nusrah’s boast about their ties to al quaeda serves nobody but the Assad regime.
What idiots.
But to Assad they are useful idiots.
April 11th, 2013, 12:45 am
Observer said:
One more thing: ZOO hoping that the involvement of the Jihadists in the conflict in Syria will make the West want to keep the regime is now an illusion.
It is going to arm the FSA further not only against the regime but eventually against Nusra and others.
It is best to let the local do the fighting for you.
Sorry to disappoint you ZOO. The regime is a goner. What will come is worse now but one has to sleep in the bed it made.
April 11th, 2013, 12:49 am
ann said:
Meet Taliban Syria—Attacking a small village – and kicking innocent civilians out of their village – 3 hours ago
” Taliban brigade of Syria” is a new brigade of the free Syrian army and jabhat alnusra, attacking a small village, blowing people houses, terrorizing old innocent civilians.
who knows what happened to these innocent people in the video, maybe after they are killed,Aljazeera will use them in a new propaganda video
the accent of these animal cowards is Libyan and Saudi accent
[…]
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fff_1365642624
April 11th, 2013, 12:55 am
Observer said:
I am sorry I am going to post the whole thing from Juan Cole about the economy in Syria. It is awful
yrian Economic Roundup 01 – 07 Apr 13
Syria — OSC Summary
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Document Type: OSC Summary
[Reports selected and rearranged by J.C.]
Al-Iqtisadi on 4 April cited the Damascus Chamber of Commerce, saying that the Damascus Stock Market has been “near standstill in the past few days.” According to the brief report, the chamber called for the intervention of the Central Bank of Syria to “restore citizens’ faith in the market.” (Al-Iqtisadi)
Al-Ba’th: on 1 April reported on the severe shortage of drinking water in the city of Al-Salamiyah in Hamah. The report indicated that the reasons for the shortage are not clear and that residents have reached a state of “disgust” with the excuses and reasons given to them by the water authority. (Damascus Al-Ba’th Online in Arabic — Website of the newspaper of the ruling Ba’th Party…
Al-Iqtisadi on 1 April reported on the “insane” price increases of meat and chicken. According to cattle farmers, the prices have been increasing “every day” over the past few months, and the increases were attributed to the shortage of live cattle, as well as the farmers’ abstinence from raising cattle and chicken due to increasing costs of fodder and veterinarian supplies. The report also highlighted the increasing prices of vegetables that are in season, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and potatoes. (Al-Iqtisadi)
Al-Iqtisadi: on 1 April cited Syrian merchants, saying that the Central Bank of Syria stopped funding imports of food, medicines, and other supplies “10 days ago,” resulting in these materials’ suspension in customs. The merchants argued that the Central Bank’s “surprise decision” to stop the funding of essential materials meant that they incur fines for not clearing them from customs, which in turn would increase their prices to consumers. The report indicated that this decision goes against the Central Bank’s continuous declaration that it continues to fund imports of basic materials. The report also highlighted the merchants’ concern that this decision would put many of them out of business due to incurred losses and the obstacles they would face. (Al-Iqtisadi)
Al-Iqtisadi on 3 April highlighted reactions to the gasoline crisis and its prices in the black market. According to the report, citizens complained that the Consumer Protection Directorate had “created the gasoline crisis and expanded the effect of the black market.” The citizens made specific reference to the “greed” of public transportation drivers, arguing that the decision to increase g asoline prices “gave a major opportunity to taxi drivers to take advantage of citizens even more.” The citizens also complained about the lack of supervision and follow-up by relevant governmental entities, as well as the lack of punishment for violators. Additionally, the report highlighted complaints by owners of fuel stations, saying that their “suffering” comes from owners of fuel tank vehicles who ask for double the prices to transport the fuel. (Al-Iqtisadi)
Al-Thawrah: on 2 April reported on the status non-performing debts for some banks in Syria in view of the ongoing crisis. According to the report, the Real Estate Bank has a total of 7.8 billion Syrian pounds (110.670 million US dollars) in debts, while the Industrial Bank has 4 billion Syrian pounds (56.754 million US dollars) in debts, and the Commercial Bank of Syria has a total of 12 billion Syrian pounds (170.262 million US dollars). (Al-Thawrah)
Al-Watan: on 7 April briefly reported on a study conducted by the Exports Development Commission, concluding that 2012 saw the highest decrease in imports, which is 87.4%, compared with 2011. (Al-Watan)
Al-Thawrah on 7 April reported that the Rif Dimashq Education Directorate … report indicated that damages incurred by the education sector in Rif Dimashq as a result of “acts of terrorism” reached more than 1 billion Syrian pounds (14.188 million US dollars). (Al-Thawrah)
Al-Iqtisadi: on 1 April reported on the prices of construction materials, saying that some have increased by “more than 200%,” particularly steel. The report also highlighted some peoples’ belief that the real estate construction market is “dead.” (Al-Iqtisadi)
Al-Iqtisadi on 3 April cited remarks made by the Syrian oil minister regarding the effect of the crisis on Syrian oil wells and incurred losses. According to the minister, nine oil wells were set on fire, three of which continue to burn while the rest were contained. The minister also spoke about transgressions against and stealing from oil wells. He indicated that losses have initially been estimated to be around 750,000 barrels. (Al-Iqtisadi)
Al-Iqtisadi: on 1 April reported that the Public Company for Metal Industries incurred losses in the amount of 191.029 million Syrian pounds (2.710 million US dollars) in 2012. The report indicated that the Public Company failed to fulfill its production plan due to the unavailability of raw materials as a result of the ongoing crisis. The report indicated that the Public Company went out of business as of June 2012 and that all its production since then has been reliant on materials already in its warehouses. (Al-Iqtisadi)
Al-Iqtisadi: on 1 April quoted Marwah al-Aytuni, a member of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Industry of Damascus and Rif Dimashq, criticizing the Syrian industrialists who moved their industries and businesses outside Syria as being “negative” and a “big mistake.” Al-Aytuni’s comments, according to the report, were a response to remarks made by the Egyptian minister of industry, indicating that dozens of Syrian factories have moved to Egypt. Al-Aytuni argued that “the homeland of that industrialist” should have the priority of those capitals and the Syrian labor should have the priority of employment. She further argued that Syrian industrialists “should have waited at least until the crisis has ended or until alternative solutions are found.” (Al-Iqtisadi)
Al-Watan: on 4 April reported on the meeting that was held between the Syrian minister of social affairs and the World Food Organization, during which agreement was reached to distribute 200,000 food baskets. The meeting also viewed the increasing number of internally displaced persons and refugees and the difficulty of providing assistance due to the tense and unsafe conditions. (Damascus Al-Watan Online in Arabic — Website of the independent daily, al-Watan
Al-Iqtisadi: on 4 April highlighted the approval of the Reconstruction Committee to establish temporary refugee centers to accommodate 10,000 people in the industrial cities of Adra and Hasya. The report also highlighted the committee’s approval to transfer 1 billion Syrian pounds (14.188 million US dollars) in compensations to citizens for damages incurred by the crisis. A similar report featured in Al-Watan on 4 April focused on remarks made by Engineer Umar Ghalawinji, the minister of local management, saying that these centers will host displaced Syrian families from inside and outside Syria, adding that his ministry is currently working on the return of the displaced families from Jordan in the next few months. ( Al-Iqtisadi Online in Arabic — Website of the bi-weekly economic magazine Al-Iqtisadi carrying unique reports on domestic economic issues, vocal on government’s economic policies and corruption; and (Al-Watan)
Al-Watan on 7 April reported on the new method of distribution that the Consumer Society has adopted for rice and sugar after the severe congestion it saw at some of its branches. According to the report, the new method entails the cooperation of the Consumer Society with civil societies and parties to undertake the distribution to citizens. (Al-Watan)
Al-Iqtisadi on 4 April cited the director of the Public Company for Bakeries, saying that total losses incurred by the Company and its branches registered 250 million Syrian pounds (3.547 million Syrian pounds). The report cited the director’s remarks about the new production lines that have been installed in safe areas, as well as the three new production lines that are being tested and will go into operation next week in Dayr Atiyah, Jayr ud, and Jaramanah. He also denied that there is “any bread crisis” and emphasized the availability of all bread production materials. (Al-Iqtisadi)
l-Iqtisadi on 2 April cited the assistant to the minister of agriculture, saying that the prices of chicken continued to decrease, registering 195 Syrian pounds (2.76 US dollars) per kilogram, as opposed to the previous 240 Syrian pounds (3.40 US dollars). According to the assistant, the price decrease was attributed to improved weather conditions and the reduced reliance on diesel for heating purposes. (Al-Iqtisadi)
Al-Thawrah on 2 April reported on the work of the committee that was specifically formed to examine the possibility and needs of turning the agricultural airport of Tartus into a civilian airport. (Al-Thawrah)
Al-Iqtisadi on 1 April cited the minister of economy and foreign trade, saying that his ministry will be issuing a decision permitting the import of “limited quantities” of frozen chicken. The minister explained that the imported chicken meat will be sold at half its cost and will not harm the profitability or production of local farmers and producers. He also explained that chicken production areas in Syria, which are located in Al-Qalamun, Dar’a, Idlib, Homs, and Hamah, are undergoing “exceptional circumstances” that brought harm to nearly 70% of the chicken farms, consequently affecting the production and supply of local chicken. (Al-Iqtisadi)
April 11th, 2013, 1:11 am
ann said:
Syria – Lean Days – English Subtitles – Apr-9-2013
A documentary about the Syrian Crisis by Hussein Murtada starting 18 March 2013 in Daraa, facts many out there didn’t see and thought it was a “spontaneous popular uprising”..!
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b25_1365621184
April 11th, 2013, 1:20 am
Johannes de Silentio said:
385. OBSERVER
“I am sorry I am going to post the whole thing from Juan Cole about the economy in Syria. It is awful”
I can’t wait for Mossie’s comment on this. After all, he’s an economist. And a good one, too. Or so he claims, although I’ve never read anything he’s posted to validate his claim…
April 11th, 2013, 1:38 am
Juergen said:
kurdish women fight against the regime in Aleppo
https://www.youtube.com/embed/YcU310LHEoI
April 11th, 2013, 2:12 am
Juergen said:
Syria ‘death video’ of Sheikh al-Bouti poses questions
“The implication of the video is that the sheikh was the only victim, since the men who approach him after the explosion are there within a few seconds and come from the direction of the blast.
On the day of the event, Syrian TV carried pictures of the aftermath, mainly shot outside or on the steps of the mosque.
Images from inside showed some superficial debris, but not the kind of structural damage or bloodbath that would be expected from a huge bomb killing 50 people in an enclosed space.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22086230
April 11th, 2013, 2:23 am
Juergen said:
Olly Lambert on his work:
I almost died in Syria
I’ve covered wars for years, but nothing prepared me for the conflict on the ground – or in my head
“The man who had brought me in pulled at my sleeve and took me into the room next door. It was completely dark. He flicked a switch on his cigarette lighter to produce a tiny torch light, and shone its weak beam into the room to reveal two badly injured men lying in the darkness. The nearest man was making a strange, hoarse, stuttering sound that I realized was his faltering breath. The second man was reaching out to the man lying next to him, his cousin it turned out, and was saying, in Arabic, “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.” He wanted these to be his last words.
The quiet, dark horror of the scene froze me for a moment. I asked myself, quite deliberately, if I realized what I was looking at. I found myself slipping into that weirdly safe mental space, a kind of filming autopilot. I took the lighter from my guide’s hand, and shone the torch beam onto the men in the dark. I concentrated on keeping the camera steady. I asked the people behind me to be quiet so I could get good, clean sound of the dying man’s last words. I told myself I could think about it later.”
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/09/i_almost_died_in_syria/
April 11th, 2013, 2:33 am
Juergen said:
16 picturee of war destroyed Aleppo
http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2013-04/BG-SYRIEN-ZERSTOERUNG
April 11th, 2013, 2:36 am
Citizen said:
Shipping Death and Destruction to Syria
by Sharmine Narwani
Al Akhbar English
So what’s stopping regional and international players from slapping a total arms embargo on Syria to prevent more death and destruction? Russian President Vladimir Putin, an ally of the Syrian government, last week again called for a halt to weapon flows “to all sides of the conflict.”
“The weapons of choice in (today’s) new conflicts are not big-ticket items like long-range missiles, tanks, and fighter planes, but small and frighteningly accessible weapons ranging from handguns, carbines, and assault rifles on up to machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and shoulder-fired missiles,” explained William Hartung more than a decade ago in an article entitled The New Business of War.
“Because they are cheap, accessible, durable, and lightweight, small arms have been a primary factor in the transformation of warfare from a series of relatively well- defined battles between ‘two opposing forces wearing uniforms’ to a much more volatile, anarchic form of violence,” says Hartung, now director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy in Washington DC. “More often than not, today’s wars are multisided affairs in which militias, gangs, and self-anointed “rebels” engage in campaigns of calculated terror, civilian targets are fair game, and the laws of war are routinely ignored.”
“The ready availability of small arms makes these conflicts far more likely to occur, far more deadly once they start, and far more difficult to resolve once the death tolls mount and the urge for revenge takes hold.”
Hartung could have been describing Syria today. And no – the anarchic, violent rebels he describes in his article do not appear everywhere else in the world except in Syria. They are the Syrian prototype.
Tens of thousands of Syrians killed, millions displaced as a result of violence in their direct environment. Would these figures be so wretched if there were no armed rebellion? Most certainly, no.
April 11th, 2013, 2:36 am
Juergen said:
HRW report on air strikes by the regime against civilians
here is the 80 pages report as well:
http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/10/syria-aerial-attacks-strike-civilians
April 11th, 2013, 2:41 am
Visitor said:
We must put things in pespective with regards to the relationship between the Syrian revolution and the revolution that is currently brewing in Iraq. The first thing that we need to recognize is that these two revolutions are closely entwined and more so than many would like to admit or perceive.
The American invasion of Iraq by GWB was ill-conceived and produced a disaster as everyone recognizes 10 years after the unfortunate event took place. GWB lost his focus and pointed his compass in the wrong direction. There was no war on terror in Iraq. GWB consumed the good will generated by a suspicious event which people refer to as 9/11 and sought to invade a sovereign under the false pretext of so-called war on terror. No one in his right mind woud believe such a farce anymore. There is no more good will left for the US in the world as a result of the misbehaviour of the US over the kast ten years. We realize now that the US is now in fact the terrorists due to its behaviour in Afghanistan and other paces in the world for being invoved in in acts of wanton killing of women and children as we’ve seen recently. There has never been any acts of terror committed by our Iraqi brothers against the US, northere were any such acts committed by our holy warriors of the Nsra Front. In fact, our Iraqi brothers and our the Nusra holy warriors are involved in an epic war of liberation against agents of thuggocracy and abominable abberations of history represented by the EVIL Assads, the EVIL Maliki and the EVIL Mullahs.
Therefore, the wars that are being fought in Syria and Iraq are one and the same war. It is natural for the war efforts to be united. The two countres must also unite and become one as a result of these developments.
The FSA, nominally headed by Idriss, will only become relevant if it is ked by the Nusra Front and its sisters. As I have repeated on more than one occasion, FSA defectors and new recruits must go through a rehabilitation process by the Nusra and other similar fronts in order to acquire effective skills in fighting techniques, discipline, oranization as well a reconditioning orientation process which will erase the negative effects of discredited and EVIL Baathism which must be dismantled and routed for ever out of Syrian lives and discourses.
April 11th, 2013, 2:43 am
Juergen said:
In Syria, the Jihadist Campaign for Hearts and Minds
http://world.time.com/2013/04/10/in-syria-the-jihadist-campaign-for-hearts-and-minds-has-begun/
April 11th, 2013, 3:00 am
Johannes de Silentio said:
394. VAT
“There was no war on terror in Iraq”
Saddam Hussein (remember him?) had the fourth largest army in the world. He was scaring the hell out of GWB’s friends, the Saudis, the Kuwaitis and the GCC. Furthermore, he was making war on his own people, particularly the Kurds and the Shi’ites. I call that terror.
Well, someone had to kill Saddam. Everyone in the ME was too chicken to act, so GWB did it for them.
You will notice that the Shi’ites control Iraq now and the Kurds live in an autonomous region, running their own affairs. Most important, no one is scared of Iraq anymore.
Your problem, Vattie, is you ignore facts that don’t work in your story. Nowhere in your little screed did you mention Saddam. The reason is, with Saddam in there, it’s a different story.
Mission accomplished.
April 11th, 2013, 3:33 am
Juergen said:
The father of a dear friend was kidnapped last night. His wife called an stated that he was taken from his home in Idleb by regime soldiers. We have tried to influence him and his wife and his daughter to leave Idleb over the last months, but he always declined our offers and refused to leave his home. He was never involved in the revolution, may be the fact that he knows the owner of Orient TV is the reason behind this. ( almost anyone in Idleb does so) Our hope is that they are after an ransom.
April 11th, 2013, 5:44 am
Visitor said:
In this report, Abd Al-Qader Sale7h, the well known FSA commander, rightly declares the Nusra Front as A NON TERRORIST organization, echoing my comment at 294.
We must applaud Saleh’s announcement as it circumvent the devious plots of the US admin manipulative aganda and those who seek to follow such agenda whether they are on this blog or anywhere.
We mus, therefore, declare those Nusra fighters as holy warriors and brothers in arms and in faith of the revolution and they must lead the revolution, because they are the most qualified to do so for reasons that have become clear.
At this point in time, we can only label the US admin as well as the Assad regime as terrorist entities due to the crimes of wanton killing they are committing in Afghanisan, Syria and elsewhere.
April 11th, 2013, 8:15 am
annie said:
I second this
I believe Olly Lambert deserves the Pulitzer price for this outstanding work.(338. Juergen said:)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/syria-behind-the-lines/
Few people have really watched the movie/clip; it is harrowing to see them digging trapped people in the rubble with their bare hands.
Only robots like reve feel nothing at this sight.
Olly really risked his life to bring us that testimony.
April 11th, 2013, 8:41 am
annie said:
I second this
I believe Olly Lambert deserves the Pulitzer price for this outstanding work.(338. Juergen said:)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/syria-behind-the-lines/
Few of the commentators here have really watched the movie/clip; it is harrowing to see them digging trapped people in the rubble with their bare hands.
Only robots like reve feel nothing at this sight.
Olly really risked his life to bring us that testimony.
April 11th, 2013, 8:47 am
zoo said:
Journalists security situation in Syria: worse than we are being told?
Alex Thomson 10 april 2013
http://blogs.channel4.com/alex-thomsons-view/syria-security-censorship-pursuit-truth/4620
In time of war you will hear plenty of world leaders making noises about “freedom” and “good” and “right” and then you will see same leaders allowing the arsenals they control to be used to kill non-combatants and – particularly – journalists.
…
Either you believe journalists should not be killed or attacked for doing their job as non-combatants, or you do not.
Plainly some rebel groups do not. But they cannot then prattle on about “freedom” and “liberating” Syria. Some kind of liberation. Some kind of freedom.
…
Few people in the UK will be aware the a very prominent British journalist and his team have only recently emerged from the terrifying experience of becoming kidnap victims in rebel hands. That story has still not appeared in any media in the UK because a “news blackout” was declared in order to facilitate their release. Few would – or should – have any qualms with that degree of self-censorship.
However, their organisation – a very major force in the British media – has chosen to say nothing about the issue since. The public are entirely unaware this has happened.
In doing so they – and we by extension – have effectively muzzled ourselves and not told an important part of the Syrian war story – a nasty, dark and highly relevant dimension to the the rebel campaign there. The great Syrian question is all about what kind of freedoms people are fighting for. That’s why this issue matters so much.
When the prominent US TV journalist Richard Engel of NBC was kidnapped and released, recently, he wasted no time in putting the story out when he was safely out of Syria.
…
This self-censorship after the event is not stopping the kidnapping, nor is it telling and essential truth of the war. In fact it is actively hiding that important truth.
April 11th, 2013, 9:12 am
ann said:
U.S. faces difficult situation with rising al-Qaida groups in Syria: report – 2013-04-11
• The Iraqi wing of al-Qaida network docked with the Nusra Front radical group in Syria
• Washington is facing the challenge of administrating bloody conflicts
• The Syrian government has warned al-Qaida had been capitalizing on the current crisis in Syria
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/11/c_132301632.htm
DAMASCUS, April 11 (Xinhua) — Washington is facing a difficult situation after the Iraqi wing of al-Qaida terrorist network docked with the Nusra Front terrorist group in Syria, a Syrian state-run paper said Thursday.
“After the futile efforts to unite the so-called Syrian opposition and many compromises that resulted in declaring readiness to form an interim government; the experts, Pentagon men, and the CIA find themselves in front of the challenge of administrating bloody conflicts,” the al-Baath paper editorialized.
“The Nusra monster is getting bigger and feels within itself the power to demand privacy and independency,” the paper said.
A day earlier, Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of al- Qaida terrorist group in Iraq, declared the mergence with the terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra, which is currently operative on Syrian soil.
The Syrian government has repeatedly warned that al-Qaida terrorists had been capitalizing on the current crisis in Syria and that it was behind the explosions and disturbances nationwide.
The merger declaration came also two days after the central leader of al-Qaida Ayman al-Zawahiri urged unification of jihad in Syria.
On Wednesday, the terrorist leader of al-Nusra in Syria Abu Mohammed al-Jawalani pledged allegiance to al-Zawahiri.
Meanwhile, the Baath paper said the west has two choices: either to halt their efforts to lift the arm embargo on the “rebels”, or to declare their backing to Al-Qaeda in Syria.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/11/c_132301632.htm
April 11th, 2013, 12:24 pm
ann said:
Syria crisis produces no winner: Russian FM – 2013-04-11
The AL has effectively crossed out its own mediatory efforts by its decision to allow arms supply to the opposition in violation of the international rules
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/11/c_132301409.htm
MOSCOW, April 11 (Xinhua) — There will be no winner in the Syrian conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday.
The prolonged crisis will benefit only those who would not like to see Syria as a big influential country in the region, Lavrov said in an interview with local TV channel RTVi broadcast.
“We have been trying to calm the situation for a long time,” he said. “But the very moment the hope glimpses, someone immediately does everything to kill the hope. There will be no winner.”
Russia has been negotiating with related parties in Syria, including the government and opposition groups.
He slammed the Arab League (AL) and Western countries in the UN Security Council for their attempts to accuse only Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government for the violence.
“After the AL’s monitors prepared a report that not only the government but also armed opposition violated ceasefire and international humanitarian law, the AL immediately winded up their mission and withdrew the observers,” Lavrov said.
Meanwhile, the AL has effectively crossed out its own mediatory efforts by its decision to allow arms supply to the opposition in violation of the international rules, he added.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/11/c_132301409.htm
April 11th, 2013, 12:38 pm
Dolly Buster said:
The Zarqawi network has won in Iraq, their mission #1 was always to kick out the Christian occupier, and they have succeeded.
Now their mission #2 still remains, which is to eliminate the rulership of Al Maliki.
I have no doubt in the capabilities of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi to put pressure on the Shia, via sexytime explosion.
April 11th, 2013, 12:56 pm
ann said:
Syria urges UN action against Qaeda rebels – Thursday, April 11, 2013
http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/syria-urges-un-action-against-qaeda-rebels_841445.html
Damascus: Syria urges UN action against Qaeda rebels
The demand by Damascus that the UN class Al-Nusra Front as an Al-Qaeda-linked group came as G8 foreign ministers meeting in London said they were “appalled” at the spiralling violence but made no mention of supplying arms to the rebels.
In a letter to the United Nations, Syria’s foreign ministry said it “expects the Security Council to fulfil its role and preserve global security,” and class the Al-Nusra Front as an Al-Qaeda-linked group, state news agency SANA reported.
A sanctions regime was introduced by the UN to punish individuals and entities linked to Al-Qaeda, freezing their financial assets, banning them from travelling and imposing an embargo on arms destined for Al-Qaeda.
There are currently 64 entities and 227 individuals on the list.
The regime’s letter to the UN follows a pledge by Al-Nusra Front on Wednesday of allegiance to Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri and support for his call for an Islamic state to be set up in Syria, increasing concerns by Western nations about weapons falling into the wrong hands.
On the battlefield, “At least six children, seven women, 16 rebel fighters, 16 other unidentified men and 12 army troops were killed on Wednesday, in fighting, after the army launched an assault on Al-Sanamein and Ghabagheb,” the Observatory said.
[…]
http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/syria-urges-un-action-against-qaeda-rebels_841445.html
April 11th, 2013, 1:36 pm
zoo said:
Syria rebel group’s dangerous tie to al Qaeda
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst, and Jennifer Rowland, Special to CNN
The fact that al-Nusra has publicly aligned itself with central al Qaeda is worrisome. A long-term safe haven for this group in Syria could be the prelude for the formation of an organization with the wherewithal to attack the West, just as al Qaeda’s sojourn in Afghanistan when it was controlled by the Taliban prepared the group for the 9/11 attacks.
Second, al-Nusra is widely regarded as the most effective fighting force in Syria, and its thousands of fighters are the most disciplined of the forces opposing Assad.
Al-Nusra is also the first al Qaeda affiliate to take a page out of Hezbollah’s book and operate not only as an effective fighting force but also as a large-scale provider of services, for instance, distributing enormous quantities of desperately needed bread in the areas of Syria that the group controls.
Finally, al-Nusra is the first jihadist group for many years that has chosen to merge with al Qaeda at a time when it is having significant success on the battlefield. Al Qaeda’s North African franchise, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, as well as the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, both announced their affiliation with al Qaeda only when they were struggling for resources and exposure.
While al-Nusra is enjoying real battlefield success in Syria, it is formally allying itself to al Qaeda at a time of great weakness for the global terrorist organization. The announcement of the merger with al-Nusra provides al Qaeda’s leaders, now headed by the Egyptian Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the chance to prove they are still relevant.
April 11th, 2013, 2:22 pm
zoo said:
The Syrian army is trying to cut off Eastern Ghouta supply line from Jordan
Syrian army launches large-scale operation to secure capital suburbs
English.news.cn 2013-04-11 20:58:21
DAMASCUS, April 11 (Xinhua) — The Syrian army has launched a large-scale operation against the rebels in the eastern countryside of Damascus in a bid to secure the surroundings of the capital and cut off the supply line of the rebels, local media reported Thursday.
The operation in the sprawling Eastern al-Ghouta countryside has been dragging on since two weeks ago after rumors had spread that the rebel Free Syrian Army and the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra front were gearing for an all-out attack on Damascus.
A colonel in the Syrian army told Xinhua that the rebels were receiving help and ammunition as well as militiamen from neighboring Jordan through the eastern Ghouta area, some 119 km away from the Jordanian frontier.
The colonel noted that once the area is totally under the army’ s control, the strategic supply line of the rebels will be cut off.
“Once we cut off this route, we will deprive the rebels from their strategic supply line on which they are relying to sneak in with arms and ammunition,” the colonel said.
“With the mettle of the Syrian army, the insurgency here will end within a short time and the security and stability will return to this country,” he added.
April 11th, 2013, 2:25 pm
Mina said:
Thanks Citizen 333 for this interview of Escobar.
Kurdistan in the making… nothing new but well explained, as usual.
April 11th, 2013, 2:32 pm
zoo said:
Despite France and UK repeated promises, Hitto, Sabra and Attasi have renounced to call for weapons as the G8 appear as divided on the issue. They only called for humanitarian help. Where is Al Khatib?
William Hague admits divided G8 ‘has failed’ over Syria conflict
Thursday 11 April 2013
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/william-hague-admits-divided-g8-has-failed-oversyria-conflict-8569294.html
Foreign ministers from the G8 failed to patch up deep divisions over Syria during a meeting in London.
William Hague, speaking after talks with his counterparts, admitted the world had failed to resolve Syria’s two-year-old conflict, in which an estimated 70,000 people have been killed. “The United Nations Security Council has not fulfilled its responsibilities because it is divided,” the Foreign Secretary said. “That division continues. Have we solved that division at this meeting? No. We didn’t expect to. But the world has failed in its responsibilities and continues to do so.”
Leaders of the Syrian National Coalition were present on the sidelines of the London meeting to ask for more humanitarian help
April 11th, 2013, 2:42 pm
zoo said:
One day after the shockwave that Al Nusra is officially part of al Qaedda, a HRW report pops up accusing again the Syrian air force of killing civilians deliberately.
Coincidence? No.
Like the US drones in Aghanistan, targeting terrorists hiding among civilians will inevitably kill civilians. When will the US be accused of war crimes after hundred thousands of civilians were killed by the US army in Iraq and drones are killing whole families in Afghanistan to hit one terrorist.
The HRW report politically oriented? Its timing leaves no doubt.
April 11th, 2013, 2:53 pm
Visitor said:
The link was missing in my previous comment. So I repeat here with the link.
In this report, Abd Al-Qader Sale7h, the well known FSA commander, rightly declares the Nusra Front as A NON TERRORIST organization, echoing my comment at 294.
http://www.alarabiya.net/ar/arab-and-world/syria/2013/04/11/قائد-التوحيد-بالجيش-الحر-يرفض-اعتبار-النصرة-إرهابية.html
We must applaud Saleh’s announcement as it circumvents the devious plots of the US admin manipulative aganda and those who seek to follow such agenda whether they are on this blog or anywhere else.
The Nusra fighters must be declared as holy warriors and brothers in arms and in faith of the revolution, and they must lead the revolution, because they are the most qualified to do so for reasons that have become clear.
At this point in time, we can only label the US admin as well as the Assad regime and similar regimes as terrorist entities due to the crimes of wanton killing they are committing in Afghanisan, Syria and elsewhere.
April 11th, 2013, 2:57 pm
Johannes de Silentio said:
404. POLLY DUSTER
“The Zarqawi network has won in Iraq”
No, they haven’t, Polly Baby. A fight lasts ten rounds. It’s only round two.
April 11th, 2013, 3:56 pm
zoo said:
Editorial: Al-Nusra shows its true colors
Friday 12 April 2013
http://arabnews.com/news/447861
The clear danger for Syria’s revolution is that once Assad and his cronies have been toppled, as they assuredly will be, the agony of the Syrian people may still not be over. The horrific possibility exists that the victorious Free Syria Army will find itself with a new opponent in the shape of Al-Nusra, which at present is nominally one of its formations. The fear must be that the group is already planning its campaign against its current allies, assembling dumps of arms and explosives to be used, not against Assad but against the triumphant Syrian people.
It is also possible that even now, Al-Nusra members are being infiltrated into the rank and file of what will become the new Syrian armed forces, the units of the Free Syrian Army that will need to protect the liberated country and keep the peace. In addition it must be wondered if these Al-Qaeda thugs will wait until Assad is overthrown, before they begin their assault on the real revolutionaries. Could it be that as the tide of battle moves decisively in the rebels’ favor, Al-Nusra will begin a murderous campaign targeting senior commanders and political figures within the revolutionary ranks?
…
The Syrian people have endured more than two years of devastating loss and suffering. Millions have become refugees in neighboring countries or within Syria itself. They want only to go home and to live at last in peace. Their country cannot become another Iraq, where terror feeds hungrily on division and discord.
Everybody, not least the National Coalition of the Syrian Revolution and commanders of the mainstream Free Syria Army should be planning now for the awful possibility that Al-Qaeda’s killers will seek to destroy their successful revolution. And that is now the clear risk. Decent Syrians rebelled against the Assad dictatorship out of anger and despair at the iron fist with which it grasped absolute power. Al-Nusri and other grouping who walk in Al-Qaeda’s dark and icy shadow embrace violence for no high motive whatsoever, but out of sheer hatred and contempt for their fellow human beings. That they feel that they can now openly declare their allegiance to a wicked and destructive terror organization perhaps demonstrates the confidence they currently feel.
Decent Syrians must be prepared to act decisively to counter the poisonous puss that Al-Nusri represents. It used to be said of men who led the fight against colonial rule that today’s terrorist becomes tomorrow’s respected politician. This can never be true of Al-Qaeda. Today’s Al-Nusra “freedom fighter,” is already a terrorist and he will be a terrorist tomorrow as well.
April 11th, 2013, 6:48 pm
zoo said:
The Syrian opposition new mission impossible: Isolate the extremists
Syrian opposition at “crucial juncture” — US envoy
http://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2303994&Language=en
Ambassador Ford told lawmakers that U.S.-backed opposition groups in Syria are “the best opportunity we have to isolate extremists.” “There is absolutely an extremist problem in Syria, and it is incumbent on the Syrian opposition coalition and the supreme Syrian military council to isolate those extremists. “I don’t think it will be easy to isolate those extremists but there is an opportunity to contain the sectarian divisions with the outreach from both the political opposition as well as the Syrian supreme military command,” Ford said.
April 11th, 2013, 6:57 pm
zoo said:
David Enders: Kidnapped by Syria’s al-Qaida rebels, I lived to tell about it
By David Enders
McClatchy Newspapers
Published: Thursday, Apr. 11, 2013
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/11/5332799/david-enders-kidnapped-by-syrias.html#storylink=cpy
The group that abducted us, the Nusra Front – or Jabhat al-Nusra in Arabic – has good reason to be suspicious of Americans. In December, the U.S. State Department declared it a front for al-Qaida in Iraq and a wing of the Islamic State of Iraq, another al-Qaida branch – a relationship that its members don’t try to hide. One told me last month: “Of course we’re all al-Qaida.”
…
The terrorist designation “is a badge of honor,” chuckled Abu Fera, a Nusra commander in Raqqa, which in March became the largest city in Syria to fall under rebel control after a battle fought in part by Nusra. “Even more people wanted to join us after that.” Abu Fera, who agreed to an interview using a pseudonym that means “Father of Fera,” declined to use his real name because, he said with a laugh, he didn’t “want to be on the sanctions list.”
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/11/5332799/david-enders-kidnapped-by-syrias.html#storylink=cpy
April 11th, 2013, 7:12 pm
Tara said:
No breakthrough happened in the G8 summit.
Time for the opposition to boycott the placebo FOS and to not accept any invitation for communication with Kerry, France, or Briton. With friends like that, who needs enemies. One would die of attrition while they continue to meet.
I say the opposition needs to issue a blunt statement denouncing the impotent Western governments and declaring no more interest in discussing the Syrian cause with them.
April 11th, 2013, 7:55 pm
Tara said:
No matter how the LCC and others assure the minorities, the west, and every one else; their assurance falls on deaf ears. I say they should stop trying to reassure anyone and let the revolution takes its natural course.
—-
One of the most influential opposition activist groups, the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), has emphasised its hopes for “a democratic, pluralistic state” in the wake of al-Qaida in Iraq announcing that the Jabhat al-Nusra front, one of the most powerful anti-Assad forces, is its representative in Syria. It said:
Local Coordination Committees in Syria completely refuse what has been said by al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and his call to establish an Islamic state in Syria.
And hence the committees condemn this blatant interference in Syria’s internal affairs, and reconfirm that only the Syrians will decide the future of their country.
In this context, the Local Coordination Committees reminds [people] that the Syrian revolution was set out in order to achieve freedom, justice and a civil, democratic, pluralistic state, and that our dream as Syrians after the overthrow of the fascist regime is to establish a regime based on public freedoms and human rights and political equality between the Syrians. And that the future Syria that we seek is a Syrian Republic and civil state owned by the Syrians as one people. Its members are equal in rights and duties according to the principle of citizenship, and no one of them will gain a privilege or have his rights detracted because of his religious or sectarian or ethnic origin… as Syria is a state for all its citizens.
April 11th, 2013, 8:58 pm
Johannes de Silentio said:
411. VAT
“At this point, we can only label the US admin as a terrorist entity”
Careful, little man. Some day in the near future when all your plans and dreams and ideas come crashing down and you stand there with your finger up your ass, you might have only one place to go for help. And on that day, Vattie, you don’t want someone like me pointing at you and saying, “Hey, isn’t that the dude who was talking trash about us?”
Sometimes, little man, it’s best to keep your mouth shut.
April 11th, 2013, 9:58 pm
MarigoldRan said:
The regime has performed more terrorist actions than even Al Qaeda.
April 11th, 2013, 10:02 pm
ghufran said:
what we need is action:
بيان من القيادة العسكرية المشتركة للجيش السوري الحرإن القيادة المشتركة للجيش السوري الحر تطلق التحذير الأخير من مغبة وتبعات وعواقب محاولات الاستمرار في فرض السيد غسان هيتو في منصب رئيس الحكومة المؤقتة وتشير إلى ما يلي:
أولاً: تمت عملية فرض السيد غسان هيتو كرئيس للحكومة المؤقتة عبر ائتلاف مغلق لم يراع رأي القوى الوطنية والديمقراطية والثورية والعسكرية المبعدة و المهمشة أساساً خارج الائتلاف فإن قام أي طرف بتشكيل حكومة بمعزل عن باقي الأطراف فإن ذلك سيقود إلى المزيد من الانقسام الوطني وسينتهي بالفشل والدفع بسورية وشعبها وثورتها المجيدة نحو المجهول.
إن خطوة فرض السيد هيتو في منصب رئيس الحكومة والشروع بتشكيلها قد أحدثت ما يكفي من الانقسام والتصدع في الصف الوطني واستنفر القوى الوطنية غير الأخوانية في الساحتين السياسية والعسكرية والثورية فالجميع يعلم بأن قرار التصويت كيفما دار في الائتلاف فإنه منتجه سيكون بالنتيجة أخواني خالص وهذا السبب المباشر لانغلاق الائتلاف على نفسه في وجه كل القوى والشخصيات الوطنية والديمقراطية التي تؤمن حقيقة بمبادئ وأخلاق وأهداف الثورة السورية.
ثانياً:إننا لا نرى أن لحكومة هيتو وظيفة حكومية حقيقية فهي ستكون مكلفة بأعمال تنفيذية بحتة لا تسوغ اعتبارها حكومة شرعية وخاصة أنه يمكن للأجهزة التنفيذية أن تقوم بمهامها. فهل نضحي بالوحدة الوطنية ونغامر بانقسامات المجتمع والثورة من أجل ترئيس رجل لا يعرفه السوريون وتكليفه بإدارة عملية لا تشبه ما تقوم به الحكومات ومضارها لا تحصى ومنافعها معدومة؟.
ثالثاً: إن السيد غسان هيتو ليس معروفاً كإداري على أي مستوى ولم يكن معروفاُ في صفوف الثورة رغم مرور عامين ونيف عليها الأمر الذي يدل على أنه قد لا يملك المؤهلات والخبرات الضرورية لإدارة سورية في هذه الفترة الفائقة في التعقيد والحساسية والتي نقف فيها أمام مرحلة حسم عسكري وإعادة بناء شامل لوطننا في آن معاً .
لو حكم البعض ضمائرهم بدلاً من تحكيم مصالحهم الشخصية والحزبية الضيقة والأنا المتورمة لوجدوا أن هناك العشرات من السوريين ممن يمتلكوا الخبرات الضرورية والمعرفة اللازمة للتصدي لهاتين المهمتين الكبيرتين اللتان يتوقف عليهما مصير الشعب والثورة.
رابعاً: إننا نرفض رفضاً قاطعاً تحويل الشعب السوري وسورية إلى حقل لتجارب فاشلة لمخططات ومشاريع فئة منبوذة في المجتمع السوري ويكفي التجارب الفاشلة في المجلس الوطني الفاشل.
كما أن تجاربهم الفاشلة التي عطلت الائتلاف تجعل الوضع لا يحتمل تجارب ومغامرات إضافية في حكومة لا لزوم لها خاصة وأن رئيسها المفروض وغير الشرعي أعلن صراحة أنه يفتقر إلى الخبرات والمعارف الضرورية لإدارة حكومة وأنه سيغطي ضعفه عبر الاستعانة بأشخاص ذوي خبرات في حين أنه يمكننا الاستعانة بأصحاب الخبرة والمعرفة مباشرة دون وسطاء وسماسرة.
خامساً: إننا في القيادة المشتركة للجيش السوري الحر نؤكد بأننا لم ولن نعترف بالسيد غسان هيتو كرئيس للحكومة المؤقتة ولن نسمح بتمرير تشكيلة حكومته المرتقبة على السوريين وسنسقطها والنظام وهيمنة واستبداد الأخوان معاً ونؤكد بأن قواتنا المسلحة الباسلة لم ولن تقدم أي شكل من أشكال الدعم أو الحماية أو الأمن الشخصي في المناطق المحررة للسيد هيتو ومن معه إلا إن اختاروا مغامرة دخول الأراضي السورية تحت حماية ميليشيات الأخوان المسلمين .
سادساً: إننا نحذر كل من تسول له نفسه القبول بالعمل والتعاون في خوض هذه التجربة الفاشلة وسيتحملون حينها كل المسؤولية و العواقب والتبعات الوخيمة.
إننا نطالب السيد هيتو الانسحاب فورا من هذا التكليف اللا شرعي الذي لم يحظ بقبول ورضى الشعب السوري ولا القوى الوطنية والديمقراطية والثورية والعسكرية لأنه ليس خياراً وطنياً وإلا فإنه يكون قد وضع نفسه في مواجهة مباشرة مع الشعب السوري وقواه الثورية والجيش السوري الحر.
إن حكومة هيتو لن ترى النور حتى ولو كان أعضاءها من الملائكة فما بني على باطل فهو باطل وإن أي اختيار لرئيس الحكومة يجب أن يحظى بتوافق وطني عام لأن الحكومة ستكون أهم حلقة في العمل الوطني وستمثل أداة أساسية في إنزال الهزيمة بالنظام ونعتقد بأنه من الجريمة أن نضيع هذه الوظائف التي يجب أن تقوم بها الحكومة إكراماً لفئة سياسية محدودة وتريد أن تفرض على شعبنا العظيم وثورتنا المجيدة خياراتها الخاطئة ورجالاتها الفاشلين.
سابعاً:إننا نخشى أن تتحول مسألة تشكيل حكومة في الشمال إلى محاولة لتمييع الأزمة السورية و مطالب الثورة بإسقاط نظام دمشق مما يعني الدخول في لعبة تنازع بين حكومة في الشمال وأخرى في الجنوب مما ينذر حينها بإطالة أمد الصراع لسنوات وهذا ما نعتقد أنها تريده الجماعة ريثما تتمكن من بناء قواعدها التي فقدتها بعد عقود وفرض هيمنتها على الدولة ومؤسساتها.
إننا نشير إلى التحذير الذي أطلقته القيادة في بيانها الأخير يوم أمس ومطالبتها حل المجلس الوطني وتوسيع الائتلاف الوطني قد حدد له مهلة زمنية لإنجازه دون مواربة أو تلكؤ أقصاها نهاية الشهر الحالي وإلا فإننا سنكون مضطرين لدعم تشكيل كيان سياسي وطني حقيقي يلبي تطلعات الشعب السوري وثورته المجيدة دون أي احتيال والتفاف ومواربة وتحايل و بمعزل عن قوى الإقصاء و التهميش ومن والاها.
وقد أعذر من أنذر
April 11th, 2013, 10:02 pm
ann said:
Syria calls on UN to list al-Nusra Front as terrorist – 2013-04-12
• Syria on Thursday called on the UN Security Council to list al-Nusra Front as a terrorist one
• On Wednesday, head of al-Nusra in Syria pledged allegiance to al-Zawahiri
• Al-Nusra Front has claimed responsibility for most of the fatal bombings across Syria
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/12/c_124570434.htm
DAMASCUS, April 11 (Xinhua) — Syria on Thursday called on the UN Security Council to list the Syria-based radical group al-Nusra Front as a terrorist one.
On Tuesday, Abu Baker al-Baghdadi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, declared the merger with al-Nusra Front, two days after al-Qaida’s central leader Ayman al-Zawahiri urged unification of jihad in Syria.
On Wednesday, head of al-Nusra in Syria, Abu Mohammed al- Jawalani, pledged allegiance to al-Zawahiri.
Al-Nusra Front has claimed responsibility for most of the fatal bombings targeting civilians and government institutions across Syria after the outbreak of the country’s political conflict in early 2011.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that the recent merger has proven the Syrian government’s previous claims about the rebel group’s connection with al-Qaida.
The ministry’s remarks came in letters addressing the UN Security Council, during which it warned against the “crimes” such groups commit in Syria.
Although Syria has documented al-Nusra’s crimes in several messages sent to the UN, some countries have hindered any condemnation by the UN Security Council of these “terrorist” crimes, a matter which has posed a “catalyst for those terrorists to go on with their crimes,” said the ministry.
It also warned against the danger of the international community’s disregard of the crimes of Takfiri terrorism practiced by al-Nusra, and urged the UN Security Council to take a quick measure to put the group on the terrorist list to preserve international security and stability and to pressure the countries that support terrorism in Syria.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/12/c_124570434.htm
April 11th, 2013, 10:10 pm
ghufran said:
There will be a day, near inshallah, when Syrians realize what they did to their country and discover that nobody is there to help them because the objective was met: the destruction of Syria:
يغادر وفد الحكومة السورية المؤقتة برئاسة غسان هيتو لندن اليوم من دون تحقيق أي نتائج ملموسة في إجتماعاته مع بعض وزراء خارجية دول الثماني، خصوصاً على صعيد الحصول على قرارات بتسليح المعارضة السورية المسلحة، ومطالب أخرى بإنشاء منطقة آمنة في شمال سورية. وواجه الوفد الذي غاب عنه رئيس الائتلاف الوطني السوري معاذ الخطيب مطالبة بتشكيل وفد لمحاورة النظام في إطار التوجه الروسي الأميركي للحل السياسي في سورية.وهو ما كان أعلنه وزير الخارجية الروسي سيرغي لافروف عقب محادثاته مع نظيره الأمريكي جون كيري في لندن أمس الأربعاء، حيث قال “إن واشنطن وموسكو تسعيان إلى تشكيل وفد من المعارضة لإجراء مفاوضات مع الوفد الحكومي السوري”.
April 11th, 2013, 10:17 pm
revenire said:
The rats are dying by the thousands. Our air force is doing a great job. How about some love for our pilots?
April 11th, 2013, 10:52 pm
ann said:
What are they smoking?!
Obama authorizes new nonlethal aid to Syrian opposition – 2013-04-12
Body armor and night-vision goggles for Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria due to “an unforeseen emergency” in Syria and in the security interests of the United States
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/12/c_124570401.htm
WASHINGTON, April 11 (Xinhua) — U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday authorized up to 10 million U.S. dollars in fresh nonlethal aid to the Syrian opposition.
The president signed a presidential determination allowing his secretaries of state and defense to explore “the inventory and resources” of any federal government agency for the immediate provision of “nonlethal commodities and services” to the Syrian opposition coalition and its military wing.
He said he took the move as a result of “an unforeseen emergency” in Syria and in the security interests of the United States.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that body armor and night-vision goggles would be among broader nonlethal military aid to the Syrian opposition by the Obama administration.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/12/c_124570401.htm
April 11th, 2013, 11:00 pm
ann said:
Russia concerned over Syrian opposition connection with terrorists – 2013-04-12
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/12/c_124570370.htm
MOSCOW, April 11 (Xinhua) — Russia was concerned over the fact that the armed opposition groups in Syria were joining hands with terrorist-related movements, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
In a commentary published on the ministry’s website, official Maria Zakharova said leader of the Jabhat al-Nusra movement had publicly claimed its loyalty to al-Qaeda.
Russia was also alarmed by the fact that some armed opposition forces, though claiming their ideological differences with Jabhat al-Nusra, were fighting against the Syrian government as “brothers in arms” with international terrorists, said the official.
Meanwhile, Russia was “seriously concerned” about al-Qaeda and international terrorists’ plan to turn Syria into the “main springboard” in the Middle East, with close coordination between terrorists in Syria and Iraq becoming “apparent,” she added.
Russia regretted that some of its partners adopted double standards as some terrorist attacks were not adequately evaluated.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/12/c_124570370.htm
April 11th, 2013, 11:13 pm
ann said:
War has reached Syria’s capital Damascus, but for now it is not a war zone – BY ROBERT FISK – 12 April 2013
Damascus under siege? Certainly. But at war? I’m not so sure
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/robert-fisk/war-has-reached-syrias-capital-damascus-but-for-now-it-is-not-a-warzone-29191134.html
The shells swish high over the city, from Mount Qasioun to Deraya, soaring far over the 18th-century Azem Palace and the mosque built on air, the glorious Umayyad with its fragile 8th-century mosaics, last resting place of Saladin, the head of Imam Hussain and John the Baptist. The place vibrates with explosions. Yet down at my favourite hostelry near the Barada river yesterday morning, the latte and the chocolate croissants were as fresh as they were eight months ago, the front page of the government newspaper Thawra bearing a poorly coloured photograph of a regime soldier amid heaps of anonymous rubble. But haven’t I seen this picture before?
Rumours of war. A cliché? Of course. Yet true. On Wednesday, I’m told by trusted friends that the Iranian-style shrine of Sayyida Zeinab has been destroyed by Salafist mortar fire. The tomb of the Prophet’s grand-daughter stands – or stood – on a site from the fourth caliphate. So yesterday, I drive at 140km/h south from Damascus, thundering down fearful motorways amid equally terrified drivers and along country laneways and earthen front-line barricades until suddenly, towering above me, are the blue-marble minarets and golden dome of the tomb of poor Zeinab, sister of Hussain, the Shia world’s first martyr whose own death began the whole sorry chasm within Islam. Mortars crack and rumble around us but save for a few marble squares, the place stands untouched. There’s a T-72 tank down the road and a clutch of government soldiers outside. But the rumour is untrue.
You can tell the diminishing circle of middle-class hope from the destinations plastered over the city’s buses. Until recently, they were announced on display boards; now they are written in vast inky whorls on cardboard taped to the windscreen. The Jobar bus now terminates at the edge of the rebel suburb. The Samaria station single-decker now finishes its journey just the other side of the Old Market. The great Haj railway terminus hasn’t seen a train in six months.
But who is under siege? The shopkeepers and the middle classes of the Mezze boulevard, “supporters” – a dodgy word these days – of the President, or the people of the little hell of Deraya, those who are left amid the cellars and chewed-through fabric of long-destroyed homes whose antagonists worm their way like centipedes through the walls of living rooms, toilets and hallways? “A whole society eaten away,” a Syrian journalist describes it.
A whole country, you might say. Anniversaries are celebrated with suitable gloom. The foundation of the Baath party; the start of the uprising against the Assad regime; the first major attack on government troops. The latter slightly upsets the Western narrative, of months of peaceful demonstrations brutally assaulted by government forces until the rebels reluctantly seized weapons in the summer of 2011. In fact 25 days after the beginning of the revolution, a convoy of the government army’s 145th Infantry Brigade was attacked on Banias bridge. Up to 12 soldiers were killed, 40 more wounded. But the “other” narrative, that of the Assad government’s desperation for “democracy” in order “to save the homeland”, is also hourly contradicted by the air raids against “foreign terrorists” – and surely the Assad lads and lassies can do better than dish up Israel’s and Washington’s clichés – which are erasing so many towns.
I talk to a former Syrian Special Forces officer. “Don’t you remember the ambush and murder of seven of our finest pilots in Hama province?” he asks contemptuously. “Is it surprising that their comrades want to go and smash the people who did this?” How easily revenge becomes a legitimate motive for war in Syria, in any war I guess. Casually, almost without realising its significance, I bump into this awful phenomenon.
At the al-Jdeideh border post between Syria and Lebanon, a Syrian-Turkish journalist has to return to Istanbul – via Beirut. Driving home over the northern frontier is impossible. “My village is just south of the Turkish border. The rebels killed my nephew. This was a message for me.” A Syrian-Armenian TV personality’s home is attacked in Damascus. Yerardo Krikorian’s grandparents were from Kilis in ancient Armenia. The Turks killed her grandfather in the 1915 genocide, her grandmother escaped. She comes from Aleppo. “The rebels knew where I lived,” she tells me. “They tried to kill my brother when they came to the house. I had asked the local (government) checkpoint to protect us when we saw the armed men in the area. They said their duty was only to guard the mukhabarat [intelligence] headquarters down the road.” When the same armed men attacked the secret police, the government soldiers were at last forced to fight.
The mukhabarat, the torturers, beaters, threateners, killers of the regime, are to blame. It’s surprising how many within the steadily diminishing circle of government Damascus say this. Soldiers say the same. The mukhabarat are to blame, they started this wretched business by assaulting the teenagers who painted graffiti on the walls of Deraa, they went beserk, they thought they were kings. It’s said that Assad wanted to rid himself of these thugs – there are tens of thousands of them – and that quite a few soldiers in the still-loyal army want to destroy them. But whose side would the mukhabarat then join?
“Really Robert, this country was always complicated – now it’s more difficult to understand than ever,” I’m told. Take the rebel commander who allegedly offered to pay for 25 captured government tanks for 750,000 Syrian pounds each. “I refused to sell for less than a million,” their “owner” is supposed to have proudly announced. He was told he was a fool. A million Syrian pounds was rubbish money. The tanks were worth a million dollars each.
Take the Sayyida Zeinab shrine. The soldiers outside have been ordered to let us enter. Inside a little room bearing pictures of Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah chairman – this is, after all, a Shia shrine – sits a smiling man, the head of security for the shrine, a foreigner, I suspect (readers may answer this little riddle without much trouble), who speaks with impressive ease. “Yes, we have water and other things to protect this shrine when it is attacked. We have expertise in these things. You cannot protect the shrine from mortar attack with the Koran.”
But his message is simple. “This shrine is not for Shia only but belongs to all Muslims because Zeinab was the granddaughter of the Prophet. We want to protect this shrine and all others. But we must protect this shrine because if there is damage, it will make Shia across the world more angry with Sunnis – so we are protecting all Muslims.” This friendly man lives and sleeps in the shrine of Sayyida Zeinab. He has been there for a year. The last mortar strike damaged a tiny part of the roof on Wednesday. “We know exactly who is trying to destroy this building. They are not Sunni who are doing this. The Sunnis don’t think like this. It was the Salafists.” Ah, those great tomb-destroyers, shrine-eradicators, Bamyan Buddha-liquidators, the Salafists. They are indeed in Syria now. Chief funders: our old and wealthy friend Saudi Arabia.
I walk into the great marble square for prayers where I find another Zeinab, a Syrian woman with her two tiny children in a pram. “I am not afraid,” she says. “It is normal here.” Untrue, of course. She sees the two soldiers standing in the corner. Then there is Moratada Ali, a 30-year-old from Najaf in Iraq. From Iraq, I ask incredulously? Yes, he says, a refugee who came here two-and-a-half years ago to escape the sectarian terrors of his homeland. He says he’s unafraid. Lives just round the corner with the wife and two children. The shrine “speaks” to him, he says. The woman guardian who stands not far from Zeinab herself – the real Zeinab who cared for her vast family when Hussain had bled to death – says that she prays for the Prophet’s granddaughter to protect her.
Only by chance, chatting to a Syrian companion yesterday did he mention that his brother had been kidnapped six months ago. He had never mentioned this to me. Not his business to, I suppose. “We are still searching for him,” he says, and I realise that he, too, is under siege. Damascus isn’t Leningrad in 1941 or Stalingrad or Troy or even Beirut, 1982.
[…]
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/robert-fisk/war-has-reached-syrias-capital-damascus-but-for-now-it-is-not-a-warzone-29191134.html
April 11th, 2013, 11:28 pm
revenire said:
Syrian Air Force
In the terms of the enemy, a terrorist battalion consists of 150 terrorists. The terrorists consider a brigade to be 10 battalions, as ordered by their American and European handlers.
Only a few hours ago, 10 battalions, an entire terrorist brigade, was completely wiped out without a single survivor when it tried to enter Syria from the Jordanian border.
The Syrian air force and army are no longer playing by the enemy’s rules. When they wake up to the new reality, the details of this change will be posted on this page.
April 11th, 2013, 11:41 pm
revenire said:
Ha ha so much for the rat’s “southern front” – the army and air force is killing them all. Go to Syria Video and hear the rats crying about their dead rodent brothers.
April 11th, 2013, 11:43 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Even if that’s true, that means the people on the ground in Daraa in possession of the land are rebels.
Slow news day. Not much to talk about, except that you’re a retard, retard.
April 11th, 2013, 11:50 pm
ann said:
Austrian FM: We may pull Golan peacekeepers – 04/12/2013
Visiting FM Spindelegger tells ‘Post’ that if EU lifts Syria arms embargo, Austrian UN peacekeepers will be endangered
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Austrian-FM-to-Post-We-may-pull-peacekeepers-from-Golan-309583
Austria may pull its soldiers from the UNDOF peacekeeping force on the Golan Heights if the European Union fails to renew its arms embargo against Syria, Austrian Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
If the embargo is lifted at the end of next month, “it would be difficult in that moment to maintain the security [of the Austrian soldiers],” he said.
Spindelegger arrived in Israel earlier in the day for a 24-hour visit during which he will travel to the Golan Heights, examine the terrain and meet with Austrian soldiers and their commander, so he can personally assess the situation.
He also wants to stress to Israeli leaders the danger to Syria and the mission’s future, if the arms embargo is lifted.
Austria is one of only three nations, along with India and the Philippines, that remain in the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force; it recently lost three of its members – Croatia, Canada and Japan.
There are fewer than 1,000 peacekeeping personnel left, and if Austria withdraws its 377 soldiers, the drop will severely hamper the mission’s effectiveness. Austria furnishes the largest remaining contingent.
“We are the main contributor of UNDOF,” Spindelegger said. “Next year we celebrate 40 years of being on the Golan Heights.
“The problem is that more and more it is not possible to do this mission,” he said.
Increasingly, he said, violence spills into the security zone that separates Israel and Syria.
But if the embargo is lifted and European countries export arms to the Syrian opposition, Austria will no longer appear neutral to forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
The absence of such neutrality would increase the danger to the extent that it may not be possible to remain, he said.
“If Syrian opposition could have more weapons from the European side, than we are really on one side, and it would be a hard job just to be present, and this would be the moment where we would think to pull out,” Spindelegger said.
Neutrality is such a critical component, he said, that Croatia pulled out, fearing for its troops’ safety, after a rumor surfaced that Croatia had delivered weapons to opposition forces, Spindelegger said.
He explained the situation to President Shimon Peres and to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in separate meetings on Thursday.
Israel agreed with him that no more arms should flow to Syria.
It could set off a very dangerous arms race, he warned.
“Austria thinks that we do not need more weapons in Syria, because [if] the one side gets more weapons, the other side will get more weapons. This kind of competition is not needed in Syria,” he said.
Spindelegger said he was particularly concerned there were a number of EU countries such as France and the United Kingdom that wanted the embargo lifted, so they could send arms to the opposition forces.
If a unanimous position cannot be reached to renew the embargo, it will expire, Spindelegger.
“If we cannot find unanimity in our decision just to prolong the arms embargo, countries are free just to deliver arms to Syrian opposition, and some of them have announced that they want to do that like France and the UK,” he said.
[…]
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Austrian-FM-to-Post-We-may-pull-peacekeepers-from-Golan-309583
April 12th, 2013, 12:00 am
Syrian said:
Rev.
Here is some love for your pilots
From Edlib few hours ago
http://youtu.be/ibf2i77iI64
http://youtu.be/ibf2i77iI64
الظاهر مابقي عندهم طيارين كثر حتى يرسلو رئيس أركان لواء لقيادة طائرة
الجيش الحر يقطع تذكرة سفر ذهاب بلا عودة الى جهنم باذن الله للمجرم الشبيح العميد الطيار رئيس اركان اللواء 63 سهيل عكرم
المجرم من قرية السفرقية / القرداحة
تم التسفير بعد ما أسقطو طائرته بادلب
April 12th, 2013, 12:08 am
ghufran said:
Kamal Labwani joins the choir:
قال المعارض السوري البارز كمال اللبواني “انني لن أعود إلى الإئتلاف السوري المعارض إلا إذا تعدلت فيه آلية إنتاج القرار السياسي، فاليوم القرار محصور فقط بيد جماعة الإخوان المسلمين”.
اللبواني وفي مقابلة خاصة مع وكالة أنباء آسيا أعلن “أن رئيس الحكومة الإنتقالية غسان هيتو إخواني ابن إخواني، وجاؤوا به بناء على توصية قطرية – أميركية، وهو ينشط في الجمعيات الأميركية منذ فترة، ووالده كان أحد قادة الإخوان وقريبه خالد الصالح يعتبر من المقربين جداً من الجماعة، وهم خرجوا من سوريا بسبب الإضطهاد الذي لحق بعائلاتهم”، مضيفاً” الإخوان المسلمين يمتلكون قوة تصويتية قوامها 45 إلى خمسين شخصا يأتمرون بأمرهم، وهم يعتمدون أسلوب التقية أي إستنخدام أسماء غير إخوانية لتمثيلهم من أجل الإمساك بالقرار السياسي والعسكري، وفي الإئتلاف كما في المجلس الوطني فإن الأغلبية التصويتية فيه تأتمر بتوجيهات جماعة الإخوان، وهذا لا يعني بالضرورة ان يكون جورج صبرا إخواني، ولكنه في النهاية يصوت لصالحهم”
This is from Shiqfeh of the MB:
قال الشقفة ” لا اعلم إن كان إعلان دولة العراق الإسلامية حقيقياً، وما إذا كانت جبهة النصرة توافق على ذلك، وهذا الكلام نحن لا نؤيده، وهو يسيء إلى الثورة السورية، والشعب السوري لا يرحب به، بل يريد دولة ديمقراطية”، وعما إذا كانت جماعة إخوان سوريا ستدخل في مواجهة مع النصرة لفت إلى أننا “لن نواجهها ولكن سنختلف معها ونبين الخطأ من الصواب، وفي حال إستمروا على موقفهم سيكون القرار للشعب السوري، وصناديق الإقتراع ستحسم هذا الجدل”،
how many people here really believe that Nusra and militant islamists believe in elections?
this guy thinks we are stupid.
April 12th, 2013, 12:12 am
Syrian said:
Rev.
This is the regime site for the thousands of your dead if you check it out now you see the names of the 2 pilots on top
Of course you will needs google translate
https://m.facebook.com/Shohdaa.alwata?id=327383343952212&_rdr
April 12th, 2013, 12:28 am
ghufran said:
Regardless of where you stand on this conflict you have to wonder what does it mean for the Syrian air force to use a senior officer to fly a helicopter, the death of the general and two others was confirmed by sources close to the regime.
On a larger scale, the plan to attack Damascus from the south does not seem to be in a better shape than the one that tried to attack it from Gouta, that means more mortars and car bombs but no real invasion, I doubt that the promised weapons will arrive to the rebels after it became clear that Syria is today another playground for Al-Qaida.
April 12th, 2013, 12:37 am
MarigoldRan said:
It means the regime is running out of trained, non-militia soldiers.
April 12th, 2013, 12:42 am
ann said:
Syrian “rebels” pledge loyalty to AL-QAEDA – April 11, 2013
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/04/11/syria-al-qaeda-connection/2075323/
BEIRUT — A Syrian rebel group’s pledge of allegiance to al-Qaeda’s replacement for Osama bin Laden suggests that the terrorist group’s influence is not waning and that it may take a greater role in the Western-backed fight to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The pledge of allegiance by Syrian Jabhat al Nusra Front chief Abou Mohamad al-Joulani to al-Qaeda leader Sheik Ayman al-Zawahri was coupled with an announcement by the al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq, that it would work with al Nusra as well.
Lebanese Sheik Omar Bakri, a Salafist who says states must be governed by Muslim religious law, says al-Qaeda has assisted al Nusra for some time.
“They provided them early on with technical, military and financial support , especially when it came to setting up networks of foreign jihadis who were brought into Syria,” Bakri says. “There will certainly be greater coordination between the two groups.”
[…]
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/04/11/syria-al-qaeda-connection/2075323/
April 12th, 2013, 12:56 am
Juergen said:
April 12th, 2013, 1:01 am
revenire said:
“Syrian” I don’t believe that YouTube or Facebook nonsense. It is for your weak morale. Only fools would believe terrorist garbage. I won’t even look at it. You console yourself with it.
I believe in our army and in Assad. I believe our air force is killing any rats who dare congregate. I believe we have thousands of tons of bombs waiting to be dropped on rat nests.
April 12th, 2013, 1:04 am
revenire said:
Juergen likes fairy tales “Syrian” – show him your stories. I am still listening to the cries of the rats in Daraa. They weep like women.
April 12th, 2013, 1:06 am
ghufran said:
How do you expect people who were bombed from the sky and lost relatives in the process to welcome syrian soldiers again?
This is not in defense of rebels who should have not used civilian areas as bases but I doubt that the shelling of heavily populated areas achieved anything but to terrorize civilians and increase hatred:
In an 80-page report, Death from the skies: deliberate and indiscriminate air strikes on civilians, Human Rights Watch says it believes, based on information from Syrian activists, that more than 4,300 civilians have been killed as a result of Syrian Air Force strikes.
In village after village, we found a civilian population terrified by their country’s own air force. Ole Solvang, Human Rights Watch
It also believes that there has been deliberate targeting of bakeries whilst civilians were queuing for bread and of hospitals.
The report was based on visits to 50 sites of government air strikes in opposition controlled areas in Aleppo, Idlib and Latakia governorates, and interviews with 140 witnesses and victims.
“These illegal air strikes killed and injured many civilians and sowed a path of destruction, fear, and displacement.”
(channel 4)
April 12th, 2013, 1:17 am
Juergen said:
Syria’s Women: Sidelined in Opposition Politics?
“Syrian women have long been underrepresented in Syrian politics, despite gaining the right to vote in 1949, and the right to stand as parliamentary candidates four years later. In July 2011, Inter-Parliamentary Union stats put women’s parliamentary participation in Syria at just 12 percent, significantly lower than the global average of 20 percent and the Arab states’ 14.9 percent.”
http://beta.syriadeeply.org/2013/04/syrias-women-sidelined-opposition-politics/#.UWeYozfHTAX
April 12th, 2013, 1:25 am
Johannes de Silentio said:
434. GHUFFIE
“What does it mean for the Syrian air force to use a senior officer to fly a helicopter?”
It means Bashar and Maher can’t trust a more junior officer to fly it. The worry is it will end up at an airfield in Turkey or Jordan…
April 12th, 2013, 1:25 am
Juergen said:
Assad thugs killed a little Syrian boy and on his forehead wrote, “Assad or no one.” RIP
https://twitter.com/farGar/status/322541910000553984/photo/1
April 12th, 2013, 1:27 am
Juergen said:
Giving Assad the benefit of the doubt distorts history
“How were the 40-plus people killed? The bomb could not have killed the other people, as even the people sitting less than a metre away from him were hardly affected. Why, then, has the regime insisted it was a suicide bombing that killed the cleric? Why did the regime lie about the details of the killing?”
http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/giving-assad-the-benefit-of-the-doubt-distorts-history
April 12th, 2013, 1:39 am
ann said:
Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e28_1365731057
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b4f_1365731186
April 12th, 2013, 1:39 am
revenire said:
Frankly, the air force has not dropped enough bombs if all they’ve killed is 4300. Maybe they need to let Iranian pilots help.
April 12th, 2013, 1:42 am
revenire said:
Juergen it looks to me like he was carrying a gun from the photo you posted. You’ve seen pictures of the child soldiers.
The army needs to start using more cluster bombs. That will put the fear of God in them.
More cluster bombs means less chance of soldiers being killed. Why waste men? We are down to 500,000 soldiers and every one counts.
What the hell is a “Human Rights Watch”? It sounds like some sort of British trash that makes up stories for idiots to repeat like parrots. HRW? Seems Sharmine was talking about them earlier.
April 12th, 2013, 1:46 am
Juergen said:
Reve
statements from you remind me always of the famous Max Lieberman quote: “I cannot eat as much, as I would like to puke”
Lately in Cairo: Hunk if you are aginst the MB
April 12th, 2013, 2:15 am
Juergen said:
Syria TV confirms video of cleric’s killing is real
“Syrian state television has confirmed that a video showing the March 21 killing of prominent religious cleric Mohammed Saeed al-Bouti is real, days after describing the footage as a fake.
In an unprecedented act, the broadcaster said it “apologised” for denying the authenticity of a video distributed online this week, showing the moment of an explosion in a Damascus mosque that killed Syria’s best-known Sunni cleric.”
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Apr-11/213415-syria-tv-confirms-video-of-clerics-killing-is-real.ashx#axzz2QEGMyLsS
April 12th, 2013, 2:46 am
Juergen said:
Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported on today that UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, will likely resign from his position before April 18. Citing unnamed Arab diplomatic sources in Cairo, the newspaper said that Brahimi is expected to submit a strongly-worded letter of resignation blaming Arab countries and the Arab league for Syria’s destruction.
http://www.assafir.com/Article.aspx?EditionId=2434&ChannelId=58580&ArticleId=1017&Author=
April 12th, 2013, 3:17 am
ann said:
The Islamic Emirate of Syriastan – By Pepe Escobar – Apr 12, 2013
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-120413.html
PARIS – And now some breaking news coming from the Islamic Emirate of Syriastan. This program is brought to you by the NATOGCC corporation. Please also tune in for a word from our individual sponsors, the United States government, Britain, France, Turkey, the House of Saud and the Emir of Qatar.
It all started early this week, with a proclamation by the elusive leader of al-Qaeda Central, Ayman “The Doctor” al-Zawahiri, hidden somewhere in the Pakistani tribal areas; how come Double O Bama with his license to kill (list) and prime drone fleet cannot find him?
Al-Zawahiri called for all the Islamist brigades in the Jihad Inc business fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-
Assad to found an Islamic emirate, the passport du jour leading to an Islamic caliphate.
Two days later, the Islamic State of Iraq – for all practical purposes al-Qaeda in Iraq – announced, via a video starring its leader Abu Bakr al-Husseini al-Qurashi al-Baghdadi, a mergers and acquisition spectacular; from now on, it would be united with the Syrian jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra, and be referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
But then, the next day, the head of Jabhat al-Nusra, the shady Abu Muhammad al-Joulani, said that yes, we do pledge our allegiance to al-Qaeda Sheikh, Doctor al-Zawahiri; but there has been no M&A business whatsoever with al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Puzzled infidels from Washington to Beijing may be entitled to believe this is straight from Monty Python – but it’s actually deadly serious; especially as the House of Saud, the Emir of Qatar, the neo-Ottoman Erdogan in Turkey and King Playstation from Jordan – vastly supported by Washington – continue to weaponize the Syrian “rebels” to Kingdom Come. And one of the top beneficiaries of this weaponizing orgy has been – who else – the M&A gang now known as the Islamic State of the Iraq and Levant.
Let’s hit them with our option
Every grain of sand in the Syrian-Iraqi desert knows that the “rebels” who really matter in fighting terms in Syria are from Jabhat al-Nusra – hundreds of transnationals fond of beheading and suicide bombings.
They control, for instance, a few important suburbs of Aleppo. They’ve perpetrated scores of kidnappings, torture and summary executions. Crucially, they killed a lot of civilians. And they want to impose no-compromise, hardcore Sharia law. No wonder middle-class, educated Syrians fear them more than anything lethal the government might resort to.
Al-Baghdadi admitted the obvious: Syrian jihadis are an annex to Iraqi jihadis, from whom, crucially, they have been receiving on-the-ground battle experience. After all, it was these hardcore Iraqis who fought the Americans, especially from 2004 to 2007. The plum tomato in the kebab is that al-Nusra itself was founded by Sunni Syrians fighting alongside Sunni Iraqis in Iraq.
Then there’s what the House of Saud is up to. The Saudis are competing in a regional marathon against al-Qaeda to see who enrolls more Sunni fanatics to fight those apostate Iranians, both in Iraq and the northern Levant. The House of Saud loves any jihadi, local or transnational, as long as he does not raise hell inside Saudi Arabia.
The alphabet soup of US intel agencies should know all that by now; otherwise suspicion that they spent all this time watching Monty Python reruns will be proven correct. Reason seemed to have prevailed when a puzzled State Department, via Secretary John Kerry, reversed Hillary Clinton’s Artemis syndrome and last month called for the Assad regime and the “rebels” to negotiate – anything – although he also had the temerity to proclaim there are “moderates” among the jihadis.
But then, earlier this week in Jerusalem, just as the jihadi merger and acquisition was about to be announced in Syria/Iraq, Kerry insisted that for the Obama administration “no option is off the table” in terms of a US attack on – Iran.
Abandon all hope all you geopolitical dwellers in this valley of tears. The State Department does remain as puzzled as ever, as no rational adults seem to be able to distinguish between hardcore Sunni jihadis – of the 9/11 kind – and “axis of evil” Iranians.
The Europeans at least seem to be having second thoughts. The French announced this week they want to convince the European Union and the UN Security Council to brand Jabhat al-Nusra as a “terrorist organization”. Yet everybody runs for cover when the question of what happens to the weaponizing of the Syrian “rebels” arises; it’s obvious that Jabhat al-Nusra is having a ball with the status quo.
And still, next week, they will meet again – the main producers of this ghastly Z-movie, Regime Change Special Ops, plus some marginal players. It will be the US, the Brits and the French, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. They will agree to keep the weaponizing going – and actually turbo-charge it.
So what is the CIA doing in all this mess? Well, hoping it gets messier, by supporting Baghdad-approved Shi’ite Iraqi militias to go after the jihadi superstars of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki even asked for CIA drones to bomb them to paradise. No luck – for now.
Baghdad has seen the writing on the wall – a direct consequence of the divide and rule, Sunni-against-Shi’ite games the Americans have been encouraging for 10 years now; the next stage is set for a civil war, Syria-style, in Iraq. Iraqi intelligence is seriously infiltrated by Islamic State of Iraq jihadis. There are no desert borders to speak of; Anbar province is watching what’s unfolding in Syria as a dress rehearsal for what will happen in Iraq.
[…]
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-120413.html
April 12th, 2013, 5:09 am
Juergen said:
Good old Fisk did it again… Funny enough he captured the mood youll find in any dictatorship, if only Assad would know what is going on…
The war has reached Damascus, but for now it is not a warzone
“The mukhabarat, the torturers, beaters, threateners, killers of the regime, are to blame. It’s surprising how many within the steadily diminishing circle of government Damascus say this. Soldiers say the same. The mukhabarat are to blame, they started this wretched business by assaulting the teenagers who painted graffiti on the walls of Deraa, they went beserk, they thought they were kings. It’s said that Assad wanted to rid himself of these thugs – there are tens of thousands of them – and that quite a few soldiers in the still-loyal army want to destroy them. But whose side would the mukhabarat then join?”
““We know exactly who is trying to destroy this building. They are not Sunni who are doing this. The Sunnis don’t think like this. It was the Salafists.” Ah, those great tomb-destroyers, shrine-eradicators, Bamyan Buddha-liquidators, the Salafists. They are indeed in Syria now. Chief funders: our old and wealthy friend Saudi Arabia.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/robert-fisk-the-war-has-reached-damascus-but-for-now-it-is-not-a-warzone-8569212.html
April 12th, 2013, 6:12 am
ann said:
Factories ablaze as intense clashes erupt in eastern Damascus – 2013-04-12
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/12/c_132304449.htm
DAMASCUS, April 12 (Xinhua) — Intense fighting erupted Friday in a rebellious suburb of the Syrian capital of Damascus coupled by shelling that hit a number of industrial factories in the area, reports said.
Pro-government media reports said the armed rebels targeted a number of detergent factories in the Damascus’s eastern suburb of Sbaineh with bombshells, burning it completely and sending heavy black smoke spiraling high in the sky.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/12/c_132304449.htm
April 12th, 2013, 6:21 am
zoo said:
The Syrian army continue its offensive on the embattled rebels
Activists say Syrian troops battling rebel forces around Homs near Lebanon border
By The Associated Press
BEIRUT – Activists say Syrian government forces are battling rebels near the central city of Homs.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says heavy clashes between soldiers and opposition fighters are underway west of Homs. The fighting is near a string of villages close to Syria’s border with Lebanon, said the Observatory’s director, Rami Abdul-Rahman.
April 12th, 2013, 8:09 am
zoo said:
Contrary to the false information carried by some medias, many foreign journalists are entering Syria legally
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2013/apr/12/syria-conflict-massacre-in-homs-province#block-5167ecb2e4b00f501f7c4131
The Guardian’s Middle East editor, Ian Black, has just arrived in Damascus, from Beirut, to be greeted to the sound of explosions every few minutes.
April 12th, 2013, 8:14 am
zoo said:
#453 Ann
Burning factories…
I call this the rage of the impotent.
April 12th, 2013, 8:16 am
apple_mini said:
I think there is quite percentage of people like me wishing the best to have a national dialogue and political negotiation to end the violence.
Instead of any glimpse of hope, we saw Nusra came out bedding with Iraqi Al Qaeda. Yet, the opposition tried so hard to play down the alliance. But the fundamental flaw of their statement is that they do not have any control over Nusra so unless they are affiliated with them, otherwise they do not speak for Nusra. In other words, that kind of political and PR maneuver is useless and void.
The opposition’s foreign backers are not standing down their aggressive agenda yet. And the UK FM called UNSC a failure to its responsibilities to Syria. Yeah, that is an epitome of hypocrite.
If we do not see political solution in the end of the tunnel, what can give us a little strength to dream about a better day ahead? Are we ready to accept the final victory by the rebels? Certainly not, it simply cannot be the answer even we are facing what the country is suffering now. We still refuse to take side due to conviction of brutality and ugliness of the regime. But we cannot continue to live on edge of abysmal tittering to fall into infernal. We just want normalcy and simple life back. The longer this conflict goes, the clearer picture we see: the alternative of the regime by replacement of the rebels will shutter the Syria into pieces: her people, her society, her heritage, her culture and her future.
The positive thing in this maddening and excruciating time has turned out to be the SAA growing stronger. Will those opposition people deny the fact that if SAA prevails, the security and order will be restored in Syria? But it won’t be easy for them to carry on: it is almost like a leper voluntarily goes to exile and seclude himself from the rest.
Town of Sanamein in Deraa fell to SAA within 20 hours: SAA launched attack at dawn and by the nightfall they went in and took over the town and the nearby town of Ghabagheb. Army troops were also targeting rebel hideouts in different parts of Daraa. They included the villages and towns of Tafas, Jasssim, Dael and Tseel and the report said they had inflicted casualties in those areas.
Meanwhile, the Syrian army has launched a large-scale operation against the rebels in the eastern Al-Ghouta of Damascus in a bid to secure the surroundings of the capital and cut off the supply line of the rebels. Eastern Al-Ghouta has turned into a new base and springboard for the rebels including Nusra fighters to launch another all-out attack on Damascus. The rebels failed it in Darraya during their previous operation. If Al-Ghouta slips through, the rebels will truly become gangs of guerrilla fighters and only capable of hit-and-run around Damascus.
If SAA secures Deraa, we will see the complete southern part gradually returns to normalcy and it might be enough of psychological blow to convince the opposition to seek a solution with the regime.
To this day, we ought to give credits and big applause to SAA for their marvelous achievement. As for the political reform, let them secure the security first.
April 12th, 2013, 8:17 am
zoo said:
…
April 12th, 2013, 8:24 am
zoo said:
FSA bye bye, welcome to LCCs..
Now that the FSA has been totally discredited by its intimate relation with Al Qaeda, the Western medias are now referring to the little known LCCs as the armed rebels representatives.
Some of these leaderless and fragmented organizations has rejected the link with Al Qaeda. They passed the test.
Now they are labelled ‘the good’ rebels and will get more attention from the West and the media..
April 12th, 2013, 8:27 am
Tara said:
Zoo,
The LCC has always been the grass root peaceful activists. The young and saavy educated Syrians But of course no one is good enough for you except…
April 12th, 2013, 8:38 am
zoo said:
A temporary division of Syria: the West dilemma
If the SAA gains full control of Daara and Homs, the capital Damas, the south and the West will be freed from armed rebels and the borders with Jordan and Lebanon will be prevented from allowing weapons to pass.
North Syria will be occupied by Moslem Brotherhood rebels supported by Turkey, the East by Salafists, supported by Al Qaeda Iraq.
The Western countries, in particular the USA, will have to decide if their priority is to stop Al Qaeda creating an extension of their Iraqi operations in Syria or topple a regime that after two years still controls with a united army the most populated areas of Syria.
April 12th, 2013, 8:40 am
zoo said:
Tara
I see, like the media, you have switched you hopes from the FSA and the SNC to the LCC… Why not? one must keep hoping.
While the LCCs certainly represent better the grassroot of Syrians unhappy with the regime, they are no match to AL Nusra and other terrorists they have allowed in their ranks and may turn against them.
In order to get any serious influence other than organizing protests, the LCCs will have to setup up an structured organization with an international facade. They would have to take from the SNC the title of ‘sole representative of the Syrian people’ and nominate their own leaders.
Until they do, many things can happen as the situation is volatile.
Maybe Aron Lund should write an article about this new entity that is raising media interests after the failure of the SNC and the FSA.
April 12th, 2013, 8:52 am
zoo said:
Daniel Pipes: Support Assad
Analysts agree that “the erosion of the Syrian regime’s capabilities is accelerating,” that it step-by-step continues to retreat, making a rebel breakthrough and an Islamist victory increasingly likely. In response, I am changing my policy recommendation from neutrality to something that causes me, as a humanitarian and decades-long foe of the Assad dynasty, to pause before writing:
Western governments should support the malign dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad.
..
Yes, Assad’s survival benefits Tehran, the region’s most dangerous regime. But a rebel victory, recall, would hugely boost the increasingly rogue Turkish government while empowering jihadis and replacing the Assad government with triumphant, inflamed Islamists. Continued fighting does less damage to Western interests than their taking power There are worse prospects than Sunni and Shiite Islamists mixing it up, than Hamas jihadis killing Hezbollah jihadis, and vice-versa. Better that neither side wins.
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3973
April 12th, 2013, 8:58 am
zoo said:
#457 Apple_mini
I join you in applauding the SAA. It has proven to be the best army in the Arab countries.
Even the defectors now leading the FSA recognize it.
April 12th, 2013, 9:04 am
Citizen said:
‘US want regime change in North Korea
http://youtu.be/-QI2qyLwTIo?t=45s
————
Russian Missiles Arrive In Venezuela
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/04/russian-missiles-arrive-in-venezuela-2617686.html
INteresting chess moves happening lately. Venezuela is a eurasian axis power still even though Chavez is gone. His VP could still win the election. I could even see the US plunging Venezuela into civil war in the power struggle. Its what they did in Libya and Syria. -Mort
————
http://www.vesti.ru/only_video.html?vid=498613
Syrian rebels are preparing in Jordan. Training takes place on the training program of special forces, and among the instructors – former U.S. military. Some of them worked in the notorious company Blackwater.
Despite the fact that in Amman declare a neutral attitude towards the Syrian crisis, the fighters of the Free Army are trained in this country. And opponents of the government of Bashar al-Assad are using one of the most modern landfills in the region, where the tactics of warfare in the desert and spend and units of the U.S. Army. Over the past few months, according to U.S. officials, a training center for the Royal Special Forces battalion has already passed the Syrian opposition.
In the center, where they are training Syrian armed opposition fighters, not to mention shoot – stop smoking. It is a closed military zone: machine-gun nests on the perimeter and the main entrance, take the strategic high ground, so to see what happens in the impossible.
But there is a detailed map of the royal center for training of special forces. His way, built with American money – the center cost $ 90 million. On the vast territory – more polygons: here are typical of the Middle East, and therefore, for Syria, residential quarters, models embassies, separately – the private sector. There is also a fragment of the airport, and even a real jumbo jet to fulfill hijacking and hostage rescue.
About how it looks in reality, according to footage of real training in this camp who find themselves at the disposal of the crew RTR. Free Army fighters are taught to seize government buildings, the defense of critical facilities, trained in the use of sophisticated weapons.
Columnist for a local newspaper, a military expert Fahed Al Hitan confirms this information. “The purpose of this training program – to prepare a new Syrian Army, which will replace the current one, when the regime falls, and ensure security in the territory, which is now controlled by the opposition, so that they can confront the terrorists of” al-Qaeda “- says Fahed Al Heath browser business magazine “Tomorrow.”
Still wondering who is preparing Syrian rebels. Among the many camp instructors – retired U.S. military, and already some of them are professionals who had worked in the infamous private military company Blackwater. For example, James Holden – a graduate of the FBI Academy – served in military intelligence of the 51st Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army, he was an instructor of Blackwater and before and after the re-branding. Employees of the company are involved in numerous scandals fatal, for example, in the shooting of civilians in Baghdad in 2007, while the actions of mercenaries killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
The responsibility for training militants no state appears to take the official does not want to pay for courses at the United States, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Clients of the royal training center in Jordan draws nominally private company again, this scheme operates, to avoid complications in case the Syrian opposition fighters suddenly become part of radical Islamist groups, and such examples is enough.
April 12th, 2013, 9:11 am
zoo said:
The Mad Dog of the GCC
http://allainjules.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/qatar.jpg?w=594
April 12th, 2013, 9:19 am
ghufran said:
It is now Ahmad Ramadan’s turn to plea the fifth when it comes to Nusra:
اعتبر عضو الائتلاف الوطني السوري أحمد رمضان أن إعلان “جبهة النصرة” مبايعة زعيم تنظيم “القاعدة” أيمن الظواهري “يختلف عن المبادئ التي تبنتها القوى السياسية داخل الائتلاف والمجلس الوطني حيث اتفقنا على مجموعة من الأسس وفي مقدمها الدولة المدنية والنظام السياسي التداولي الحر”، مشيراً الى أن “الحراك السوري الميداني والعسكري متفق معنا على أن سورية المقبلة دولة مدنية”.
وأكد رمضان لـ”الراي” الكويتية أن “نهج القاعدة في الصراع يختلف جذرياً عن نهج قوى الثورة السورية، ومن الصعب أن يكون هناك نقاط إلتقاء بين الطرفين”.
all of those aljazeera policelebrities who are distancing themselves from yesterday’s friends will change course (again) if
their salaries stop coming.
April 12th, 2013, 9:21 am
Akbar Palace said:
Pipe Dream
Zoo,
Glad you finally agree with a Zionist. Assad, as you know, is one of the greatest Zionists since Ben-Gurion.
And now, because his mortality is in question, he is urging international support as a way to “stabilize” the ME.
How charming.
BTW, Daniel Pipes has changed his mind. Go to his website. Last week he was neutral as his audio recording on Iranian TV proves.
And, BTW, he’s wrong. He needs to remain neutral and see what good Syrians can do to rebuild their country and ELECT leaders who represent them, not enslave them.
Let the chips fall where they may Danny Boy.
April 12th, 2013, 9:31 am
Citizen said:
the true face of American foreign policy
http://youtu.be/lIfBchCgCfM?t=23s
April 12th, 2013, 9:31 am
Tara said:
Zoo,
Of course, applaud the army that killed, tortured, and bombarded its own towns and cities. Applaud the army that made little girls headless..
I think you are under a spell and it just could not be you.
The Syrian army will enter history as the most treacherous army in the world ever existed. Please disillusioned yourself.
April 12th, 2013, 9:36 am
Visitor said:
“466. zoo said:
The Mad Dog of the GCC
“
Zoo is a dog.
April 12th, 2013, 9:53 am
majedkhaldoun said:
Assad is gaining friends,Daniel Pipe now supports Assad, would Akbar Palace support Assad too?
Assad is the best thing happened to Israel,Peace with Israel, killing Syrians,
Zoo, Daniel pipe, Israel are friends,along with Hassan Nasrallah and Iran.
Jabhat Nusra are gaining ,they are winning the hearts of Syrians, they are distributing bread to people,helping sick people to get medicine and food and shelter,they are not terrorists ,they are good people.
Assad Media lied and said the video about Bouti was fake, then they reverse their statement appologized and accepted the video as authentic,Ghufran here said the video is fake, would he appologize now? He does not an atom of decency to appologize, disgusting despicle person.
April 12th, 2013, 10:02 am
Akbar Palace said:
…would Akbar Palace support Assad too?
Majedkhaldoun,
No. Never.
Assad’s raison d’etre is INSTABILITY, whether it is funding and arming Hezbo jihadists, Hamas jihadists, Iranian jihadists or killing his own people (aka “terrorists”).
Get rid of Assad and his cohorts. The faster the better.
I hope democracy comes to Syria. If it does, it is a WIN-WIN for everyone.
April 12th, 2013, 10:08 am
zoo said:
#472 Majed
“Jabhat Nusra are gaining ,they are winning the hearts of Syrians, they are distributing bread to people,helping sick people to get medicine and food and shelter,they are not terrorists ,they are good people.”
I got tears in my eyes, such humanity between to suicide car bombs that kills innocents civilians!
April 12th, 2013, 10:18 am
AIG said:
Oh look, Zoo, who supports Hamas is worried about suicide bombing. What a vile hypocrite.
April 12th, 2013, 10:27 am
zoo said:
A coalition of Islamist rebels called the SLIF is is a state of panic and confusion about the purpose of the moslem Jihad.
A major coalition of Islamist rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has denounced Al-Nusra Front’s pledge of allegiance to Al-Qaeda, urging insurgents to unite behind moderate Islam.
…
“When we in Syria launched our jihad (holy war) against the sectarian regime, we did not do so for the sake of allegiance to a man here or another there,” said the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (SILF) in a statement late on Thursday.
It also rejected “imposing anything on (Syria’s) fighters and the people that they were not willing” to accept, said the statement posted on Facebook.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/04/12/Fierce-clashes-as-FSA-enters-Qamishli-for-the-first-time-activists-.html
April 12th, 2013, 11:09 am
apple_mini said:
A recent picture from Reuters showing Syrian army soldiers run as they prepare for an offensive in Aleppo’s Liramoun area on Thursday.
Everyone on the picture is wearing a body armor.
It is an encouraging sign that SAA is doing something to protect its men. I know Syria could not afford those so I guess some country or countries are quite generous to help.
April 12th, 2013, 11:12 am
zoo said:
#470 Tara
The SNC, FSA and its al Nusra allies will be remembered as the naive or corrupted people who destroyed Syria under the plots and money of rich, arrogant and jealous autocratic Arab neighbors, paranoiac Turkey as well a zionist-colonialist collusion to protect Israel as well as the oil and gas pipelines.
The Syrian army soldiers represent Syrians of all creed, ethincity and religion, they are the grassroot of Syria and they are heroes.
April 12th, 2013, 11:19 am
zoo said:
Crushed in Damascus, Daraa and Homs, the humiliated rebels aided by Al Nusra broke the truce with Kurds and Christians in Qamishli, hoping to ensure a quick ‘victory’.
Kurds and Christians are now hoping that the Syrian air force will rescue them by bombing the rebels. The attack on Qamishli by the rebels may end the neutrality of the Kurds.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/syrian-rebel-attack-mixed-city-points-end-peace-141924363.html
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Rebels battled Syrian troops in the eastern border city of Qamishli on Friday, a monitoring group opposed to President Bashar al-Assad said, ending a de facto truce in the mainly Christian and Kurdish area.
Qamishli, on the border with Turkey and close to Iraq, has remained peaceful during a two-year uprising against Assad because local Kurds agreed with mostly Arab rebels to avoid clashes within city limits, said the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
…
The city of around 200,000 is also home to thousands of Syrians who have fled other parts of the country, the Observatory said. Inhabitants must now wait and see whether Assad retaliates for rebel attacks by using war planes, as he has done in other major cities.
The Observatory said the advance includes rebels of the Free Syrian Army and the hard-line Islamist Nusra Front, who have clashed in the past with Christians and Kurds the opposition has tried to persuade to abandon Assad.
“We are not sure why they are attacking today,” said Observatory head Rami Abdelrahman. “Maybe the agreement broke down,” he said, adding that the government and Kurdish militia control different areas of Qamishli.
April 12th, 2013, 11:30 am
ann said:
How the West Fueled the Ever-Growing Carnage in Syria – April 12, 2013
The actions of the United States and its allies in Syria have only led to escalating violence and chaos. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has committed serial aggression, isolating, demonizing, dividing and destroying Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria. In each case, it has cited higher motives and good intentions, even as it concealed its own covert role in igniting, fueling and militarizing internal conflicts
http://www.globalresearch.ca/how-the-west-fueled-the-ever-growing-carnage-in-syria/5330980
On Tuesday March 27th 2013, Kofi Annan gave a speech at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. In his usual careful and diplomatic tone, Annan spoke firmly against Western calls for more direct military intervention in Syria.
“Further militarization of the conflict, I’m not sure that is the way to help the Syrian people,” Annan said, “They are waiting for the killing to stop. You find some people far away from Syria are the ones very keen for putting in weapons. My own view is that as late as it is we have to find a way of pouring water on the fire rather than the other way around.”
Like many who seek peace in Syria, Annan looks back on the “Action Group for Syria” agreement that he brokered in Geneva on June 30th 2012 as a foundation for peace that was promptly squandered by the United States and its allies. In Geneva, all five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council signed on to a plan that would lead to free elections in Syria, with a transitional government of national unity including members of the existing government and the opposition. The critical factor which made agreement possible was that the U.S. and its allies dropped their demand for the removal of President Assad as a precondition for the transition to begin.
As Annan wrote in a Financial Times op-ed as he resigned his post as UN envoy a month later, “We left the meeting believing a Security Council resolution endorsing the group’s decision was assured… Instead, there has been finger-pointing and name-calling in the Security Council.”
A few days after the Geneva agreement, Russia circulated a draft resolution in the Security Council as Annan expected. But, instead of honoring the commitments they made in Geneva, the U.S., U.K. and France rejected it. They drafted a rival resolution containing all the elements they had dropped in Geneva and which had previously prevented consensus: automatic triggers for sanctions; no commitment to pressure rebel militias to comply; and the invocation of Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter as a pretext for future military action.
With the Security Council once again deadlocked, Saudi Arabia sponsored a version of the West’s resolution in the UN General Assembly, calling for Assad to step down and for sanctions if he did not. The resolution seemed likely to fail, with Brazil, India, South Africa and much of the developing world lined up against it, but a watered down version was passed.
The CIA has since stepped up its support to the rebels, providing satellite intelligence on Syrian military deployments and managing arms shipments from the Persian Gulf and Croatia via Turkey and Jordan. Predictably, the bloodshed has only increased on both sides. March was probably the deadliest month since the war began. In his speech in Geneva, Kofi Annan called the current UN estimate of 70,000 Syrians killed “a gross under-estimation.”
In the early days of the conflict, UN casualty figures reflected unsubstantiated and probably exaggerated reports from the Syrian opposition and their allies in the Western media. Since then, the UN has held down its estimates as the killing has escalated and the real slaughter has almost certainly now surpassed the rebel propaganda, with the rebels themselves committing their fair share of it.
Norwegian General Robert Mood echoed Kofi Annan’s analysis in a recent interview with the BBC World Service’s Hardtalk program. Mood led the 300-member military observer mission that went into Syria in April 2012 to monitor the ceasefire that was the first step in Annan’s six-point peace plan.
Mood prematurely suspended that mission in June 2012 because the ceasefire had failed to take hold and his unarmed observer teams were being fired on and threatened by hostile crowds. He said that the operation could only resume if all parties to the conflict were committed to the safety and freedom of movement of the observers. “The government has expressed that very clearly in the last couple of days,” Mood said. “I have not seen the same clear statement from the opposition yet.”
Reflecting on his mission 9 months later, General Mood told Hardtalk’s Steven Sackur, “There was an opening, but that opening was not used, because… the kind of international leadership that we would need was not there. That leadership could have been Russia, China, the U.S. coming together and at least agreeing on a joint message so that the government in Damascus and the key people in the Free Syrian Army and the opposition groups were given the same message. That message could have been one option to both of them that we will push forward with a plan for bringing Syria out of this terrible violence and onto a political track – a strong message to both the government and the opposition that we will accept nothing else. If such a message had come both from all of them in the P5 and the Security Council together and united, I do believe still today that it would have had a strong impact.”
Sackur asked Mood about the differences between the West and Russia and China over President Assad’s role during a political transition. Mood explained, “This is how small and how big the differences between the parties were. In my mind at that time, it would have been possible to lead Syria through a transition supported by a united Security Council with Assad as part of the transition. I believe there was an opening for that and I believe there was a willingness to do that. The insistence on the removal of President Assad as a start of the process led them into a corner where the strategic picture gave them no way out whatsoever…”
The more one studies the actions of the United States and its allies throughout this crisis, the more they seem to have been designed only to lead to ever-escalating violence. This raises the inescapable question whether, in fact, the slaughter and chaos taking place in Syria are in fact the intended result of U.S. policy rather than the tragic but unintended result of its failure, as Western propaganda would have us believe.
In stark contrast to cautious statements by U.S. officials, their actual policy appears to have consistently fostered the militarization and escalation of the crisis and to have undermined every peace initiative. In fact, their public statements may be only a smokescreen for a darker, more cynical policy:
– As the Arab League tried to broker a ceasefire in December 2011, ex-CIA officer Philip Giraldi reported that unmarked NATO planes were flying fighters and weapons from Libya to a “Free Syrian Army” base in Turkey; British and French special forces were training Syrian fighters; and the CIA was providing communications equipment and intelligence. Giraldi wrote, “Syrian government claims that it is being assaulted by rebels who are armed, trained and financed by foreign governments are more true than false.”
– As Kofi Annan launched his peace plan in April 2012, the U.S. joined France and other allies at a series of so-called “Friends of Syria” summits, where they promised unconditional political support, weapons and money to their Syrian proxies, making sure that they would not comply with the ceasefire that was the first step in the Annan peace plan.
– After finally dropping the precondition of Assad’s departure and agreeing publicly to Annan’s “Action Group for Syria” proposal at the end of June 2012, the Western powers returned to the UN Security Council and reasserted all their preconditions, killing the plan before it could get off the ground.
– The supply of weapons and fighters to the rebels has increased steadily since then. Saudi judges have sent Arab Spring protesters to fight and die in Syria instead of to prison. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Libya and other Arab monarchies send weapons, money and fighters. The Saudis fund shipments of European weapons from Croatia to Jordan to skirt the EU arms embargo. And the CIA provides military training to Syrian and foreign fighters in Jordan.
– Now, as if the U.S. has not been covertly fueling the conflict all along, the U.S. government is debating more open military support to the rebels.
To paraphrase an old riddle: “Are we governed by clever people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it?” In this case, did the United States mean to open the gates of Hell in Syria, or did it just blunder into this mess?
Unfortunately U.S. policymakers have a dismal record of combining the worst elements of both. As the U.S. Congress debated war in Iraq in 2002, there were clever people in Washington who knew that chemical and biological weapons do not remain potent for more than ten years and that there was no evidence that Iraq had revived the banned weapons programs it dismantled in 1991. Senator Bob Graham, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, voted against the war authorization and begged his colleagues to read the classified National Intelligence Estimate, instead of the fake summary of it that they were given “to strengthen the case for going to war“, as one of its authors, the CIA’s Paul Pillar, has since admitted. There were other “clever” people in Washington who knew as much as Senator Graham but voted for war anyway: “clever people putting us on.”
But the “clever people putting us on” were really as deluded as the “imbeciles who really meant it”. They saw the WMD fairy tale for what it was, but they failed to see the inevitable consequences of their own actions – not just for the people of Iraq, who they were quite prepared to sacrifice, but for the U.S. interests they hoped to advance.
As General Mood told Hardtalk, “It is fairly easy to use the military tool, because, when you launch the military tool in classical interventions, something will happen and there will be results. The problem is that the results are almost all the time different than the political results you were aiming for when you decided to launch it. So the other position, arguing that it is not the role of the international community, neither coalitions of the willing nor the UN Security Council for that matter, to change governments inside a country, is also a position that should be respected…”
As Mood said, “there will be results.” The use of military force, overt or covert, will kill and injure a lot of people, because that is what modern weapons are designed to do. And sufficient violence covertly unleashed within a society will break down law and order and turn groups of people against each other. U.S. military leaders understand this perfectly well based on decades of experience.
But, despite catastrophic failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, the “NATO rebellion” in Libya provided the U.S. and its allies with a new model for “regime change.” NATO, Qatar and Saudi Arabia unleashed a war that killed at least 25,000 people and plunged the most highly developed country in Africa into an orgy of ethnic cleansing and unending chaos. They succeeded in butchering Colonel Gaddafi and installing a comprador regime to govern Libya’s oil industry, but NATO-trained militias are still fighting each other for control of many parts of the country and have exported violence and militia rule to neighboring countries, including Mali, as well as to Syria.
Syria is a more densely populated, more complex country than Libya, with powerful military forces and a relatively popular government with decades of experience in managing the diverse elements that make up Syrian society. In December 2011, as NATO flew in fighters and weapons from Libya, 55% of the population told pollsters they still supported the government. That has surely eroded as the Syrian military has shelled and bombed its people, but that does not mean that people now support the foreign-backed rebels. What most Syrians want is exactly what Kofi Annan, General Mood and the current UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi have been trying to bring them: a peaceful political transition. But U.S., British, French, Saudi, Qatari and Turkish officials could not resist the temptation to adapt the Libyan “regime change” model to Syria, knowing full well all along that this would unleash an even bloodier and more destructive conflict. There seems to be no limit to the horror that our leaders will inflict on the people of Syria to get rid of President Assad.
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has committed serial aggression, isolating, demonizing, dividing and destroying Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria. In each case, it has cited higher motives and good intentions, even as it concealed its own covert role in igniting, fueling and militarizing internal conflicts. As Harold Pinter said, “It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide, while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
If post-war conditions permit, countries destroyed by U.S. aggression and covert war are recruited to join their more submissive neighbors as entry-level members of the U.S.-led capitalist world. Some American politicians appear to genuinely believe that this justifies the violence and slaughter that makes it possible, even though, as General Mood said, “the results are almost all the time different than the political results you were aiming for.”
[…]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/how-the-west-fueled-the-ever-growing-carnage-in-syria/5330980
April 12th, 2013, 11:39 am
ghufran said:
If Assad survives this war and his regime does not collapse it will be in part due to the mistakes of his enemies and to the friends they chose. Nusra front and other Islamist groups have no good agenda for a country like Syria, unless you call car bombs, oppression of women and random killings “an agenda”. After two years of blood shed, rebels failed in improving the lives of people under their control, so saying that Nusra thugs are good people because the are giving (stolen)bread and medicine to people who HAD bread and medicine until those terrorists arrived is a reflection of how morbid the mind of some people on this blog is, history will mention Assad as a failed leader but it will also state that Syrians with help from “friends” destroyed their country to change a regime and ended up with no country and no regime. People like me are as depressed as everybody else because they do not see good options for Syria, I have been saying that for a long time, it does not make me feel better that I was right, the only thing that makes sense today is to stop this war at any cost, let idiots like our senile surgeon say what they want,the truth is like the sun in a summer day,you can run away from it but you can not hide it.
(what happened to your improved spelling,khaldoun,did you turn the spell checker off?)
April 12th, 2013, 11:48 am
zoo said:
After the fall of Sheikh Maqsoud, are the Kurds becoming a “hostile entity” for the Syrian Army? Are we going to see Qamishli handed over by the Kurds to Al Nusra
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/have-syrias-kurds-had-a-change-of-heart.aspx?pageID=449&nID=44734&NewsCatID=396
Increasing violence between Kurdish militias and the Syrian military indicates a notable shift in the policy of the Syrian Kurdish leadership’s policy of neutrality. The rebel capture of Aleppo’s Sheikh Maqsoud area on March 31 was coordinated and facilitated by local Kurdish militias, effectively ending that district’s neutral status in the battle for control of the city. Subsequent aerial bombardments of the district indicate that the Syrian military now views Kurdish militias in the region as a hostile entity.
April 12th, 2013, 11:52 am
Dolly Buster said:
Yes, nonexistent Apple product, it is well-known that outside foreign nations are equipping the criminal SAA.
That makes it an uneven and unfair fight.
Only the evil side of Skeletor has heavy weapons, and the good side of He-Man has only basic rifles.
April 12th, 2013, 12:24 pm
Dolly Buster said:
No, that is just a technology to defeat the enemy. The real agenda is to make Kalimatullahi hiya al-‘uliyaa.
But even if you don’t like “God’s word being uppermost,” you can still support the first part of the plan, which is to defeat this ugly dictatorship which is disliked globally.
So I have to applaud the islamic fighters, who truly deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for acting on behalf of al-Sham, when Ban Ki-moon was AWOL.
April 12th, 2013, 12:26 pm
revenire said:
Ha ha the rats are getting creamed.
April 12th, 2013, 12:27 pm
5 dancing shlomos said:
HRW and its like serve imperialism and jewry.
speaking of jewish imperialism,
the great iraqi diarist, riverbend,
reminds us of the freedom-giving jewish imperialist, amurderka:
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
Baghdad Burning
… I’ll meet you ’round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend…
Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Ten Years On…
April 9, 2013 marks ten years since the fall of Baghdad. Ten years since the invasion. Since the lives of millions of Iraqis changed forever. It’s difficult to believe. It feels like only yesterday I was sharing day to day activities with the world. I feel obliged today to put my thoughts down on the blog once again, probably for the last time.
In 2003, we were counting our lives in days and weeks. Would we make it to next month? Would we make it through the summer? Some of us did and many of us didn’t.
Back in 2003, one year seemed like a lifetime ahead. The idiots said, “Things will improve immediately.” The optimists were giving our occupiers a year, or two… The realists said, “Things won’t improve for at least five years.” And the pessimists? The pessimists said, “It will take ten years. It will take a decade.”
Looking back at the last ten years, what have our occupiers and their Iraqi governments given us in ten years? What have our puppets achieved in this last decade? What have we learned?
We learned a lot.
We learned that while life is not fair, death is even less fair- it takes the good people. Even in death you can be unlucky. Lucky ones die a ‘normal’ death… A familiar death of cancer, or a heart-attack, or stroke. Unlucky ones have to be collected in bits and pieces. Their families trying to bury what can be salvaged and scraped off of streets that have seen so much blood, it is a wonder they are not red.
We learned that you can be floating on a sea of oil, but your people can be destitute. Your city can be an open sewer; your women and children can be eating out of trash dumps and begging for money in foreign lands.
We learned that justice does not prevail in this day and age. Innocent people are persecuted and executed daily. Some of them in courts, some of them in streets, and some of them in the private torture chambers.
We are learning that corruption is the way to go. You want a passport issued? Pay someone. You want a document ratified? Pay someone. You want someone dead? Pay someone.
We learned that it’s not that difficult to make billions disappear.
We are learning that those amenities we took for granted before 2003, you know- the luxuries – electricity, clean water from faucets, walkable streets, safe schools – those are for deserving populations. Those are for people who don’t allow occupiers into their country.
We’re learning that the biggest fans of the occupation (you know who you are, you traitors) eventually leave abroad. And where do they go? The USA, most likely, with the UK a close second. If I were an American, I’d be outraged. After spending so much money and so many lives, I’d expect the minor Chalabis and Malikis and Hashimis of Iraq to, well, stay in Iraq. Invest in their country. I’d stand in passport control and ask them, “Weren’t you happy when we invaded your country? Weren’t you happy we liberated you? Go back. Go back to the country you’re so happy with because now, you’re free!”
We’re learning that militias aren’t particular about who they kill. The easiest thing in the world would be to say that Shia militias kill Sunnis and Sunni militias kill Shia, but that’s not the way it works. That’s too simple.
We’re learning that the leaders don’t make history. Populations don’t make history. Historians don’t write history. News networks do. The Foxes, and CNNs, and BBCs, and Jazeeras of the world make history. They twist and turn things to fit their own private agendas.
We’re learning that the masks are off. No one is ashamed of the hypocrisy anymore. You can be against one country (like Iran), but empowering them somewhere else (like in Iraq). You can claim to be against religious extremism (like in Afghanistan), but promoting religious extremism somewhere else (like in Iraq and Egypt and Syria).
Those who didn’t know it in 2003 are learning (much too late) that an occupation is not the portal to freedom and democracy. The occupiers do not have your best interests at heart.
We are learning that ignorance is the death of civilized societies and that everyone thinks their particular form of fanaticism is acceptable.
We are learning how easy it is to manipulate populations with their own prejudices and that politics and religion never mix, even if a super-power says they should mix.
But it wasn’t all a bad education…
We learned that you sometimes receive kindness when you least expect it. We learned that people often step outside of the stereotypes we build for them and surprise us. We learned and continue to learn that there is strength in numbers and that Iraqis are not easy to oppress. It is a matter of time…
And then there are things we’d like to learn…
Ahmed Chalabi, Iyad Allawi, Ibrahim Jaafari, Tarek Al Hashemi and the rest of the vultures, where are they now? Have they crawled back under their rocks in countries like the USA, the UK, etc.? Where will Maliki be in a year or two? Will he return to Iran or take the millions he made off of killing Iraqis and then seek asylum in some European country? Far away from the angry Iraqi masses…
What about George Bush, Condi, Wolfowitz, and Powell? Will they ever be held accountable for the devastation and the death they wrought in Iraq? Saddam was held accountable for 300,000 Iraqis… Surely someone should be held accountable for the million or so?
Finally, after all is said and done, we shouldn’t forget what this was about – making America safer… And are you safer Americans? If you are, why is it that we hear more and more about attacks on your embassies and diplomats? Why is it that you are constantly warned to not go to this country or that one? Is it better now, ten years down the line? Do you feel safer, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis out of the way (granted half of them were women and children, but children grow up, right?)?
And what happened to Riverbend and my family? I eventually moved from Syria. I moved before the heavy fighting, before it got ugly. That’s how fortunate I was. I moved to another country nearby, stayed almost a year, and then made another move to a third Arab country with the hope that, this time, it’ll stick until… Until when? Even the pessimists aren’t sure anymore. When will things improve? When will be able to live normally? How long will it take?
For those of you who are disappointed reality has reared its ugly head again, go to Fox News, I’m sure they have a reportage that will soothe your conscience.
For those of you who have been asking about me and wondering how I have been doing, I thank you. “Lo khuliyet, qulibet…” Which means “If the world were empty of good people, it would end.” I only need to check my emails to know it won’t be ending any time soon.
April 12th, 2013, 12:28 pm
Mina said:
Must read
http://www.arabist.net/blog/2013/4/2/the-zaatari-refugee-camp.html
April 12th, 2013, 12:54 pm
revenire said:
I just laugh at anyone quoting HRW to smear the Syrian government. It is like after all this time you want to talk about abuse? Get real.
War is on. People die. If someone supports these Tunisian and Libyan rats and/or is a traitor they should die. The hell with their cries for “freedom” and moaning about Assad. If they don’t like Syria let them leave or let them die.
Glad to see the air force bombing so many of the rats. If they have to have Bashar and Maher fly the MiGs = whatever.
Iran has plenty of pilots itching to kill the Zionist mercenaries.
This is a huge defeat for ISRAEL – they said Assad would be gone in a few weeks and that was almost two years ago.
Obama and his Zionist friends and the Gulf rats are being humiliated by Assad.
April 12th, 2013, 12:58 pm
ann said:
US, Al Qaeda Join Forces in Syria – Robert Dreyfuss – April 12, 2013
Message to Obama: Stay out
http://www.thenation.com/blog/173808/us-al-qaeda-join-forces-syria#
The civil war in Syria is on the verge of another escalation. President Obama, who last year rejected a joint proposal from Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, General Martin Dempsey and David Petraeus to get involved militarily, is under new pressure to intervene. Great Britain and France are toying with ending the arms embargo on military aid to the Syrian rebels, which so far has come mostly from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with US encouragement.
According to CNN:
Under pressure from Democrats and Republicans, the Joint Staff of the Pentagon and the US Central Command have updated potential military options for intervention in Syria that could see American forces—if ordered—doing everything from bombing Syrian airfields to flying large amounts of humanitarian aid to the region, a senior US military official said.
And the beleaguered, scandal-hit Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the relative lightweight who took over the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after John Kerry moved to the State Department, wants Obama to aid the rebels, too:
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), has joined the growing chorus of lawmakers calling on the Obama administration to arm the rebels in Syria.
The Syrian rebels are looking for heavy weapons, including antitank and antiaircraft weapons.
But the problem continues to be that some of those weapons would fall into the hands of the overtly Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front in Syria and other extreme-Islamist groups. Just this week came the stunning but not entirely surprising announcement that the Islamic State of Iraq, which is controlled by Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), is one and the same organization as the Nusra Front. In other words, the selfsame group that the United States is helping Iraq’s government fight in Anbar province and throughout Iraq is also the recipient of U.S. aid in Syria!
As the Wall Street Journal reports:
Al Qaeda’s branch in Iraq said it has merged with a Syrian rebel extremist faction, in a push by the terrorist organization to exert more influence on the Syrian rebellion and its outcome.
The declaration reflects cross-border coordination between al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria’s Jabhat al Nusra, or the al Nusra Front, a force with growing battlefield clout that has been a target of U.S. efforts to isolate rebel extremists in Syria. The two groups are already closely linked; when the U.S. designated the Syrian group as a terrorist organization in December, it described al Nusra as an alias for the Iraqi group.
And Ayman al-Zawahiri, who leads Al Qaeda now, following the killing of Osama bin Laden, approves the merger, according to the Journal:
The announcement from Iraq followed a statement on Sunday by al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri calling on Syrian rebels to direct their fight at establishing a “jihadist Islamic state” there as they seek to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
[…]
http://www.thenation.com/blog/173808/us-al-qaeda-join-forces-syria#
April 12th, 2013, 1:15 pm
majedkhaldoun said:
Foreign ministry in Syria accepted the resignation of Maqdisi
April 12th, 2013, 1:23 pm
Mina said:
From the Baghdad Burning blog quoted above
“We’re learning that the biggest fans of the occupation (you know who you are, you traitors) eventually leave abroad. And where do they go? The USA, most likely, with the UK a close second. If I were an American, I’d be outraged. After spending so much money and so many lives, I’d expect the minor Chalabis and Malikis and Hashimis of Iraq to, well, stay in Iraq. Invest in their country.”
They’ve learned that it’s easy to turn an Arab country into Heart of darkness tribal Africa.
UN seems very concerned its Sykes Picot 2 may not work out
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/69088/World/Region/UN-concerned-as-more-Syrians-return-home-from-Jord.aspx
April 12th, 2013, 1:25 pm
Mina said:
The MBs models are the Mollahs!
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/69092/Egypt/Politics-/Renegade-preacher-will-be-held-to-account-Egypt-mi.aspx
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/1/69078/Egypt/Egypts-revolutionary-cleric-defies-suspension,-lea.aspx
April 12th, 2013, 1:32 pm
revenire said:
Brother Majed thank you for that very important news.
April 12th, 2013, 1:41 pm
Dolly Buster said:
Revenire, can you explain a bit more, why you support the Shiites.
Apparently you hate people like William Hague and Shimon Peres, and you would hate to hand them a victory, is that it?
So any price is okay, as long as Imperialists and Zionists don’t get their way.
But see, that is a false conspiracy theory. In reality nobody cares about Hague or Peres. They would not get a boost in case Nusrah takes Damascus.
So you should judge the situation with indifference to UK and Israel.
April 12th, 2013, 1:52 pm
ann said:
Friends Of Al-QAEDA 😉
Over 10 ministers to attend Friends of Syria meeting in Istanbul – 2013-04-12
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/12/c_124575567.htm
ISTANBUL, April 12 (Xinhua) — Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Friday that more than 10 ministers from different countries will attend the upcoming Friends of Syria donor meeting and discuss the long-time crisis in Istanbul on April 20.
The Friends of Syria is formed by some Western and Arab countries that support the Syrian opposition. It has held several meetings hosted by various countries since last year. Its core group includes the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Turkey, Qatar, and Jordan.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/12/c_124575567.htm
April 12th, 2013, 2:10 pm
Dolly Buster said:
You should be more Cosmopolitan in your views, it doesn’t matter if someone is foreign. It matters whether they are right or wrong (Shia).
Nationalism is a failed ideology, because even if someone is proven DNA-wise to be a certain nationality, it doesn’t necessarily make him good.
April 12th, 2013, 2:21 pm
Citizen said:
How the West Fueled the Ever-Growing Carnage in Syria
The more one studies the actions of the United States and its allies throughout this crisis, the more they seem to have been designed only to lead to ever-escalating violence. This raises the inescapable question whether, in fact, the slaughter and chaos taking place in Syria are in fact the intended result of U.S. policy rather than the tragic but unintended result of its failure, as Western propaganda would have us believe.
In stark contrast to cautious statements by U.S. officials, their actual policy appears to have consistently fostered the militarization and escalation of the crisis and to have undermined every peace initiative. In fact, their public statements may be only a smokescreen for a darker, more cynical policy.
http://www.blacklistednews.com/How_the_West_Fueled_the_Ever-Growing_Carnage_in_Syria/25283/0/0/0/Y/M.html
April 12th, 2013, 2:29 pm
Citizen said:
USA BEHIND ALL THE TERRORISM – TOP ITALIAN JUDGE
http://theinternetpost.net/2013/04/12/usa-behind-all-the-terrorism-top-italian-judge/
April 12th, 2013, 2:35 pm
Tara said:
Zoo,
“The Syrian army soldiers are heroes”
I must get you a study guide of what heroism is. First how about some animated Disney fairy tales. There are lots of example in regard to heroism.
You are wrong. Unless you call perfecting technique for killing civilians and destroying one’s own cities and towns while not throwing a fist of sand on Israel
April 12th, 2013, 2:38 pm
revenire said:
Dolly Hague et al and the Zionists stand behind the terrorists. Without Western support there would be no fighting in Syria at all. Nothing. Today if the West stops arming the filthy swine the entire thing falls apart in less than a month. The Zionists want to bleed Syria until the last drop of blood.
I am for Assad. Assad all day and all night. Assad winning. Assad being reelected. Assad defeating the Zionist conspiracy. Assad Assad Assad. I love him. I love his wife. I love his kids. I love his brother. I love his mother. I love Hafez. I love them all.
Syria is the mother of all of us. Syria is the center of Arabism. Syria is the secular jewel.
Iran is a brotherly nation filled with great men and women. God bless our Iranian allies.
Hezbollah is part of our life. Nasrallah is the real president of Lebanon.
Russia is a strong ally that sends us weapons to kill rats with. Putin is a judo master.
April 12th, 2013, 2:42 pm
revenire said:
Tara the army only kills rats and traitors. If the people in these towns are against Assad they have to die. That’s all. Get used to it.
They have a choice: surrender or die.
It’s all very democratic.
April 12th, 2013, 2:43 pm
revenire said:
On the Turkish border in “liberated” territory (LOL):
April 12th, 2013, 2:46 pm
zoo said:
The Arab Spring reaches Israel
Syria is a rare prize for the Salafi core of Al Qaeda, raised on long years of indoctrination focused on nurturing hatred against two prime groups, the “yahood” infesting the holy land, and the Shia concentrated in Iran and Iraq.
By taking Syria, they come within striking distance of both. It will be interesting to see if differences begin to emerge between official FSA sponsors, especially as infighting intensifies on ground. There are already numerous accounts of rebel commanders’ unhappiness with the Jabhat’s designs for Syria.
Al Qaeda is not fighting the dictatorship to establish a people’s government, a secular democracy or a functioning market economy. They want their own obscure caliphate back, and will die trying.
Bashar called Turkey’s PM Erdogan “foolish and immature” for continuing arming and sheltering the FSA, warning of years if not decades of war should Syria really break.
But while Ankara’s position is still the same, could it be that the Israelis are finally beginning to see the truth in the assertions of a long-time enemy, whose fall has been their core objective for decades?
Soon Tel Aviv’s most fearsome nemesis will change from Hezbollah and its Iranian backers to Al Qaeda proper, whose uprisings will almost definitely envelop the region far beyond Syria. It is already pretty much underway in Iraq.
Things will still get much worse, and more confusing, before they get any better in the Syrian civil war, which has already taken close to 100,000 lives.
Going by the trend, with Al Nusra gaining ground and influence, the Israeli border will come under frequent rocket and mortar attack, forcing Tel Aviv to strike at rebel advances it has so far backed. And once CIA drones begin targeting bloating Jabhat encampments, much to the dislike of regional power blocs that have invested so much in the war, some loyalties are bound to shift. – See more at: http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/04/12/comment/columns/the-arab-spring-reaches-israel/#sthash.azGyPE4v.dpuf
April 12th, 2013, 2:51 pm
Tara said:
Reve
Wishing a similar democratic decision for your loved one when the FSA emerges victorious. I just hope they will not be then called cockroaches.
April 12th, 2013, 3:00 pm
zoo said:
#50 Tara
You are the one who live in Disneyland…
The FSA is a declared accomplice to Al Qaeda, a murderous organization. They’ll use suicide bombs to kill indiscriminately civilians and religious people as they still do in Iraq.
The SAA is showing an amazing courage to face these monsters that the USA in Afghanistan, in 10 years, have not been able to fight against them other then using drones.
Continue romanticizing the ‘revolution’, it’s been over for a long time.
Now it is war against jihadists terrorists and you, like Majed and Visitor , are on their side.
April 12th, 2013, 3:02 pm
MarigoldRan said:
The retard continues to be a retard.
Also, it doesn’t matter what you say, Zoo. The regime is worse than anyone else. The war continues.
April 12th, 2013, 3:12 pm
revenire said:
Ha ha well put.
Brother Majed and Sister Tara are working for Al-Qaeda.
April 12th, 2013, 3:13 pm
revenire said:
Dog boy is on his lunch break.
April 12th, 2013, 3:13 pm
zoo said:
Suddenly the Salafists rebels, the FSA and the Moslem Brotherhood become secularists!
Brotherhood denies plans for Islamist rule in Syria
Phil Sands
Apr 13, 2013
ANTAKYA, TURKEY // The Muslim Brotherhood has denied it plans to impose strict Islamist rule on Syria or monopolise the opposition, saying it wants to cooperate in building a modern, secular state in which all sectarian and ethnic groups are equal.
….
“Syria is a complete mess but if you think that’s bad you should see the mess inside the National Coalition,” said an opposition activist.
“The kind of discussions they have are just terrible. If they were made public it would put them all to shame, fighting for power and which group should get the most money or the best position.”
One of the criticisms levelled at the Brotherhood is that it has channelled funding, humanitarian aid and weapons only to groups inside Syria that promise loyalty in return.
This way, it has been claimed, it can build up a private army and systems of administration outside the control of the SNC, and thereby position itself to dominate in a post-Assad Syria.
Its statement rejected those suggestions.
“We do not have a special armed faction under our command as is being alleged, nor have we established any armed group,” the group said.
“That the Brotherhood bases its decisions and positions on account of the allegiance it receives is a baseless rumour.”
Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/brotherhood-denies-plans-for-islamist-rule-in-syria#ixzz2QHIFcM43
Follow us: @TheNationalUAE on Twitter | thenational.ae on Facebook
April 12th, 2013, 3:15 pm
annie said:
Reve deserves one thing before he meets his maker from hell in hell and that is to be ignored
April 12th, 2013, 3:39 pm
revenire said:
Arab League tool of the enemy:
Lavrov also slammed the Arab League (AL) and Western countries in the UN Security Council for blaming only Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government for the violence. “After the Arab League’s monitors prepared a report stating that the armed opposition as well as the government violated the ceasefire and international humanitarian law, the Arab League immediately wound up its mission and withdrew the observers,” Lavrov said.
April 12th, 2013, 3:51 pm
Tara said:
Zoo,
Now I know the problem, you must have pursued other fine art while looking down at fairy tales.
It pays to watch fairytales, I think.
It teaches the meaning of heroism and evil. It also help with identifying wicked witches from the good hearted people, basics that every single regime supporter seems missing.
April 12th, 2013, 3:52 pm
revenire said:
Annie honey you can ignore me but the rats can’t ignore our army. Let’s have a round of applause for the SAA.
Cheers.
April 12th, 2013, 3:53 pm
revenire said:
Tara Al Qaeda supporters such as yourself can’t lecture others. Turn yourself in.
Every “revolution” supporter here backs Al Qaeda.
April 12th, 2013, 3:55 pm
revenire said:
April 12th, 2013, 3:56 pm
ann said:
More Syrian refugees are opting to return home from Jordan – 12 April 2013
http://www.france24.com/en/20130412-un-concerned-more-syrians-return-home-jordan
AFP – More Syrian refugees are opting to return home from Jordan, with around 300 now crossing back into the war-ravaged country each day, the UN’s refugee agency said Friday, voicing deep concern for their safety.
UNHCR said it had seen an increase in the past 10 days in the number of people crossing from Jordan into Syria.
[…]
http://www.france24.com/en/20130412-un-concerned-more-syrians-return-home-jordan
April 12th, 2013, 4:01 pm
revenire said:
Just read there has been an assassination attempt on Hitto.
KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED!
Hope we got him.
April 12th, 2013, 4:08 pm
ann said:
France says U.N. talks begin on Qaeda-linked Syria rebels – April 12, 2013
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Apr-12/213519-france-says-un-talks-begin-on-qaeda-linked-syria-rebels.ashx
PARIS: The U.N. Security Council has begun informal talks on whether to impose sanctions on Syria’s rebel al-Nusra Front after it pledged allegiance to al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri this week, France said on Friday.
The militant Islamist element of the Syrian conflict poses a quandary for Western powers and their Arab allies, which favour the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad but are alarmed by Sunni Muslim jihadi fighters whose fiercely anti-Shi’ite ideology has fuelled sectarian tensions in the Middle East.
Speaking to reporters, French foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said given Wednesday’s announcement by Nusra chief Abu Mohammad al-Golani it was logical to look at how to deal with the Syrian group in the framework of the “fight against terrorism”.
“One option is to act at the U.N. Security Council … through the al Qaeda 1267 sanctions committee ,” he said.
“It is one solution that we are studying and discussing informally with our U.N. Security Council partners and European allies,” he said.
He said talks were still at a very early stage.
Potential sanctions could include assets being frozen and travel bans. The U.S. State Department in December designated the group a foreign terrorist organisation.
Experts have long said Nusra was receiving support from al Qaeda-linked insurgents in neighbouring Iraq. The group has claimed responsibility for deadly bombings in Damascus and Aleppo, and its fighters have joined other rebel brigades in attacks on Assad’s forces.
[…]
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Apr-12/213519-france-says-un-talks-begin-on-qaeda-linked-syria-rebels.ashx
April 12th, 2013, 4:09 pm
revenire said:
edward dark @edwardedark 20h
from Aleppo Now news: Whole battalions are systematically looting Shiekh Maksud(Ghoraba el Sham) Aleppo https://www.facebook.com/AkhbarHlbAlan/posts/567038779983669 … #Syria
حلب الآن – Aleppo Now
حرامية الجيش الحر بقبضة حلب الآن الإعلامية :
تحدثنا من قبل كثيرا عن الحرامية المتواجدين بين صفوف الجيش الحر و وصل الأمر لوجود كتائب كاملة تقوم بنهب المنازل .
واليوم لدينا سارقين جدد للأسف :
غرباء الشام -أبو الليث- هم الان متواجدين بالشيخ مقصود … أي سوزوكي تريد التشويل (النهب) يأخذوا منها أتاوة 25000 ويسمحوا لها أن تسرق كما تريد
…………………………..
يرجى ممن يهمه الأمر معالجته في أسرع وقت .
أبو عبدو
VIVA LA REVOLUCION BABY!!
April 12th, 2013, 4:11 pm
Dolly Buster said:
But the government is illegitimate, so the revolution is legitimate.
The regime initiated the war, by refusing to allow democratization in light of Rabi3 al Arabi.
April 12th, 2013, 4:47 pm
zoo said:
Tara
The real world is not black or white, evil vs good. You may have watched too many fairy tales, you can’t see that.
April 12th, 2013, 4:54 pm
revenire said:
Ha ha Dolly you are making me laugh.
April 12th, 2013, 5:04 pm
zoo said:
Kurds in Sheikh Maqsud are discovering the ugly face of the FSA rebels
Kurd tortured to death by the rebels in Syria’s Aleppo: watchdog
AFP April 13, 2013,
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/16708909/kurd-tortured-to-death-in-syrias-aleppo-watchdog/
Kurd tortured to death in Syria s Aleppo: watchdog
BEIRUT (AFP) – Rebels in Aleppo in northern Syria severely tortured a 54-year-old Kurdish man who died after being thrown out onto the streets of the city’s embattled Sheikh Maqsud district, a watchdog said Friday.
“Arab and Kurdish medical and political sources in Aleppo city have confirmed to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that Ibrahim Khalil died after being tortured by the Badr Martyrs’ battalion,” the Britain-based Observatory said.
Khalil was not a political activist, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
“Like dozens of others, he was arbitrarily detained and tortured by an armed group whose leaders have proven in the past to be nothing more than warlords, taking advantage of a security vacuum in areas no longer under regime control.”
April 12th, 2013, 5:09 pm
Tara said:
No Zoo. You are wrong. While it may no longer be black and white for you now being afraid of al Qaeda Imara and Shariaa law, it was black and white for the first 8 month of the revolution when oppressed people peacefully demonstrated against a brutal regime that unleashed massive savage tactics to silence them. Therefore you have no excuse calling the regime army heroic when it follow commands bombarding civilians and slaughtering the innocents. Just contrast this army with the Egyptian army who refused to obey such orders. The Syrian army is not more than a treacherous sectarian militia.
Zoo, your “heroic ” measures of defending the regime affect your credibility. It is not me who is looking at this in black and white. It is you.! Yes, it is you. Have you ever ever criticized any atrocity the regime committed? Or have the regime comitt any in your eyes? I don’t know what stained your life experience growing up to make you defend it wholeheartedly and I am not going to dwell on any fantasy of why you do that but I know from deep into heart that you are gravely wrong.
April 12th, 2013, 5:20 pm
ann said:
NATO & Al QAEDA join hands in Syria – Friday, April 12, 2013
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=203451
Friday, April 12, 2013 – When President Bashar Assad warned that developments in Syria had the potential to destablize the entire region, he was being serious. The fall of two anti-monarchist Heads of State, Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and Muammar Kaddafy in Tripoli combined with the downfall of a republican, Hosni Mubarak, to make the ruling group in Qatar believe that now was the chance to go even further. Doha,in partnership with Riyadh and Ankara, are determined to ensure that the Sunni majority assume full power in Syria, the way the Shia majority has become the dominant player within Iraq. Apart from the fact that he too subscribes to the anti-monarchist ideology of the Baath movement, Bashar Assad is Shia, coming from the Alwaite branch of that great variant of the noble faith of Islam. At its base,the opposition of the anti-Syria regional troika ( Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia) to the Assad-led government in Damascus is because of his faith. What the three forget is that success in Syria – in terms of the fall of the Assads – would prove to be a Pyrrhic victory, bringing immense damage in its wake.
By their action in giving money and weapons to any individual willing to militarily challenge the Assad regime, the anti-Syria troika are creating the grounds for Shia-Sunni tensions within the entire region that could last for generations. It would be Lebanon all over again, only deeper and broader in scope and virulence, and would tear apart society in a way that would destabilize the entire region, most especially the GCC, which has allowed itself to become the spearhead of the anti-Shia crusade despite protests from Iraq and Lebanon.
Also, those active in Syria would seek out new theatres once the conflict there ends in a victory for the anti-Assad forces in the manner in which the anti-Kaddafy forced ( with crucial help from NATO) prevailed in Libya. Even in the case of Syria, the French secret service in particular is known to be deeply embedded with the fanatic fighters in Syria, guiding them in their numerous actions against the regime, despite the huge increase in civilian casualties which this entails. France is a country that thrives on denial. Because of the indulgence of Winston Churchill, a close friend of Coco Chanel, Paris was gifted a permanent seat in the UN Security Council despite the fact that it surrendered to Germany in 1940s and thereafter tool almost zero part in the war, barring bombastic broadcasts from London by Charles De Gaulle.
In the 21st century, France has been reduced to the status of a minor player, lagging behind Germany in hard power and behind the UK in soft power. However, successive regimes in Paris have sought to cover up this insignificance by embarking on adventures in which it relies on its stronger partners – especially the US – to achieve success It was Nicholas Sarkozy who led NATO’s charge against Libya, and the reason for that has now become clear. The considerable assets of the Libyan government have disappeared. Few are asking where the $160 billion in Libyan financial assets have gone to. The new so-called government in Tripoli, which controls nothing, will never ask NATO to give back the money that the alliance has confiscated, being as it is a dependency of Brussels.
Even the UK, a country that ought to have had better standards in such matters than the French, has entered the game of loot. For example, the immense properties of Colonel Kaddafy and his children have been taken away without any compunction, and handed over to new owners. This is whoesale confiscation. First, NATO declares a set of individuals as “human rights violaters”, and subsequently takes away their property.
This must be a source of concern, for example to corrupt officials in China, most of whom have placed millions of dollars (in some cases, billions) in NATO-bloc banks and other financial institutions. Should they ever fall from grace, the chsnces are high that NATO will declare them as “war criminals” and “human rights violaters” and take away their billions of dollars and euros,the way they have Iraqi wealth after 2003 and Libyan money after 2011
Just as in the 1990s,when Bill Clinton ensured the success of the Taliban while claiming that it was Islamabad that was the lead player, in Syria Brussels has joined hands with extremists in order to assist the regional troika to depose Assad. It does not seem to bother the alliance that Ayman Al Zawahiri and they are on the same side, or that almost all the actual fighting in Syria against the regime is being conducted by Al Qaeda.
However, just as 9/11 was a wake-up call (that seems to have been forgotten, given the way Secretary of State Kerry is backing the Clinton line of obedience to the wishes of the
Ankara-Riyadh-Doha troika), NATO will understand its folly once the Al Qaeda elements energized by them turn their attention to the very countries now nourishing them, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. Those who forget history, as they say, are condemned to repeat it.
[…]
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=203451
April 12th, 2013, 5:21 pm
Dolly Buster said:
What is this obsession that commies have with linking Nato and AQ?
NATO and AQ are clear enemies, as seen on 9/11 and with Zarqawi beheadings.
April 12th, 2013, 5:25 pm
Citizen said:
EXPOSED: Syrian Human Rights Front is EU-Funded Fraud
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/
April 12th, 2013, 5:38 pm
revenire said:
Al Qaeda has been used by NATO as far back as Afghanistan. They’re just mercenaries that have been brainwashed, like most of the idiotic jihadis in Syria.
Every school child knows Osama’s murdering swine were praised as freedom fighters by Reagan.
Today the West uses the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda to smash Assad. Tomorrow they will kill Al Qaeda.
Obama wants Assad gone, Israel wants Assad gone and Al Qaeda wants Assad gone. They’re allies against Assad.
April 12th, 2013, 5:39 pm
zoo said:
Tara
I have explained several times about the unavailability in the Syrian security of adequate anti-riots materials commonly used to contain agitation without causing human casualties. (water pipes, gaz, rubber bullets).
To respond to provocation the security forces were ill trained and ill equipped and many fatal errors were done.
That weakness was exploited by the enemies of Syria who were exclusively after a regime change. They were helped by Arab media who had the same goal.
It has never been black or white and it will never be. If I am wrong then millions of Syrians are too.
April 12th, 2013, 5:44 pm
Dolly Buster said:
Yeah but Al-Qa’idah has inflicted real damage. Parked airplanes in Manhattan, and killed 4000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Attacks in London etc.
So obviously they are sworn enemies, and there is much hatred in America for Qa’idah.
Therefore I have 0 tolerance for red commie fairy tales on US-AQ brotherhood.
Yup, the terrorists being Hezbollah and Qods.
April 12th, 2013, 5:46 pm
Juergen said:
April 12th, 2013, 5:50 pm
Dolly Buster said:
Of course millions of Syrians are wrong, they have been made into fools by TV channels in Syria.
Syria is a very poor country with no access to the outside world. They are forced to lap up reportage from ANNA, SANA and other moronic outlets.
We remember the scenes when your previous leader Mu3ammar al-Qaddafiy held a million man march of his die-hard supporters. They all abandoned him in a matter of days.
April 12th, 2013, 5:52 pm
Visitor said:
Only the Nusra holy warriors and their brethren in arms and faith can be cited as examples of heroism, bravery, chivalry and courage.
As for the thugs of Assad, they can only be described as criminals, thugs, mercenaries, crooks, terrorists and vandals. Make your pick.
On the other hand, I have already pointed out that Hitto, Khatib and the rest of the NC/SNC must only seek to play a supportive role for the revolution. Otherwise, they will have to deal with failure after failure,
http://www.aljazeera.net/news/pages/cbb43c86-3745-44a1-bdb1-7eceef97644e?GoogleStatID=1
The leading role must be played by none other than the Nusra Front holy warriors and their brethren in arms and in faith. Compared to the pathetic perfomance of both Hitto and Khatib and the many others who came before them, the Nusra Front accomplished all the victories for the Syrian revolution WITHOUT asking any such foreign entities like Britain, France or the US for ANY arms supplies. In fact, the Nusra Front is self-sufficient due to its efficient operating procedures, its discipline, its dedication, its resourcefulness and above all it is supported by the Unseen Help from The Al-Mighty rendering any man-made assisstance to secondary importance.
It is only natural for the fittest to survive and rule this earth. Those who cannot adapt eventually will wither away. Therefore, I expect Hitto, Khatib, NC and SNC to wither away because they are unable to adapt and be content in playing the role they are suited to play, i.e. support but NOT lead the revolution.
April 12th, 2013, 5:57 pm
Tara said:
Is Bashar going to bombard Qamishli now? Headless little girls in Christian areas or let the rebells reign unopposed? He chose headless little girls in Sunni areas. The decision must now be difficult..
Syrian rebel attack on mixed city points to end of peace pact
Reuters –
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Rebels battled Syrian troops in the eastern border city of Qamishli on Friday, a monitoring group opposed to President Bashar al-Assad said, ending a de facto truce in the mainly Christian and Kurdish area.
Qamishli, on the border with Turkey and close to Iraq, has remained peaceful during a two-year uprising against Assad because local Kurds agreed with mostly Arab rebels to avoid clashes within city limits, said the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Videos posted on the Internet on Friday showed pickup trucks and dozens of rebels preparing an attack on Qamishli’s domestic airport and smoke rising from the airport grounds.
The city of around 200,000 is also home to thousands of Syrians who have fled other parts of the country, the Observatory said. Inhabitants must now wait and see whether Assad retaliates for rebel attacks by using war planes, as he has done in other major cities.
The Observatory said the advance includes rebels of the Free Syrian Army and the hard-line Islamist Nusra Front, who have clashed in the past with Christians and Kurds the opposition has tried to persuade to abandon Assad.
“We are not sure why they are attacking today,” said Observatory head Rami Abdelrahman. “Maybe the agreement broke down,” he said, adding that the government and Kurdish militia control different areas of Qamishli.
April 12th, 2013, 5:59 pm
zoo said:
A Tale of Two Courts: Two rival judiciary systems in Aleppo: Sharia or Sharia PLus ?
By MATTHIEU AIKINS
http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/a-tale-of-two-courts/
ALEPPO, Syria — “In this court, we just fight Bashar al-Assad,” said Marwan Qaid, the gray-haired, clean-shaven chief justice of the Mohokum al Qada al Motahed, or Integrated Judicial Council. He drew on a cigarette and smiled behind a desk piled high with legal papers. “But in the Shariah Authority, they also fight the infidels. And in their eyes, we are infidels.”
…
In Aleppo, which has no unified rebel command and is riven by factions, the job hasn’t been easy: The city has two rival legal systems, each controlling its own terrain and backed by different militias.
Faced with the necessity of developing a new Islamic legal code to replace the Assad regime’s secular system, Qaid and his colleagues have selected one developed by the Arab League that is essentially a modernized form of Shariah, or Islamic jurisprudence based on the Koran and the Sunna. By contrast, the Shariah Authority is led by Islamic scholars who base their judgments on their own, more traditionalist interpretations of Koranic law, with only some consultation with lawyers.
Qaid pointed out that the Shariah Authority is supported by the powerful jihadist faction Jabhat al Nusra, which the U.S. government has blacklisted for its alleged connections with Al Qaeda. “They are good fighters, but their goal is to bring about an Islamic country,” Qaid said.
When I raised the question of Jabhat al Nusra’s backing to Abu Suleiman, a member of the Shariah Authority’s main tribunal, he said those fighters were “guests” and would be leaving soon. “We are not Al Qaeda,” he told me, chuckling. “Of course we expect an Islamic system — everyone agrees on this. But it should be a moderate one, where all the groups in the country can coexist.”
April 12th, 2013, 6:01 pm
Tara said:
Zoo@529
Can you compare your perception of the Egyptian army as opposed to Assad’s army and how both of them will be judged by history?
April 12th, 2013, 6:04 pm
revenire said:
Nusra gets its weapons from the West Visitor. They’re just mercenaries.
Chivalry? LOL please let me have some of what you’re drinking. The Nusra Kool-Aid.
April 12th, 2013, 6:10 pm
revenire said:
Nusra admitted they were planning this before any demonstrations. Weapons were cached. Tunnels dug. Then they started shooting both the police/army and demonstrators.
April 12th, 2013, 6:13 pm
GEORGES said:
A breath of fresh air compared to the usual baathist masquerade
April 12th, 2013, 6:15 pm
Tara said:
Anotherملحمة to be added to the accomplishment of the “heroic” Syrian army.
• The Syrian Network for Human Rights emailed a horrific video (WARNING: GRAPHIC FOOTAGE) showing the bodies of adults and children it said were murdered in a “massacre” in the village of Khirbat Altin, in Homs province. The location of the video cannot be verified but a search for the unique identifier on the YouTube video (Gvnp-UUhOb4) suggests the video was probably not published before yesterday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2013/apr/12/syria-conflict-massacre-in-homs-province#block-5167bfc7e4b0566fd276be0b
April 12th, 2013, 6:23 pm
Dolly Buster said:
But you can’t deny that the first and original aggressor is the Syrian government.
Because: it’s an unfree state for many years. So if demonstrations or rebellions occur, that is just a reaction to the Dhulm.
April 12th, 2013, 6:25 pm
Tara said:
Eye for an eye. Moubarak should be operated on without anesthesia and should be beaten too. Same applies for Bashar al Assad if he is captured alive.
Egyptian doctors ‘ordered to operate on protesters without anaesthetic’
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 April 2013 09.31 EDT
Senior Egyptian army doctors were ordered to operate without anaesthetic on wounded protesters at a military hospital in Cairo during protests against military rule, according to an investigation commissioned by president Mohamed Morsi. The report into military and police malpractice since 2011 also alleges that doctors, soldiers and medics assaulted protesters inside the hospital.
It alleges that a senior military doctor ordered subordinates to operate on wounded protesters without anaesthetic or sterilisation and reports that doctors, nurses and senior officers also beat some of the wounded protesters. It also claims that a senior officer ordered soldiers to lock protesters in a basement.
The chapter concludes by recommending an investigation into the highest echelons of the army leadership – a deeply significant development
More..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/11/egypt-doctors-operate-protesters-anaesthetic
April 12th, 2013, 6:37 pm
Dolly Buster said:
Here is the link from Tara’s post
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvnp-UUhOb4
I wonder how Regime Idiots™ explain these girl killings
April 12th, 2013, 6:39 pm
revenire said:
Yes I 100% deny any culpability by the Syrian government. Absolutely. Assad could have given everyone in Syria a million dollars, or anything else, and this would have happened.
The government is guiltless.
April 12th, 2013, 6:41 pm
revenire said:
I also don’t care about ANY claims of atrocities or killings blamed on the government. None can be verified and you don’t give a damn about beheading Syrians so go to Hell. It is WAR and all the tear jerker stupidity should stop. Our army is going to KILL and GRIND the rats to little pieces to feed to the dogs.
April 12th, 2013, 6:47 pm
mjabali said:
Tara the doctor said:
“Eye for an eye. Mubarak should be operated on without anesthesia and should be beaten too.”
I do not know why you live in America. I am not joking. Why don’t you go back and live in the middle ages…
April 12th, 2013, 6:49 pm
Tara said:
Watching the video and stairing at the faces of the little girls slaughtered with knives by their Alawis neighbors.
I know I don’t hold grudges for long time and I may change my mind, but for the time being until forgiveness strikes my heart, I shall neve live or befriend an Alawi who support the regime. Those people are pure evil.
April 12th, 2013, 6:55 pm
zoo said:
Tara
No comparison possible. Mobarak was a corrupted dictator protected by the USA and the West for 42 years. He was hated by most of the egyptians, including the army. His early fall was predictable as everybody was against him.
Bashar al Assad is loved by the army and by a large part of the population and he was neither a corrupted dictator not an ally to the USA, quite the contrary. He stayed in power despite the USA because he had and still has the support of the Syrians living in Syria.
It’s becoming boring to repeat these evidences.
April 12th, 2013, 6:59 pm
revenire said:
HNN Homs News Network
OPERATIONS FROM ALEPPO – TURKISH BORDER BEGINNING
The Syrian Arab Army is preparing for major Military operations to be carried out from rural Aleppo all the way through to the border with Turkey, to begin within ten days after the deadline that was given by the Syrian Military for Terrorists to lay down their arms and surrender, from a negotiated deal between Russia and the Insurgents, with preliminary news that hundreds have already surrendered …
EXCELLENT NEWS COMING IN WITH CLEARLY MAJOR PROGRESS NOW, WE THANK GOD AND OUR BRAVE TROOPS WHO’S DETERMINATION JUST GETS STRONGER, MAY GOD PROTECT THEM … – J
Syrian intelligence
April 12th, 2013, 7:02 pm
revenire said:
HNN Homs News Network
AL-RAQQAH – AIR STRIKES WIPE 200 TERRORISTS !!
The Syrian Air Force conducted deadly air strikes on “Al-Nusra Front” Terrorist positions as a prelude for a major ground assault in Al-Raqqah, resulting in the death of over 200 fighters with hundreds wounded and reports the National Hospital is filled with Terrorist bodies either dead and wounded …
LET’S PRAY FOR OUR TROOPS, FOR GOD TO PROTECT THEM AND GIVE THEM A QUICK VICTORY IN THE ASSAULT ON AL-RAQQAH, AMEN … – J
Syrian Intelligence
April 12th, 2013, 7:04 pm
Tara said:
Zoo
Bashar is not corrupt?
Oh I see. It is his father-in-law who launders money for him is the one who is corrupt. Bashar who owns the money isn’t, nor is Rami. Zoo, I can deal with illusions but you really are stretching the limit. If this comes from Someone like Reve, it is ok but why are you sacrificing your credibility that much and for what?
April 12th, 2013, 7:08 pm
zoo said:
Tara #549
They won’t miss much…
Oh yes… the money laundering allegations. Keep reading media rumors, they’ll feed your hatred.
April 12th, 2013, 7:10 pm
zoo said:
Visitor
Some of your words of wisdom I agree with.
“Therefore, I expect Hitto, Khatib, NC and SNC to wither away because they are unable to adapt and be content in playing the role they are suited to play, i.e. support but NOT lead the revolution.”
April 12th, 2013, 7:18 pm
Tara said:
Zoo,
“They won’t miss much…”
Ok.
April 12th, 2013, 7:19 pm
zoo said:
Tara
You called for it…
April 12th, 2013, 7:25 pm
revenire said:
Where is the buffer zone all the apes were talking about?
Marigoldran my dear boy – come out and show me the buffer zone in Daraa because it looks to me like it is HUNTING SEASON for the Syrian Eagles.
I thought the air force had no more pilots or planes? Or is this the FSA air force?
April 12th, 2013, 7:42 pm
Dolly Buster said:
And is there any bad news ?
April 12th, 2013, 7:46 pm
revenire said:
Wow! The air force is doing a FANTASTIC JOB today.
HNN Homs News Network
HOMS – EAGLES STRIKE TERRORISTS PREPARING TO ATTACK !!
The amazing Flying Eagles surprised Terrorists in the Village of “Ghajar”, as they gathered and were preparing to launch an attack on a Military Checkpoint near the Village, resulting in the death of 70 Terrorists, in addition to the destruction of two vehicles equipped with Dushka Machine Guns …
GOD IS GREAT … – J
April 12th, 2013, 7:46 pm
Dolly Buster said:
Most of the killing in Iraq is the fault of your Shia buddies.
The Shia made up 1 million soldiers in Iraq, and the U.S. only 0.1 million.
April 12th, 2013, 7:51 pm
revenire said:
There are like 20,000 Tunisian rats in Syria.
Kill them all Dr. Assad.
Cluster bombs are not illegal and really can take out a lot of rats.
====
At present, Tunisia estimates that around 40% of foreign jihadists in Syria hold Tunisian nationality. More than two-thirds of them are fighting in the ranks of Jabhat al-Nusra. A number of their families have organized demonstrations demanding that the authorities return their sons to Tunisia. At the same time, the Guide of the Ennahda Party, Rachid al-Ghannouchi, took the occasion as an opportunity to stress that his movement was not responsible for the phenomenon.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/tunisian-jihadists-syria.html#ixzz2QISaXccS
Ahmed Manai, President of the Tunisian Institute of International Relations and a member of the Committee on Arab Observers in Syria, has told Tunisia’s La Presse that more than 6,000 Tunisian youth between the ages of 17 and 30 are now fighting in Syria against the government of Assad and are being trained in Libya. According to Manai, this arrangement stems from an agreement which was reached on Dec. 11, 2011, in Tripoli, Libya. The meeting was attended by Rached Ghannouchi, the head of the Tunisian Muslim Brotherhood party, Ennahda; Youssef Qaradhaoui Rached Ghannouchi, the Foreign Minister of Qatar; Hamad Jabber bin Jassim al-Thani, who is also the Prime Minister of Qatar; the number two of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria; the head of the National Transitional Council in Libya, Ghoulioune Abdel Jelil; and the former emir of the Al-Qaeda affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Abelhakim Belhadj, who at the time was the head of the Tripoli Military Council. The agreement reached determined to arm and send fighters from Libya and Tunisia to Syria.
April 12th, 2013, 7:56 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Dear Mr. Unemployed,
Get a job.
Sincerely,
Not-A-Loser-Like-You
April 12th, 2013, 8:38 pm
revenire said:
Just like the rats they are: hiding in sewers. Come out cowards. The army wants to send you to Hell.
April 12th, 2013, 8:59 pm
zoo said:
Syria urges United Nations to list Nusra Front a terrorist group
http://www.examiner.com/article/syria-urges-united-nations-to-list-nusra-front-a-terrorist-group
The Nusra Front has admitted it has perpetrated the majority of the terrorist bombings that caused many civilian deaths. It also boasted that it has attacked government institutions across Syria after the outbreak of the hostilities between civilians and the Syrian police and military in 2011.
When al-Qaeda in Iraq said that it had “thrown in” with the Nusra Front, the most effective force among the rebel militias fighting to topple President Assad in Syria’s civil war, the Assad government claimed it as proof that it is not facing a popular movement but rather a foreign-backed terrorist plot to turn Syria into another extremist caliphate and enslave the Syrian people.
The Syrian government-controlled state news agency reported Wednesday that Nusra Front’s alliance with al-Qaeda foreign fighters “proves that this [rebellion] was never anything more than a plot by the West and by [radical Islamic] terrorists to destroy the Syrian people.”
But according to the Israeli counterterrorism source, talk of an alliance between the Nusra Front and al-Qaeda in Iraq has created deep concern among intelligence officials who had complained to the state news agency that cooperation between the groups had already occurred in several jointly perpetrated terrorist attacks.
The U.S. government has designated Jabhat al-Nusra a terrorist network due to its afflilation with al-Qaeda, and now admitted ties between the terrorist networks are likely to cause second thoughts about providing military aid to the rebels by the U.S. and European Union.
April 12th, 2013, 9:52 pm
majedkhaldoun said:
Members of the SNC are telling us that they are optimistic,and US may change its position, the reason is: now there are definite evidence that chemical weapons has been used in Syria by Assad thugs,
April 12th, 2013, 9:53 pm
zoo said:
Why Reports of Chemical Weapons Attacks in Syria May Never Be Confirmed
By Aryn BakerApril 12, 201
Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/04/12/syrias-chemical-weapons-attack-still-waiting-for-the-truth/#ixzz2QIxkVlAg
April 12th, 2013, 10:02 pm
Mick said:
“Assad’s father-in-law says he is ‘horrified,’ as violence in Syria escalates”
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/assad-s-father-in-law-says-he-is-horrified-as-violence-in-syria-escalates-1.416544
“The British website also mentions rumors that Asma is being held as a virtual prisnor.”
I sure wish the rumors of Asma’s father would at least stay on tangent. Last year he was ‘hinting’ his daughter was a prisoner…now he is doing illegal funding in support of Bashar…
April 12th, 2013, 10:06 pm
zoo said:
Muslim Brotherhood Paves Way for Qatar’s Ascent
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/muslim-brotherhood-paves-way-qatar%E2%80%99s-ascent
In the wake of the Arab uprisings, Qatar is using its vast wealth and media empire to become a regional superpower. Its historic ties with the Muslim Brotherhood will determine the success of Doha’s strategy.
…
The Brotherhood in Qatar
The presence of the Muslim Brotherhood from a number of Arab countries in Qatar dates back to the 1950s, when many of its members were forced into exile, in particular from Gamal Abdul-Nasser’s Egypt. In 1999, the Qatari branch of the Muslim Brotherhood dissolved itself, with it leader Jassem Sultan declaring in 2003 that the state was adequately fulfilling its religious obligations.
Similar attempts to reconcile the Brotherhood with the ruling family in the United Arab Emirates were not as successful. The UAE branch of the Brotherhood, called al-Islah, was allowed to operate as a charitable organization, but had to cease its political activities.
Over time, ties between Qatar and prominent Brotherhood members grew, most notably with Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and a long list of Islamist journalists and activists who flooded the ranks of al-Jazeera, including its former general manager Wadah Khanfar (Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood) and Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafiq Abdul-Salam, who headed up the channel’s research center.
Qatar has wasted no time in coming to the support of the new Muslim Brotherhood regimes by filling their coffers. Contrary to other Gulf states, which reduced their investments in Egypt after Mubarak’s fall, Doha has promised to raise its share to $18 billion in the coming years.
April 12th, 2013, 10:25 pm
ann said:
566. Mick
Welcome back Mick!
April 12th, 2013, 11:15 pm
ghufran said:
I do not buy the rumors that there will be a change in US policy in support of a military action or direct help for rebels, even the promised Daraa offensive does not seem to be going well, that is why rebels are trying to win Qamishli and consolidate their gains in the north. Aleppo is still unwinnable by the rebels who are not making any progress there. The time is ripe for an initiative that saves Syrian blood and isolate Islamist thugs, do not expect MB,Qatar and Turkey to be very helpful in that area.
April 12th, 2013, 11:22 pm
Dolly Buster said:
When the Crusaders attacked Iraq, the Shia started applying for the army like monkeys. The ranks grew to 1 million.
The Crusaders gave the Shia uniforms. It was really a dark time for humanity in general.
Today the Shia continue to prove they are on the wrong side of every equation.
Little girls are shot in the head and throat slit in Syria — and this is supported by Iran, Hezboshaytan, and the Alawi Shia.
April 12th, 2013, 11:27 pm
Syrialover said:
ZOO,
cc TARA
Why the effort to whitewash Bashar’s father in law Fawaz Akhras? What are you trying to say?
If he was a rational civilized person with normal ethics he would have been humiliated and horrified by his daughter marrying into a prominent role in Team Assad.
Instead, evidence indicates it was his proudest moment and dream come true. Akhras had been working on getting regime insider status long before his daughter’s marriage.
He made a silly spin effort to distance himself from the Assad regime in 2012 when things got too hot, but he failed and is now a reclusive outcast in the UK, both professionally and socially.
Fact: Fawaz Akhras was no neutral bystander when it comes to the Assad regime. There is plenty of evidence he’d long been a keen UK branch of it, for example:
– His closeness and willingness to assist the offshore financial activities of the Assads family was cited in wikileaks cables dating back to 2008. Then there were his leaked emails to Bashar in 2012 which showed him advising his son in law how to respond to media exposure of regime atrocities.
– His wife (Asma’s mother) is a “former Syrian diplomat”. A career only possible through having friends or family connected to the regime. Her job description would have been to circulate junk propaganda and spy on Syrian expatriates for the regime.
– Fawaz Akhras helped found the British-Syrian Society while little Asma was still in primary school. Here’s a description of it: “The British Syrian Society is probably the biggest nest of pro-Assad supporters in the UK, and some of it’s members routinely portray themselves as some kind of informal lobbying group which networks for the advantage of Syria.” (www. maysaloon.org).
[Shocked by revelations of the atrocities in Syria, British members of this association in 2012 held their noses and rushed to the door in mass resignation. Fawaz Akhras’s failure to resign also became an embarrassment to many of his fellow Syrian members.]
COMMENT: Although she may have been born and educated in the UK, young Asma’s time at the family dinner table would have primed and orientated her for her current role as the dictator’s wife whose serious job is to help promote an image of the regime.
April 12th, 2013, 11:31 pm
ghufran said:
The video that showed dead bodies of children,some with obvious neck wounds, is disgusting, only animals can kill children, I am not religious but there has to be a special place in hell for killers of children especially those who commit their crime in cold blood.
April 12th, 2013, 11:32 pm
Dolly Buster said:
Yeah Ghufran. What do you think we’ve been saying for 24 months? These are the atrocities that you’ve been defending, along with this disgusting animal Zoo over there.
April 12th, 2013, 11:40 pm
ghufran said:
If the UNSC puts Nusra and al-Qaida in the same class, people and government who provide help to Nusra can be subjected to prosecution and penalties:
Speaking to reporters, French foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said given Wednesday’s announcement by Nusra chief Abu Mohammad al-Golani it was logical to look at how to deal with the Syrian group in the framework of the “fight against terrorism”.
“One option is to act at the UN Security Council … through the al-Qaida 1267 sanctions committee ,” he said.
“It is one solution that we are studying and discussing informally with our UN security council partners and European allies,” he said.
He said talks were still at a very early stage. Potential sanctions could include assets being frozen and travel bans.
April 12th, 2013, 11:45 pm
apple_mini said:
Maybe we can find answers how the nation can reconcile at those grade schools in Damascus.
Most schools in Damascus now have at least twice as many students as before the conflict due to displaced families and school children from areas around the city.
The irony is that many of those displaced children whose fathers and brothers are actually fighting against the regime in countryside while the regime is feeding their women and kids.
There is no contradiction or loophole in the policy. Syrians and Syrians regardless of their affiliation. But when a Syrian takes up weapon, he becomes a threat to the institutions.
As we can understand kids from Darraya and kids from Damascus city most likely will have very different feelings and opinions about this conflict. And worse, they might have personal loss and suffering from different sides. According to the news, “Not surprisingly, students would argue at school which side in the political entanglement is “righteous,” sometimes resulting in fierce bickering. A school principal has been trying to maintain “a healthy atmosphere” at her school.”
If those kids can find peace among them even they have different opinions and convictions, then can adults learn something from them?
It is worth noting: schools do exercise authority over those kids hence orders can be maintained. The same applies to the current crisis, security and order have to be restored before a serious national reconciliation can be initiated.
April 12th, 2013, 11:47 pm
Syrialover said:
An eloquent piece on one older woman’s fate simply because she’s Syrian:
“A mother”
[commenting on a video showing the desperation, bewilderment and misery of a woman who has lost her sons and home and now had her precious gas cylinders stolen]
EXCERPT:
The old woman’s suffering can be defined in one word: zulm, which is Arabic for injustice or oppression, but also is associated with a cloud of profoundly esoteric meanings. The word, which is written in three letters in Arabic, connotes bitterness, suffering, suppression, grimness and severity… Zulm has a rich cultural depth; it is one of the principal themes of the Quran and Hadiths. In the Quran, arrogance is one of the themes that is treated in the context of zulm. The word has incubated the tragic experiences of the people in the region who have historically suffered for no other reason than being at the crossroads (both literally and figuratively) of political powers.
Zulm is essentially a state of accumulated injustice: people accept an act of injustice and internalise it, but then they are afflicted with another and another…
For many who have seen this video, this old woman represents those in Syrian society who are caught in the regime’s bloody campaign, although they stand on the sidelines and they feel that they have no stake in the uprising that began a year ago. … Mr Al Assad, in his last speech, declared war against those very people when he said: “There is no grey colour. Those who stand in the middle in national causes are traitors to their country. There is no choice.”
But why is there no grey, Mr President? It is the language of zulm, a colossal arrogance to decide that these people must stand with you.
The regime that has labelled itself “the revolution of workers and farmers”, and yet has neglected or victimised these people for decades. No one has the right to blame ordinary Syrians who try to just live their normal lives, not even the political opposition…
April 12th, 2013, 11:50 pm
Syrialover said:
Sorry, here’s the link for the article “A mother” (excerpted in #576)
http://www.hhassan.com/2013/04/a-mother.html
April 12th, 2013, 11:53 pm
ann said:
Brahimi to brief UN Security Council on Syria next week – 2013-04-13
• The UN-AL special representative for Syria Brahimi is scheduled to brief the UNSC Council next week.
• The now two-year old conflict in Syria stands at a stalemate, despite the attempts of Brahimi.
• An investigation into the use of chemical weapons in Syria has now been stalled as well.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/13/c_124575653.htm
UNITED NATIONS, April 12 (Xinhua) — Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN and Arab League special representative for Syria, is scheduled to brief the UN Security Council next week, a UN spokesman told reporters here on Friday.
Brahimi “will be here on Friday, 19 April, when he is scheduled to brief the Security Council on Syria,” said Eduardo del Buey, deputy spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, to the press at the daily briefing.
“His briefing to the council will be a day after one by several senior UN officials on the humanitarian situation in Syria,” added del Buey.
The now two-year old conflict in Syria stands at a stalemate, despite the attempts of Brahimi who began his work last August, to reach a resolution between the government and opposition.
An investigation into the use of chemical weapons in Syria, initiated at the request of the Syrian government, has now been stalled as well after the Syrian government denied access to the inspectors outside of Aleppo.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Monday that the UN request to conduct a full investigation about chemical weapons on all Syrian territories runs counter to the request of the Syrian government.
According to del Buey, following a meeting on Thursday with U.S. President Barack Obama concerning possible chemical weapon use in Syria, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said it is “regrettable” that the Syrian government has rejected his offer.
“He noted that the team is to work under his authority in accordance with General Assembly and Security Council resolutions, and is now ready and can be deployed soon,” said the deputy spokesperson.
Additionally, John Ging, the Operations Director of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), will begin a three-day visit to Aleppo on Saturday, in order to assess the humanitarian situation on the ground.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/13/c_124575653.htm
April 13th, 2013, 12:12 am
ghufran said:
Camille Otrakji:
Revolutions always raise expectations by implying “The people” demanded change and there is therefore every reason to expect the people, all the people, will be delighted with that change. The Syrian revolution is no exception. But the revolution/conflict is much more complex than the Sunni vs Alawite, poor vs rich, rural vs urban, patriotic vs traitor, free vs oppressed simple narratives that it has been reduced to. These simplification were formed through delusion, naivety, laziness, or carefully constructed narratives by propagandists from both sides who continue to find them useful to justify their exclusive claims to power. While we will not really know exactly how much support each side has, we should not continue to assume that “The Syrian people” want exactly what we want. It is perhaps the mother of all deadly assumptions that helped fuel the Syria crisis.
April 13th, 2013, 12:18 am
Juergen said:
Loooooool. Our FSA announces the formation of the Eagles of Washington brigade to defend the USA from North Korea using all of the “non-lethal aid” provided to them. You got to love that they maintain their sense of humor despite all that is going on.
April 13th, 2013, 12:19 am
revenire said:
An eloquent piece on one older woman’s fate simply because she’s Syrian = another piece of garbage.
Syrialover will be doing this for years.
No one cares.
April 13th, 2013, 12:19 am
ghufran said:
Camille Ortakji’s ” the six facets”
(I prefer to call them the six myths)
•The regime’s days are numbered. Regime opponents can do it if they work with us for a few more weeks, that’s all it will take.
•Syrians will thank us for helping them topple the regime. It will be good for Syria. If only we topple the regime. A short transition period might be difficult, but soon after democracy and all other goodies will be within reach.
•“The Syrian People” want us to topple the regime, not reach a compromise with it. Can’t go wrong if you are on the side of “the Syrian People”. The people have one thing on their minds … change, full and total change.
•The price to pay for revolutionary change is not too steep. The Syrian people are willing to pay that price over the much lower cost of pursuing evolutionary change options that do not follow “The Arab Spring” formula we find more exciting here in the US. Syria will not be destroyed in the process, its economy will be easy to recover. The people will work together after this civil war.
•The regime is the Assad family. Get rid of Assad and you can celebrate. Get Farouk Sharaa to replace Assad … follow the Yemen solution formula to democracy [ see how here]
•Working with the Islamists is inevitable and wise. The west can use the power of the Islamists to fight and topple the regime, THEN the west can install secular Syrian opposition allies and remove the Islamists from the scene. If Islamists win the next elections in Syria, it will be not a problem. They will be under control and guidance of Turkey’s moderate Islamists.
April 13th, 2013, 12:27 am
ann said:
The petty-bourgeois “left” promotes the CIA war in Syria – 12 April 2013
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/12/isos-a12.html
The petty-bourgeois “left” has reacted to the publication of detailed reports on the CIA’s role in backing Islamist forces in the US proxy war in Syria by intensifying their support for the war. Forces like the International Socialist Organization (ISO) in the United States and the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) in France are functioning as conscious propagandists for a neo-colonial CIA operation.
The ISO’s April 9 article by Yusef Khalil, “Why the left must support Syria’s revolution”—which cites Gayath Naïssé, one of the NPA’s main writers on Syria—begins by slandering opponents of the CIA war in Syria as supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Khalil begins, “’Airlift to Rebels in Syria Expands with CIA’s Help,’ screamed a New York Times headline in late March. ‘Foreign intervention!,’ screamed back supporters of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.” He continues, “Some on the US and international left continue to cling to the idea that the regime presiding over this violence and repression is progressive—and that the uprising against it was engineered by Western governments.”
Khalil’s statement, which mocks the idea that Western imperialism is behind the Syrian war, stands in blatant contradiction to the widely-acknowledged fact that the CIA and its regional allies are arming the opposition to destabilize Syria and topple Assad. The implication that all opposition to the US war comes from “supporters of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad” is a slander and a political lie. It is aimed at blocking a struggle to mobilize the working class in struggle against both the Assad regime and, above all, the intervention in Syria of the most ruthless sections of American imperialism.
By ruling out such a struggle, Khalil is supporting a bloody CIA operation and, behind it, the Middle East policy of US imperialism, whose war in Syria has had devastating consequences for the Syrian people.
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, and Turkey helped purchase and transport a “cataract of weaponry” coordinated by the CIA into Syria, in the words of one US official cited in the Times ’ March article, which is friendly to the Syrian opposition. The paper “conservatively” estimates the quantity of munitions sent to Syria at 3,500 tons. In the ensuing fighting, some 70,000 Syrians have died, and nearly 5 million have been forced to flee their homes.
US foreign policy experts have stated that Washington’s shock troops are the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front, which still receives support apparently unhindered by the CIA—even though Washington declared Al Nusra a terrorist organization last December. (See also: Washington’s proxy in Syria: Al Qaeda )
The ISO statement makes clear that it supports the anti-Assad militias’ decision to take weapons from the CIA. Khalil writes, “The vital question facing the Syrian opposition is how to get aid from sources that can provide what the revolution needs, which is weapons, while maintaining independent Syrian decision-making. This is a tough question to answer, but not impossible.”
Khalil’s claim that one can maintain “independent Syrian decision-making” while taking arms from the CIA is an absurd fiction, concocted to disguise the fact that the ISO is supporting a war coordinated and organized by Washington.
As US officials speaking to the Times made clear, weapons shipments are closely overseen by the CIA. The Times writes, “American intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia, and have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive, according to American officials speaking on condition of anonymity.”
It adds that former CIA director David Petraeus was “instrumental in helping to get this aviation network moving and had prodded various countries to work together on it.”
The open support of the ISO and the European petty-bourgeois “left” for CIA-led wars is a culmination of their evolution as pro-imperialist bourgeois parties, operating in the periphery of the Democratic Party in the United States or of the social-democratic parties in Europe.
Staggered by the outbreak of a global economic crisis with the Wall Street crash of 2008, they have supported the ruling class in each country as it has sought to impose the burden of the crisis on the working class. While they have promoted sellouts by the union bureaucracy of workers’ struggles against austerity at home, their role abroad has been even more nakedly aligned with imperialist policy.
After the outbreak of revolutionary struggles by the Tunisian and Egyptian working class in 2011, they supported US-led interventions to overthrow regimes Washington viewed as obstacles to its interests—first the 2011 war in Libya and then the war in Syria. They did so, falsely claiming that the forces that were carrying out these wars were revolutionary.
Khalil’s attempts to dress up the ISO’s pro-imperialist positions with a bit of “left” rhetoric, claiming that accepting CIA help was a revolutionary necessity, involve him in absurd falsifications.
He writes, “Syria’s revolutionaries—responding to the dictatorship’s violent crackdown—had to develop a popular armed resistance to defend themselves and defeat the forces of the regime. Large parts of the country, including major military bases and airports, have fallen from the government’s hands, but they remain under heavy bombardment. Nevertheless, in many of these areas, Syrians are experimenting with local self-government, now that the regime has lost its grip.”
The ISO’s fantasy that Syrians are now experimenting with radical forms of self-government under the jackboot of ultra-right, sectarian Islamist militias armed by the CIA is ludicrous. Syrian workers in opposition-controlled areas are either simply trying to survive as Islamist guerrillas loot their workplaces, schools, and homes, or are actively protesting the opposition’s thuggery.
A series of interviews in the Guardian with opposition militia forces in Aleppo last December laid out the basic character of the Islamist militias, which plunder the population for cash to buy CIA weapons. One militia commander said, “I liberate an area, I need resources and ammunition, so I start looting government properties. When this is finished, I turn to looting other properties and I become a thief.”
Another opposition official noted the death of an opposition fighter, Abu Jameel, in a fight with other militias over how to divide the loot from the seizure of a steel warehouse. He said, “To be killed because of a feud over loot is a disaster for the revolution. It is extremely sad. There is not one government institution or warehouse left standing in Aleppo. Everything has been looted. Everything is gone.”
Given Aleppo’s role as the center of Syria’s state-run pharmaceutical industry, the opposition’s raids on factories and other state facilities have had a devastating impact. Critical medicines are running out, notably diabetes medications and antibiotics. State flights carrying vaccines into Syria have been shot at, and chlorine for water purification is banned for import by the imperialist powers under the pretext that Assad could use it to create chemical weapons—resulting in a spread of water-borne diseases.
Abdul-Jabbar Akidi, a former Syrian army colonel and a leading official in the opposition’s military council in Aleppo, confessed that there is deep popular hostility in Aleppo to his forces: “Even the people are fed up with us. We were liberators, but now they denounce us and demonstrate against us.”
The ISO and the NPA have maintained a studious silence on popular protests against the Islamist, CIA-led opposition forces they have promoted. These protests are, however, one indication that a revolution based on the working class in Syria would take the form of an uprising against the opposition forces supported by Washington and the ISO, as well as against the Assad regime.
Struggling to find a bright side to the reactionary forces it is promoting in Syria, the ISO writes: “It would be wrong to reduce the Syrian Revolution to the question of the armed struggle and the role of imperialist powers in trying to shape and co-opt that struggle. Take the role of women in the uprising—something that has not been appreciated in the mainstream media. Women have been very active participants and leaders since the beginning … As a group of women activists in Aleppo wrote, ‘We will not wait until the regime falls to become active.’”
The ISO’s presentation of CIA-backed Islamic fundamentalists as defenders of women’s rights is absurd and repugnant. Should Al Qaeda-type forces conquer Syria with US and Saudi help, Syrian women—who largely lived in modern conditions under the secular Assad regime—will be forced to live under conditions like those faced by women under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan or in Saudi Arabia. There, women are considered legal minors and are denied basic rights, including the right to drive a car.
As it turns out, the Aleppo women activists the ISO cynically held up as examples of the opposition’s supposedly progressive character have not fared well. “In early March, the revolutionary local council in Aleppo was elected and didn’t include a single woman, despite some well-known female activists being nominated,” the ISO writes, complacently adding: “So there is—like everywhere in the world—some distance to go before women have equality in Syria.”
The ISO’s attempts to somewhat distance itself from Washington’s Middle East policy likewise reek of dishonesty and cynicism. Khalil writes, “Like every other regional and international power, the US government has its fingers in Syria. It is maneuvering to shape—and ultimately, to curtail—the Syrian Revolution … Throughout the carnage inflicted by the regime, the US has kept very tight limits on the support, especially the military support, it has provided.”
Khalil quotes the NPA’s Naïssé on the reasons for US involvement in Syria: “The major imperialist powers, led by the United States, have always supported what they call an ‘orderly transition’ in Syria, which means only superficial and partial changes to the structure of the regime. This is for geo-strategic reasons, including protecting the Zionist entity [i.e., Israel] and preventing the revolution from succeeding and spreading to the entire Arab east, including the reactionary oil monarchies.”
Leaving aside the false dichotomy Khalil establishes between US policy and the CIA-led war he calls “the Syrian Revolution,” these passages make one point clear: the policies supported by the ISO and the NPA are in fact entirely compatible with the strategy of American imperialism. These include keeping Persian Gulf oil revenues under the control of reactionary, pro-US monarchs, and maintaining the division of the Middle Eastern working class between Jewish and Muslim workers that is established by the existence of the Israeli state.
Although neither the ISO nor the NPA say it, the US war against Syria also aims to deprive Iran of its main regional ally, thereby facilitating US preparations for a major war against Iran. The ultimate goal of these operations is to ensure that Washington maintains and extends its hegemony over the oil-rich, strategically located Middle East. This goal is entirely supported by the petty-bourgeois “left” parties.
If Washington has concerns about the anti-Assad “rebels,” it is not that they are revolutionary. Rather, it fears that if it arms its Islamist proxies in Syria too heavily, they might turn these weapons over to dissident Islamist factions inside the unstable Persian Gulf monarchies, or use them to mount terrorist attacks on Israel or the United States.
[…]
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/12/isos-a12.html
April 13th, 2013, 12:36 am
Juergen said:
Austrian FM: We may pull Golan peacekeepers
Visiting FM Spindelegger tells ‘Post’ that if EU lifts Syria arms embargo, Austrian UN peacekeepers will be endangered.
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Austrian-FM-to-Post-We-may-pull-peacekeepers-from-Golan-309583
April 13th, 2013, 12:41 am
Juergen said:
Syria’s second revolution?
Women stand to be emancipated in more ways than one.
“A story relayed to me by the editor of this fine publication has it that an elderly woman in Homs used to leave her house each morning and, on her way to the local bakery, encountered Syrian Army soldiers standing by their tanks. She knew very well who these men were but without fail would greet them with a polite “Shalom.” This went on for several days. Finally, one of the nonplussed soldiers was given to inquire: “Grandmother, why do you pass by us every day and say ‘Shalom’?” The elderly woman replied: “Oh, you speak Arabic? You’re Syrians? I thought you were Israelis,” before continuing on her way to her daily bread.
It’s a shame that the term chutzpah is not more commonly associated with Arab feminism.
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/syrias-second-revolution
April 13th, 2013, 1:06 am
revenire said:
The Zionist neocon, an enemy of Syria, is this rat’s “story” for us.
April 13th, 2013, 1:33 am
revenire said:
Juergen send this back to Weiss, tell him it is from the SAA.
April 13th, 2013, 1:37 am
Juergen said:
Amir
I thought that this publication you find interesting.
http://issuu.com/mahmoudhassino/docs/mawalehenglish001
April 13th, 2013, 3:35 am
Badr said:
Proxy war heats up as endgame inches closer
By Jim Muir BBC News, Beirut
April 13th, 2013, 4:46 am
Citizen said:
‘5,500 foreigners fighting in Syria’
Nearly 600 Europeans have gone to Syria since early 2011, representing 7-11% of the foreign fighters there in total.
A day after G8 confirmed that Syria had become the hotbed for foreign terrorists, the international centre for the study of radicalization has pinpointed the exact numbers. The centre, which is part of King’s College, London has found more than 450 martyrdom notices that have been posted in jihadist online forums around Syria.
Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria in early 2011, the centre estimates that about 5,500-odd foreign fighters have gone to Syria to fight with opposition forces. From Europe, Britain may have exported 134 fighters, Netherlands 107, France 92, Belgium 85, Denmark 78, Germany 40, Ireland 26, Finland 13, Spain 6 and Sweden 5. European countries like Albania, Austria, Bulgaria and Kosovo have exported one fighter each to Syria.
Professor Peter Neumann at King’s in collaboration with Aaron Y Zelin at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy provides the first full assessment of how many Europeans have joined the rebels in Syria, and the extent to which the conflict has mobilized Muslims across the world.
They estimate that nearly 441 Europeans are currently in Syrian battlefields.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/5500-foreigners-fighting-in-Syria/articleshow/19520800.cms
وشـــــــــــــهد ِشــــــــــــــاهد من أهلهم !
April 13th, 2013, 5:04 am
Citizen said:
581. JUERGEN
This battalion psychiatric patients need your attention!
April 13th, 2013, 5:08 am
MarigoldRan said:
Slow news day. Helicopter downed. The retard remains an unemployed loser. The war continues.
April 13th, 2013, 5:22 am
Syrialover said:
REVENIRE (#581)
That discussion about “zulm” in #576 went whoosh, right over your head did it.
Too bad, if you need things dumbed down and cheap fiction you should stick with SANA.
April 13th, 2013, 5:26 am
Uzair8 said:
Assad is facing his own (larger scale) ‘Chechnya’ but with a dwindling and vulnerable (to return fire) airforce.
What chance does he have? How many men will he lose? Didn’t Russia lose upto 15,000 men in one of the Chechen wars?
April 13th, 2013, 6:07 am
Uzair8 said:
I don’t think anyone, apart from Assad regime and it’s supporters (as a welcome distraction), wish to see a conflict in the Korean Peninsula.
I hope Mr Kim Jung Un cancels, or at least postpones, his sacred war on the south.
April 13th, 2013, 6:11 am
Juergen said:
only possible in Syria
Fight and Dabke
April 13th, 2013, 6:13 am
Juergen said:
Kafranbel
http://www.hhassan.com/2013/04/picture-kafr-nabl-in-idlib-syria.html
April 13th, 2013, 6:18 am
Juergen said:
Reve
Is this your mother?
April 13th, 2013, 7:09 am
Uzair8 said:
596. Juergen
Alhamdulillah, it’s great to see such high morale of the freedom fighters. MashaAllah.
I guess it’s the inevitable result of the piling up of victories, however, the opposition must be careful and avoid overconfidence and complacency. There is a lot of hard work ahead.
May God be with you brave heroes!
April 13th, 2013, 7:43 am
revenire said:
Juergen my mother is dead.
I am laughing that you slavishly worship a Jewish neocon who is an avowed enemy of Syria. It tends to put things into perspective no?
April 13th, 2013, 9:08 am
Juergen said:
topless jihad reached Marzouki
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xyylcz_topless-jihad-reached-president-of-tunisia_news#.UWlgeTfHTAU
April 13th, 2013, 9:42 am
zoo said:
…
April 13th, 2013, 10:43 am
zoo said:
Report: Saudi Arabia Main Sponsor of Al-Nusra Terrorists in Syria
Saudi Arabia is financing the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front in Syria in a bid to help the terrorists carry out their anti-government operations in the Muslim country, a Palestinian weekly disclosed.
Report: Saudi Arabia Main Sponsor of Al-Nusra Terrorists in Syria
(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – It is the Saudi intelligence apparatus headed by Prince Bandar bin Sultan that supports al-Nusra Front which commits heinous crimes against the Syrian nation with murder, slaughter and explosions, the al-Manar quoted informed sources as saying.
Majority of the criminal ringleaders of al-Nusra front, who are carrying out terrorist activities in Syria, had been jailed in Saudi prisons before being released and sent to Syria via Turkey and other countries, it added.
The Palestinian weekly wrote that the Saudi intelligence officers are in contact with the al-Nursa Front and supply logistic and financial assistance to the terrorist group’s members.
In a similar report in December, al-Manar disclosed that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been financing and supplying armed rebels in Syria with more explosive materials they have recently purchased from the US, Israel and UK in a bid to help the terrorists carry out their anti-government operations in the Arab country.
It wrote that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have smuggled the explosives to Syria with the assistance of the intelligence services of the Syria’s neighboring countries, including Turkey.
The sources also disclosed that there are special terrorist garrisons in Turkey which are administered by the security officers of Israel and western countries.
April 13th, 2013, 10:45 am
zoo said:
Four Italian journalists kidnapped in Syria freed -Italy
ROME (Reuters) – Four Italian journalists kidnapped and held in Syria since April 4 had been freed on Saturday, Italy’s interim Foreign Minister Mario Monti said in a statement.
They had been in Syria to film a documentary about a rebel faction close to al Qaeda, Italian media said.
Though the Foreign Ministry never released the names of the journalists, they have been widely reported by Italian media to be RAI journalist Amedeo Ricucci, freelancers Elio Colavolpe and Andrea Vignali, and Italian-Syrian reporter Susan Dabbous.
Ricucci told ANSA by telephone that the group had been held by an armed Islamist group, that none of them were wounded and all were in good health.
April 13th, 2013, 10:49 am
Dolly Buster said:
And you were ashamed to cite the source as “Fars News Agency Iran” ?
April 13th, 2013, 11:18 am
zoo said:
The Al Nusra-Al Qaeda alliance time bomb
The announcement of the official link between Al Nusra and al Qaeda has created a turmoil in the opposition.
Al Khatib who has vehemently defended the Al Nusra fighters has suddenly been discarded from meeting with the USA. The other SNC leaders who also supported al Nusra are discredited and desperately trying to keep their role.
While some factions of the armed rebels have denied the alliance with Al Qaeda, the majority of the armed rebels are now considered suspicious by the West. Therefore they will get no weapons that may allow them to resist the SAA.
In addition, as the West has pressed the FSA to announce officially the rupture of their alliance with Al Nusra, some leaders have announced discreetly that they disagree with al Nusra.
The result is immediate. The al Nusra fighters are not helping the FSA as it used to and we observe that SAA offensives on the armed rebels are more successful than they have ever be.
The confusion is total in the opposition.
So they resort to the usual tricks, rumors and the media
Now we hear the words “massacre”, ‘chemical weapons”, “cluster bombs” reappearing in the news reported by the desperate activists.
The virus of Al Qaeda is killing the FSA.
The next tougher war will be against the Moslem Brotherhood.
April 13th, 2013, 11:20 am
zoo said:
Dolly
Put your glasses on…
“Report: Saudi Arabia Main Sponsor of Al-Nusra Terrorists in Syria
(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) “
April 13th, 2013, 11:22 am
GEORGES said:
582. GHUFRAN
Camille Otrajki is a regime apologist trying to rebrand himself as a moderate. He completely exposes himself when he shamelessy writes:
“•Working with the Islamists is inevitable and wise. The west can use the power of the Islamists to fight and topple the regime, THEN the west can install secular Syrian opposition allies and remove the Islamists from the scene. If Islamists win the next elections in Syria, it will be not a problem. They will be under control and guidance of Turkey’s moderate Islamists.”
He speaks of dialogue and compromise but this exposes him as what he really is. Whether he likes it or not Islamists are part of syrian society. If he is really sincere about dialogue then he should not alienate them like this. Dialogue only with parties you approve is not dialogue. He really is like the islamic extremists he is afraid of, just the other side of the coin. Secularism is preferable to me and him just as islamism is preferable to a large part of syrians.
We can see exactly through his masquerade what he really is: a Besho apologist having realized that he is losing and trying to salvage his way to a position to prevent complete and total defeat. He would’ve been completely fine had the regime managed to crush the uprising by violence and barbarism like it tried to do. That was his first choice so now he is trying to settle for plan B.
April 13th, 2013, 11:24 am
revenire said:
Dolly like it or not, the Saudis are – and have been, one of the main sponsors of international terrorism for decades.
April 13th, 2013, 11:27 am
zoo said:
Brahimi may quit as UN-Arab League envoy on Syria
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/brahimi-may-quit-as-unarab-league-envoy-on-syria/article4614425.ece
The United Nations and Arab League envoy on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi may be on the verge of quitting, frustrated by the relentless efforts of President Bashar Assad’s foes on seeking “regime change” in Damascus, instead of a diplomatic solution to end the festering crisis.
…
In the words of Rim Turkmani, an opposition leader who belongs to the non-violent Building the Syrian State Movement, the prospects of a diplomatic solution have dimmed sharply because the NCSROF’s charter states “ unequivocally that there can be no negotiations and no dialogue with the regime”.
..
“(Mr.) Brahimi wants to have cooperation of all parties in the conflict but the opposition has not yet agreed to his proposals.”
Without naming specific countries, Mr. Gatilov pointed out that some “external players are obviously not interested in this cooperation”.
April 13th, 2013, 11:27 am
mjabali said:
In Saudi Arabia they breed hate. That country is a joke from the start till now, how it started and why. What a waste. I will be remembered in the text books as a failed state, no matter how you turn it.
April 13th, 2013, 11:30 am
zoo said:
#610 Georges
Your choice of nickname is uncovering you.
April 13th, 2013, 11:32 am
revenire said:
SYRIAN ARMY GRINDS OBAMA’S SALAFIST TERRORIST RATS INTO DUST IN DER’AH!!!
DER’AH:
Only Syrian Perspective delivers on news straight from the front. Our source, Monzer, was in Al-Sanamayn yesterday and saw firsthand the fighting and its aftermath. It was a glorious day for our secular government and great army. Militia played a remarkably constructive role by securing areas cleared of rats by the SAA. In previous times, the SAA might be bogged down with holding cleansed areas. No anymore.
At Al-Sanamayn, we can confirm the deaths of these filthy, disease-carrying rodents:
Abdul-Jabbaar Khulayfaawi
Mansoor Ahmad Al-Beebee
Wafeeq Muhammad Al-Mahaasina
‘Ammaar Mashshaat
Mahmoud Hussayn Khalaayila (Jordanian cockroach)
Jihaad Humayd Al-Haamed
Fu’aad Jaaroodi
Taqiyuddeen ‘Ali Abu-Sakher
Hassan Al-Shaa’er
Firaas Mahmoud Al-A’war
Muhammad Hassan-Ali
Waa’el Muhammad Jumaylaati
Mithqaal Rabee’ Al-Laabi’
Another 14 could not be identified. They are believed to be foreigners. There are more carcasses being identified as we write. Great victory for the SAA and SAAF!! Good show.
http://syrianperspective.blogspot.com/
April 13th, 2013, 11:35 am
zoo said:
The USA strategy for post Assad Syria:
Morphing from Al Qaeda-Taliban to Moslem Brotherhood-Egypt to secular Turkey.
Any shortcut?
April 13th, 2013, 11:37 am
GEORGES said:
612. ZOO
You fool, you need to learn about sharing with people even when you don’t like their ideologies. Otherwise it has nothing to do with democracy or dialogue. It’s a complete sham. Some people have different ideologies, you either repress them, kill them, or have dialogue with them. I thought the point of suggesting dialogue was because you were tired of the first two options.
Otherwise, enjoy your war. It’s not the islamists who are complaining.
April 13th, 2013, 11:38 am
revenire said:
Air Force is doing a great job in Kherbet Ghazalah. Thanks Syria Video. Love this.
April 13th, 2013, 11:40 am
Dolly Buster said:
Same Shiite different Ahl
Iran is trying to discredit KSA, because the prophet said: “Belief returns and goes back to Al-Madinah as a snake returns and goes back to its hole (when in danger).”
The reality is that 2 Wahhabi sects are at war with each other, and therefore Riyad never supports AQ.
April 13th, 2013, 11:41 am
revenire said:
QUMAYNAAS!
FSA IDIOT BURNS TO DEATH HIS OWN COMRADE FROM LIBYA. PHOSPHOROUS GRENADE DOES GREAT JOB INCINERATING LIVING LIBYAN APE!! EXCLUSIVE TO SYRPER!!
That’s right, friends. A reckless FSA provincial was just so anxious to remove any sign of a foreign presence in his “revolution” that he mistakenly thought his Libyan bearded rat comrade was dead and ready for the crematorium. Unfortunately for the dear departed Libyan Barbary monkey, he was still alive. And he discovered this unfortunate fact after his Syrian rube comrade lit him afire. Syrian Army infantrymen watched in horror as the carcass, once alit, leapt up and began screaming. When the young FSA warrior-rodent realized his mistake, he didn’t have the coolness of mind to shoot the wriggling ape and put it out of its misery. Instead he listened for 7 minutes as his partner in crime descended into the lower furnace. Well, at least we can quote the great British director, Ken Russell, who once scripted a movie and wrote: “Hell will hold no surprises for you.”
The Libyan was never identified. The FSA rodent was shot along with another 11 of his rat comrades. No details available. Our condolences to the ape family in Libya.
http://syrianperspective.blogspot.com/
April 13th, 2013, 11:45 am
GEORGES said:
512.ZOO, since you’re taking this path….
A christian who follows christianity would do as Jesus would have done. I know for a fact that had Jesus been here today, he wouldn’t have wanted ANYTHING to do with the criminal regime. He would’ve declared his complete innocence from it.
The only way you could deny it is if you are truly convinced that the regime is not evil. But this is impossible because you are syrian.
I know you know this, it’s completely futile to try and claim otherwise.
April 13th, 2013, 11:58 am
ann said:
Russia not to support new U.N. resolution on Syria – 2013-04-13
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/13/c_132306543.htm
MOSCOW, April 13 (Xinhua) — Russia will vote against a new draft U.N. resolution on Syria, the Foreign Ministry said Saturday.
The document, prepared by a number of countries and to be voted soon at the U.N. General Assembly, is “obviously biased and full of conflicting terms,” said the ministry in a statement.
The resolution blames only the Syrian government for the crisis, completely ignoring external military, logistical and financial support for the opposition and terrorist activities of armed opposition groups, said the ministry.
The authors of the new resolution seek approval from the U.N. General Assembly of its unilateral plan for Syria with the single purpose of regime change, said the statement, adding it ignores “regional and political implications of such a scenario.”
Russia noted that the two previously adopted U.N. General Assembly resolutions with almost identical content only served to complicate the process of peaceful settlement. Moscow, therefore, will not support such a document in the vote, it said.
Meanwhile, Moscow is concerned about the prospect of a new discharge of tension and confrontation over the Syrian issue to the U.N., and urges relevant players to consolidate all parties in Syria to implement the formerly-adopted Geneva Communique, which serves as “the only viable platform for Syrian settlement,” said the ministry.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/13/c_132306543.htm
April 13th, 2013, 11:59 am
Tara said:
Georges,
You are a fine man.
Biased you are NOT, and racism it is NOT.
April 13th, 2013, 12:03 pm
ann said:
Nusra pledge to Qaeda ‘boosts Syria regime’ – 13 April 2013
http://www.france24.com/en/20130413-nusra-pledge-qaeda-boosts-syria-regime
AFP – The public pledge of allegiance to Al-Qaeda by Syria’s fiercest rebel group, Al-Nusra Front, serves the interests of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, analysts say.
“It’s a point in the regime’s favour because it reinforces the official narrative that claims (the army faces) terrorist groups backed by foreign forces,” said Damascus Centre for Strategic Studies head Bassam Abu Abdallah.
“The opposition’s stance is weakened before Syrian and international public opinion,” he said.
Al-Nusra Front’s chief Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani pledged allegiance on Wednesday to Al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is calling for an Islamic state in Syria and the “restoration of an Islamic caliphate”.
“The Syrian opposition cannot justify to the Europeans the jihadist presence in Syria. What will it do after this announcement? It’s embarrassing for the West which is calling for democratic change in Syria,” said Abu Abdallah.
After Al-Nusra’s pledge of allegiance, Abu Abdallah believes the regime will now go all-out on the battlefield. “It’s a green light for the authorities,” he said.
“The situation has become clearer. We are going to see major change on the ground, and intensified military operations to finish this group off,” he added.
But Al-Nusra’s pledge is mainly seen as damaging to international public opinion.
“It certainly puts Western states who oppose Assad’s rule in a sticky situation,” said Charles Lister, an analyst at Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre.
“The West has suspected … Al-Nusra of having Al-Qaeda ties for a long time, and that may well be a key reason for not wanting to arm any rebel group.”
For Thomas Pierret, an Islamic expert, “all one needs to do is look at the Western media frenzy” to realise the resonance of Al-Nusra’s announcement.
Rather than embarrass the West, the announcement has only given it “a new, comfortable pretext to justify their inaction. Despite what they say, somewhat unconvincingly, they don’t really want to help the opposition,” he said.
[…]
http://www.france24.com/en/20130413-nusra-pledge-qaeda-boosts-syria-regime
April 13th, 2013, 12:10 pm
Visitor said:
We must thank KSA, one of the greatest countries on this earth of Allah, established on True Islam by the great efforts of the great renewalist scholar Muhammad Ibn Abd Alwahhab, for continuing to support the holy warriors of Nusra Fighters in Syria and other similar holy warriors who are also engaged in the war of liberation of Syria from the evil hands of the Assadists and the rest of the clan.
Special thanks also go to the most capable Prince Bandar Ibn Sultan for the superb work he has been doing and wish him long long life in order to continue his work in the srevice of Islam and Muslims. May Allah The Al-Mighty rid the Muslims of the likes of Hassoun and Al-Bouti and increase the numbers of those who follow the True and Pure Islam.
April 13th, 2013, 12:15 pm
zoo said:
Georges
“I know for a fact that had Jesus been here today, ”
Really? you know what Jesus would do? Did you have a vision of an angel that told you that? Are you a prophet or a saint? What don’t you go announce this ‘fact’ to christian Syrians in churches?
You don’t fool me dear, choosing a christian nickname does not make you christian, and all your posts show that you are impersonating someone you are not.
Watch it, the dragon has many lives.
April 13th, 2013, 12:18 pm
zoo said:
There has been much more rebels killed before, then why is killing of 12 rebels in an ambush making the headlines of the New-York times and many Western media?
Syrian Forces Kill 12 Rebels in an Ambush
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/world/middleeast/syria-war-developments.html?_r=0
Published: April 13, 2013
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Syrian government troops trying to relieve a besieged military base in the country’s northwest ambushed a rebel checkpoint on Saturday, killing at least 12 opposition fighters, activists said.
April 13th, 2013, 12:27 pm
GEORGES said:
624. ZOO
I guess Father Paolo must also be a sheikh in disguise. Get the hell outta there you fool. Christianity has nothing to do with this criminal regime. DO NOT tarnish Jesus’s image by associating him with it. You are walking on thin ice and you risk falling into blasphemy at any time now, if you haven’t already.
April 13th, 2013, 12:32 pm
Juergen said:
The Omari mosque in Deraa, built by Omar bin al-Khattab & birthplace of the Syrian revolution and an other landmark of Syria has been destroyed.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=443545932396589&set=vb.168536393214693&type=2&theater
April 13th, 2013, 12:33 pm
Visitor said:
If Jesus comes back to life, he will definitely become a Muslim. He will also dissociate himself from any church organized under his name.
April 13th, 2013, 12:42 pm
Visitor said:
On the other hand, mulah-stani delusions know no bounds,
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/ar/nowspecialar/مقرب-من-خامنئي-المصريون-محرومون-من-نعمة-ولي-الفقيه-iran-egypt-
April 13th, 2013, 12:45 pm
revenire said:
The birthplace of the revolution is London-Washington-Paris-Riyadh-Tel Aviv etc not some small town full of terrorist rats.
If the terrorists were not in the town and not hiding in a mosque there would be no reason for the army to be there.
April 13th, 2013, 12:45 pm
revenire said:
I must admit that I loved seeing the rat nest in Deraa being destroyed.
April 13th, 2013, 12:50 pm
Uzair8 said:
Is this true?
‘The leader Sayed Khamenei was asked recently about the Hezbollah fallen fighters in Syria, he replied:
“Those who died fighting israel are like Badr martyres. Those are dying now in Syria are like Karbala martyres” ‘
Source
April 13th, 2013, 12:55 pm
majedkhaldoun said:
George
Suppose An Alawi state is established in the northwest, where there are many christians there, what will happen to them?, the rest of christians also live in the rebels control area,what will be their fate?
April 13th, 2013, 1:03 pm
Uzair8 said:
Abdel Bari Atwan, not exactly a friend of the revolution, in a recent article:
Golan: Wily Assad’s manipulations
April 10 2013
[…]
‘The Syrian revolution, the first spark of which was ignited in Dar’a, made fair demands to achieve democratic change and justice, preserve the dignity of the Syrian people, and put an end to dictatorship and the security agencies’ domination. This is why it has earned the entire world’s respect and support.’
April 13th, 2013, 1:06 pm
GEORGES said:
The “either US or THEM” attitude is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. One would think that after all this war and killing, regime apologists would have learned the lesson. I guess I was wrong, the only thing that has changed is that the “US” camp have been redefined to include secular opposition too because of the greater islamist threat (in their eyes).
That won’t work you fools, because of the principles the secular opposition is fighting for.
Only fools don’t learn from their mistakes.
April 13th, 2013, 1:10 pm
zoo said:
Georges
Post after post, you offer move proofs that Christianity has nothing to do with you…
You are just a uncovered impersonator.
April 13th, 2013, 1:22 pm
zoo said:
“If Jesus comes back to life, he will definitely become a Muslim”
and seeing what you have done with Islam, the prophet Mohammad will immediately convert to Budhism.
April 13th, 2013, 1:26 pm
GEORGES said:
ZOO,
The only proof that is being offered here is proof of how much of an idiot you are.
Keep going.
April 13th, 2013, 1:27 pm
MarigoldRan said:
The war continues.
April 13th, 2013, 1:31 pm
zoo said:
#640 Georges
Jesus told you to treat me of idiot? It sounds very christian to call names.
You are an impersonator and your posts reflects exactly that.
April 13th, 2013, 1:31 pm
GEORGES said:
ZOO, supporting an evil regime that slaughters anything against it is certainly more christian than calling someone an idiot because that’s what he is.
I don’t see much of a difference between you and the islamic extremists.
Keep going.
April 13th, 2013, 1:36 pm
zoo said:
Georges
You seem to love using the words “fool”, “idiot”. I am waiting for AIG’s ‘vile hypocrite”.
That will make you his blood brother.
April 13th, 2013, 1:41 pm
revenire said:
Georges you remind me of AIG. Hmm.
Please leave. As my now departed friend said, this is a pro-Assad forum. Let’s not forget that.
April 13th, 2013, 1:50 pm
zoo said:
France and Qatar forgotten success story : Libya
Libya’s future looks bleak as media focus turns elsewhere
World View: Two years after Nato’s intervention, the militias are still terrorising the country
Patrick Cockburn
Sunday 7 April 2013
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/libyas-future-looks-bleak-as-media-focus-turns-elsewhere-8563076.html
The second anniversary of Nato’s intervention on the side of the Libyan rebels and against Muammar Gaddafi passed with scarcely a mention by foreign governments and media who were so concerned about the security and human rights of the Libyan people in 2011.
This should be no surprise, since Libya today is visibly falling apart as a country and Libyans are at the mercy of militiamen who prey on those whom they formerly claimed to protect.
…
National self-determination should be at the heart of any new order. But a problem for the Arab Spring revolts is that they have all been highly dependent on outside support.
But, as what has happened in Iraq and Libya shows, foreign intervention is always self-interested. Revolutionaries in all eras look to opportunistic outside powers to help them, but for long-term success they must end this dependency just as soon as they can.
And they must build a strong law-abiding state, because, if they do not, a fresh crop of dictators is waiting in the wings
April 13th, 2013, 2:06 pm
Sami said:
I love how the *[vile] hypocrite that filled these pages with numerous posts under different aliases at once has the all of a sudden cared about the nicknames people choose.
Maybe Zoo you should get a whole bunch of other nicknames and high five yourself as you did with Bronco, irritated, and Why-Discuss in the recent past and pretend further that there are “more” of you….
Only fools like you with a backbone of a snake will go down the hypocritical route you keep paving for yourself, and yet have the tenacity to lecture us on morality.
* couldn’t help but insert vile after reading the idiots latest response.
April 13th, 2013, 2:08 pm
revenire said:
Juergen you don’t think Olly Lambert is biased against Syria? Go read his Twitter feed. He is absolutely against Syria making his Frontline show near worthless (except to study propaganda).
April 13th, 2013, 2:09 pm
revenire said:
Sami how many names do you have?
April 13th, 2013, 2:10 pm
zoo said:
#647 Sami
I don’t care what nickname people use, let them use 100 ones. I am sure many have changed nicknames and that’s perfectly legal.
But if anyone impersonates a christian when he/she is jewish or moslem or shia when he/she is a sunni or vice-versa or a pro-regime when he/she is anti-regime just to play mind games, I find this dishonest and despicable. But I just can’t stop it, this is a free blog. I just can say what I think.
In any case don’t jump in to give me moral advices, no one is entitled to do that.
April 13th, 2013, 2:23 pm
zoo said:
Four Italian journalists freed by jihadist kidnappers in Syria
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9992220/Four-Italian-journalists-freed-by-jihadist-kidnappers-in-Syria.html
A woman journalist has told how a group of jihadist kidnappers threatened to cut her hands off after abducting her in Syria.
…
Ms Dabbous, who was travelling into Syria for Italy’s Rai TV, said the group was detained in a Christian town in northern Syria where they had been filming churches that had been destroyed and daubed with graffiti. The kidnappers kept her blindfolded during her entire time in captivity.
“They treated me well physically, but I was afraid they would kill me,” she said. “Up until yesterday, they were also using psychological torture, threatening to cut off my hands because they thought I was going to write a report about them. I was very frightened.”
The hostage-takers were believed to have included Algerian and Moroccans among their number. Ms Dabbous said that they were abducted as they wandered around a desecrated church. “They thought that we were going to attribute it to them, although we do not know who actually did this damage to the church,” she said.
April 13th, 2013, 2:31 pm
Majed97 said:
Georges,
If you have to choose today between the regime and Islamists, which would you choose? I know it’s too simplistic of a question, but it is really that simple. I agree that in a perfect Syrian world, these should not be the only options, but considering the reality on the ground, that’s virtually all you got in Syria today; so take your pick…
BTW, I don’t really care if you’re Christian or not, just as you shouldn’t care if I am a Sunni or not, this regional war (not civil war or revolution) was never about freedom, democracy, or sects. Just look at the players and their backers, not to mention their slogans and banners, and try to reconcile the sharp contradictions and hypocrisies in their midst. Other than the Islamists, none of the others have yet defined a unified and clear vision of what kind of Syria they’re fighting for; all they could muster is: Assad must go! which is what Syria’s traditional enemies have dictated to them. They’re not even calling for a free UN-supervised election to determine if Assad should stay or go, which I would strongly support. I find it hard to believe that anyone is fooled by these ironies, particularly Christians who have a lot more to lose should the Islamists win.
All reports and indications, including those by western media, clearly show that the overwhelming majority of Syrian Christians stand firmly with the regime, not because it’s perfect, but because the alternative scares the hell out of them, just as it scares the other minorities, and a good chunk of moderate and secular Sunnies.
A secular, independent and democratic Syria is what I wish for; just as you seem to wish for. So, as a follow up to my question above, which one the two fighting factions (Islamists or regime) in you opinion is more likely to deliver us that?
April 13th, 2013, 2:48 pm
GEORGES said:
ZOO probably thinks this man is an imposter too:
http://www.dampress.net/photo/arabe/keloo.jpg
April 13th, 2013, 2:49 pm
GEORGES said:
MAJED97
What I would choose if it came to the false dilemma you are proposing is irrelevant because other syrians are perfectly entitled to choose the other. My opinion is not worth more than the other’s opinion.
You either find a way to conciliate most people or you enjoy the war and stop complaining.
The way I see it is, proposing dialogue that alienates most syrians who are currently involved in the fighting destroys the point of conducting dialogue in the first place. No progress will have been made. Nothing will have changed. The war will continue.
This is of course if you accept that most rebels are syrians. If you think most of them are foreign terrorists like the regime is trying to convince its followers, then none of what I’m saying will make sense.
April 13th, 2013, 3:12 pm
Sami said:
Yes anyone can choose to write under multiple names, but only you had conversations with your multiple aliases. Don’t you find that despicable and dishonest?
And mr Sherlock Holmes what exactly did Georges say that makes him unChristian in your eyes? Is it the fact he happens to come from a minority and does not support your besho?
I guess to you my uncles wife who comes from Qurdaha is not an Alawite even though she comes from one of the most prominent Alawite families that rose to prominence before your Havez Abu Ra’as….
_____________
Juvenile,
I write under Sami, my given name. I wrote under Son of Damascus until a close one was killed by torture and my family’s 120 year old factory burnt down because we sheltered displaced Syrians. I hide from no one and I deceive no one. Unlike your cohort and yourself…
April 13th, 2013, 3:20 pm
revenire said:
Context: “Death from the Skies”
Recently, Human Rights Watch published an eighty-page report on Syrian government airstrikes, claiming to have visited fifty sites of airstrikes which killed 152 civilians. More so, the report claims that ” according to a network of local Syrian activists, air strikes have killed more than 4,300 civilians across Syria since July 2012.” Media reporting of the conflict has been implementing and engaging a narrative that the Syrian government is indiscriminately targeting the civilian population, sometimes claiming that this is a form of punishment. The audience is led to believe that the death toll as claimed by the UN, is largely made of of civilian casualties due to government brutality. A closer look at this report, as well as previous analysis of the context in numbers, reveal a more realistic summary of the situation. If the observer delves deeper into the story, the narrative of the media is at extreme odds with the portrayal of a regime that is brutally targeted it’s own population.
Before reading the report, it is critical to understand and implement key protocol for dealing with reports, as in this case, “provocatively titled Death from the Skies”, which serves to compound the dramatic reporting of the conflict.
The figures (i.e. death toll) are used as political tools. Western commentators, both political and in the media, fail to make the critical distinction between combatant and non-combatant. Therefore, we cannot come by an accurate picture of the conflict. This critical question, of what percentage of the toll accounts for combatants, would lead to an undermining of the consistent narrative of a regime hell bent on slaughtering its own population.
The data is questionable to begin with. The source quoted by almost all media outlets is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) which is administered by a Syrian expat living in Coventry, England. The operation is vehemently anti-government and makes no secret of it. The Guardian’s article on the death toll is a worth a read.
Significantly, little or nothing is said about civilian casualties as a result of actions of the armed groups in Syria. Hundreds of videos exists of mortars, heavy artillery and crude, homemade rockets being fired indiscriminately toward heavily built up and sometimes clearly populated areas. We’re not been given the full picture.
Even if we take the statistics and claims in the HRW as correct, then the “4,300 civilians have been killed in the regime’s aerial bombardments from July 2012- March 2013″, it appears (using the death toll report from that time period) that this toll accounts for 9% of the entire death toll of 50,000.
Of course, the airstrikes are a reality. There can be absolutely no denying that civilians are killed as a result. The conflict has mostly uprooted the normalcy of everyday life in Syria and has severely disrupted the lives of civilians who have had no choice but to escape to refugee camps in neighbouring countries. The conflict is harrowing and heartbreaking.
The media is sometimes keen to portray an image of a situation where civilians are forced to leave “due to the violence of Assad”, despite the total absence of any study to ascertain the reasons of refugees having fled over the borders.
Importantly, little is said about armed group’s own admissions, about infiltrating population centers, be it towns or villages, forcing the government forces to respond leading to inevitable insurmountable suffering of the residents – injury, displacement or death. Indeed, armed groups who haven’t succeeding in infiltrating Damascus en masse have resorted to firing crude weapons mentioned above – rockets, mortars and sometimes improvised air-to-ground rocket pods mounted on vehicles.
We encourage our readers to read Musa al-Gharbi’s latest piece dealing with the HRW report.
http://www.sismec.org/2013/04/13/distortions-lies-and-death-from-the-skies-2/
http://syriareport.net/context-death-from-the-skies/
April 13th, 2013, 3:36 pm
revenire said:
Sami spare me your fairy tales. I don’t know who you are and don’t care. You could be Bill Scherk for all I care. If you had a relative who died at the hands of our army I am sure they deserved it.
April 13th, 2013, 3:37 pm
Sami said:
Well I hope you join your mother soon Juvenile… Would hate for her to miss out on the abomination she shat out….
April 13th, 2013, 3:45 pm
zoo said:
Sami
Who cares that your uncle’s wife “comes from one of the most prominent Alawite families that rose to prominence before your Havez Abu Ra’as”?
I wonder why you bring this up unless your mind is in a dangerous state of confusion and psychosis.
If you are coming out of a trauma, this blog is certainly not therapeutic. In the state where you seem to be, I think you should avoid it.
Maybe Georges can give you some ‘christian’ advices, unless you prefer AIG’s zionist advices, Visitor’s Wahhabist advices or Majedalkhadoon’s Moslem Brotherhood advices. Tara can also help you out.
In any case I can’t help you out of your depression, sorry.
By the way, I don’t think that calling people names is therapeutic either. It just shows a lack of self-control.
April 13th, 2013, 4:06 pm
revenire said:
That’s it Sami – wish death on me. Show your real colors. You’re a terrorist. You’re like all Nusra supporters of this “revolution” sent by the British and Saudi empire.
My solace comes from the fact Assad has won and your mercenary rats are being killed in great numbers every single day all over Syria.
April 13th, 2013, 4:14 pm
zoo said:
#655 Sami
“Don’t you find that despicable and dishonest?”
No, why? Can you elaborate?
April 13th, 2013, 4:24 pm
Tara said:
Sami,
Ignore Reve. He thrives on the rare reactions that he gets here or there. He will lose interest when he gets no reactions plus he carries no weight.
April 13th, 2013, 4:26 pm
revenire said:
April 13th, 2013, 4:26 pm
revenire said:
Rats really getting their clocks cleaned in the south. Guess the “battle for Damascus” will have to be put off for a long time now.
This is a lovely Syria Video short clip. I watched it in slow motion because of the level of enjoyment.
Cheers.
April 13th, 2013, 4:31 pm
revenire said:
Tara why isn’t the FSA Air Force protecting Daraa? 🙂
April 13th, 2013, 4:33 pm
Tara said:
Enjoy one more tale of the “heroism” of the Syrian army.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/14/giles-duley-syria-conflict-photographs
Giles Duley, the award-winning photojournalist who escaped with his life but lost three limbs after stepping on a landmine in Afghanistan in 2011, recently returned to Kabul to document amputee victims of the war. Now he has turned his attention to Syrian war victims in Jordan, many of whom have suffered horrendous injuries during the conflict.
Duley came across 24-year-old Lubna during a visit to the Zaatari camp while documenting the work of Handicap International. He was struck by the plight of Lubna, who has been told she will not walk again.
..
“Lubna was a student at Damascus University and was married,” said Duley. “She had been travelling on a bus when it was attacked by the Syrian army. She was shot in the spine, and others on the bus were killed. It took three hours for her to be rescued, because snipers were shooting and killing people trying to approach the bus.”
When Lubna did manage to reach hospital, medical staff were afraid to treat her, so she was smuggled across the border. Since arriving in Jordan she has been told she will not walk again. To compound her problems, her husband – a policeman – has divorced her after she told him that she would not return to Syria.
April 13th, 2013, 4:35 pm
zoo said:
Exposed: Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is EU-Funded Fraud
NYT admits fraudulent Syrian human rights group is UK-based “one-man band” funded by EU and one other “European country.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34582.htm
…
The New York Times also for the first time reveals that Abdul Rahman’s operation is indeed funded by the European Union and a “European country” he refuses to identify:
Money from two dress shops covers his minimal needs for reporting on the conflict, along with small subsidies from the European Union and one European country that he declines to identify.
nd while Abdul Rahman refuses to identify that “European country,” it is beyond doubt that it is the United Kingdom itself – as Abdul Rahman has direct access to the Foreign Secretary William Hague, who he has been documented meeting in person on multiple occasions at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London.
The NYT in fact reveals that it was the British government that first relocated Abdul Rahman to Coventry, England after he fled Syria over a decade ago because of his anti-government activities:
When two associates were arrested in 2000, he fled the country, paying a human trafficker to smuggle him into England. The government resettled him in Coventry, where he decided he liked the slow pace.
Abdul Rahman is not a “human rights activist.” He is a paid propagandist. He is no different than the troupe of unsavory, willful liars and traitors provided refuge in Washington and London during the Iraq war and the West’s more recent debauchery in Libya, for the sole purpose of supplying Western governments with a constant din of propaganda and intentionally falsified intelligence reports designed specifically to justify the West’s hegemonic designs.
April 13th, 2013, 4:39 pm
zoo said:
Tara
There are as many horrors stories on both sides. Wars on cities are always ruthless and civilians pay more then fighters.
Look at this map: Most of the death toll reported came after the protesters started to arm themselves to “protect” civilians.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Weekly_deaths_over_the_course_of_the_Syrian_civil_war.PNG
That’s why it is time to stop this violence without delay and without putting political conditions.
This ‘revolution’ has failed. It’s time to change the tune and engage in negotiations to stop the violence without conditining it with a predetermined political agenda. Let the Syrians decide what they want when violence stops.
April 13th, 2013, 4:56 pm
Sami said:
I only mention it because people like you deny the fact this revolution is not a sectarian fight to eliminate minorities. She risked her life numerous times bringing help and aid to her fellow Syrians when low people like yourself denied her existence and labeled us mundasseen. People like her are the true identity of Syrians, those that put their country before their own misplaced concerns. Had traitors such as yourself stood up for the ordinary Syrian like she did instead of calling him an 3ar3ouri mundas our country would not be in the pile of rubble it is.
People like you are just as guilty as Assad and his murdering shabeeha. You might have not killed anyone but your callous disregard of your fellow people for your own misplaced security in a brutal and autocratic dictator does not make you any better than the butchers that cut Hamzah Al-Khatibs privates off.
Khuntuh Al-Balad bil Assad!
April 13th, 2013, 5:14 pm
majedkhaldoun said:
Zoo said
This ‘revolution’ has failed.
I think you are adding too much fulful to your Falafel,the revolution has not failed,your list of unfulfilled predictions is getting very long
April 13th, 2013, 5:35 pm
Sami said:
Oh yeah before I forget only a vile hypocrite like you would find no qualms in having conversations with yourself while trying to deceit the rest of us that in fact there are more regime supporters on this blog when half of them were just you masquerading under numerous names.
You stink of Baathist deceit!
April 13th, 2013, 5:39 pm
revenire said:
LOL oooo Sami so angry.
April 13th, 2013, 5:54 pm
Uzair8 said:
The people’s struggle will continue until our eyes shall have the pleasure of seeing victory.
April 13th, 2013, 6:05 pm
revenire said:
Uzair8 you’re all going to end up like this guy:
Surrender and throw yourself at the mercy of the president.
There is no other choice.
April 13th, 2013, 6:14 pm
revenire said:
FSA Terrorist Gets Face Blown Off By Syrian Arab Army
http://trutube.tv/video/5482/FSA-Terrorist-Gets-Face-Blown-Off-By-Syrian-Arab-Army
Salute the brave heroes of the SAA. Well done boys!
April 13th, 2013, 6:17 pm
habib said:
Scholarly article that questions the Gulf sponsored narrative: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mepo.12003/full#ss2
Joshua or whoever should post it on the main page.
April 13th, 2013, 6:17 pm
Uzair8 said:
Only chemical weapons can stop the people’s struggle, however, that would mean foreign intervention.
April 13th, 2013, 6:20 pm
ghufran said:
The time when a dignified solution to Syria’s conflict has passed, I see no chance of a “soft landing”. People revolt so they can have a better life, and governments fight to preserve security and unity, both objectives are lost, you are wasting your time here, do what you can to get as many Syrians out as possible and if that is not doable try to send money to feed the hungry, the Syria you all said that you love is GONE.
Egypt is probably next.
April 13th, 2013, 6:21 pm
Dolly Buster said:
The war will be finished when Assad’s head is open, and photographed. The war will not end until then, nor continue afterwards.
April 13th, 2013, 6:25 pm
Uzair8 said:
Ramadan starts ~9th July.
Can the exhausted regime survive another Ramadan with all it’s increased challenges?
April 13th, 2013, 6:40 pm
revenire said:
QUMAYNAAS!
FSA IDIOT BURNS TO DEATH HIS OWN COMRADE FROM LIBYA. PHOSPHOROUS GRENADE DOES GREAT JOB INCINERATING LIVING LIBYAN APE!! EXCLUSIVE TO SYRPER!!
That’s right, friends. A reckless FSA provincial was just so anxious to remove any sign of a foreign presence in his “revolution” that he mistakenly thought his Libyan bearded rat comrade was dead and ready for the crematorium. Unfortunately for the dear departed Libyan Barbary monkey, he was still alive. And he discovered this unfortunate fact after his Syrian rube comrade lit him afire. Syrian Army infantrymen watched in horror as the carcass, once alit, leapt up and began screaming. When the young FSA warrior-rodent realized his mistake, he didn’t have the coolness of mind to shoot the wriggling ape and put it out of its misery. Instead he listened for 7 minutes as his partner in crime descended into the lower furnace. Well, at least we can quote the great British director, Ken Russell, who once scripted a movie and wrote: “Hell will hold no surprises for you.”
The Libyan was never identified. The FSA rodent was shot along with another 11 of his rat comrades. No details available. Our condolences to the ape family in Libya.
F`
https://www.facebook.com/SyrianPerspective
April 13th, 2013, 6:55 pm
ann said:
As Reuters Brags of Bagging Syria Letters, For & From Whom, Threats to Leave
By Matthew Russell Lee, Media Critique
http://www.innercitypress.com/reuters1syrialeave041113.html
UNITED NATIONS, April 11 — In the stand-off between Syria and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s UN on whether to start a chemical weapons probe with one site or agree on more before beginning, the use of who leaks to whom, and why, has come to the fore.
Reuters brags that Syrian foreign minister Walid al “Moualem also complained about the leak of previous letters exchanged between Syria and the United Nations to Reuters, saying it ‘left the impression of a lack of seriousness on the part of the (UN) secretariat on cooperation in good faith.’”
Beyond the bragging, a question being asked is who leaks to whom, and why? How does a negotiation letter from Syria to Ban Ki-moon and his German negotiator Angela Kane get leaked to Reuters, in Reuters own description?
Either Ban’s UN Secretariat gives it to Reuters, or there is a middle man. Some surmise that Ban’s UN gives the letter to the Missions of the UK or France, which in turn give it to Reuters.
(This is not unlike, at a lower level, the UN’s photos of its raid on Inner City Press’ office on March 18 being leaked to BuzzFeed on March 21, through an anonymous “Concerned UN Reporter” — not unrelated to Reuters, not unrelated at all.)
Journalists general like leaks, and Inner City Press is no exception. But there are different kinds of “leaks.” When the Bush Administration gave material about Iraq to Judith Miller, and she gave them anonymous, was that a good leak? An honorable leak? A “scoop”?
While an angry individual whistleblower in the UN Secretariat might be one thing, for the Ban Ki-moon administration to intentional leak the negotiating document submitted to it be a member state would be a problem. Since the UN is owned by all 193 member states, who would authorize such a leak?
But perhaps Ban’s UN would think it fine to share Syria’s letter with France and the UK (one wonders if this would go the other way).
One would expect a “no leaking” commitment be sought and obtained, but who knows?
While one is for some reason not supposed to say so, Reuters is often used by the UK, French and other other missions for intentional leaks. This makes Reuters’ UN bureau and its bureau chief valuable to these important Permanent Five members of the UN Security Council.
(Again turning to the smaller press freedom picture, this is what makes it so outrageous that Reuters UN bureau chief threatened that if the UN did not throw Inner City Press out, he would have no choice but to ask about transferring out of the UN to another beat at Reuters.
Given the functions he and Reuters serve at the UN, at least for some important Missions, was that an appropriate threat?
Did he inform the big wigs at Reuters about it, and do they stand behind it?
They have been urged to inquire into their UN bureau’s anti-Press moves, in their own names and as anonymous trolls. (Which has continued.)
[…]
http://www.innercitypress.com/reuters1syrialeave041113.html
April 13th, 2013, 7:18 pm
revenire said:
UN is influenced by US-UK and Saudi and Qatari money. They’re prostitutes.
April 13th, 2013, 7:32 pm
revenire said:
One of the holy warriors got a one-way ticket to Hell.
Looks like he will not be bothering any more Syrians.
April 13th, 2013, 7:48 pm
ann said:
682. revenire said:
One of the holy warriors got a one-way ticket to Hell.
He’s wearing a Saudi military uniform!
April 13th, 2013, 8:09 pm
MarigoldRan said:
Not much to say unless you’re a retard who delights in gratuitous violence.
The war continues.
April 13th, 2013, 8:25 pm
revenire said:
I delight in dead rats and thanks to Syria Video I can get my fill.
The army is protecting the homeland by killing them and the more they kill the better it is for everyone – even the rats. No mother or father wants their son to come home a crazed dog. I have read of fathers shooting their sons on the spot for betraying the homeland.
The war continues.
April 13th, 2013, 9:01 pm
zoo said:
#674 Habib
Thanks for pointing out this excellent and well documented study that demonstrates what many anti-opposition believe.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mepo.12003/full#ss2
Syria Contextualized: The Numbers Game
By Musa al-Gharbi, Middle East Policy Council
Outreach scholar with the University of Arizona’s Center for Mideast Studies, and a research fellow with the Southwest Initiative for the Study of Mideast Conflict (SISMEC). He is a former FLAS Fellow and graduate teaching assistant in the Philosophy Department at the University of Arizona.
The popular discourse on the Syrian conflict has largely taken for granted that Bashar al-Assad and his regime are unpopular in Syria, the revolution is widely supported domestically, the rebels are “winning” the war, and the fall of the regime is inevitable and imminent.
To justify their interpretation of the conflict, opposition activists, Western policy makers and media outlets make frequent reference to a number of “facts,” often statistical in nature. However, should we contextualize this data more rigorously, it becomes apparent that a radically different dynamic may be at work “on the ground” in Syria.
This becomes important, as a more nuanced understanding of what is happening will have implications for what strategy the United States should pursue, particularly given our experience in Iraq.
CLAIM 1
60,000 Syrians Killed
One of the primary reasons offered for supporting regime change in Syria is the Assad regime’s supposed “indiscriminate butchering” of its “own people.”…. This is not unique to the situation in Syria; such methods have been used elsewhere, recently in Bosnia and Kosovo.3
CLAIM 2
Most Have Been Civilians
CLAIM 3
Bashar Is Unpopular
Of course, these claims are not based on polling data from within Syria. Instead, this impression is derived largely from the testimony of expatriates and rebel groups, both of which have vested interests in perpetuating this narrative.
CLAIM 4
The Insurrection Represents Popular Will
We have seen that there are good reasons to suspect that Bashar al-Assad is more popular within Syria than he is typically portrayed. Does this imply that the rebellion is less popular? More important, how can we evaluate public support of the rebels?
CLAIM 5
The Regime Controls Only 30 Percent
CLAIM 6
Jihadists Are Only 10 Percent of Fighters
While it may be true, strictly speaking, that only 10 percent of the rebel fighters are from jihadist groups, this statistic belies the immense influence that this relatively small population has had on the trajectory of the conflict.
CONCLUSIONS
Over the course of this analysis, we have seen that the regime may not be as “indiscriminate” as has been portrayed, nor are the rebels’ methods more ethical than those of their adversary.
It seems as though the regime may be more popular than is portrayed and that the opposition may not enjoy as much support or legitimacy from the general population.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the dynamics on the ground appear to favor the regime.37 Though continued support of the rebels may escalate and propagate the conflict, it seems unlikely that the opposition will prevail without direct foreign military intervention.
…
April 13th, 2013, 9:08 pm
Tara said:
The “heroic” acts of of Assad’s army now documented by Nstionsl Geography. Enjoy the “fame”.
http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/661/cache/children-conflict-syria-funeral_66189_600x450.jpg
Ahmed collapses in sobs at the funeral of his father, Abdulaziz Abu Ahmed Khrer, who was killed by a sniper’s bullet.
April 13th, 2013, 9:16 pm
Tara said:
The “rats children” that started the revolution.
More than two years after the start of the Syrian uprising, the BBC has spoken exclusively to some of the boys whose actions helped spark the country’s revolution.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22140807
April 13th, 2013, 9:26 pm
revenire said:
The British, Americans, Saudis and Israelis started the revolution.
April 13th, 2013, 9:36 pm
zoo said:
Arab Idol Abdel Karim Hamdan sings for his city Alep, wounded by the war.
April 13th, 2013, 9:40 pm
Tara said:
Congratulation to Assad and his lovers for burning the country.
April 13th, 2013, 10:13 pm
revenire said:
We’re not done yet Tara. We have many more rat nests to burn.
April 13th, 2013, 10:47 pm
mjabali said:
What about the new al-Nusra video in which the man speaking like a Shia about the Mahdi and co… really strange
the title for the video is :
إعلان البيعة لعبد الله الهاشمي
Would love to hear what the Nusra lovers on this board have to say about this video.
April 13th, 2013, 11:10 pm
Ghufran said:
That wonderful singer, Abdul Karim Hamdan, is Syria’s voice today, his performance brought tears to many eyes. Aleppo and Syria in general, did not deserve all of that death and destruction.
April 13th, 2013, 11:14 pm
Johannes de Silentio said:
689. MOSSIE
“The British, Americans, Saudis and Israelis started the revolution”
No, assface. Your boy Bashar started it when his thugs pulled the fingernails and toenails off some poor kids in Dara’a as punishment for a little graffiti mischief…
A New Bashar Cartoon
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/dailystar/Comics/12-04-2013/NUSRA%20DS_635013279200344988_main.jpg
April 13th, 2013, 11:15 pm
majedkhaldoun said:
The big lie,the fake video,there is no one named Mohammad al Jawlani,the claim that Jawlani takes order from Qa-ideh leader Zawahiri, is fake made by the syrian intelligence,Jabhat Al Nusra has no connection to Qaidah,it is a lie by Syrian intelligence to prevent the West from arming the FSA,several members of JN said they never heared of Jawlani before, they never met him,and they said they have no connection to Zawahiri or alQaidah.
JN is syrian 100%,,the ploy by Syrian intelligence will backfire,as the truth is uncovered
April 13th, 2013, 11:20 pm
ann said:
694. Ghufran said:
That wonderful singer, Abdul Karim Hamdan, is Syria’s voice today, his performance brought tears to many eyes. Aleppo and Syria in general, did not deserve all of that death and destruction
You’re a good man Dr. Ghufran. God bless you
April 13th, 2013, 11:21 pm
majedkhaldoun said:
The other fake video,about king of Jordan to be Amir al Mu2mineen is another fake video by the Syrian intelligence ,it seems the Syrian intelligence is waging media war.
Ann blessing Ghufran,Evil blessing devil
April 13th, 2013, 11:31 pm
mjabali said:
Just went and watched the new Nusra video again. It is strange.
April 13th, 2013, 11:37 pm
ann said:
April 14th, 2013, 12:17 am
ann said:
NATO To The Rescue Of Al-Qaeda Mercenary Terrorists in Syria!
News Analysis: U.S., Western allies busy securing scenarios for intervention in Syria – 2013-04-14
Several new developments in Syria have deepened the conviction that Washington and its Western allies have prepared scenarios to justify their positions if they decide to intervene in Syria, even though official rhetoric refers otherwise
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/14/c_124577416.htm
SYRIA’S CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Since last year, the Untied States and several European countries have floated fears of Syria’s chemical weapons “falling into the wrong hands” if the Syrian administration falls. Israel also said it had plans to intervene to secure those arsenals in case of a “regime collapse.”
While Washington said the Syrian administration’s use of chemical weapons would be “a red line” to trigger military intervention, Damascus repeatedly stressed “even if we have such weapons we will not use them,” but warned that the rebels might obtain chemical bombs and use it against civilians to frame the Syrian army and draw in foreign military actions.
Last month, the Syrian government accused the rebels of firing a rocket stuffed with chemical materials at the pro-government town of Khan al-Asal in the northern province of Aleppo. The attack led to the death of at least 26 people, 11 of whom were army personnel, as the rocket landed near a military outpost.
Syria has urged the UN to send a “technical team” to investigate the bombed site, but the UN said it wanted an expanded probe on several areas, not only Khan al-Asal. Damascus dismissed the expanded probe as an attempt to infringe upon the Syrian sovereignty and said it ran counter to its original request.
But western media now splash a thick black headline reading: ” British scientists find evidence of Syrian chemical attack.”
A secret British operation has smuggled out a soil sample which provides the first forensic evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, Britain’s The Times newspaper said Saturday.
It said the British scientists working at the Ministry of Defense’s research facility at Porton Down, Wiltshere, found traces of “some kind of chemical weapon” after performing tests.
If proven the weapons were used by the government forces, the new tests would add to growing pressure for the West to intervene or at least begin arming the Syrian rebels, the British Telegraph said Saturday.
Moreover, the rebel Free Syrian Army has fanned the flames, alleging on Saturday that the Syrian army would use the chemical weapons in its fight against the rebels to push them away from the surrounding suburbs of the capital.
Mohammad Refai, a political analyst, backed the theory of the Syrian government that the western-backed rebels had planned and carried out attacks using chemical weapons in Syria because “this is the very scenario that the Obama administration said represented its ‘red line’ on military intervention in Syria.”
“It’s not in the interest of the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons in fighting rebels because the results would play in the hands of the rebels,” he told Xinhua.
AL-QAIDA DECLARATION OF ISLAMIC STATE IN SYRIA
Another element that spiked fears of another “war on terrorism” in the region was the recent declaration by the Iraqi wing of al- Qaida that the al-Nusra Front radical group in Syria was part of the global terror network.
The declaration, made on Tuesday by Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, came just two days after al-Qaida’s central leader Ayman al-Zawahiri urged the unification of jihad in Syria, and was followed by al-Nusra’s leader’s promise of allegiance.
The Syrian government has consistently warned that al-Qaida had been making use of the Syrian crisis and that it was behind the explosions and disturbances nationwide.
The al-Qaida declaration came also one day ahead of the Group of Eight nations’ meeting, when the exiled Syrian opposition called on the sidelines of the meeting for lethal aid but were not promised anything.
Experts believe that the declaration’s timing was meant to coincide with talks of the chemical weapons’ usage to nurture the West’s fears of the expanding role of al-Qaida in the country, which would add another reason for possible intervention under the title of “fighting terrorism.”
TARGETING SYRIA’S AIRPORTS, AIRFIELDS
Over the past year, the armed rebels in Syria backed with al- Nusra Front have deliberately attacked several airbases across the country. They also tried to attack civilian airports in the capital Damascus and Aleppo.
The rebels’ tactic was seen as a bid to paralyze the Syrian air force and prevent it from carrying out strikes against rebels’ strongholds nationwide.
Amin Hutait, a retired Lebanese brigadier and military expert, said recently that the rebels had even attacked airbases which were far from the conflict zones, pointing out that the strategy of targeting military airfields aimed to weaken the Syrian air force ability to respond to any foreign aggression.
What buoyed Hutait’s idea was the Israeli airstrike that targeted a military research center at the Jumraya suburb of Damascus in January.
At the time, Syria’s Defense Minister Gen. Fahd Jassem al-Freij said the Israeli raid rendered help to the rebels who were trying to destroy the facility for no avail.
The minister said the “armed terrorist groups” had been recently targeting Syria’s air-defense systems on the behest of Israel in order to render those systems out of service.
He said the targeting of air defense systems had pushed the Syrian leadership to bring those systems close together to protect them.
On Thursday, the CNN cited a senior U.S. military official as saying that “under pressure from Democrats and Republicans, the Joint Staff of the Pentagon and the U.S. Central Command have updated potential military options for intervention in Syria that could see American forces — if ordered — doing everything from bombing Syrian airfields to flying large amounts of humanitarian aid to the region.”
According to the report, the military official “emphasized ( that) the options are for planning and there is no indication President Barack Obama is about to order any military action.”
“The official made clear the U.S. military would be extremely cautious about sending any manned aircraft into Syrian airspace,” the CNN report said, adding that “the United States has long said the Syrians have a massive network of air defense radars and missiles that would have to be largely destroyed by bombing before American pilots could safely fly over Syria.”
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/14/c_124577416.htm
April 14th, 2013, 12:18 am
Syrian said:
…..
April 14th, 2013, 12:19 am
revenire said:
“No, assface. Your boy Bashar started it when his thugs pulled the fingernails and toenails off some poor kids in Dara’a as punishment for a little graffiti mischief…”
That’s the fairy tale but not the reality.
The reality is, because of his independence, the West has long considered Syria led by Assad to be a thorn in their side (as they do Iran and Hezbollah). They use the Muslim Brotherhood, and the rest of the assorted rabble, as cannon fodder.
This has nothing to do with torture of children, demonstrations for freedom by peaceful protesters, secret police or really even Assad. If Assad would have been willing to bow to the West they’d have let him pull the fingernails and toenails off of all Syria just like they let the Saudis torture their people (and even sell them the weapons to do so).
When it comes down to it you, and the rest of the “revolution”, are just Zionist tools.
April 14th, 2013, 12:25 am
ann said:
Fierce battles rage in Syria – Saturday, April 13, 2013
Fresh clashes broke out in the northeast Syrian city of Qamishli on Friday between troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and Islamist rebels of Al-Nusra Front [AL-QAEDA], a monitoring group said
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-1-171188-Fierce-battles-rage-in-Syria
“Fierce battles broke out between regime troops and Al-Nusra Front near Zuri square at the entrance to Qamishli and near the city’s airport, leaving several dead on both sides,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Elsewhere, regime troops pounded Tawq Melh and Tal Hamis in the majority Kurdish province of Hasake, also in the north, said the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers for its reports.
The fighting came a day after Assad’s regime called on the UN Security Council to class Al-Nusra Front as an Al-Qaeda-linked group, after its head pledged allegiance this week to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
In Damascus, mortar shells hit the sprawling Souk al-Hal fruit and vegetable market, killing one person and wounding several others, said the Observatory. At least 28 people were killed in violence across Syria on Friday, according to a preliminary toll, most of them in Damascus and Aleppo in the north. More than 70,000 people have been killed in Syria’s two-year conflict, the UN says.
Meanwhile, Western nations have “hard evidence” that chemical weapons have been used at least once in the Syrian war but a UN investigation is now unlikely to get into the country, diplomats said Thursday.
President Bashar al-Assad’s government asked the UN to investigate its claims against rebel forces. But it is now refusing to let international experts into the country because the UN wants to look into claims against Assad’s forces.
“In one case we have hard evidence,” a western diplomat told reporters, commenting on the rival claims.
“There are several examples where we are quite sure that shells with chemicals have been used in a very sporadic way,” added the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity and without giving details of the evidence.
A diplomat from a UN Security Council nation also said that “quite convincing” evidence had been sent to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to back accusations against Assad’s forces.
Britain and France have submitted information to the United Nations about allegations that government forces used chemical arms in the city of Homs on December 23 and at Ataybah near Damascus last month. Neither has disclosed details but the Homs case is said to be the most serious of the two.
The Syrian government called for a UN investigation after it said opposition rebels fired a chemical weapon shell into Khan al-Assal in Aleppo province on March 19.
Syrian government troops were among those killed or wounded in the attack, according to diplomats.
The UN has assembled a team of international experts, led by Ake Sellstrom of Sweden, in the region. But Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem wrote to Ban this week saying his government could not accept an inquiry that went beyond the Aleppo incident.
[…]
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-1-171188-Fierce-battles-rage-in-Syria
April 14th, 2013, 12:27 am
revenire said:
Go read the comments for this one on YouTube. Some very nice language describing the rats our army is cheering about killing in this wonderful video.
April 14th, 2013, 12:32 am
ann said:
Overnight fighting erupts across three of Syria’s borders – April 13th, 2013
http://www.albawaba.com/news/syria-fighting-borders-war-484150
Fighting erupted along three of Syria’s fractious borders Friday, in an acute reminder of the potential for the country’s civil war to spark a regional conflagration.
Israel’s army fired artillery into Syria Friday night after gunshots and shells were directed at soldiers on the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights, the Israeli military said.
In Homs, Syrian forces battled rebels near the border with Lebanon as part of a counteroffensive aimed at regaining control of territory.
Meanwhile, fighting between rebels and opposition forces also broke out in the eastern city of Qamishli on the Turkish border, ending a de facto truce in the mainly Christian and Kurdish area.
The province of Homs and its capital were the scenes of some of the heaviest fighting during the first year of Syrian conflict. The violence has escalated there in recent weeks, with Syrian warplanes bombing the city daily.
In the past two days, troops have clashed with rebels on the edges of the province along the Lebanese border, in some of the worst fighting in the area in months.
Sporadic explosions inside Syria could be heard from the Lebanese side of the border Friday and an Associated Press reporter said Syrian warplanes carried out at least one airstrike inside Syrian territory.
The border area is strategically important to both sides fighting in Syria’s civil war and battles there have been frequent in past weeks, particularly in and around the town of Al-Qusair. The area is considered vital to the Syrian regime because of its location along a road linking Damascus with Homs – a strategic supply route for the military.
The opposition activist group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday’s clashes between soldiers and rebels were concentrated around Al-Qusair.
Overlooking Al-Qusair from the Lebanese side are villages populated mostly by Shiite Muslim supporters of Hezbollah, which has backed President Bashar Assad’s regime throughout the 2-year-old conflict.
In the Lebanese village of Al-Qasr, which is on the opposite side of the border from Al-Qusair, residents said they had gotten used to the shelling.
“Yesterday, the explosions were nonstop,” Ali Nasereddine said, sitting in the garden of his house, less than 100 meters from a Syrian army post.
Syrian warplanes carried out airstrikes around the country Friday, hitting targets in Deraa in the south, in Hassakeh province in the northeast near the border with Turkey and in the northern city of Aleppo.
The fighting in Qamishli marked the first serious outbreak of violence there since the beginning of the uprising. Qamishli has remained peaceful mainly because local Kurds agreed with mostly Arab rebels to avoid clashes within city limits, said the Observatory. The city of around 200,000 has become home to thousands of Syrians who have fled other parts of the country.
Videos posted online Friday showed trucks and dozens of rebels preparing an attack on Qamishli’s domestic airport and smoke rising from the airport grounds. Inhabitants are now waiting to see whether Assad’s forces retaliate for rebel attacks by using war planes.
“We are not sure why they are attacking today,” said Observatory chief Rami Abdel-Rahman. “Maybe the agreement broke down,” he said, adding that the government and Kurdish militia control different areas of Qamishli.
In January, Kurdish militants and rebels fought battles with each other for weeks after Assad’s forces retreated from Ras al-Ain.
[…]
http://www.albawaba.com/news/syria-fighting-borders-war-484150
April 14th, 2013, 12:41 am
apple_mini said:
The wheels have been rolling and the ship has sailed.
After a string of strategic gains and advances by SAA, the regime is catching momentum to dig itself out of the quagmire.
The opposition still has chance to catch on and be part of constructive elements for reform, reconciliation and rebuild of Syria.
The window will not stay open forever. The better position the regime is at, the stronger confidence for the regime to carry on on its own path.
I hope the opposition will make some rational assessment about their own position. If the regime is gaining dominance on battle ground, it will be wise and sensible for the opposition to work their influence within Syria.
Otherwise, the opposition might wind up nothing except a case study on history book.
April 14th, 2013, 12:48 am
Syrian said:
The attack on the Damascus Dara’a highway have failed so far, the only case study for the history books will be Batta
April 14th, 2013, 1:04 am
Syrian said:
This video for rev. To get his fill
I counted 35 dead Revenires types in this fresh video from Aleppo
http://youtu.be/Bho8C4YRYdk
April 14th, 2013, 1:07 am
ann said:
Aussies fighting in Syria pose ‘threat’, says foreign minister Bob Carr – April 14, 2013
FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr has said an increase in the number of Australians believed to be fighting in Syria marks a significant potential threat to national security and confirmed the Gillard government is currently looking at banning new terrorist organizations
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/aussies-fighting-in-syria-pose-threat-says-foreign-minister-bob-carr/story-e6frg6so-1226620047165
The Weekend Australian revealed that Australia’s spy agency ASIO holds fears at least half of the now 200 Australians believed to be in fighting in Syria are fighting for radical al-Qa’ida offshoot, the al-Nusra Front.
It was also reported the Gillard government was preparing to ban al-Nusra.
Speaking on Sky News’ Australian Agenda this morning, Senator Carr said it was a “big” concern that Australians were fighting in Syria, which had “without a doubt” become a magnet for jihadists.
“We are all aware of it and I probably can’t go further because I can’t comment of matters of security and intelligence but the relevant agencies are fully appraised of this,” he said.
“There is a big investment of time and resources going into it, it is clearly a potential threat to Australia,” he told the program.
Senator Carr said Australia had to “be deeply concerned” with the influence of al-Qa’ida affiliates within the Syrian Opposition.
He said Australia was currently having discussions with international allies about whether it would be necessary to proscribe new groups as terror organisations.
“We will work with like-mindeds on what the appropriate legal stances is, what further proscriptions are required,” he said.
“We are discussing that with the British, French and the Americans – it does highlight the fact that the longer the Assad regime maintains its solidarity, and with its Warsaw pact style weaponry and army holds the three major cities, there must be real concerned that the jihadist elements are more prominent in the various militia that represent the Syrian opposition.”
[…]
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/aussies-fighting-in-syria-pose-threat-says-foreign-minister-bob-carr/story-e6frg6so-1226620047165
April 14th, 2013, 1:15 am
revenire said:
I’m not in favor of negotiations with these animals. They can surrender. The low level excrement might get prison time but the leading rodents will be executed.
If it negotiations they want my answer is no. We need to wipe them out. Look what happened when a few got away in Hama back in ’82.
Rats breed in gutters and sewers. Disease is spread that way. The only way is total extermination.
Anyone who doesn’t like Assad can leave Syria one of two ways: 1.) fleeing 2.) dead.
April 14th, 2013, 1:18 am
revenire said:
Australia should send Assad a few thousand bullets and let him kill any Australian rats. It would save Australia a lot of headaches later.
Think it over Carr.
April 14th, 2013, 1:22 am
ann said:
More Of NATOs Filthy Animal Death Squads!
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=741_1365898418
April 14th, 2013, 1:25 am
Syrian said:
Now that Batta have used chemical weapons on Aleppo’s Kurds, we’ll have to wait and see if that will finally push the Kurds to join the revolution
النظام يستخدم الكيماوي في حي الشيخ مقصود ذو الاغلبية الكردية بحلب
http://youtu.be/US92iaAastU
April 14th, 2013, 1:27 am
ann said:
UN not responding to Syria’s request for action against terror group al-Nusra – Apr-13-2013
It was Thursday afternoon that the Syrian Foreign Ministry called on the UN Security Council to do its job and sanction Al Nusra — one of a slew of different groups fighting to overthrow the Syrian government.
The terror group loudly allied itself with Al Qaeda on Wednesday — and though the Council has means to sanction groups affiliated with Al Qaeda — the UN’s response on Friday was a repeat of previously-stated positions.
If it did choose to sanction Al Nusra — the Security Council could freeze the group’s monetary assets and exact travel bans — and try to keep weapons from flowing in to the insurgents.
As to whether the UN considers Al Nusra a terrorist organization — Del Buey would not directly answer.
The United States — however — has been quite clear on Al Nusra.
US President Barack Obama blacklisted Al Nusra as a terrorist organization late last year.
The question is — what kind of a position has the US put itself in — when it’s position — and that of Al Nusra and Al Qaeda — is to push for the ouster of the Syrian government?
US Intelligence chief James Clapper on admitted on Thursday that even if the Syrian government were to fall — sectarian violence between the armed groups would continue for another year or more.
April 14th, 2013, 1:31 am
ghufran said:
I realize that I made a number of cyber enemies for speaking the truth about the regime and the rebels but I have no regret for being blunt, my only regret,as most Syrians, is that the mother country is destroyed and will need a generation to be rebuilt.
When Syrians look back at this they will discover that they were toys in the hands of bigger players who were only protecting their interests and that of Syria’s.
Instead of counting the dead from either side why do not you take a moment to reflect on this dirty war and help,in a way or the other, to doctor the wounds, feed the hungry and support a much-needed initiative to end the war and save innocent lives?
April 14th, 2013, 1:35 am
ann said:
NATOs Filthy Animals invading a small village near the turkish border and start kidnapping all men in this village
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=338_1365888495
April 14th, 2013, 1:40 am
ann said:
NATO’s Baghdad BOB!
Pro-Democracy Terrorism”: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is a Propaganda Front funded by the EU
The NYT admits fraudulent Syrian human rights group is UK-based “one-man band” funded by EU and one other “European country.”
In reality, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has long ago been exposed as an absurd propaganda front operated by Rami Abdul Rahman out of his house in England’s countryside. According to a December 2011 Reuters article titled, “Coventry – an unlikely home to prominent Syria activist,” Abdul Rahman admits he is a member of the so-called “Syrian opposition” and seeks the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad:
After three short spells in prison in Syria for pro-democracy activism, Abdulrahman came to Britain in 2000 fearing a longer, fourth jail term.
“I came to Britain the day Hafez al-Assad died, and I’ll return when Bashar al-Assad goes,” Abdulrahman said, referring to Bashar’s father and predecessor Hafez, also an autocrat.
One could not fathom a more unreliable, compromised, biased source of information, yet for the past two years, his “Observatory” has served as the sole source of information for the endless torrent of propaganda emanating from the Western media. Perhaps worst of all, is that the United Nations uses this compromised, absurdly overt source of propaganda as the basis for its various reports – at least, that is what the New York Times now claims in their recent article, “A Very Busy Man Behind the Syrian Civil War’s Casualty Count.”
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=da1_1365885933
Military analysts in Washington follow its body counts of Syrian and rebel soldiers to gauge the course of the war. The United Nations and human rights organizations scour its descriptions of civilian killings for evidence in possible war crimes trials. Major news organizations, including this one, cite its casualty figures.
Yet, despite its central role in the savage civil war, the grandly named Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is virtually a one-man band. Its founder, Rami Abdul Rahman, 42, who fled Syria 13 years ago, operates out of a semidetached red-brick house on an ordinary residential street in this drab industrial city [Coventry, England].
The New York Times also for the first time reveals that Abdul Rahman’s operation is indeed funded by the European Union and a “European country” he refuses to identify:
Money from two dress shops covers his minimal needs for reporting on the conflict, along with small subsidies from the European Union and one European country that he declines to identify.
Abdel rahman is not the “head” of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, he is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, run out of his UK-based house as a one-man operation.
And while Abdul Rahman refuses to identify that “European country,” it is beyond doubt that it is the United Kingdom itself – as Abdul Rahman has direct access to the Foreign Secretary William Hague, who he has been documented meeting in person on multiple occasions at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. The NYT in fact reveals that it was the British government that first relocated Abdul Rahman to Coventry, England after he fled Syria over a decade ago because of his anti-government activities:
When two associates were arrested in 2000, he fled the country, paying a human trafficker to smuggle him into England. The government resettled him in Coventry, where he decided he liked the slow pace.
Abdul Rahman is not a “human rights activist.” He is a paid propagandist. He is no different than the troupe of unsavory, willful liars and traitors provided refuge in Washington and London during the Iraq war and the West’s more recent debauchery in Libya, for the sole purpose of supplying Western governments with a constant din of propaganda and intentionally falsified intelligence reports designed specifically to justify the West’s hegemonic designs.
Abdul Rahman’s contemporaries include the notorious Iraqi defector Rafid al-Janabi, codename “Curveball,” who now gloats publicly that he invented accusations of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the West’s casus belli for a 10 year war that ultimately cost over a million lives, including thousands of Western troops, and has left Iraq still to this day in shambles. There’s also the lesser known Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir of Libya, who formed the foundation of the pro-West human rights racket in Benghazi and now openly brags in retrospect that tales of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s atrocities against the Libyan people were likewise invented to give NATO its sought-after impetus to intervene militarily.
Unlike in Iraq and Libya, the West has failed categorically to sell military intervention in Syria, and even its covert war has begun to unravel as the public becomes increasingly aware that the so-called “pro-democracy rebels” the West has been arming for years are in fact sectarian extremists fighting under the banner of Al Qaeda.
[…]
April 14th, 2013, 2:06 am
MarigoldRan said:
The regime loses 3 villages.
Then it re-captures one of the village, and declares a great victory.
That’s been the pattern of the war so far. 3 steps back for the Assadists, one step forward.
It continues.
April 14th, 2013, 2:11 am
ann said:
Western media’s Syria WMDs hype evokes deja vu – 2013-04-14
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2013-04/14/c_132307363.htm
BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhua) — The Western media have been fanning fears of Syria’s chemical weapons since last year, and the most recent talk is that British scientists have found evidence of Syrian chemical attack.
Although both sides of the Syria conflict have accused the other of using chemical weapons, Washington chose only to hold the Syrian government accountable, warning it that resorting to such weapons would be “a red line” that incurs military intervention.
To long-time global affairs observers, all the talk about the chemical weapon sounds deja vu. More than a decade ago, the United States and some other Western powers claimed that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein amassed weapons of mass destruction, or the WMDs, and eventually used it as a pretext to launch the Iraq war.
But long after Saddam is gone, the WMDs are still nowhere to find.
More recently, during the West’s 2011 military intervention in Libya, their media outlets repeated speculations that Muammar Gaddafi stockpiled WMDs in his hometown Sirte.
But in fact, until the former strongman was killed, he never came up with any WMDs.
Although in both cases no evidence has ever been found about the use of WMDs, the West’s political aim was achieved — a large portion of the Western public was made to believe, at least at the moment, that military intervention is justified, and both Iraqi and Libyan regimes were toppled.
Since the Cold War, the West has played the same old trick repeatedly and is skilled in manipulating the public opinion on such issues.
Meanwhile, the Western narrative on the Syria WMD issue, armed by its dominance in global news circles, made alternative and sober-headed voices hardly heard.
Even Damascus repeatedly stressed “even if we have such weapons we will not use them”, the Western media didn’t bother to take much notice.
It is self-evident that in today’s world, the domestic use of WMDs is political suicide. Neither Saddam nor Gaddafi dared to take such attempt in their last days. The Syrian government has nothing to gain but all to loose if it uses the WMDs.
While the global community has a solemn obligation to ensure no WMDs will be used in Syria, the practice of stoking such fears without solid evidence does more harm than good.
More worrisome is the use of WMDs hype as part of Western strategy in the global hotspot zones such as Middle East and Korean Peninsula, which often sets the stage for eventual intervention.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2013-04/14/c_132307363.htm
April 14th, 2013, 2:13 am
Observer said:
Ghufran I appreciate your last comment.
The problem however remains that from the very beginning the triggering of the events unfolding including the regionalizaiton of the conflict and the sectarianism of the conflict and the absolutism of the conflict and the spiraling down of the conflict was and remains primarily and to a large measure the very responsibility of the regime that miscalculated from the very beginning about the depth of discontent and actually the desire of the overwhelming majority of Syrians for the regime to auto reform even if slowly.
99% of Syrians at the beginning did not want instability hoping agains all hope that the regime would be reasonable.
However, I invite you to read Rev’s comment above to show you that there is absolutely no opening for any dialogue.
So called gains made by the regime are not going to lead to any victory. The 82 campaign never achieved a strategic victory for it did not offer any real and deep rooted reforms after the Hama massacres to the contrary it consolidated the sectarian nature of the regime and its security mafia hold on the country.
Its very brutal response was the mistake.
Rebels are guilty and manipulation of the conflict present and fueling of the fighting ongoing, but equating the two sides is gross injustice to the truth.
Propose a solution that is long lasting genuine and deeply rooted in human rights and equality before the law.
Continue to blame both sides makes the redundancy of your posts irrelevant to say the least.
As for your idea that it will require a generation to repair the damage you are sorely mistaken. I fear that it is now broken forever. Perhaps in 10 generations. Read what Majbali writes about grievances of hundreds of years still felt today and of the ethnic impurity of the Syrian people in his post. Whether he is right or wrong does not matter, what matters is that he is convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt of the veracity of his narrative.
It is official by the way the Central bank says the exchange rate officially is 95 to the dollar and the black market value is 122
It is the economy stupid
April 14th, 2013, 4:32 am
Hopeful said:
#703 Rev
“This has nothing to do with torture of children, demonstrations for freedom by peaceful protesters, secret police or really even Assad.”
So long as this attitude continues, the war will never end. The regime and its supporters believe that ANY compromise will mean its end, so they continue with the denial, consciously or subconsciously. Unfortunately for Syria, this means more blood and suffering.
# 716 Ghufran – Reflecting starts with the regime and its supporters acknowledging that Syrians got fed up with the corrupt and suppressive regime they tolerated for 50 years, and finally, inspired by the Arab Spring, revolted. The pent-up anger, humiliation, and hopelessness that millions of Syrians felt was deep and real. To continue to call them germs, toys, tools, etc., will only lead them to more desperation and more anger.
Many people fighting on the regime’s side believe that they are defending Syria against external enemies, and many are fighting because they fear for their minority communities. Would you call these people toys in the regime’s hands? Would you call them patriotic Syrians?
The rebels and revolutionaries need to recognize that a military win, if it happens, will only happen at the expense of more lives and more alienation to the Syrian minorities as more and more of their sons die in this needless war. No one wants to believe that his/her sons died in vein. This vicious cycle will continue to escalate as more martyrs fall on both sides.
April 14th, 2013, 4:50 am
mjabali said:
Observer:
Syrian history has been always taught to us, Syrians, in a wrong manner. Look at the way you studied under Hafez or those before him. Also look at what they taught your parents before you. They taught them mostly lies, especially when it came to the history of Syria and Syrian.
According to the books we are all Arabs and speak Arabic and most likely Muslims. They type of Muslim according to the state never reflected the type of Muslim lived on the street. And the ethnic composition of Syria never was the same as the way it was represented in school books, or debate on TV.
Every possibility should be open to be refuted by scientific evidence.
PS: my name is Mjabali and not Majbali like you always write it.
April 14th, 2013, 6:36 am
Citizen said:
link 715.
Erdogan! The Kurds will punish you! you are responsible for everything that happens in the north of Syria! son of a bitch!
April 14th, 2013, 6:51 am
Citizen said:
http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fserfilatov.livejournal.com%2F973500.html
Syria: it smells of blood and oil …
April 14th, 2013, 6:57 am
zoo said:
Syrian army troops break siege of key army camps (Wadi Seif and Hmadiya in Idlib)
April 14, 2013
http://gulfnews.com/news/region/syria/troops-break-siege-of-key-army-camps-1.1170304
Beirut: Syrian troops have broken a months-long rebel siege on two key military bases in the northwestern province of Idlib, killing at least 21 opposition fighters, a watchdog said on Sunday. “Regime forces managed to lift the siege on the Wadi Deif and Hamdiya military camps after the army went around the rebel fighters and attacked them from behind,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
At least 21 rebels were killed in the attack, which focussed on the village of Babulin, the Britain-based group said. Troops “now control two hilltops on either side of the Damascus-Aleppo international highway” reopening a supply route for the army, Observatory director Rami Abdul Rahman said.
The watchdog said two military trucks carrying materiel and soldiers have since been spotted passing through the area for the first time in months.
April 14th, 2013, 8:24 am
zoo said:
Saudi Al Watan and Al Arabiya in a state of anti-Shia hysteria and panic
Over 1000 Hezbollah fighters arrive in Syria to back Assad forces
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/04/14/-Over-1000-Hezbollah-fighters-arrive-in-Syria-to-back-Assad-forces.html
Over 1,000 members of the Lebanese Shitte militant group, Hezbollah, entered Syria in the past few days via waterways in the Mediterranean Sea, Saudi daily al-Watan reported on Sunday.
According to the report, around 1,200 fighters arrived to Syria’s Tartus port in order to fight alongside regime troops.
The armed members who arrived from Lebanon to Syria committed “a hideous crime” in the town of Talkalkh, the daily said, adding that tens of thousands of fighters entered from Iraq to aid the Syrian regime.
The United States, Canada and Israel have long blacklisted the Shiite group, allowing them to criminalize Hezbollah activities, freeze its bank accounts and monitor suspected members.
In Europe, only the Netherlands lists Hezbollah as a terrorist group, while Britain blacklists its military wing.
Last week, Bahrain became the first Arab country to blacklist Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
April 14th, 2013, 8:28 am
zoo said:
Saudi media in a state of anti-shi.a h.ysteria
Al Watan and Al Arabya:
Over 1000 Hezbollah fighters arrive in Syria to back Assad forces
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/04/14/-Over-1000-Hezbollah-fighters-arrive-in-Syria-to-back-Assad-forces.html
April 14th, 2013, 8:31 am
revenire said:
“Many people fighting on the regime’s side believe that they are defending Syria against external enemies.”
What do you call tens of thousands of Tunisians and Libyans funded by France-UK-US and the GCC?
April 14th, 2013, 8:46 am
Observer said:
Mjabali is the correct way then. Sorry about that.
The history that I was taught in the last three years of high school in Syria were from the History of the Arabs by Phillip K Hitti and it was available in both English and Arabic and I read it entirely in both languages.
My memory is not what it used to be.
On the other hand I am told that the history books in KSA for example teach only the history of Al Saud.
We were also taught that Syria’s independence happened on March 8 not April 17
It does not matter, 5-10 generations it will take for any healing if any to happen and this assuming that we do not have a Rwanda.
April 14th, 2013, 8:46 am
Tara said:
Click and watch Assad’s army heroism destroying al Omari mosque in Deraa. Enjoy the work of this hate-infested Assad Alawi militia.
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Battles-rage-in-Syria-symbolic-mosque-crumbles-309751
I wonder which is more heroic, destroying mosques or slaughtering little girls with a knife?
April 14th, 2013, 8:58 am
ann said:
WHO HIT AL OMARI MOSQUE IN DARAA-Syria….different angles-combined video – 7 hours ago
videos were taken from FSA blogs and sites,and show that all cameramen were waiting for this moment!!
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bc4_1365916869
April 14th, 2013, 9:18 am
zoo said:
#733 Tara
If mosques or churches are destroyed while the legal authority fights to save its citizens from extremists terrorists who use suicide bombs to indiscriminately kill them, then I don’t think God will object. Buildings can be easily restored, not lives.
The Syrian army is the legal authority in Syria and they are dying as heroes for their country and not for an extremist ideology or a western political conspiracy.
April 14th, 2013, 9:24 am
ann said:
19 Tunisian Jihadists [mercenary terrorists] killed in Syrian army raid in Idlib – 2013-04-14
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/14/c_132307844.htm
TUNIS, April 14 (Xinhua) — At least 19 Tunisian Jihadists belonging to the rebel’s al-Nusra Front in Syria were killed in a Syrian army raid in Syria’s northwestern city of Idlib, Shems FM reported Sunday.
The raid also killed some 20 Libyan militants, Shems FM said.
Latest Tunisian media reports said that some 6,000 Tunisian men, aged between 17 and 30, are currently fighting alongside the al- Nusra Front in Syria.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/14/c_132307844.htm
April 14th, 2013, 9:25 am
revenire said:
It is pretty obvious that the FSA/Nusra Front WANTED the SAA to hit the mosque. It agitates rats. Look at this forum. They are in a frenzy about it.
Nusra doesn’t care about blowing up mosques. They do it all the time.
April 14th, 2013, 9:26 am
revenire said:
LOL @ Tara posting the Jerusalem Post as an anti-Assad news source.
Tara you do my job for me half the time.
April 14th, 2013, 9:28 am
ann said:
Syrian air force raids rebels near Damascus – 2013-04-14
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/14/c_132307798.htm
DAMASCUS, April 14 (Xinhua) — The Syrian air force struck on Sunday a rebel’s suburb east of the capital Damascus, activist groups said.
The area, about 10 km east of Damascus and home to about 300, 000 people, has recently emerged as a battlefield for the government troops and the rebels. On Friday, Syrian media accused the rebels of setting ablaze two major detergent factories in Subaineh.
As the strikes was carried out, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights posted a video footage online, purporting to show one of the leaders of al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front in eastern Deir al-Zour region denouncing calls for a civil and democratic state in Syria and stressing that only Islamic flags would be raised in Syria.
The brazen rhetoric came days after al-Qaida’s wing in Iraq said al-Nusra was part of the global terror network, triggering worldwide controversy and fears that al-Qaida has capitalized on the Syrian crisis to fulfill its old dream of building an Islamic state in Syria.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/14/c_132307798.htm
April 14th, 2013, 9:30 am
zoo said:
Desperate attempts and confusion from some rebel groups to deny their affiliation with Al Qaeda.
Too little too late to hide, the masks have fallen.
Syrian Rebels Break With Group Over Qaeda Wing Alliance
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/13/world/middleeast/syrian-rebels-break-with-radical-group.html?_r=0
But Mr. Jawlani confirmed that they were working together and pledged fealty to Al Qaeda’s top leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, the former second-in-command to Osama bin Laden.
….
Worried about the political implications on their requests for Western aid, other Syrian opposition figures began criticizing the Al Qaeda-Nusra combination immediately after it was announced, including Moaz al-Khatib, the leader of the National Coalition of Syrian Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, the main political group.
“The bottom line: the ideology of Al Qaeda doesn’t suit us, and the revolutionaries in Syria must take a clear stance on this matter,” Sheik Moaz wrote on his Facebook page.
Louay Mekdad, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, the umbrella group of armed fighters inside Syria, was less emphatic in his criticism, possibly reflecting its respect for Nusra’s combat skills.
While he asserted that “no one has the right to impose any form of state on Syrians,” he acknowledged that there had been “de facto cooperation” with Nusra fighters on the ground.
…
The harsh criticism by the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front, however, appeared to portend the potential for hostilities, possibly even armed confrontation with Nusra fighters. The front is an alliance of 20 rebel groups that are among the opposition’s most important insurgent forces. One of those groups, the Tawheed Brigade, has clashed with Nusra fighters before.
Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the Al Qaeda-Nusra combination had brought further into the open the factionalism and diverging motives of the anti-Assad insurgency. “They’re important because they show the Islamist-nationalist divide,” he said. “Not all the opposition is speaking with one voice.”
April 14th, 2013, 9:43 am
GEORGES said:
ZOO
Legal authority? Based on what?
An FSA/Nusra supporter will say that FSA/Nusra are the ones that protect him from the Assad mafia & security apparatus and so it is his word vs yours when it comes to ‘legal authority’.
Please stop with your rubbish ‘legal authority’ when it is exactly the ‘legality’ of the familial mafia occupation that is at stake in the conflict, hence the civil war.
You tell me by which reasoning can the Assad familial cult-like hereditary police state dictatorship that seized power through a coup and kept it through the barrel of guns and tanks be called ‘legal authority’.
Someone who gains and keep what you call ‘legality’ through violence and fear should not use this fake ‘legality’ as an argument when it is taken away from him through the same methods.
People like you should wake up and face reality and accept that as much as you love Besho and his criminal entreprise, there are enough syrians who are ready to die to cleanse Syria from it, hence the war. Then and only then we can talk of real dialogue and compromise and real solutions. You and your regime are complete and total failures and fail at anything they do because you cannot even identify the real problem and instead choose to convince yourself that all the problems are caused by a foreign international conspiracy. How can you find real solutions when you can’t identify the real problem?
As far as I know it is the regime apologists who are begging for a political solution. The other side has nothing to lose anymore. Their lives have been destroyed. If you don’t want to face reality then enjoy the war.
April 14th, 2013, 9:56 am
zoo said:
Key groups among Syria’s Islamist rebels
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/69183/World/Region/Key-groups-among-Syrias-Islamist-rebels.aspx
List and description of some key anti-Assad Islamist groups, which include independent fighters, Muslim Brotherhood allies, Salafists and the jihadists of Al-Nusra Front
The Islamist rebels among opposition fighters battling the regime of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad include independents, Muslim Brotherhood allies, Salafists and the jihadists of Al-Nusra Front, which has pledged alliance to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Here are some of the key groups:
Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (SILF)
The SILF groups some 20 brigades and battalions, including some of Syria’s most seasoned, such as Liwa al-Tawhid, the Farouq Brigades and Liwa al-Islam.
Though SILF members have an Islamist outlook, they have decided against advocating the establishment of an Islamic state while Assad remains in power.
Many SILF brigades started out as local, non-ideological battalions, but have grown more ideological as the conflict drags on.
Syrian Islamic Front (SIF)
The SIF, a smaller and tighter alliance set up in December 2012, is dominated by the Salafist Ahrar al-Sham movement.
Despite the hardline views of its members, the group is generally better regarded by Syrians on the ground than Al-Nusra Front.
Ahrar al-Sham calls openly for the establishment of an Islamic state after the fall of the regime, but the alliance has won respect across the board for its military abilities.
Its fighters were instrumental in the March 2013 insurgent takeover of Raqa, the first provincial capital to fall out of regime control.
Al-Nusra Front
Founded largely by foreign fighters, Al-Nusra subsequently began recruiting locally, aided by its reputation for discipline and military success.
In December 2012, the United States listed the group as a “terrorist” organisation because of its suspected ties to Al-Qaeda’s Iraqi branch, the Islamic State of Iraq.
Those suspicions were confirmed when the ISI’s chief announced Al-Nusra was part of its network.
Little is known about the group, but it has developed a reputation for military prowess and being well-equipped despite relatively small numbers.
The group has claimed responsibility for suicide bomb attacks and been criticised for using the indiscriminate tactic. Its leader’s pledge of allegiance to Al-Qaeda was condemned by some rebel forces and activists.
April 14th, 2013, 9:58 am
revenire said:
Georges if the Syrian government isn’t the legal authority – the legitimate government – then NO government in the world is legitimate.
This is called international law. If you want it changed then get a gun and try to change it but I assure men will fight, and die, to protect rule of law.
Your comments about “nothing to lose” and “enjoy the war” are hollow. The army and Syrian people will prevail over the foreign conspiracy.
I don’t care if 500,000 have to die.
April 14th, 2013, 10:07 am
revenire said:
The main players behind this war are the United States and Britain. The Saudis and Qataris are just following orders. It is the Anglo-Americans running everything and has been from the start – same as in Libya.
Anyone who thinks they are part of a revolution is delusional. They’ve been brainwashed. You see this a lot in the American posters here.
April 14th, 2013, 10:11 am
Tara said:
Zoo,
Why are you even bothering? You won’t miss much.
April 14th, 2013, 10:18 am
Citizen said:
742. REVENIRE
Regardless of the direct involvement of Western forces inside Syria, however, there is absolutely no doubt that the Syrian conflict is very much the result of Anglo-American treachery, control, and coordination. The entire invasion of secular Syria with religious fanatics, mercenaries, and maniacs was the brainchild of Western governments and Israel, the Mad Dog of the Middle East, along with the usual Gulf state feudal monarchies such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others acting as proxies and puppets.
Indeed, with the recent announcement of even more commitments to openly arm, aid, and assist the death squads, the idea that the Syrian destabilization was organized and is being controlled by Western governments is no longer up for debate.
The only debate yet to be had is whether or not citizens of Western countries will continue to allow their governments to run roughshod over both their rights and the rights of sovereign people in foreign countries.
Clearly, the continued assault on Syria is part of a major agenda that is slowly unfolding before our eyes. It would be wise for Americans and all other Western nations to get off of the Path to Persia before the mutual destruction of the world is the only thing left at the end of the road.
April 14th, 2013, 10:42 am
revenire said:
Citizen I agree.
For anyone to suggest this was a homegrown revolution is stretching the bounds of imagination. It really never was. It didn’t start in Daraa. This is the myth. It started in the West, is funded and armed by the West. Without Western money and arms there would be no revolution.
The US has been the main supplier of arms the entire time. How do they do it? They get Saudi Arabia and Qatar to fund it so they can deny they are doing it. This is exactly how shipments of arms flowed to the Libyan rats – some of which are now in Syria.
“But the Saudis remain the only U.S. Arab ally strategically placed and capable of furnishing weapons to the guerrillas of Libya. Their assistance would allow Washington to disclaim any military involvement in the supply chain — even though the arms would be American and paid for by the Saudis.
“The Saudis have been told that opponents of Qaddafi need anti-tank rockets and mortars as a first priority to hold off attacks by Qaddafi’s armor, and ground-to-air missiles to shoot down his fighter-bombers.”
Robert Fisk, the London Independent March 2011
The 10$ million US aid, and the monies before, is a side show for public consumption. The Anglo-Americans are behind all the weapons flowing into Syria.
The Anglo-Americans have been planning the destruction of Syria, and the Middle East, for a long time. The idea is to have no strong nation-states and pit everyone against each other in sectarian war.
In Syria the Anglo-Americans found a few useful idiots among the poor and illiterate. Syria always had a problem with Muslim Brotherhood and takfiri ideology.
Assad has been exactly correct in everything he had said about this war. It has to be very frustrating for Obama. This is why Assad is blacked-out of US media or his words are twisted.
The facts I’ve laid out are not unknown to the Russians and Chinese.
April 14th, 2013, 11:09 am
Hopeful said:
#744 Rev
Even if you truely believed that everything you said was true (which I doubt you do), it is beyond me how you won’t see this regime as anything other than a corrupt incompetent failure that managed to turn its Arab and regional friends into enemies, disfranchised a large segment of its population, divided the country, invited all sorts of jihadists across its borders, and led the country into a destructive civil war, the like of which has never been seen before.
Again I ask you, assuming that Assad prevails, what happens next?
Reminds me of the corrupt and incompetent Saddam after losing the first gulf war and was ejected from Kuwait. He continued to celebrate his victory, starved his people for another decade, before plunging his country into another miserable war for another decade. Is that what you look forward to after Assad “wins”?
April 14th, 2013, 11:41 am
revenire said:
Hopeful not only do I believe it it is 100% factual.
I am stunned anyone can deny the foreign hand behind this war. What do you call Tunisian and Libyan mercenaries funded by the West via KSA and Qatar? Freedom fighters?
Doesn’t it remind you of the Contras in the 1980s?
As far as the government turning Arab nations into enemies I’d say the governments of those countries are by and large weak puppet regimes of the West – as Egypt was under Mubarak and now under Morsi. They are not independent Arab nations.
Do you know what the term “Balkanize” means? The idea of pitting one religious sect against the other is a very, very old trick of empires.
I don’t believe it is a question of “if Assad prevails” – he is prevailing. Minus direct NATO intervention the mercenaries have zero chance of winning.
What will happen? Depends on what happens to the influx of money and weapons. If they keep flowing into Syria we could be in for a very long war. Other countries might get more directly involved. It can spread to the entire region. It can set off larger wars. It might even set off WW III. No one knows.
The idea that Assad doesn’t have the support of the overwhelming majority of Syrians is a bad joke. He could not have lasted this long without it and you know what? The Syrian army is getting stronger and more adept.
April 14th, 2013, 11:52 am
ann said:
Syria slams talks [fabrications] of chemical weapons’ traces in its soil – 2013-04-14
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/14/c_132308128.htm
DAMASCUS, April 14 (Xinhua) — Syrian information minister on Sunday dismissed as “illegal” a recent Western report, which cited [alleged] a smuggled-out soil sample from Syria as proving the use of chemical weapons.
“Any testing process to the Syrian soil, which is not performed by official and international organizations with the consent of the Syrian government, is stripped off any political and legal value,” Omran al-Zoubi said, adding that the report is “mere forgery against Syria.”
Al-Zoubi said “they wanted to distort and overshadow this matter through taking the discussion to another place in a bid to cover the crime committed in Khan al-Asal.”
Meanwhile, the minister singled out Britain, Turkey and France, saying that those countries know the source of the chemical weapons, referring to their implication in rendering arms to the rebels on the ground.
The chemical weapons’ frenzy came days after Damascus refused an expanded UN probe that was planned to conduct the investigation of chemical weapons’ usage in several Syrian cities.
[…]
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-04/14/c_132308128.htm
April 14th, 2013, 12:00 pm
revenire said:
Yes Ann, the Anglo-Americans want an excuse to attack Syria because their mercenaries have failed so miserably.
Thank you for this important post.
Cheers.
April 14th, 2013, 12:12 pm
Uzair8 said:
Regarding the Wadi al Dayf situation I decided to check out Syrian Smurf’s twitter as he is from Marat al Numan which is close to the besieged base.
Fortunately, I later found Yalla Souriya already collected the relevant tweets:
http://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/syria-idlib-concerning-the-reports-that-the-siege/
http://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/syria-idlib-im-still-trying-to-catch-up/
April 14th, 2013, 12:18 pm
Hopeful said:
# Rev
There is always foreign intervention – in every country in the world there is foreign intervention. China supports and pays for hundreds of lobby organizations in the US to “interfere” in its policies.
But foreign intervention will never be able to start a civil war in a democratic country.
Saying that Assad has the support of the majority of Syrians because he lasted that long is like saying that the Taliban has the support of the majority of the Afghans because they lasted that long. Assad’s supporters have guns and money, they have ideology and fear. Even a 5% of the population is over 1M people. With enough money and arms, 1M people can do a lot of damage to any country.
April 14th, 2013, 12:23 pm
Citizen said:
745. REVENIRE
This practice itself can ….No! should be used there, where are U.S. interests rich a maximum! ASAP!
It is a time for moving the the next round direction to the territory of democrats !!The cost is very cheap ! why not?
Then the masks will be removed and will appear the face of the beast!!
April 14th, 2013, 12:29 pm
Uzair8 said:
The people’s struggle continues unabated…
Guidance – Has Victory Been late?
Sh. Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi
May 2012
[…]
As some people like to talk about victory as right granted to them or inherited and must therefore be given to them without any efforts or struggle. They do not mind having it on a plate of gold.
I say: victory is a right that is earned and attained, and is not given but after by jihad and patience and is not reached but through sacrifice.
No one is qualified for victory through fear and laziness nor by wishful thinking and hopes, but by courage, altruism and struggle.
One year of Jihad is a short period of time for someone who accepted to live for forty years under humility and oppression without changing anything.
One year of supporting Allah does not compare to fifty years of heedlessness from Allah and failure to support his religion.
The answer that solves the problem is summed up in one word:
Victory is not late; our work for is late.
The struggle is from us and the victory is from Him; the former is a result of the latter. This is a Divine Law in the universe.
[…]
In a nutshell, victory is linked to every individual in this country feeling the necessity to work hard and struggle day and night till we reach a moment when we are qualified for victory.
[…]
April 14th, 2013, 12:39 pm
Hassan said:
This is who we are :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWuRcbYvkI4&feature=youtu.be
Hey all you oppo revos, we will do this in every street of every neighborhood of every village in Syria after we wipe out the rebels, we will hold butchering competition among our soldiers.
We will literally butcher the revos, and eat their flesh.
We are Alawite Mountain Warriors of Syria. We are descendants of Greeks, Romans, and Crusaders and we will annihilate the crescent from the Levant.
April 14th, 2013, 12:43 pm
Hassan said:
The revos, when they started their little plot, had no idea what they were up against and what was going to hit them. They thought that Assad soldiers were the same as the soldiers of other Arab regimes. They had no idea that they were fighting against Alawites and Christians of the Levant who are literally members of the European race in the Arab world.
It is like fighting against a European Army you suckars !!! We are bigger, stronger and more intelligent than you all !!
April 14th, 2013, 12:48 pm
Uzair8 said:
Dear Citizen 🙂
@743 it looks like your account was possessed by a ghost with excellent english.
PS Your english is quite good. It’s just that account possession is a serious issue.
April 14th, 2013, 12:49 pm
Hassan said:
There are 3 million of us in Syria and out of that 1 million are tarined fighters for Assad.
April 14th, 2013, 12:56 pm
zoo said:
I strongly disagree with that statement about KSA intention:
“The second proposed an alternative to the Syrian regime composed of Salafists and some elements who defected from the Syrian army.”
It is clear that the Saudis rather have a moderate moslem (or a christian) leading Syria than a Alawite, a Moslem Brotherhood or a Salafist.
Let us not forget that in Egypt, they have supported Mobarak for years and dislike profoundly Morsi, Erdogan and all the MB anywhere they are.
The Salafists are not officially supported by the Saudi government, rather by private Saudi and Kuwaitis charities and businessmen, the same that support Al Qaeda. They are a constant threat to the Saudi government in its effort to modernize.
The Salafists are also decried by all the GCC countries.
Now the Saudis a looking for moderate Sunni moslems ( and other minorities unsympathetic to Iran) to lead Syria.
Until they do, the Iran-Shia-Alawite-Russian front will not remain idle.
Therefore the Saudi Arabia war by proxies against Iran is taking prominence while other actors Turkey, Al Qaeda, Israel and the USA are working on their own agendas for the region.
April 14th, 2013, 12:58 pm
zoo said:
#753 Hopeful
“like saying that the Taliban has the support of the majority of the Afghans because they lasted that long.”
Who has decided that the majority of afghans do not support the Taliban? Nato, the USA?
There has never been any referendum or poll to know what the afghans really wants.
As there has been any poll to determine what the Saudis want.
April 14th, 2013, 1:02 pm
zoo said:
741. GEORGES
The Syrian army is the legal army of the Syrian government.
The Syrian government is officially part of the UN and international organizations with ambassadors all over the world.
It is not Qatar or you who decide about the international legality of a governement.
Wake up from the Qatari siren calls..
April 14th, 2013, 1:10 pm
Uzair8 said:
Assad would have been prepared to murder every unarmed and peaceful protestor (opponent) to snuff out the people’s struggle.
“Over our dead bodies” said the civilians, activists, protestors, defectors and fellow arabs (foreign fighters). And thus they took up arms.
April 14th, 2013, 1:12 pm
Citizen said:
Poor English can be used to puncture the eardrum when it is necessary!Can you boast something else except the language and the length of the beard?
April 14th, 2013, 1:16 pm
Citizen said:
Russia to vote against ‘one-sided’ UN Syria resolution
http://rt.com/news/syria-resolution-un-draft-814/
Putin talks to German TV: FULL TEXT
http://rt.com/politics/official-word/political-russia-schnenborn-russian-399/
April 14th, 2013, 1:25 pm
Uzair8 said:
Dear Citizen
I didn’t mean any offence. Your english is fine. I’ve noticed the difference in posts in the past too (rarely) but didn’t point it out.
People suspect certain accounts of being used by a team/group of people (eg the suspected acronym username).
Just an observation.
Anyway. It doesn’t matter.
April 14th, 2013, 1:26 pm
Hopeful said:
# 756 Hassan
At least you a being honest and direct, and I respect that.
You are determined to rule over the majority through force and intimidation. Regardless of whether or not you are a superior race, I do not think this is sustainable. The same was said about the whites in South Africa and the same can be said about the Jews in Israel. Your arms and superior skills cannot protect you forever.
April 14th, 2013, 1:27 pm
Uzair8 said:
Robert Fisk in a recent article wrote about regime supporters (Damascenes) as well as some in the military blame the Mukhabarat for everything (Daraa boys..). Accusing them of acting ‘like kings’.
There could be some truth to this, however, we may be seeing an attempt to whitewash the reputation of the army and the Mukhabarat are the whipping boys, the sacrificial goat. Is the regime trying to do this thru the likes of Mr Fisk.
Just seen this tweet on YS:
NuffSilence
Fisk says regular army officers are now arresting mukhabarat agents who commit violations and beat civilians. He’s officially deranged.
The people won’t be fooled again.
April 14th, 2013, 1:51 pm
zoo said:
#12 Sam
“Al Nusra are calling for Islamic system but not forcing the inhabitants to follow it.”
Such level of naivety is infantile.
April 14th, 2013, 5:35 pm
Post a comment