Thread: Syria News and Editorials

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

One lunatic on this thread is enough, thank you

sorry to intrude on your patch, Hairy

^ Ah bless, it took you ages to come up with that, didn't it?

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

the force is weak in you.

I am much fatter than he is, so the force is strong with me

Young woman activist Yara Shammas facing possible death sentence

Published on Friday 27 April 2012.

As United Nations observers try to carry out their mission with considerable difficulty, Reporters Without Borders would like to draw attention to the Assad regime’s many violations of freedom of information, which include jailing those who have the courage to inform us about the situation in Syria.
“We call for the immediate release of all the professional journalists, citizen journalists and netizens jailed by the regime,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The Syrian authorities have undertaken to carry out Kofi Annan’s peace plan, which envisages the release of all prisoners of conscience. It is high time the authorities kept their promises.”
Reporters Without Borders is particularly concerned about the fate of Yara Michel Shammas, 21, who was arrested with 11 other activists in a café in the old part of Damascus on 7 March and was transferred to a prison in Homs. Nine new charges were brought against her on 22 April, including one under article 298 of the criminal code which carries the death penalty.
Article 298 says: “A life sentence of forced labour will be passed on anyone committing an act that aims to cause a civil war or communal strife by arming Syrian citizens or inciting them to take up arms against each other, or to incite a massacre or looting in one or more localities. If this act achieves its aim, the guilty party will be sentenced to death.”
An information technology specialist, Shammas is the daughter of Michel Shammas, a well-known human rights lawyer active on Facebook. Anwar Al-Bonni, the head of the Syrian Centre for Legal Study and Research, said “what is happening to Yara Michel Shammas is clearly a way of putting pressure on the lawyer Shammas.”
Reporters Without Borders continues to be very concerned about Ali Mahmoud Othman, a Homs-based citizen journalist and resistance figure, who was arrested in Aleppo on 28 March. According to a recently released activist, he is still alive but is now being held by the intelligence services in Damascus and is being subjected to appalling forms of torture.
The press freedom organization is also very concerned about Noura Al-Jizawi, an activist who was also arrested on 28 March in Damascus. She is a member of the Syrian Revolution General Commission (an opposition coalition) and Flash News Network, and worked with the Syrian revolutionary newspaper Hurriyat.
There is still no news of two Turkish journalists – Adem Özköse, a reporter for the magazine Gerçek Hayat and the daily Milat, and cameraman Hamit Coşkun – who were abducted by Shabiha militiamen near the northwestern city of Idlib on 10 March and then handed over to members of the Syrian intelligence services.
Seven detained members of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), and a visitor to the centre who was arrested with them on 16 February, were told on 22 April that they are to be tried by a military court on a charge of “possessing prohibited materials with the intent to disseminate them,” which carries a possible six-month jail sentence.
The eight detainees – Yara Badr, Razan Ghazzawi, Hanadi Zahlout, Sana Zetani, Joan Farso, Bassam Al-Ahmad, Ayham Ghazzoul and Mayadah Khaleel – are currently being held in Damascus’ Adra prison.
The other five SCM members who were arrested on 16 February – Mazen Darwish (the centre’s founder and president), Hussein Ghareer, Hani Zetani, Mansour Al-Omari and Abdelrahman Hamada – continue to be held incommunicado.
The following is an incomplete list of the many other journalists and netizens who are detained or missing in Syria:
Mary Iskander Issa, a journalist who was arrested with her husband Joseph Nakhla, a doctor, in the Damascus suburb of Jermana on 14 April. The security services accuse her husband of treating “terrorists” in their home.
Assem Hamsho, a freelance journalist arrested in Damascus on 8 April.
Wassim Zakaria Al-Dahan, a journalist working for the newspaper Qassioun, who was arrested in a Damascus suburb on 26 March.
Jamal Al-Omar, a blogger arrested at the Lebanese border on 15 March. He is currently believed to be in Damascus’ Adra prison.
Jehad Jamal, a blogger arrested with Yara Michel Shammas on 7 March in Damascus.
Deyaa Labdalla, a blogger arrested in Suweida on 13 February for sending an open letter to President Assad.
Said Fahd Dairky, an engineer with the national television station who was arrested on 14 January for broadcasting video footage clearly showing that a pro-government demonstration had many fewer participants than the official media claimed.
Muhammed Omar Al-Khatib, a journalist who was arrested on the outskirts of Damascus on 8 January after sustaining a gunshot injury. He worked for the business and local news sections of the newspaper Al-Watan.
Moheeb Al-Nawaty, a Palestinian journalist who was reported missing on 5 January, a few days after arriving in Damascus.
Muhammed Nizzar Al-Baba, a cyber-activist who was arrested on 5 December 2011 after being summoned by the security services.
Alaa Khodr, a journalist who was arrested in Deir Ezzor on 18 November 2011. He worked for the official news agency Sana until fired for publicly criticizing the regime’s treatment of civilians.
Qais Abazli, a blogger who was arrested near Jisr Al-Shoughour. He created the “Anti-corruption Syrians” blog.
Alaa Shueiti, a cyber-activist who was arrested in Homs on 15 October 2011.
Shibal Ibrahim, a journalist and writer who was arrested in Qamishli on 22 September 2011.
Bilal Ahmad Bilal, a producer who was arrested in the Damascus suburb of Moadamieh on 13 September 2011. He worked for TV new station Falesteen Al-Yom.
Hussein Issou, a journalist and writer who was arrested in Al-Hasakah on 3 September 2011. His family has not had any word of him.
Miral Biroreda, an activist, writer and blogger who was arrested during a peaceful demonstration in Al-Hasakah on 26 August 2011. According to the Kurdish Organization for the Defence of Human Rights and Public Freedoms (DAD), he is being tried for participating in demonstrations and writing about the Syrian revolution
Abdelmajid Rashed Al-Rahmoun, a journalist who was arrested on 23 August in Hama province. He worked for the daily Al-Fidaa.
Tarek Said Balsha, a citizen journalist who was arrested in Latakiya on 19 August 2011.
Muhammed Nihad Kurdiyya, an engineer who was arrested in Latakiya on 17 August 2011 as he was about to be interviewed by Al-Jazeera.
Abdel Walid Kharsah, a reporter who was arrested in Deraa on 17 August 2011 while covering the protest movement.
Olwan Zouaiter, a journalist who was arrested in Raqqah on 16 March 2011. He was given a five-year jail sentence that was eventually reduced to 13 months.
Tal Al-Mallouhi, a blogger who was 18 when she was arrested in December 2009. A state security court in Damascus sentenced her to five years in prison on 14 February 2012 on a charge of exchanging “intelligence with a foreign country.”

Looks like May 7th will be an interesting day.

Syria prepares for elections - People's Daily Online

" For the first time in 40 years, seats in the Syrian parliament will be up for grabs by multiple parties in the country’s much-postponed elections, now scheduled for May the 7th.

Previously, only parties that belonged to the National Progressive Front were allowed to stand for election. More than 7,000 candidates from more than eight parties will be competing for 250 seats in parliament.

Streets in Syria are decked with candidates’ election campaign banners and posters, with most of the slogans emphasizing national unity, greater youth participation and peaceful change. Many Syrians believe the upcoming elections can bring vitality to the country and pave the way for reforms.

They also hope new parliamentarians will be more responsive to people’s needs. Others say they’ll go to the polls to show support for strengthening the country."

No it won't. It will be a farcical, Burma style election that keeps power with the Alawites.

It is a sight the world had got used to: a crater in the road where the suicide bomber detonated the explosives packed into his vehicle; the pools of blood and hunks of flesh of people caught in the blast; ruined buildings where floors have collapsed on top of each other; shocked survivors wandering amid the mangled cars and broken glass.
Almost invariably over the last decade such carnage has been the work of al-Qa'ida or similar Islamic fundamentalist movements such as the Afghan or Pakistan Taliban. But the latest such explosions, coming a year after the killing of Osama bin Laden, took place this week in the Syrian city of Idlib where two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the headquarters of army and airforce intelligence services. The Syrian government says that nine people were killed and 100 wounded.
The Syrian opposition claimed that these and other attacks on symbols of the Syrian state are the work of the Syrian government seeking to discredit protesters. They said they were "fabricated, staged explosions". But the attacks have all the hallmarks of an al-Qa'ida operation and the CIA has confirmed that previous suicide bombings in Syria have been the work of al-Qa'ida. An al-Qa'ida inspired group called the al-Nusra Front to Protect the Levant has claimed a bomb in Damascus that killed 10 people last week.
These bombings are significant because they show that al-Qa'ida is still very much in business, despite the death of Bin Laden and other al-Qa'ida leaders. It not only still exists but it is becoming engaged in new conflicts that have followed the Arab Spring. Al-Qa'ida has always been the child of war. This was true in Afghanistan when the Taliban were fighting to take over the country prior to 2001; in Iraq after the US invasion in 2003; and in Yemen where civil conflict has escalated since the Arab Spring last year.
Al-Qa'ida-type Sunni fundamentalist groups flourish in times of conflict because holy war is at the heart of their faith and martyrdom opens the way to heaven. Its militants make good soldiers. A moderate Sunni in Baghdad told me towards the end of the sectarian civil war there in 2007 that al-Qa'ida fighters would only be allowed back into his district if it came under assault from Shia militiamen. Otherwise, they were hated and feared by local Sunni for their ferocity, fanaticism and violence. "Why would you let them back in then?" I asked. "Because they will fight to the death," he explained.
It may be comforting for Western governments to imagine that the jihadist version of Islamic fundamentalism is a back number since the onset of the Arab Spring. There are now other avenues for effective protest by disaffected Muslim youth. But this view is deceptive because, if the Arab Spring has brought change, it is also brought armed conflict to much of the Arab world where change has been blocked, as in Syria, or state power has weakened, as in Libya.
Developments in Syria are important because al-Qa'ida is beginning to show strength in a core region of the Middle East and is no longer confined to isolated fastnesses in north-west Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia. The convulsions of the Arab Spring may have been inspired by different ideas than those of Bin Laden and his followers, but the weakening of police states across the region makes it easier for al-Qa'ida to operate. The Arab world today looks more and more like it did in the 1950s and 1960s, when nationalists, Islamists, Communists, secularists and liberals contended for power. After the uprisings of last year many countries will be freer, but many will also be more divided and violent.
How did al-Qa'ida survived the intense pressure placed on it by security services after 9/11 and will it be able to do so in future? The answer is that it did so because the organisation never existed in the form that so-called counter-terrorism experts imagined. It was never a sort of Islamic Comintern, with tentacles stretching from Waziristan to Birmingham. When it was at its strongest as a cohesive group at the time of 9/11, Bin Laden could only look to some 100 men to facilitate the sort of attacks he intended. On the other hand, the ideology he espoused and the fundamentalist jihadist tendency in Islam, is far broader and far more difficult to eliminate.
Groups that have no organisational connection with al-Qa'ida now employ its tactics because they are effective. As in Idlib a couple of days ago this involves what anarchists used to call "the propaganda of the deed", the destruction of a highly visible symbol of the community or state under attack. Suicide bombing in which the perpetrator knows he is going to die has the tactical advantage of enabling untrained but fanatical recruits to inflict maximum damage. But for al-Qa'ida bombers self-immolation is much more than this, serving as a demonstration of their faith.
Al-Qa'ida-type organisations may find the political waters of the Middle East easier to swim in in future because they can take advantage of a series of escalating conflicts. Bin Laden saw his enemies as being primarily American, but, from the beginning, al-Qa'ida's franchisees have had different priorities. The Arab Spring was a popular uprising against police states in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt but it was not only that. East of Egypt it fed into, and exacerbated, the conflict between Shia and Sunni in Syria, Bahrain and Iraq. It has deepened the confrontation between the Iranian-led coalition, broadly opposed to US influence in the Middle East, and its Saudi-led opponents.
Western governments and media give the impression that al-Qa'ida and its associates are purely anti-Western organisations. The counter-terrorism industry, often peopled by academic, journalistic and intelligence mountebanks, ignores or downplays the degree to which jihadist militants target Shia civilians more frequently than Westerners. In Pakistan, particularly when atrocities occur in the tribal areas of the north-west, this slaughter is scarcely mentioned in the papers or on television. Likewise in Iraq, the butchery of Shia civilians remains so much the norm that it is infrequently reported.
The Sunni-Shia conflict is getting hotter, fuelled by the ongoing confrontation between the Shia majority in Bahrain and the Sunni al-Khalifa monarchy. There are signs of greater sectarian tension in Kuwait where the Shia are a minority. The core of the regime in Syria are the Alawites, a sect related to Shi'ism ideologically, but its pro-Shia identity is reinforced by its political alliance with Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. As the mood in Sunni states becomes more anti-Shia this will benefit Sunni fundamentalist groups like al-Qa'ida that have always denounced the Shia as heretics and as worthy of death as Western infidels. Al-Qa'ida frequently targets Shia shrines in Iraq, but when the Saudi-backed Bahraini government crushed protests in March last year they demolished some 30 Shia mosques and meeting places. Even the graves of long dead Shia holy men were destroyed.
There has always been a contradiction in the US-led war against al-Qa'ida and the Taliban. It has been conducted in alliance with two states – Saudi Arabia and Pakistan – whose policies are geared to supporting Sunni fundamentalist movements. The ISI military intelligence service in Pakistan was central to the birth of the Taliban and their resurgence since 2006. The Pakistani military has been successful in being, at one and the same time, America's ally against al-Qa'ida but also suspiciously incapable of wiping it out entirely. To do so would devalue the ISI's co-operation in the eyes of the US.
The relationship of Saudi Arabia with al-Qa'ida is a little different. Saudi security pursues its militants, but Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia's variant of Islam, is very close in ideology to al-Qa'ida. It is a fundamentalist faith, its original adherents committed to restoring primitive Islam, fighting to the death and entering paradise as martyrs. It is fiercely anti-Shia, whom it sees as being on the offensive since the Iranian revolution in 1979.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are of crucial importance for the future of Sunni fundamentalism, whether it is under the rubric of al-Qa'ida or some other like-minded organisation. The balance of power in the Arab world has changed, with states such as Egypt, Syria and Iraq weakened or in turmoil, and the Saudis and Qataris filling the leadership vacuum. This strengthens Sunni fundamentalism, of which al-Qa'ida is but one extreme offshoot. Bin Laden may be dead, but Islamic radicalism – and the causes which gave rise to it – is very much alive.
German investigators find 'treasure-trove' of intel
German investigators discovered information about al-Qa'ida's plans to seize cruise liners and wreak havoc in Europe on a memory chip containing a pornographic video that was found in the underpants of a 22-year-old Austrian terrorist suspect.
Details of the potentially devastating al-Qa'ida plot were released yesterday by the television network CNN to coincide with the first anniversary today of the assassination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
CNN said German investigators managed to unearth what was described as a "treasure-trove" of intelligence about al-Qa'ida's plans. It included a plot to hijack cruise ships and dress captured passengers in Guantanamo Bay-style orange uniforms. Al-Qa'ida planned to film the execution of the captured passengers "one by one" if the authorities refused to comply with its demands. The information also included details about al-Qa'ida's plans for gun attacks in Europe.
German intelligence officials were said to have unearthed the information while interrogating a 22-year-old Austrian citizen, Maqsood Lodin, who was on a counter-terrorism watch list when he was pulled in for questioning in Germany in May last year. Mr Lodin and a suspect named Yusuf Ocak are on trial in Berlin, where they are pleading not guilty to terrorism charges. Prosecutors believe the pair met at an al-Qa'ida terrorist-training camp in Pakistan and were sent back to Europe to recruit a network of suicide bombers.
The device found in Mr Lodin's underwear contained a pornographic video called "Kick Ass" and a file marked "Sexy Tanja". German investigators were said to have taken weeks to crack a password and software contained in the video which finally revealed the existence of more than 100 al-Qa'ida documents concealed inside. Intelligence officials said they believed that although the plans had been conceived in 2009, they remained the template of al-Qa'ida's future strategy.
On Monday, Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, dismissed suggestions that faced with a similar choice as President, he would not have ordered the military to kill the al-Qa'ida leader. Asked whether he would have given the order to go after Bin Laden, Mr Romney insisted in a reference to the former US President renowned for his reluctance to use military force: "Of course. Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order."

Deadliest day for Syrian troops since ceasefire after rebel ambush in Aleppo

Thursday, 03 May 2012
A member of the Syrian security forces in the district of al-Waar in the flashpoint city of Homs. (AFP)

inShare2

By AL ARABIYA WITH AFP


At least 30 people have been killed by the gunfire of Syrian forces on Wednesday, while as many as 22 Syrian regime troops were killed in an ambush in the city of Aleppo, activists at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Rebels killed 22 troops Wednesday, according to AFP, in the Syrian army’s deadliest day of a three-week-old ceasefire deal, even as U.N. observers said they were having a “calming” impact as they deploy on the ground.

Fifteen troops, including two colonels, were killed in a rebel ambush at dawn in the northern province of Aleppo, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Two rebels also died in the attack near Al-Rai village, after President Bashar al-Assad’s forces had “scaled up military operations” there in the days since the truce took effect on April 12, said the watchdog.

Clashes near Damascus killed seven soldiers and a rebel fighter, while the army shelled and torched activists’ homes in eastern Deir Ezzor province, the watchdog said.

At least four civilians were also killed by army gunfire, including a woman who died in Deir Ezzor province and two civilians in Daraya near Damascus, where five soldiers were wounded the previous night.

Despite the bloodshed, the head of a U.N. military observer mission said his team was having a positive effect, although he admitted the ceasefire was not holding.

Major General Robert Mood brushed off criticism that the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria, or UNSMIS, had been too slow to get off the ground and said their numbers would double within days.

“This is not easy and we are seeing − by the action, by explosions, by firing − that the ceasefire is really a shaky one. It’s not holding,” the Norwegian general told Britain’s Sky News.

“But what we are also seeing on the ground is that where we have observers present, they have a calming effect and we’re also seeing that those operating on the ground, they take advice from our observers.”

However, Syria’s main opposition coalition urged observers to visit detention centers, saying there has been an “escalation of arrests” across the country.

“The Syrian National Council calls on the Security Council to pass a resolution demanding the Assad regime stop the escalation in arrests, murders and torture of detainees, and demand their release,” the group said.

It also called for the observers to count the number of detained and “carry out frequent and unannounced visits to the prisons” of those locked up in the 14-month uprising.

More than 100,000 people have been detained since the outbreak of the revolt, according to the Observatory which puts the number still behind bars at more than 25,000.

The United Nations has accused both the regime and its opponents of violating the ceasefire that is part of a peace plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.

The plan calls for a halt to fighting, the withdrawal of heavy weapons from urban areas, a daily humanitarian ceasefire, media access, an inclusive political process, the right to demonstrate and the release of detainees.

More than 9,000 people have been killed in Syria since the anti-regime uprising broke out in March 2011, according to U.N. estimates while the Observatory puts the figure at more than 11,100.

As many as 45 people were killed by the forces loyal to Assad across the country on Tuesday, Al Arabiya said citing activists at the Syrian Local Coordination Committees.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said troops have kept heavy weapons in cities, and that both the government and rebels have violated the truce.

Ladsous also said U.N. members had so far only offered 150 military observers for the 300-strong planned force and that Syria had refused visas for three proposed monitors.

But Syria’s foreign ministry denied visa requests had been turned down and said the two sides had agreed on the nationalities that could operate in the country.

Human Rights Watch accused the regime of committing atrocities in the eastern province of Idlib shortly before the truce took effect.

“Syrian tanks and helicopters attacked one town in Idlib after another,” Anna Neistat, associate director for program and emergencies at HRW, said in a statement.

“It was as if the Syrian government forces used every minute before the ceasefire to cause harm,” she added.

HRW said that during an April 3-4 attack on Taftanaz, northeast of Idlib city, 19 members of the Ghazal family, including two under the age of 18, were executed by regime forces. Nine males were shot in the head or back.

The violence in Syria has also seen tens of thousands of refugees take flight into neighboring countries including Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.

Meeting with a U.S. congressional delegation in Amman, King Abdullah II of Jordan, which says it hosts more than 100,000 Syrian refugees, called for “a political solution” to the crisis, saying he was “worried” about the bloodshed.

Influential U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman met Syrian refugees in Lebanon, meanwhile, voicing support for the Syrian opposition.

Lieberman expressed concern that people in the region and around the world “have not done enough to be supportive of the opposition in Syria to Assad.”

Turkish soldiers still guard the tomb

ISTANBUL - The Associated Press



Turkish soldiers stand guard at the entrance of the memorial site of Suleyman Shah, grandfather of Osman I, in Karakozak village, northeast of Aleppo, Syria.


It’s a tiny plot of Turkey deep within violence-torn Syria” a sacred mausoleum guarded by Turkish troops.

The memorial to Suleyman Shah, grandfather of Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire, has remained surrounded by a small contingent of Turkish soldiers even as Turkey helps to lead international condemnation of the Syrian regime, shutting its embassy in Damascus and demanding that President Bashar Assad resign.

Few travelers visited the tomb even before the Syrian government’s violent crackdown on an uprising that began more than a year ago. But the site along the Euphrates River is revered by Turkey, a strongly nationalist country whose rights there stem from a 1921 treaty with France, then colonial power in Syria.

The Ottoman empire collapsed in the early 20th century, and foreign powers encroached on its former territories. An article in the 1921 Franco-Turkish agreement lets Turkey keep guards and hoist its flag at the Syrian tomb, described as Turkish property. The arrangement was renewed with an independent Syria.

“Our soldiers are still there. There is no problem at all,” a Turkish military officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Still, sensitivities are extreme at a time when Turkey, and its Western and Arab allies, campaign for the downfall of the Syrian government and urge the Syrian opposition, including rebels, to unify. While Syria has not interfered with the Turkish soldiers, believed to number about a dozen, the instability sweeping the nation could pose problems to a tradition that seems to defy political realities.

Syria has made no public statements about the soldiers, possibly calculating that any move against them, particularly at a site heavy with Islamic symbolism, offers no political gain and only risks retaliation from its powerful neighbor. Turkey’s military headquarters declined to talk to The Associated Press, a likely sign that it does not want to publicize the memorial amid Syria’s chaos.

“This is a kind of a risk for Turkey,” said Osman Bahadir Dincer, a Syria expert at the International Strategic Research Organisation, a center in Ankara, the Turkish capital.

At Least 4 Said to Be Dead in Raid on Aleppo University in Syria

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: May 2, 2012 Updated: May 3, 2012 at 7:15 AM ET


BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian security forces stormed dorms at a northwestern university to break up anti-government protests there, killing at least four students and wounding several others with tear gas and live ammunition, activists and opposition groups said Thursday.

Around 1,500 students had been protesting in student quarters next to Aleppo University's main campus late Wednesday when security forces and pro-regime gunmen swept into their residences, firing tear gas at first, then live ammunition to disperse them. The raid followed an attack on the protesters by pro-regime students armed with knives, activists said. Student activist Thaer al-Ahmed said panic and chaos ensued as students tried to flee.


"Some students ran to their rooms to take cover but they were followed to their rooms, beaten up and arrested," he said. "Others suffered cuts and broken bones as they tried to flee."


Raids and intermittent gunfire continued for about five hours through early Thursday, he said, adding that dozens of people were wounded, some critically, and around 50 students were arrested.


Aleppo, Syria's largest city and economic hub, has a population that has remained largely loyal to President Bashar Assad and has been largely spared from the violence that has plagued other Syrian cities.


But university students — many from rebellious areas such as the northern Idlib province — have been staging almost daily protests calling for the fall of Assad's regime. Al-Thaer, a law student, said the campus and dormitories have been raided before, but Thursday's raid was the most violent.


The student quarters — known as the University City — comprise 20 dormitories that house more than 5,000 students next to the university campus. Students there often shouted out anti-Assad slogans from their rooms at night, al-Thaer said.


An amateur video showed a large number of security forces apparently storming the dorms Wednesday night. Another showed a students protest earlier Wednesday, during which protesters shouted: "We don't want you, Bashar!"
The authenticity of the videos could not be confirmed.


The Local Coordination Committees activist group said five students were killed and some 200 arrested in the raids, while the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at four. The Syrian government has prevented independent reporting in the country, making it impossible to independently verify casualty figures.


"Regime forces demanded through loudspeakers that the dorms be evacuated, then began detaining the students," the LCC said in a statement.
Al-Ahmed and the Observatory's director Rami Abdul-Rahman said pro-regime students armed with knives tried to break up the protest before the security forces raided the dorms.


Syria's persistent bloodshed has tarnished efforts by a U.N. team of observers to salvage a truce brokered by U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan that started to unravel almost as soon as it was supposed to begin on April 12.


The two sides have blamed each other for thwarting the truce, with Assad's forces trying to repress demonstrators calling for him to step down and an armed rebellion that has sprung up as peaceful protests have proved ineffective against his forces. The U.N. says 9,000 people have died since the uprising began in March 2011.


Despite the violence, the international community still sees the peace plan as the last chance to prevent Syria from falling into civil war — in part because no country wants to intervene militarily.


The head of the U.N. observers, Norwegian Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, visited the central cities of Homs and Hama, where anti-regime sentiment runs high, on Thursday.


He said there is still "a good chance and an opportunity" to break the cycle of violence.


Reporters accompanying the observers Thursday on the government-guided tour interviewed residents who said life was fairly normal during the day but was worrisome at night.


"The situation is calm during the day but scary at night," said Maher Jerjous, a 53-year-old resident of the Bab al-Quba district in Hama. "Masked gunmen ... roam the streets. There are kidnappings on public roads. You will not see anyone (on the streets) after six."

• Published 03:18 04.05.12
• Latest update 03:18 04.05.12

America has given up on Syria

The Barack Obama administration gussies up everything it says and does in meaningless, New Age diplospeak. Its Atrocities Prevention Board is but the latest, and most ridiculous, example.

By James Kirchick Tags: Barack Obama






Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama unveiled the latest artful attempt at avoiding responsibility to prevent genocide. With his newly created "Atrocities Prevention Board," the president has bestowed new meaninglessness to the term "never again," that mantra mouthed by countless world leaders before Obama, and one that will no doubt be repeated endlessly after the current occupant of the White House leaves office.
Established last year by presidential directive and headed by presidential aide Samantha Power, author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about America and genocide, the body was formed with the realization that, "preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States of America." Its main function will be nothing less than to "strengthen the United States' ability to prevent mass atrocities."



To be sure, the motivation behind the board's creation is sound. Even when it has intervened to prevent wide-scale killings, the United States has often acted late. Too often, diplomats on the ground miss the telltale signs of impending mass murder. Bureaucratic inefficiencies stand in the way of action. Yet in response to the perceived problem of bureaucratic torpor, the administration has added just another level of bureaucracy.



The attempt to unwrap red tape with more red tape signals what is really the heart of the problem. When confronting genocidaires and other mass murderers, the crucial determinant is not one of diplomacy or interagency efficiency, but of will. It is reflected in the perennial question that has confronted the civilized world since the Holocaust: Will we stand by while states murder en masse? The answer to that question, most of the time, has been "yes."



The United States did worse than little to stop the extermination of Europe's Jews; it turned many refugees away from its shores (it was grimly appropriate that the president made his announcement at Washington's Holocaust Museum ). But it has become evident that this administration is only gesturing at a substantively different approach to genocide when one witnesses its reaction, or, rather, inaction, with respect to the ongoing events in Syria, where Bashar al-Assad has slain some 10,000 of his own people, and is on course to kill many, many more.



Syria has emerged as the 21st century's Spanish Civil War, as London Observer columnist Nick Cohen perceptively wrote earlier this year. This is not due to the scale of the slaughter, but the global implications of the struggle. The world's worst actors, from Iran (whose Revolutionary Guards are aiding Assad's goons ) to Russia (which continues to supply Assad with weapons ), have chosen a side in this battle, and the least that can be said of them is that they have put their money and guns where their mouths are. The United States and its allies, however, have stood on the sidelines. Never mind the moral imperative of stopping Assad's slaughter; the regime's fall would be a major coup for America and its allies in the region, as it is Iran's sole Arab ally and the conduit through which Tehran arms Hezbollah in Lebanon.



Rather, Washington supports lame efforts - like the "peace plan" of former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan - that only prolong the killing. Needless to say, Annan's record on such matters, from Rwanda to the Balkans, does not instill confidence. Indeed, if one is a civilian on the wrong side of some mass-murdering dictator in a benighted land, there are few phrases more soul-crushing than, "I am Kofi Annan and I'm here to help."



The Obama administration's record on preventing mass atrocities is not all bad. It did intervene in Libya, albeit at the last minute and at the instigation of France and the UK, where it managed to prevent there what would certainly have been a mass murder. The late and unlamented Muammar Gadhafi had explicitly promised to hunt down his subjects "like rats."



But even here the administration has learned the wrong lesson, believing that its "leading from behind" was a shrewd display of statecraft and not a deferral of responsibility. At the end of the day, it was American missiles, planes and logistics expertise that stopped Gadhafi, and the mission would have ended far sooner, and with fewer costs in both blood and treasure, had the United States assumed a leadership role earlier, rather than wait to be publicly hectored into acting by the French and British.



But the Obama administration is not just hesitant to embrace the use of military power and global leadership - it retreats from them. It gussies up everything it says and does in meaningless, New Age diplospeak, its Atrocities Prevention Board but the latest, and most ridiculous, example. The communique establishing the body, written by Power and David Pressman (who may bear the most unfortunate title in all of Washington, "Director for War Crimes and Atrocities" ), is replete with the sort of graduate school, liberal internationalist jargon that characterizes the too-clever-by-half attitude of this administration and its supporters in the press corps. Did you hear about the "full court diplomatic press" in South Sudan, "engagement at the highest levels" in Kyrgyzstan, or the "robust international effort" in Cote d'Ivoire? Syrians would prefer simple "targeted air strikes" and "weapons dumps."



"The Syrian people have not given up, which is why we cannot give up," President Obama said last week. That pledge will come as cold comfort to the denizens of Homs and Idlib, for it appears that America has already given up on them.
James Kirchick, a fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is a contributing editor for The New Republic and World Affairs Journal.

The Lutfallah II Arms-Smuggling Scandal » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

"Tripoli, Lebanon

It would be an incautious stretch to suggest any sort of parity between Watergate and the unfolding Lutfallah II arms shipment-to-Syria drama, that each day brings more revelations. But some of what we are daily learning about the who, what and why of Lutfallah II reminds some of us of a Watergate, type atmosphere including “bit by bit, drip by drip” revelations, denials, setting up fall guys and remarkable examples of incompetence.

The still unfolding Lutfallah II weapons running misadventure, in which a claimed Syrian-owned vessel registered in Sierra Leone but apparently flying the Egyptian flag, was detained off the Lebanese port of Batoun, by the Lebanese Army Marines because it was sailing too high in the water, and appeared “suspicious,” and was then found to contain 300,000 pounds of weapons may erupt unpredictably with serious political consequences for the region.

“Deepthroat”, the FBI mole who met secretly with Woodward & Bernstein and leaked confidential US government information to the duo, as revenge against President Nixon for rejecting him as successor to the deceased FBI Director, J.Edgar Hoover, outed himself in 2005. “Deepthroat”, after a quarter century of hundreds of sleuths trying to divine, if he/she even existed, turned out to be none other than Deputy Director of the FBI, William Mark Felt, Sr. “Deepthroat” repeated advice to the Washington Post reporters was to “Follow the Money!”

They did. The rest is history.

If a ‘deep throat’ appears in Libya, Qatar of elsewhere, and offering advice to reporters who appear in Benghazi and Misrata in order to dig into what really happened, it might be that he will counsel: “Follow the weapons”.

Eyewitness Hassan Diab is a Libyan researcher who has been working with a group of American and International lawyers preparing a case against NATO to be filed with the International Criminal Court. Hassan and three of his friends actually saw the ship Lutfallah II being loaded in Benghazi, Libya. Hassan claims that it is well known at the docks that Qatar and Saudi Arabia control a total of five warehouses in the area of Benghazi & Misrata and supplied the weapons and money to hire the Lutfallah II container vessel.

Libyans in the area are reporting that the intercepted arms are from both Gadaffi stockpiles left over from NATO’s Libya campaign and some from the Qatar-Saudi six month weapons pipelines into Libya. When NATO declared a cessation of its bombing on Halloween night, October 31, 2011 the scramble for weapons began and Qatar stored and purchased whatever weapons came to its notice and from various militias who were willing to do business.

Libyans and foreign dock workers at Benghazi Port, who observed the Lutfallah II being loaded, saw three containers filled with 150 tons of weapons put onboard, although the initial plan, according to the owner of the boat was to ship as many as 15 containers. It is estimated that they would have carried more than 2000 tons of weapons.

A Lebanese judicial source, who is a sitting judge based at Beirut’s La Maison des Avocates and advises the Lebanese government on procedural rules that ought to be followed in this case, confirmed to me and also to the Beirut Daily, As-Safir, that the Lutfallah II shipment was funded by two Syrian businessmen living in Saudi Arabia. In addition, the ship’s captain in Syria as is the gentleman who claimed ownership of the shipment. All are affiliated with the Syrian opposition and all are seeking regime change in Syria.

According to a late breaking report, all have been arrested and remain in custody despite claims that they thought the cargo was general merchandise. Libya does not export anything much but its light crude oil and the Lutfallah II is clearly no oil tanker. Crew members of the container are facing trial on charges of illegal gun-running.

The owner reportedly told his interrogators, including Military Prosecutor Judge Saqr, that “It would be against Lebanese law and international maritime law for me to demand to examine the content of the containers.” Some international lawyers would argue that the law is exactly the opposite in both, and that international law establishes not just the owner’s right to inspect cargo being carried on his ships–for hazardous or contraband cargo etc– but that maritime law clearly mandates his responsibility to do so. Likewise, his insurance company.

Denials

The US-Saudi backed Future Movement was not involved in the arms shipment according to party official Mustafa Allouch. However, he later told Lebanon’s OTV that “The Syrian people have the right to find the appropriate means to defend themselves.” The Free Syrian Army has denied any links to the weapons-carrying vessel.

Hezbollah official Ammar Musawi praised the Lebanese army for its seizure of a Syria-bound illegal arms shipment and urged the authorities “to prevent Lebanon from turning into a conduit of destruction toward its neighbor”. “For the sake of Lebanon’s stability, I urge our authorities to exert greater effort to prevent Lebanon from turning into an arena through which the tools of crime cross into Syria, as the involvement of some Lebanese in fueling the situation in Syrian will have negative repercussions on Lebanon,” Hezbollah International Relations Director said.

On 5/2/12, Syria’s ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdel-Karim, following a meeting with Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour, accused Gulf countries, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, of being behind the Syria-bound arms shipments.

“The ship was bound for the Syrian opposition; this is sure given that the political and security leaderships in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other countries are behind these acts, which undermine the security of Syria, Lebanon and the region.”

Many questions remain in need of answers. Any serious first year law student would ask the questions that presumably Lebanese investigating judges and the media will ask. A few of the more obvious ones would including:

Who funded the shipment discovered in the cargo bay of the Lutfallah II? Who had custody over the original 12 containers of what was planned, according to the jailed owner, as a shipment of over two million tons of “general merchandise”?

Who supplied the weapons and from which warehouse locations in Libya were they taken? Who controls the warehouses? Who made the decision to hold back 12 of the original contract and why? Where are the 12 containers? Who prepared the ships manifest? What was the involvement, if any, of the Syrian owner of the Lutfallah II.?Why was the Lutfallah II not searched at the port of Alexandria as well as Turkey? It docked at both. Why was it given ‘green light passage’ by Israel and UNIFIL?

Eyewitnesses claim some activity on the Lutfallah II was evident while it was docked in Turkey? What was the activity? Which, if any, Lebanese politicians and political parties were involved. Who was to meet and take custody of the shipment once it arrived at the Tripoli, Lebanon dock?Which land routes into Syria were to be used following the offloading of the cargo at Tripoli Port?

It is not for this observer to offer advice to investigative journalists, whether free-lance or corporate, but as a fairly long-term US Congressional aid in the post-Watergate era who actually read the transcripts of US Senator Howard Baker’s Watergate Hearings, I would have thought that one or more might want to book a flight to Benghazi, Libya, toute de suite, with an inclination to: Follow the Money and follow the Weapons!"

Many questions, highlighted within this article to be answered, but will they and when?

Islamic body calls accusations over Lutfallah II “false”

May 5, 2012 ⋅ 4:32 pm ⋅ Post a comment






Lebanon’s Higher Islamic Council voiced surprise and concern that some official platforms in Lebanon are being used to launch false accusations against Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to a statement


“ We are surprised and concerned that some official state platforms are being bused to launch false accusations against Saudi Arabia and Qatar,” The council, which was chaired by Grand Mufti Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, said in a statement following its meeting at Dar al-Fatwa in reference to Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdel Karim Ali’s statements.


On Wednesday, following talks with Foreign Affairs Minister Adnan Mansour, the Syrian envoy accused Gulf countries, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, of being behind the Syria-bound arms shipments that was intercepted recently by the Lebanese Army.


Ali’s comments were swiftly criticized by Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awad Asiri, who said Thursday the accusations came in line with a policy practiced by the Syrian government in a “desperate attempt to divert attention from the suffering of the Syrian people.”


The Lutfallah II ship which was intercepted and seized by the Lebanese navy off the coast of the northern city of Batroun was loaded with three containers of weapons destined for Syrian rebel forces.


Yesterday, Military prosecutor Judge Saqr Saqr indicted 21 people, including customs agents and crew members of the Syria-bound Lutfallah II vessel.
The suspects include 13 Syrians (8 of them detained), four Lebanese (three of them detained), two arrested Egyptians, an Indian and an unidientified Libyan.

Syrian refugees
The council called on international humanitarian institutions and civil society organizations to support and aid Syrian refugees who are fleeing to Lebanon from “what is taking place in terms of killings and destruction in the vast majority of towns and villages in Syria that are calling for their rights, freedom and justice.”


The council also urged that Kofi Annan’s peace initiative to resolve the 13-month-old crisis in Lebanon’s neighbor be strictly adhered to.


The exact number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon is not known but estimates range anywhere between 20, 000 to 50,000. Many of the refugees have relatives in Lebanon and for this reason they do not register with the UN refugee agency UNHCR.


According to UN estimates, more than 9,000 people have been killed in violence across Syria since anti-regime protests broke out in March 2011, while monitors put the number at more than 11,100, mostly civilians.

Peoples’ needs
The council called on the Cabinet to meet the growing needs of citizens .
“The Cabinet [needs] to move swiftly in resolving the problems of citizens and remedying the issue of [state] spending and support President Michel Suleiman’s direction on the matter away from political disputes,” the council said

1:19pm, Sun 6 May 2012 Syria ceasefire 'collapsing' 'Heavy fighting between rebels and government troops'

Last updated Sun 6 May 2012




Heavy fighting between rebels and government troops erupted overnight in the capital of an oil producing province in eastern Syria, residents and activists said.
They said rebels armed with rocket-propelled grenades attacked tank positions in the eastern sector of the city of Deir al-Zor on the Euphrates rive, in response to an army offensive against several towns and villages in the province that have killed dozens of people in recent days.

Annan Spokesman Says Syria Peace Plan on Track, White House Claims Opposite

"UN-Arab League Envoy Kofi Annan's spokesman stated that Annan’s plan for Syria is on track, even though progress in implementing the ceasefire is slow.

Speaking before reporters in Geneva on Friday, Ahmad Fawzi said that “the Annan plan is on track and the crisis that has been going on for over a year is not going to be resolved in a day or a week.”

"There are signs on the ground of movement, albeit slow and small," he added, indicating that “some heavy weapons have been withdrawn, some heavy weapons remain. Some violence has receded, some violence continues. And that is not satisfactory; I'm not saying it is.”

Moreover, AFP quoted the spokesman as saying that “Annan would brief the UN Security Council on Tuesday by video teleconference from Geneva to give an update on progress implementing the plan… Overall, the plan and the UN military observers who are on the ground overseeing it have had an impact.”

On another hand, the White accused Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad of making “no effort” to implement Annan’s peace plan.

“If the regime’s intransigence continues, the international community is going to have to admit defeat and work to address the serious threat to peace and stability being perpetrated by the Assad regime,” White House Spokesman Jay Carney said, adding that “political transition is urgently needed in Syria. It is certainly our hope that the Annan plan succeeds.”"

7 May 2012 Last updated at 08:07 GMTSyria elections: Polling stations open



The country's 12,000 polling stations are due to close at 20:00 local time

Polling stations have opened in Syria in what the government is calling the first multiparty parliamentary elections in five decades. The opposition has dismissed the vote as a sham and said it will boycott the vote for the 250-seat parliament.

The UN says that more than 9,000 people have been killed during a brutal crackdown on an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's rule.


The vote was delayed after the launch of a reform process. The elections come three months after the adoption of a new constitution that allows the formation of political parties to compete with the president's governing Baath party and limits the president to two seven-year terms.


Nine parties have been created, and seven have candidates competing for a parliamentary seat.

Analysis
Lyse Doucet BBC News, Damascus


Damascus, on first glance, looks like any city going to the polls - election posters are plastered on every surface, from long walls to tall tree trunks.
New faces, with money to spend, smile from huge billboards.


For the government, this is proof of reform. For the opposition, it is a fraud to hold on to power.


The polls come three months after the ruling Baath party ended its 50-year monopoly to allow new parties to form.


But most new faces are known to be linked to the old.


Young campaign workers, busy planning for Monday's vote, were clearly engaged. But election day in Syria is expected to be another day of protests and violence.



Pro-regime parties led by the Baath are represented under a coalition called the National Progressive Front.


A total of 7,195 candidates have registered to stand for the 250 seats, state news agency Sana said.


Bashar al-Haraki, a member of the Syrian National Council, the principal opposition coalition, said the elections were a "farce which can be added to the regime's masquerade".


Violence has continued in Syria despite a ceasefire between government and the opposition forces which forms part of a peace plan mediated by the UN and Arab League envoy, Kofi Annan.


The army still has tanks and heavy weapons in cities and towns across the country and rebels are continuing their attacks on military convoys and army roadblocks that have cut off swathes of the country.


On Sunday, there were reports that fighting had erupted between rebels and Mr Assad's forces in the oil-producing eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor.

Al-Qaeda’s Rise in Syria 7.5.2012
By Daniel Brode, an Intelligence Analyst — ekurd.net

The recent wave of suicide bombings in Syria, along with Lebanon’s seizure of a weapons-laden cargo ship intended for Syrian rebels, underscores the infiltration of not only Sunni-jihadist ideology into Syria, but also weapons, tactics, and fighters from throughout the Middle East. Those forces, along with radical Syrian Islamists, are likely set to intensify their attacks on both civilian and government targets in an attempt to turn Syria, although unlikely, into the new Iraq.

Unlike Egypt, the Syrian government proved to be far too entrenched to be removed by civilian protests and international pressure alone. This realization and an increasingly brutal government crackdown spawned an inevitable militarization of the conflict, additionally fueled and intensified by Sunni elements throughout the Middle East, mainly Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Libya. Although Sunni militants are no longer able to defeat Syria's well-armed, motivated, and efficient fighting force in battle, they are leaning towards a strategy where bombings and other asymmetrical attacks on government and civilian targets alike are likely to become the norm for the near future in Syria.

With that being said, the Syrian opposition remains active and capable of carrying out its activities, but unfortunately for them, the Assad government is not going anywhere anytime soon. While many Sunni oppositionists still yearn for greater personal and political rights, there was a realization early on that the situation was so that no such occurrence was likely unless the secular and tightly-knit Alawites were driven from power. Meanwhile, Syria has emerged far beyond simply a struggle for individual and political rights, but into a regional power-struggle - pitting the Alawites and their regional allies - against a surging Sunni-Islamist bloc determined to return Syria to their Islamist sphere.

Stepping back, it is important to note that Sunni militancy and political Islam are not foreign threats to the Alawite regime. For over four decades, the Assad family has defended against such threats and has conducted numerous military operations, including the 1982 Hama Massacre, to suppress them. In that time, the primary threat to Alawite rule was the Muslim Brotherhood. Unlike in 1982 however, the Brotherhood has far more support today and are on the rise throughout the region - yet so are other and even more radical Islamist sects.

While the opposition continues to deny any role in the recent bombings, the sectarian context of the crisis, which stirs tensions across borders in tandem with rising extremism across the Muslim world, makes such claims highly unlikely. Moreover, a Sunni militant group, the al-Nusra Front, has already claimed responsibility for last week’s Damascus blast on a jihadist website, in addition to previous suicide bombings.

Syrian Sunnis are receiving support from throughout the Muslim world. From Chechnya to Libya, Sunnis are determined to see the “heretical” Alawite regime ousted and many are willing to support or implement more militant attacks to do so. In addition, it has been widely reported that there has been an influx of al-Qaeda fighters from neighboring Iraq into Syria and it is highly unlikely they came to hold signs in protest. Rather, it is more likely that they are bringing their holy war - one that previously targeted Shiites, Christians, and Americans in Iraq – to the Alawites, Hezbollah, and Iran, in Syria.

In addition to foreign fighters, many Syrian Sunnis have become radicalized and followers of jihadist doctrines as well. This is indicated by overtly Islamist names of many Free Syrian Army brigades, their appearance, declarations, along with the growing extremist trend throughout the region, which has not bypassed Syria. As stated before,Kurd Net - Kurdish center, Kurdistan News کورد political Islam has resorted to violence in Syria before, but unlike earlier times, the truly potent threat stems not from the Muslim Brotherhood, but from Salafism and Wahhabism elements now inside Syria.

Although the Brotherhood is traditionally the most prominent Syrian-Sunni party, the more radical Wahhabi and Salafi sects are now on the rise in Syria. Moreover, they carry with them the capability of unleashing an unrelenting holy war. Their rise there and subsequent holy war in Syria, become all the more likely given the ascension of jihadist beliefs, promoted alongside the "Arab Spring", throughout the Middle East.

In the end, although the opposition has failed both peacefully and militarily to oust the Assad regime, more radical elements within Syria and abroad are ready to promote and implement the use of more aggressive militant attacks within Syria. Their likely aim is to weaken and erode the Alawite regime in Syria in the long term, so much so, to eventually turn the country into the next Iraq.

Daniel Brode is an Intelligence Analyst with Max-Security Solutions (Max-Security.com), a geopolitical risk consulting firm based in the Middle East. He is a regular contribution writer and columnist for Ekurd.net May 7, 2012

^^ Glad to see a democratic process is being upheld. It's a pity that some will boycott this opportunity.

Opportunity to do what? Vote in some of Bashar's mates?

Some fucking opportunity that is.

Some would call it the democratic process. It may not be the same as what happens in your home of birth or where you currently live but the process has been made available to the voter. The alternative, anarchy, awaits.

I don't call it democracy when you choose only candidates that will rubber stamp your decisions, thus maintaining the status quo; find excuses to ban opposition representatives from standing; and then block in, and prevent from voting, the very people you wish to keep oppressed.

The alternative is called Free and Fair Elections, a concept that seems to escape you.

Fantastic picture here from a polling station. Look, they put pictures on the wall to tell you the choices you have.

Syrian Arab news agency - SANA - Syria : Syria news ::

"7,195 candidates , including 710 women, representing the social spectrum, 2,632 of whom with university degrees, are competing through 12,152 electoral centers for 250 parliamentary seats, 127 of which are allocated to peasants and laborers, in 15 electoral constituencies."

Superficially the numbers are impressive.

"The political parties, trends and powers and independent candidates are taking part in the elections with electoral rolls, alliances or independently under a judicial supervision that ensures fairness, freedom and democracy for the electorate in choosing their representatives."

Superficially the processes and participants mirror any other democratic country. I agree some other countries don't allow anything like this, but eventually they will absorb the will of all the people not just the heriditary Kings, Emirs and political dynasties.