Obama's Jewish peanuts will only attract Arab monkeys. Obama was trying to milk the stones of the American Jewish lobby. But what ever has happened to international legitimacy and to UN Security Coucil Resolutions? When UN resolutions cedoncern Arabs or Muslims they will be implemented immediately. But when they concern the Israelis, that is another matter. Few hours after UN esolution 1973 was passed the US-led NATO planes started to bombard Libya, naturally to save human lives. Have you ever heard of an American attempt to save the lives of people in Gaza when Israeli SS, Luftwaffe and Panzers killed 1400 people including 300 children? America needs to change its policies and to stop humiliating Arabs and Muslims. Obama policies are not diderent than those of Bush or Reagan. One can be assured that all anti-American forces in the world have rejoyced hearing Obama speech on 19.05.2011 whose effects will be seen on the ground in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
President Obama is scheduled to give one of his high-powered speeches to people of the Middle East today 19.05.2011. As it is usual, the speech will be delivered with a preacher-like style using carefully chosen words in order not to upset the Jewish lobby who will be having their AIPAC conference in Washington D.C. Soon. Obama will most probably claim that it was the US who encouraged the uprising by supporting the opposition to the age-old despots (naturally, excluding Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf States) and that the killing of Bin Laden will open a new chapter in the war on terror. He will also call on the Palestinians to return to the empty negotiation table and that Israel security is America top priority. On the other hand, the Arabs want to hear Obama saying that the US will stop killing Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and in Libya. That the US will force the Israelis to implement 39 UN Security Council Resolutions they are in breach of, and to dismantle Israel stockpiles of Nuclear Weapons. That the siege of Gaza will be lifted and that Guantanamo prison will be closed. The Arabs are completely disappointed with Obama policies while his speech today is expected to offer a lot of verbal heat but no light. In conclusion, the Arabs are fed up with US-supported Israeli crimes and the boring talks about terror and Israeli security.
Adnan Darwash, Iraq Occupation Times
30 Apr 2011 03:08
Source: reuters // Reuters
* Rights group says 62 killed across Syria on Friday
* Protests for Assad's overthrow across Syria
* Sanctions target Assad's brother Maher
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Suleiman al-Khalidi
AMMAN, April 30 (Reuters) - The United States imposed new sanctions on key Syrian government figures after security forces killed more than 60 people across Syria during demonstrations demanding the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.
A medical source told Reuters that soldiers in Deraa killed 19 people on Friday when they fired on thousands of protesters descending from nearby villages in a show of solidarity with the southern city where Syria's uprising broke out six weeks ago.
Syrian human rights group Sawasiah said it had the names of a total of 62 people killed during protests in Deraa, Rustun, Latakia, Homs and the town of Qadam, near Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a similar death toll.
Friday's bloodshed came after demonstrators across the country again defied heavy military deployments, mass arrests and a ruthless crackdown on the biggest popular challenge to 48 years of authoritarian Baath Party rule.
U.S. President Barack Obama imposed new sanctions against Syrian figures, including a brother of Assad in charge of troops in Deraa, the first reprisal for Syria's violent crackdown.
Obama signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the intelligence agency, Assad's cousin Atif Najib and his brother Maher, who commands the army division which stormed into Deraa on Monday. Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard was also targeted, accused of helping the Syrian crackdown.
"The sanctions that were announced today are intended to show the Syrian government that its behavior and actions are going to be held to account," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters.
Shortly after Obama's move, European Union diplomats said they had reached preliminary agreement to impose an arms embargo on Syria and would "urgently consider further appropriate and targeted measures". These, diplomats said, were understood to mean measures against individuals.
NATIONWIDE PROTESTS
Obama's sanctions, which include asset freezes and bans on U.S. business dealings, build on U.S. measures against Syria in place since 2004, but they may have little impact since Assad's inner circle are thought to hold few U.S. assets.
One official said the White House was "not ready" to call on Assad to step down because Obama and his aides "do not want to get out in front of the Syrian people".
But thousands of Syrians took to the streets across the country after Friday prayers demanding his removal and pledging support for the residents of Deraa.
"The people want the overthrow of the regime!" demonstrators chanted in many protests, witnesses said.
More demonstrations flared in the central cities of Homs and Hama, Banias on the Mediterranean coast, Qamishly in eastern Syria and Harasta, a Damascus suburb.
Damascus saw the biggest protest in the capital so far, with a crowd swelling to 10,000 as it marched towards the main Ummayad Square before being dispersed by security forces firing tear gas, rights campaigners said.
Syrian rights group Sawasiah said this week at least 500 civilians had been killed since the unrest broke out six weeks ago. Authorities dispute that, saying 78 security forces and 70 civilians died in violence they blame on armed groups.
DERAA SHOOTING
State news agency SANA blamed "armed terrorist groups" for killing eight soldiers near Deraa. It said groups had opened fire on the homes of soldiers in two towns near Deraa and were repelled by guards. SANA said security forces detained 156 members of the group and confiscated 50 motorbikes.
But a witness in Deraa said Syrian forces fired live rounds at thousands of villagers who descended on the besieged city.he said.
"They shot at people at the western gate of Deraa in the Yadoda area, almost three km (two miles) from the centre of the city,"
A rights campaigner in Deraa said on Friday makeshift morgues in the city contained the bodies of 85 people he said had been killed since the army stormed the city, close to Syria's southern border with Jordan, on Monday.
Assad's violent repression has brought growing condemnation from Western countries which for several years had sought to engage Damascus and loosen its close anti-Israel alliances with Iran and the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas.
The top United Nations human rights body condemned Syria for using deadly force against peaceful protesters and launched an investigation into killings and other alleged crimes.
A U.S. official said Friday's sanctions were meant to show that no member of the Syrian leadership was immune from being held accountable.
"Bashar is very much on our radar and if this continues could be soon to follow,"the official said. (Writing by Dominic Evans; Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy in Beirut, Mark Hosenball and Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Justyna Pawlak in Brussels; Editing by Jon Hemming and Robert Birsel)
===
Syrian forces raid homes, Assad opposition mounts
24 Apr 2011 09:34
Source: reuters // Reuters
Libya's rebel council says gets $177 mln from Kuwait
24 Apr 2011 17:05
Source: reuters // Reuters
KUWAIT, April 24 (Reuters) - Kuwait will contribute 50 million Kuwaiti dinars ($177.2 million) to Libya's rebel council, a rebel leader said on Sunday.
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the Libyan rebel national council, was speaking at a news conference in Kuwait.
(Reporting by Eman Goma, Writing by Martina Fuchs)
===
An injured protester is helped by others around him in a location provided as Homs April 22, 2011 in this still image taken from video. Syrian security forces killed almost 90 protesters on Friday, rights activists said, the bloodiest day in a month of escalating pro-democracy demonstrations against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. The Local Coordination Committees sent Reuters a list with the names of 88 people, classified by region, the group said were killed in areas stretching from the port city of Latakia to Homs, Hama, Damascus and the southern village of Izra'a. Video taken April 22, 2011. REUTERS/Social Media Website via Reuters TV (SYRIA)
* Bigger pro-democracy protests met with more force
* YouTube video shows attack on unarmed protesters
(Adds British comments, arrest of rights campaigner)
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
AMMAN, April 24 (Reuters) - Secret police raided homes near Damascus overnight, rights campaigners said on Sunday, as popular opposition to Syria's authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad increased following bloody attacks on pro-democracy protesters.
Security forces and gunmen loyal to Assad have killed at least 112 people over the last two days. They fired at protesters demanding political freedoms and an end to corruption on Friday and on mass funerals for victims a day later.
The attacks were the bloodiest, and the demonstrations the biggest, since protests erupted in the southern city of Deraa near the border with Jordan over five weeks ago.
Security operatives in plain clothes wielding assault rifles broke into homes in the suburb of Harasta just after midnight on Sunday, arresting activists in the area, known as the Ghouta, or the old garden district of the capital.
Assad lifted an emergency law on Thursday, in place since his Baath Party seized power 48 years ago, in a bid to appease protesters and ease international criticism. Opponents say the crackdown that followed shows the move was hollow.
"Bashar al-Assad, you traitor, you coward. Take your soldiers to the Golan," protesters chanted on Saturday, chiding Assad for turning his forces on his own people instead of recapturing the Golan Heights, where the frontier with Israel has been quiet since a 1974 ceasefire.
Assad assumed power when his father died in 2000 after ruling Syria for 30 years. The hostile chants reflect a steady hardening of the demands of protesters who first called for greater freedoms but now seek his overthrow.
International condemnation of Assad has also intensified. Western criticism was initially muted because of lingering hopes that Assad might implement genuine reform and because revolution in Syria could reshape the political map in the Middle East.
Assad has strengthened his father Hafez al-Assad's anti-Israel alliance with Iran and supported militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas. He also re-established Syrian influence in Lebanon and has held indirect peace talks with Israel.
"I deplore the increasing violence in Syria, and am appalled by the killing of demonstrators by Syrian security forces," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday, advising all British nationals to leave Syria.
U.S. President Barack Obama urged Assad on Friday to stop the "outrageous use of violence to quell protests". Syrian authorities, who blame the violence on armed groups, dismissed Obama's comments.
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ARRESTS NEAR DAMASCUS
The National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria said prominent rights activist Daniel Saud, a resident of the Mediterranean city of Banias, was also arrested on Saturday.
The weekend protests stretched from the port city of Latakia to Homs, Hama, Damascus, its suburbs and southern towns. The death toll rose to around 350, with scores of missing since the demonstrations broke out on March 18, rights campaigners said.
Assad has ejected most foreign media from the country during his crackdown on protesters, so independent reports of the violence are difficult to verify.
Demonstrators have been using the Internet to get out pictures of the violence, many of which have been explicit.
One video posted on Internet site YouTube showed a crowd marching on Friday near Abbasside square in Damascus, purportedly on Friday, chanting "the people want the overthrow of the regime", before the sound of gunfire was heard.
Demonstrators raised their hands to show that they were unarmed. The fire intensified. One youth fell, with blood spurting from his head and back. His comrades lifted him but dropped his body when the sound of bullets resumed.
In Abada village, 10 kilometres from Damascus, rights campaigners said security forces were preventing people injured in Friday's protests from reaching hospital. A cleric in contact with the town of Nawa near Deraa said residents told him security forces had fired indiscriminately.
In a move unthinkable in Syria just five weeks ago, two Deraa lawmakers in Syria's rubberstamp parliament resigned on Saturday to protest against the killings of protesters. (Editing by Robert Woodward)
===
ANALYSIS-Syria's Assad torn between repression and reform23 Apr 2011 05:12
Source: reuters // Reuters
A Syrian protester shouts slogans calling for Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to step down during a protest in front of the Syrian embassy in Amman April 17, 2011. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed
* Assad faces alarming challenge to his rule
* Assad may have missed the chance for reform
* Each time he makes concessions, protesters get bolder (Repeats April 22 story unchanged)
By Samia Nakhoul
BEIRUT, April 22 (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad is in a quandary as the challenge to his autocratic rule grows in the streets of Syria: more concessions could signal weakness, but harsher repression risks radicalising a growing opposition.
While some analysts believe Assad can contain the revolt through bold reforms, others believe he missed the chance to open up Syria's dictatorship when he inherited the presidency from his strongman father, the late Hafez al-Assad, in 2000.
"The regime is in trouble. People have been repressed for 40 years but suddenly the wall of fear has crumbled and they are no longer frightened," Sarkis Naoum of Beirut's an-Nahar newspaper told Reuters.
"Each time the regime makes new concessions, the people get bolder and ask for more. They see it as a sign of weakness. The regime doesn't know how to respond -- it's like an old grudge people have been waiting to avenge."
Close observers of Syria argue that -- as in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions that ousted Hosni Mubarak and Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali -- citizens are rebelling not just against a lack of freedom and opportunity.
They are also enraged by suffocating corruption that has enriched the elites while one-third of Syrians live below the poverty line.
"It was a combination of repression, corruption, incompetence and the degeneration of the system", says analyst Jamil Mroue. "It became combustible and people suffocated."
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FRANCHISING CORRUPTION
While crackdowns continued against activists who challenged Baath party rule, economic reforms since 2005 created lucrative new monopolies controlled by senior officials and Assad family insiders, among them his billionnaire cousin Rami Makhlouf.
"The Baath Party is ancient, outdated and obsolete. The decisions are being made by the security forces and services who play a fundamental role in the country. They are the real force," said Talal Salman, publisher of Beirut's as-Safir daily, traditionally sympathetic to Syria.
A caste of army officers and clans of the dominant Alawite minority has sprung up, using its clout to suppress dissent and extort kickbacks, often demanding a share of the profits private business generates, observers said.
"The essential spark was ignited by the privatising and franchising of corruption, which along with repression violated the fabric of society," Mroue said.
As with their Arab peers from Egypt to Yemen and Libya, young Syrians' aspirations have risen in tandem with their access to satellite TV, mobile phones, Facebook and the Internet.
The regional explosion that began in Tunisia and Egypt propelled people to seek a new way of life.
What adds an edge to Syria's crisis is the heavy-handedness of one-party rule, the sectarian rift between the ruling Alawite minority and the Sunni majority, and the brutality and impunity of the security forces.
Facing the most alarming challenge of his 11 years in power, Assad has juggled repression, economic handouts and calibrated concessions in an attempt to quash a month of protests.
Yet the unrest, which rights groups say has cost more than 200 lives, shows no signs of going away without radical change.
On Thursday, ahead of mass protests that broke out again on Friday, Assad ended a draconian state of emergency, in place for 48 years, that allowed blanket repression with impunity.
"President Assad might be able to overcome this crisis and contain the situation but the cost may be high... He has to change the regime or the people will force him to," said Salman.
ARMY SPLIT POSSIBLE
Analysts say toppling the system is harder because Syria's power structure differs from that of Egypt and Tunisia, where senior generals refused to open fire on demonstrators.
Alawite loyalists occupy the key positions in the Syrian military and Assad family insiders run the crucial security bodies, tying senior officers closely to Assad's own fate.
Yet the bulk of the army is Sunni and there have been persistent but unconfirmed reports of soldiers refusing to fire on protesters.
"There is a big possibility that the army will split or they won't accept to take part in a crackdown, if ordered. It is not easy to bring the regime down but it is easy to divide the regime," An-Nahar's Naoum said.
Nearly 30 years ago, the elder Assad ruthlessly put down an armed Islamist uprising, killing tens thousands of people in the city of Hama in a bombardment cloaked from international view.
That level of brutality would be harder to get away with today, when Syrians, despite state curbs on media, use mobile phone cameras to post instant images of protests on YouTube.
"Bashar's father killed 20,000 to 30,000 people in Hama... If Bashar wants to do another Hama in the first two hours the whole world will rise up," Naoum said.
IRREVERSIBLE
While holding Assad responsible for failing to enact sweeping reforms, some analysts say issues beyond his control played a role, although he should have addressed them faster.
The country has been plagued by drought for several years, slowing its rise as a middle income economy.
Syria has 20 million people with a population growth rate of 2.4 percent. But entrants to the labour market are increasing at double that pace due to a faster birth rate in earlier decades, that far outstrips the capacity of the economy to create jobs.
Per capita gross domestic product languishes at $2,500 a year. The official unemployment rate stands at 10 percent but independent estimates are double that, with about a quarter of a million youngsters arriving in the jobs market every year.
Some Syrians believe the protest movement, unthinkable a few months ago, has now gained an irreversible momentum.
"There isn't anything impossible any more after Egypt and Tunisia," said a Syrian who refused to give her name. "Seeing Syrians defying the security forces on the streets while knowing that they might be shot dead is something beyond imagination.
"Do you think these people are willing to die just for some reforms or for an increase in wages? These people want the Assad regime out," she added.
Even if Assad, 45, concedes far-reaching democratic reforms, activists and protesters will want proof that he is making a real break with the past, testing the president's power over his own family and the Baathist elite.
"Assad has to carry out a white coup to clean his entourage of corrupt figures linked to the regime," Mroue said.
"He has to show people that there is dramatic change, that there will be elections in a few years, that he won't be president for life, that it is no longer a dynasty."
Such a high-risk course would entail confronting his own entourage and ditching a structure in place for 40 years.
No one knows what might come next -- a peaceful transition of power, a military coup, prolonged instability or civil war.
"Either he will opt for transformation of the regime or it will be torn apart," Mroue said.
(editing by Paul Taylor)
===
Twelve killed in pro-democracy protests in Syria
23 Apr 2011 21:06
Source: reuters // Reuters
Syrian protesters shout slogans calling for Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to step down during a protest in front of the Syrian embassy in Amman April 17, 2011. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed
* Syrian forces fire on protesters; 12 killed
* Activists say more than 100 people killed on Friday
* Two lawmakers say they resign in protest at deaths
(Adds quote from lawmaker, comment from official news agency)
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Suleiman al-Khalidi
AMMAN, April 23 (Reuters) - Syrian forces killed at least 12 people on Saturday when they fired on mourners calling for the end of President Bashar al-Assad's rule at mass funerals of pro-democracy protesters shot a day earlier.
Witnesses said the mourners were chanting "Bashar al-Assad, you traitor! Long live Syria, down with Bashar!"
Friday was by far the bloodiest day in over a month of demonstrations to demand political freedoms and an end to corruption, with at least 100 people killed, said two activists.
The protests went ahead despite Assad's decision this week to lift emergency law, in place since his Baath Party seized power 48 years ago. Two lawmakers and a preacher also resigned in protest at the killings of demonstrators.
Aided by his family and a pervasive security apparatus, Assad, 45, has absolute power, having ignored demands to transform the anachronistic autocratic system he inherited when he succeeded his late father, president Hafez al-Assad, in 2000.
=The representation of someone as existing or something as happening in other than chronological, proper, or historical order.
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Independent human rights organisation Sawasiah said security forces killed at least 12 people during the funerals in Damascus and surrounding areas and near the southern town of Izra'a.
"There was a heavy volley of gunfire in our direction as we approached Izra'a to join the funerals of martyrs," a witness in Izra'a told Reuters.
One of the lawmakers to resign, Naser Hariri, said Assad's security forces were unleashing a "frenzy of killings in cold blood". Khalil al-Rifaei also quit the rubber-stamp assembly.
"Security forces are sowing divisions and sectarian strife among Syrians, Muslim and Christian, who are united in their demands for reforms and freedom," Hariri told Reuters.
Rezq Abdulrahman Abazeid, the government-appointed mufti, or Muslim preacher, for Deraa also resigned.
"Being assigned to give fatwas (religious edicts), I submit my resignation as a result of the fall of victims and martyrs by police fire," he told Al Jazeera.
As well as the unrest at funerals in areas near Damascus, Assad's seat of power remained tense on Saturday and many people stayed indoors, one activist told Reuters from the capital.
"This is becoming like a snowball and getting bigger and bigger every week. Anger is rising, the street is boiling," he said.
CRACKDOWN CONDEMNED
In the Douma suburb of the city, security forces opened fire at a funeral, wounding three people, witnesses there said, and mourners in Harasta, a town near Damascus, came under fire from security forces, before staging a sit-in to demand the release of detainees arrested in the past few weeks.Protesters staged another sit-in after a funeral for four people from Irbeen, near Damascus. "We are not leaving until the political prisoners are released," one protester said by phone.
The official SANA news agency said five members of the security forces in the town of Nawa, near Deraa, were killed when they came under attack from what it called an armed criminal group. It said two gang members were killed.It said a military roadblock in Izra'a was also was attacked and security forces killed one of the armed criminal group.
Friday's violence, in areas stretching from the port city of Latakia to Homs, Hama, Damascus and the southern village of Izra'a, brings the death toll to more than 300, according to activists, since unrest broke out on March 18 in Deraa.
U.S. President Barack Obama condemned Friday's violence and accused Assad of seeking help from Iran. A Syrian government source said in a statement published on official state media Obama's statement "was not based on objective vision".
"This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now," Obama said in a statement. "Instead of listening to their own people, President Assad is blaming outsiders while seeking Iranian assistance in repressing Syria's citizens."
France's Foreign Ministry said Paris was "deeply concerned".
"Syrian authorities must give up the use of violence against their citizens. We again call on them to commit without delay to an inclusive political dialogue and to achieve the reforms legitimately demanded by the Syrian people," it said.
A statement by the Local Coordination Committees, a grouping of activists coordinating protests, said the end of emergency law was futile without the release of thousands of political prisoners, most held without trial, and the dismantling of the security apparatus.
In their first joint statement since the protests erupted last month, activists said the abolition of the Baath Party's monopoly on power and the establishment of a democratic political system was central to ending repression in Syria.
Amnesty International said Syrian authorities "have again responded to peaceful calls for change with bullets and batons".
"They must immediately halt their attacks on peaceful protesters and instead allow Syrians to gather freely as international law demands," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director. (Writing and additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut; Editing by Alison Williams)
====
Almost 90 dead in Syria's bloodiest day of unrest22 Apr 2011 23:08
Source: reuters // Reuters
* Protests sweep Syria despite Assad concessions
* Protesters killed in Damascus region, Homs and Izra'a
* Activists want prisoners freed, security forces dismantled
* Amnesty urges end to violence, calls for independent probe
(Updates with Obama statement)
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
AMMAN, April 22 (Reuters) - Syrian security forces killed almost 90 protesters on Friday, rights activists said, the bloodiest day in a month of escalating pro-democracy demonstrations against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.
The Local Coordination Committees sent Reuters a list with the names of 88 people, classified by region, the group said were killed in areas stretching from the port city of Latakia to Homs, Hama, Damascus and the southern village of Izra'a.It was not possible to independently confirm the figures.
U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the violence and accused Assad of seeking help from Iran.
"This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now," Obama said in a statement.
"Instead of listening to their own people, President Assad is blaming outsiders while seeking Iranian assistance in repressing Syria's citizens through the same brutal tactics that have been used by his Iranian allies."
That was an apparent reference to the suppression of anti-government protests in Iran, the biggest since the 1979 Islamic revolution, that erupted after a disputed 2009 presidential election.
Tens of thousands of people had taken to the streets of cities across Syria in the biggest demonstrations to sweep the country so far, and called for the "overthrow of the regime".
That reflected the hardening of demands which initially focused on reforms and greater freedoms.
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The protests went ahead despite Assad's lifting of the state of emergency the day before. Ending the hated emergency rule, in place since the Baath Party seized power 48 years ago, was a central demand of demonstrators, who also seek the release of political prisoners and dismantling of the security services.
"This was the first test of the seriousness of authorities (towards reform) and they have failed," activist Ammar Qurabi said.
Washington urged Syria to stop the violence against protesters and British Foreign Secretary William Hague said emergency law should be "lifted in practice not just in word".
Friday's violence brings the death toll to about 300, according to rights activists, since the unrest which broke out on March 18 in the southern city of Deraa.
Activists cited the highest toll in the nearby village of Izra'a where protesters had been trying to head for Deraa. Residents said 14 people were killed.
"Izra'a is in the dark. No mobile phones or landlines working. People have been talking from villages near to Izra'a but not in the town," said Wissam Tarif of human rights organisation, Insan.
Syrian television said eight people were killed and 28 wounded, including army personnel, in attacks by armed groups in the village. It added an armed group had attacked a military base in the Damascus suburb of Muadhamiya.
Amnesty International said it had been told of 75 deaths, including two children and a 70-year-old man.
Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director, urged the authorities to stop the violence: "They must also immediately launch an independent investigation into what happened and ensure that any security forces found to have carried out these killings are brought to justice."
As in the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, citizens are rebelling against both a lack of freedom and opportunity and security forces' impunity and corruption that has enriched the elite while one-third of Syrians live below the poverty line.
In the first joint statement since the protests broke out, the activists coordinating the demonstrations on Friday demanded the abolition of the Baath Party monopoly on power and the establishment of a democratic political system.
Aided by his family and a pervasive security apparatus, Assad, 45, has absolute power in Syria.
PROTESTS ACROSS COUNTRY
Protests swept the country of 20 million people, from the Mediterranean city of Banias to the eastern towns of Deir al-Zor and Qamishli. In Damascus, security forces fired teargas to disperse 2,000 protesters in the district of Midan.In Hama, where Assad's father crushed an armed Islamist revolt in 1982, a witness said security forces opened fire to prevent protesters reaching the Baath Party headquarters.
"We saw two snipers on the building. None of us had weapons. There are casualties, possibly two dead," said the witness.
Syria's third city Homs, where security forces had killed 21 protesters this week when demonstrators tried to gather at a main square, was not spared on Friday either.
"I was in the centre of Homs and in front of me I heard a security commander telling his armed men: 'Don't spare them (protesters)'", rights campaigner Najati Tayara told Reuters.
Witnesses said security forces also shot at protesters in the Damascus district of Barzeh and the suburb of Douma.
Al Jazeera showed footage of three corpses, wrapped in white burial shrouds, which it said were from the eastern Damascus suburb of Zamalka.
Ahead of the main weekly prayers on Friday, which have often turned out to be launch pads for major demonstrations, the army deployed in Homs and police put up checkpoints across Damascus, apparently trying to prevent protests sweeping in from suburbs.
After prayers finished in Deraa, several thousand protesters gathered chanting anti-Assad slogans. "The Syrian people will not be subjugated. Go away doctor (Assad). We will trample on you and your slaughterous regime,"they shouted.
Assad's conciliatory move to lift the state of emergency followed a familiar pattern since the unrest began a month ago: pledges of reform are made before Friday when demonstrations are the strongest, usually followed by an intense crackdown.
Activists said some funerals for those killed on Friday took place in Damascus suburbs in the evening. Funerals have been another platform for protesters in recent weeks and security forces have opened fire when mourners started demonstrating.
The authorities have blamed armed groups, infiltrators and Sunni Muslim militant organisations for provoking violence at demonstrations by firing on civilians and security forces.
Western and other Arab countries have mostly muted their criticism of the killings in Syria for fear of destabilising the country, which plays a strategic role in many of the conflicts in the Middle East. (Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Yara Bayoumy and Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Sami Aboudi in Cairo, Jeff Mason and Steve Holland aboard Air Force One, Adrian Croft in London; writing by Dominic Evans; editing by Jon Boyle)
===
The ongoing Arab uprisings have no doubt surprised everybody including the pro-Israeli advisors infesting the State Department, the Pentagon and the Whitehouse. After a short pause, the USraelis started to dispatch teams of ‘specialists’ in disinformation, bribery, intimidation, sabotage and dirty works. The CIA and MOSSAD went further to set up filters and red lines for the Arab revolutions.
But would the Arabs, who have been witnessing the American unlimited support for Israeli atrocities and the West’s anti-Islamic crusade, accept to fall in USraeli traps?
It is true that the Americans have sent CIA and DIA agents to support the anti-Gadaffi and Anti Assad protests, but these efforts were undermined by the American refusal to support the Bahraini, the Yemenis, the Saudis, the Omani and the Jordanian uprisings.
Slowly but surely, the Egyptian and the Tunisian revolutions will attain most of their goals. These will be followed by the success in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and Jordan.
There is currently a strong pressure on Iraq occupation government not to extend the presence of US troops in the country beyond the end of 2011 as Al-Maliki and his government will be held responsible for the consequences. Many believe that the days of the USraeli hegemony are numbered and that a new alliance between Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria may dominate future events in the Middle East, away from the USraeli influence.
Adnan Darwash, Iraq Occupation Times
===
Syrian forces fire at protesters, unrest intensifies
19 Apr 2011 00:34
Source: reuters // Reuters
* Protests target Assad, demand his overthrow
* End of emergency law fails to assuage anger
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
AMMAN, April 19 (Reuters) - Syrian forces fired shots at hundreds of protesters who had gathered overnight in Homs city in defiance of warning by the authorities to halt what they called an insurrection, a rights campaigner said on Tuesday.
A member of the security police addressed the protesters at Clock Square through a loud speaker asking them to leave, and then the forces opened fire, said the human rights campaigner, who is in contact with protesters in the square.
Tear gas was also used. At least one protester was injured, the activist added. Two residents of Homs also said they heard the sound of gunfire coming from around the square.
Several hours earlier, Syrian state television broadcast an interior ministry statement that described the wave of unrest in Syria as an insurrection, pointing specifically to Homs as one of two cities where "armed groups belonging to Salafist organisations" were trying to terrorise the population.Salafism is a strict form of Sunni Islam which many Arab governments equate with militant groups like al Qaeda.
President Bashar al-Assad announced on Saturday that he would end nearly half a century of emergency rule with legislation that should be in place by next week, but his pledge did little to appease protesters calling for political freedoms.
Rights campaigners say more than 200 people have been killed since the protests began.
Syrian authorities have intensified bans on independent media since protests challenging the authoritarian rule of Assad erupted more than a month ago.
No independent media is allowed into Homs or other cities witnessing unprecedented pro-democracy demonstrations. Several international journalists have been expelled or arrested.
Thousands demanded the overthrow of Assad on Monday at the funerals of 17 protesters killed in Homs, 165 km (100 miles) north of Damascus. Human rights campaigners said the 17 had been killed late on Sunday during protests against the death in custody of a tribal leader in Homs.
ALLEYWAY TO ALLEYWAY
"From alleyway to alleyway, from house to house, we want to overthrow you, Bashar," the mourners chanted, according to a witness at the funeral.
Further north, in Jisr al-Shughour, 1,000 people called for "the overthrow of the regime", echoing the chants of protesters who overthrew leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, at the funeral of a man who they said had been killed by security forces.
Protests against the authoritarian rule of Assad's Baath Party erupted in the southern city of Deraa more than a month ago, and have spread across the country.
The government says Syria is the target of a conspiracy and authorities blame the violence on armed gangs and infiltrators supplied with weapons from Lebanon and Iraq. Opposition groups say there is no evidence of a conspiracy.
The interior ministry statement said Salafist groups were trying "to spread terror across Syria ... using the march of freedom and reform that was launched according to a timetable by President Assad in his guiding speech".
The demonstrations present the gravest challenge yet to Assad, who succeeded his late father Hafez al-Assad, who died in 2000 after 30 years of rule.
(Amman newsroom, +962 6 4623776)
===========
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
Secret diplomatic cables released by the website WikiLeaks indicate that the US has conducted a long campaign to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
The cables published on the Washington Post on Monday revealed that the US State Department has secretly funded Syrian opposition groups with nearly $6 million since 2006.
The report said that Washington also financed the operation of a satellite channel, Brada TV. The television is said to be closely affiliated with a group of Syrian exiles in London, a Press TV correspondent reported Tuesday.
The funding started during the administration of former US President George W. Bush in 2005, and continued to his incumbent successor, Barack Obama.
In May 2010, Obama extended the country's Bush-era sanctions against Syria, and accused Assad's regime of supporting terrorism.
Investigative Journalist Wayne Madsen believes that the US and its allies are trying to influence uprisings across the Arab world.
“There is a conscious attempt by the United States and its allies to influence the outcome,” he said.
“The six million dollars may not sound like a lot of money, but it is the tip of the iceberg. That is the official money from the State Department. We do not know how much money has been laundered through other agencies.”
Syria is a candidate for becoming the Unite Nations top human rights body.
However, the Obama administration says it would be hypocritical of the Syrian government to take such a role.
Madsen says the United States is hypocritical and has a double standard on human rights in individual countries.
“We see close US allies in Bahrain, for example, and other countries certainly not getting this kind of treatment as we are applying against Syria and Libya. And I think this does show the hypocrisy of the United States,” he said.
The Syrian president says his country encounters conspiracy.
On Sunday, armed gangs killed at least 11 people, including an army general and three of his family members in the Syrian city of Homs.
Another police officer was also killed in a nearby town of Talbisa. Witnesses said that a group of black-clad men opened fire on a crowd.
Saudi Arabia, Jordan behind Syria unrestSat Apr 9, 2011 6:39PM
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Saudi King Abdullah (L) and Jordan's King Abdullah
The rise in anti-government protests and mounting political tension in Syria brings to mind the question about who is behind these deadly incidents.
A probe into the root causes of the latest events in Syria show that the revolt is mainly supported by Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
The revolt began in the city of Daraa, 120 kilometers south of the capital Damascus and near the border with Jordan.
Daraa is the birthplace of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, which has close ties to the people in the Syrian city.
Undoubtedly, the Syrians, like other nations in the region, have some legitimate demands which have prompted the government to plan fundamental reforms. However, the protests have come with unjustifiable violence by some suspicious elements.
Similar protests were seen in 1982 against the government of late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad in the cities of Hama and Daraa.
Hafez al-Assad -- the late father of current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad -- was president between 1970 and 2000 and was considered one of the powerful leaders in the Arab world.
Former Jordan King Hussein, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the then Saudi King Khalid incited Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood against Syria, when Hafez al-Assad backed Iran during the eight-year Iraqi-imposed war on Iran in the 1980s.
The fighting, which took place from 1982 to 1984, left more than 30,000 people dead, but the late Syrian president finally managed to end the crisis.
Saudi Arabia and Jordan continued their attempts to cause unrest in Syria after the death of Hafez al-Assad and his succession by his son.
Saudi Arabia, which often bows to US and Israel's policies in the region, tried to destabilize Bashar al-Assad's government by undermining his rule.
To this end, Saudi Arabia paid 30 million dollars to former vice president Abdul Halim Khaddam to quit Assad's government.
Khaddam sought asylum in France in 2005 with the aid of Saudi Arabia and began to plot against the Syrian government with the exiled leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Khaddam, who is a relative of Saudi King Abdullah and former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, used his great wealth to form a political group with the aim of toppling Bashar al-Assad.
The triangle of Khaddam-Abdullah-Hariri is well-known in the region as their wives are sisters. Khaddam's entire family enjoys Saudi citizenship and the value investment by his sons, Jamal and Jihad, in Saudi Arabia is estimated at more than USD 3 billion.
Therefore, with the start of popular protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain, the Saudi regime saw an opportunity to drive a wedge between Tehran, Damascus and Beirut axis.
Due to the direct influence of the Saudi Wahhabis on Syria's Muslim Brotherhood, the people of the cities of Daraa and Homs, following Saudi incitement and using popular demands as an excuse began resorting to violence.
It is reported that the United States, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia formed joint operational headquarters in the Saudi Embassy in Belgium to direct the riots in southern Syria. Abdul Halim Khaddam, who held the highest political, executive and information posts in the Syrian government for more than 30 years, is said to have been transferred from Paris to Belgium to direct the unrest.
The reason for this was that based on French law, political asylum seekers cannot work against their countries of origin in France and therefore Khaddam was transferred to Brussels to guide the riots.
Jordan equipped the Muslim Brotherhood in the two cities with logistical facilities and personal weapons.
Although, Bashar al-Assad promised implementation of fundamental changes and reforms after the bloody riot in the country, the Brotherhood followed continued to incite protesters against him.
The Syrian state television recently broadcast footage of armed activity in the border city of Daraa by a guerilla group, which opened fire on the people and government forces. It is said that the group, which is affiliated to Salafi movements, obtained its weapons from Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Because Syria's ruling party is from the Alevi tribes associated with the Shias, the Brotherhood, due to its anti-Shia ideas, has tried for three decades to topple the Alevi establishment of the country.
Hence, the recent riots in Syria are not just rooted in popular demands and harbor a tribal aspect and Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the US are directing the unrest for their future purposes.
In the eyes of these three, the removal of Syria's Alevi government would cause the Tehran-Damascus-Beirut axis to collapse and would be followed by the gradual weakening and elimination of Lebanon's resistance.
Therefore suadi and US efforts to topple Assad's government are taking place with the aim of eliminating the last anti-Zionism resistance front.
This is while, considering the Syrian government's experience in resolving difficult crises, it is unlikely that Saudi Arabia and Jordan will succeed in weakening or toppling the Syrian ruling system.
===
Armed groups kill 19 policemen in Deraa
08 Apr 2011 17:51
Source: reuters // Reuters
BEIRUT, April 8 (Reuters) - Armed groups killed 19 policemen in Syria's southern city of Deraa on Friday, state television said.
Earlier, activists and residents said at least 17 people were killed when security forces opened fire on thousands of pro-democracy protesters in the city.
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Thousands call for freedom in Syria, 3 killed in unrest
01 Apr 2011 23:33
Source: reuters // Reuters
A pro-government demonstrator holds up a placard during a rally at the central bank square in Damascus March 29, 2011. REUTERS/Wael Hmedan
* Protests in Damascus, Homs, Latakia and Banias
* Army maintains presence around Deraa
* Critics dismiss Assad's limited steps towards reform
* Syrian news agency acknowledges pro-reform gatherings
(Adds details, human rights spokesman, Deraa protests)
DAMASCUS, April 1 (Reuters) - Syrian security forces killed at least three protesters in a Damascus suburb on Friday, witnesses said, as thousands turned out in pro-democracy marches despite a reform gesture by President Bashar al-Assad.
Activists said Syrians took to the streets after Friday prayers in the capital Damascus, Homs to the north of the capital, Banias on the coast, Latakia port and the southern city of Deraa, where the unprecedented protests challenging Assad's 11 years in power began in March.
Witnesses in the Damascus suburb of Douma said the three killed were among at least 2,000 people who chanted "Freedom. Freedom. One, one, one. The Syrian people are one," when police opened fire to disperse them from Municipality Square.
A photo distributed by one activist showed protesters pelting police forces with stones in Douma, which links Damascus with the northern countryside.
An official source said via state news agency SANA "armed groups" had positioned themselves on rooftops and opened fire on citizens and security forces gathered in Douma, killing and wounding dozens.
SANA said a group had also opened fire on a gathering in the Bayyada district of the western city of Homs, killing a girl, adding soldiers had also come under fire in Deraa.
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In his first public appearance since the demonstrations began, Assad declined on Wednesday to spell out any reforms, especially the lifting of a 48-year-old emergency law that has been used to stifle opposition and justify arbitrary arrests.
"There is no confidence. President Assad talks about reform and does nothing," said Montaha al-Atrash, board member of the independent Syrian human rights organisation Sawasiah.
SYRIA ACKNOWLEDGES "GATHERINGS"
In Deraa, thousands of people gathered at Serail Square, chanting slogans denouncing hints by Assad's to replace emergency law with anti-terrorism legislation and describing rich relatives of the president as "thieves".
Music played from loudspeakers, including the song "Where are the millions?" by Lebanese singer Julia Boutrous. Secret police and regular police forces kept their distance but the army maintained heavy presence around Deraa, including tanks. A Reuters witness saw two tanks positioned near Deraa.
Assad, who became president after his father Hafez al-Assad died in 2000, had predicted the popular revolts seen in Tunisia and Egypt would not spread to Syria, saying the ruling hierarchy was "very closely linked to the beliefs of the people".
But for the past two weeks thousands of Syrians have turned out demanding greater freedoms in the tightly controlled Arab state, posing the gravest challenge to almost 50 years of monolithic Baath Party rule.
More than 60 people have been killed in the unrest, which could have wider repercussions since Syria has an anti-Israel alliance with Iran and supports militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
SANA news agency acknowledged for the first time on Friday that worshippers in Deraa and Latakia, scene of protests and deadly clashes last week, had gathered after Friday prayers to call for accelerated reforms.
It had earlier reported calm across the country, adding there had been peaceful calls for reform and several gatherings supporting "national unity and ... stability".
"A number of worshippers left some mosques in the cities of Deraa and Latakia, chanting slogans in honour of the martyr and calling for speeding up measures for reform ... There were no clashes between worshippers and security forces in these gatherings," it said.
A witness told Reuters security forces and Assad loyalists attacked about 200 worshippers with batons as they marched outside the Refaie mosque in the Kfar Sousseh district of Damascus, chanting slogans in support of the Deraa protesters.
At least six protesters were arrested, the witness told Reuters by telephone from the mosque complex. One man was injured in a protest in the Damascus suburb of Daraya.
Online democracy activists had called for protests across Syria on "Martyrs' Friday", after Assad gave no clear commitment to meet demands for greater freedoms and said Syria was the target of a "big conspiracy".
INVESTIGATING DEATHS
Government-appointed preachers denounced "acts of turmoil" which they said had been "provoked from the outside and had targeted the nation's security".
On Thursday Assad ordered the creation of a panel that would draft anti-terrorism legislation to replace emergency law, a move critics have dismissed, saying they expect the new legislation will give the state much of the same powers.
Assad also ordered an investigation into the deaths of civilians and security forces in Deraa and in Latakia, where clashes that authorities blamed on "armed gangs" occurred last week, killing 12 people, according to officials.
The Syrian News Agency earlier said security forces had arrested two armed groups that opened fire and attacked citizens in a Damascus suburb.
Assad also formed a panel to "solve the problem of the 1962 census" in the eastern region of al-Hasaka. The census resulted in 150,000 Kurds who now live in Syria being denied nationality.
Two American citizens who had been detained in Syria have been released, the U.S. State Department said on Friday, without giving more details.
Media operate in Syria under severe restrictions. Syria expelled Reuters' Damascus correspondent last week. One foreign journalist was released by authorities on Friday, three days after he had been detained, while a Syrian Reuters photographer remains missing since Monday. Two other foreign Reuters journalists were also expelled. (Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; writing by Yara Bayoumy; editing by Andrew Roche)
=======
26 Mar 2011 19:40
Source: reuters // Reuters
(Adds details, background)
AMMAN, March 26 (Reuters) - Syria is the target of a "project to sow sectarian strife", an adviser to President Bashar al-Assad said on Saturday.
"It is obvious Syria is the target of a project to sow sectarian strife to compromise Syria and the unique co-existence model that distinguishes it," Bouthaina Shaaban was quoted as saying by SANA, the state's official news agency.
Majority Sunni Muslim Syria is ruled by the Assad family of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The Alawites are facing the biggest challenge to their rule after protests spread beyond the southern city of Deraa.
The protests have mostly stuck to nationalist slogans.
Protesters in Deraa on Saturday were chanting slogans calling for the overthrow of the regime, the same chant heard in uprisings in other Arab countries.
Analysts have said much now depended on whether the Sunni elite continues to back the Alawite-led military-security apparatus or whether they switch their support to the protests. (Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman; editing by Yara Bayoumy in Beirut)
===
Six dead in port city as Syrian crisis grows
26 Mar 2011 23:06
Source: reuters // Reuters
Protesters gather near Deraa Governor Faysal Kalthoum's residence that was set on fire by protesters in the southern Syrian city of Deraa, in this picture taken with a mobile phone March 25, 2011. REUTERS/via Your View
DERAA, Syria, March 26 (Reuters) - Syrian security forces have killed six people in two days of anti-government protests in the key port city of Latakia, reformist activists living abroad told Reuters on Saturday.
President Bashar al-Assad, facing his deepest crisis in 11 years in power after security forces fired on protesters on Friday in the southern town of Deraa, freed 260 prisoners in an apparent bid to placate a swelling protest movement.
But the reports from Latakia, a security hub in the northwest, suggested unrest was still spreading.
There were reports of more than 20 deaths in protests on Friday, mainly in the south, and medical officials say dozens have now been killed over the past week around Deraa alone.
Such demonstrations would have been unthinkable a couple of months ago in this most tightly controlled of Arab countries.
Bouthaina Shaaban, a senior adviser to Assad, told the official news agency that Syria was "the target of a project to sow sectarian strife to compromise Syria and (its) unique coexistence model".
Syrian rights activist Ammar Qurabi told Reuters in Cairo: "There have been at least two killed (in Latakia) today after security forces opened fire on protesters trying to torch the Baath party building."
"I have been in touch with people in Syria since last night, using three cell phones and constantly sitting online. Events are moving at an extremely fast pace."
Exiled dissident Maamoun al-Homsi told Reuters by telephone from Canada: "I have the name of four martyrs who have fallen in Latakia yesterday."
The state news agency quoted a government source as saying security forces had not fired at protesters but that an armed group had taken over rooftops and fired on citizens and security forces, killing five people since Friday.
In Damascus and other cities, thousands of Assad's supporters marched or and drove around, waving flags, to proclaim their allegiance to the Baath party.
GRAFFITI
The unrest in Syria came to a head after police detained more than a dozen schoolchildren for scrawling graffiti inspired by pro-democracy protests across the Arab world.
President Assad made a public pledge on Thursday to look into granting greater freedom and lifting emergency laws dating back to 1963, but failed to dampen the protests.
On Saturday a human rights lawyer said 260 prisoners, mostly Islamists, had been freed after serving at least three-quarters of their sentences.
Amnesty International put the death toll in and around Deraa in the past week at 55 at least. In Sanamein, near Deraa, 20 protesters were shot dead on Friday, a resident told Al Jazeera.
One unidentified doctor told CNN television that snipers had been shooting people in Deraa from atop government buildings.
"We had 30 people got shot in the head and the neck and we had hundreds of people got wounded," he said.
"We put two wounded in an ambulance sending them to the hospital. We had security forces stop the ambulances, get the wounded outside the ambulance and shoot them, and said: 'Now you can take them to the hospital'."
Some of the dead protesters were buried on Saturday in Deraa and nearby villages, residents said.
Several thousand mourners prayed over the body of 13-year-old Seeta al-Akrad in Deraa's Omari mosque, scene of an attack by security forces earlier in the week.
Police were not in evidence when they marched to a cemetery chanting: "The people want the downfall of the regime", a refrain heard in uprisings from Tunisia to Egypt and Yemen.
Emboldened by the lack of security presence, the mourners also chanted: "Strike, strike, until the regime falls!"
Abu Jassem, a Deraa resident, said: "We were under a lot of pressure from the oppressive authority, but now when you pass by (the security forces), nobody utters a word. They don't dare talk to the people. The people have no fear any more."
ALAWITES
In nearby Tafas, mourners in the funeral procession of Kamal Baradan, killed on Friday in Deraa, set fire to Baath party offices and the police station, residents said.
There were also protests on Friday in Damascus and in Hama, a northern city where in 1982 the forces of president Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, killed thousands of people and razed much of the old quarter to put down an armed uprising by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.
Syria's establishment is dominated by members of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, a fact that causes resentment among the Sunni Muslims who make up some three-quarters of the population. Latakia is mostly Sunni Muslim but has significant numbers of Alawites.
Edward Walker, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, said sectarian friction made many in the establishment wary of giving ground to demands for political freedoms and economic reforms.
"They are a basically reviled minority(To assail with abusive language;), the Alawites, and if they lose power, if they succumb to popular revolution, they will be hanging from the lamp posts," he said.
"They have absolutely no incentive to back off."
EXISTENTIAL STRUGGLE
Asked if there could be a crackdown on the scale of Hama, Faysal Itani, deputy head of Middle East and North Africa Forecasting at Exclusive Analysis, said this was a "real risk".
"For a minority regime this is an existential struggle," he said. "If the unrest continues at this pace, the Syrian army is not going to be able to maintain cohesion."
Many believed a tipping point had been reached.
"The Syrian regime is attempting to make promises such as a potential lifting of the state of emergency, which has been in place since 1963, a record in the Arab world," Bitar said.
"But if this happens it will be the end of a whole system, prisoners will have to be released, the press will be free ... when this kind of regime considers relaxing its grip, it also knows that everything could collapse."
Central Bank Governor Adeeb Mayaleh said the central bank was ready to supply the market with foreign currency liquidity, hinting at rising demand for U.S. dollars.
Syria has a close alliance with Iran and links to the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas and the Lebanese Shi'ite political and military group Hezbollah.Its allies in the region have yet to comment on the unrest.
"Syria is Iran's main ally in the Arab world. A fall of the regime would have consequences for Hezbollah and Hamas ... I'm not sure that the region's big powers would allow such a big shock," said Karim Emile Bitar, research fellow at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations in Paris.
Syrian border police were stopping a number of Syrians entering from Lebanon, a Lebanese security source said. (Reporting by a Reuters correspondent in Deraa, Yara Bayoumy in Beirut, Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Lionel Laurent in Paris, William Maclean in London; Dina Zayed in Cairo; Writing by Peter Millership and Kevin Liffey; editing by Ralph Boulton)
==
In Syria, protests follow funeralSat Mar 26, 2011 4:7PM
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Syrian protesters march in the southern town of Daraa, on March 21, 2011. Getty ImagesHundreds of Syrian protesters have gathered in Daraa's main square following a funeral procession for a demonstrator from the village of Tafas who was killed during a government crackdown.
The funeral was held for Kamal Baradan, killed on Friday during demonstrations, Reuters reported.
Mourners in Tafas, who numbered in thousands, reportedly torched the ruling Baath party's headquarters and a police station on Saturday.
Witnesses said young men in Daraa had climbed onto the ruins of the statue of the president's father, the late President Hafez al-Assad.
More than 1,000 people are holding a silent sit-in the Al Omari mosque, which was retaken by protesters from government forces on Friday.
Amnesty International reported at least 55 have been killed in and around Daraa. Seventeen protesters were shot dead as they attempted to travel to Daraa from the village of Sanamen on Friday. On Wednesday, unknown gunmen opened fire on peaceful demonstrators, killing at least five.
Meanwhile, President Bashar al-Assad's government has announced the release of 260 detained activists. The government also announced the withdrawal of troops from Daraa.
The southern city Daraa -- located close to Jordan's border -- has emerged as the center of Syria's unrest and the scene of demonstrations for the past week. Unrest in the area was reportedly triggered by the arrest of young students for spraying graffiti last week.
Earlier on Thursday, Syrian authorities publicized a string of reforms in response to the protests, including the possible end to the emergency rule set in place since 1963.
Syrian activists say they will continue to push for more civil liberties and an end to corruption.
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FACTBOX-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
23 Apr 2011 11:18
Source: reuters // Reuters
April 23 (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, 45, faces the gravest crisis in his 11-year rule as anti-government protests sweep across the country, calling for political freedom and an end to corruption.
Activists say more than 300 people have died in violence since the unrest broke out on March 18 in the southern city of Deraa.
The protests have spiralled despite Assad's decision this week to lift the country's emergency law, in place since his Baath Party seized power 48 years ago.
Here are some key facts about Assad:
* ASSAD AS PRESIDENT:
-- The world welcomed the British-trained eye doctor in 2000 as a potential pioneer of reform in autocratic Syria.
-- The soft-spoken Bashar took office after the death of his formidable father Hafez al-Assad, who brooked no dissent and refused to bend in the Arab-Israeli conflict for 30 years.
-- Assad did appoint a cabinet at the end of 2001 packed with Western-trained technocrats in economic portfolios charged with developing a modern financial system to draw foreign investors.
-- The most visible result was a swathe of legislation to ease financial restrictions and establish private banks.
-- In 2003, Assad reshuffled the cabinet citing disappointment with the pace of reform. He made more changes in 2004.
-- In 2007 Assad won a referendum that gave him a second seven-year term as president. The poll was considered by opponents, critics and the United States to be a sham.
-- He has said he is willing to resume peace talks with Israel, insisting on a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights occupied in 1967, while continuing to position Syria as a self declared champion of Arab resistance to the Jewish state.
-- Under Assad, Syria has been Iran's closest Arab ally, a major force in Lebanon, and a supporter of Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups.
-- The Baath Party, which seized power nearly 50 years ago, has governed under emergency laws and banned all opposition. Other grievances against authorities include the dominance of Assad's minority Alawites over the Sunni Muslim majority, corruption, economic hardship and a rising cost of living.
* HARIRI KILLING IN LEBANON:
-- Since 2005, when Washington withdrew its ambassador to Damascus after the assassination of Lebanese statesman Rafik al-Hariri, Assad has engineered a rapprochement with the West but maintained a hard line against criticism at home.
-- The United States resumed full diplomatic relations with Syria last January. However, tensions have grown again over neighbouring Lebanon, where Damascus ally Hezbollah has gained the upper hand in a political crisis.
-- Assad has always insisted that Damascus had no role in the blast which killed Hariri, but was forced to withdraw Syrian troops from Lebanon in April 2005 under intense global and Lebanese pressure.
-- Hezbollah-backed Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati is trying to form a government after the Shiite group and its allies toppled Saad al-Hariri over his refusal to cut links with a U.N.-backed court investigating the killing of his father.
-- Assad has called for a national unity government in Lebanon, warning that "if you have one side taking over the other side, this means a conflict" which may lead to civil war.
-- Assad has said Lebanon's government should reject any tribunal indictment. The tribunal issued a still-secret indictment in January 2011 which is expected to accuse Hezbollah members of involvement in the killing. Hezbollah has denied any role and says Mikati's new government must end funding and withdraw Lebanese judges from the court.
* LIFE DETAILS: -- Bashar al-Assad, born in the Syrian capital, Damascus, in September 1965, studied medicine at the University of Damascus and graduated as a general practitioner in 1988.
-- He then trained to become an ophthalmologist at a Damascus military hospital and in 1992 moved to London to continue his studies.
-- In 1994 his older brother, Basil, who had been designated his father's heir apparent, was killed in a car crash, and Bashar returned to Syria to take his brother's place.
Sources: Reuters/britannica.com (Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)
========
Bassel al-Assad (Arabic: باسل الأسد, Bāssel al-Assad) (March 23, 1962 – January 21, 1994) was a son of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad.
Biography
From a young age, Basil was groomed to fill the role of President by his father. He was chief of presidential security while running a highly publicized anti-corruption campaign within the regime, and frequently appeared in full military uniform at official receptions, signalling the regime's commitment to the armed forces. He also had a reputation for being an aficionado of fast cars.
In January 1994, driving his own Mercedes at high speed through fog to Damascus International Airport in the small hours of the morning, Basil is said to have collided with a motorway roundabout and died instantly.[1] There has been occasional speculation[by whom?] that his death may have been a murder cover-up, but this has not been suggested by the Syrian government and no evidence in support of such a theory has, as far is known, been presented elsewhere.
His death led to his lesser-known brother Bashar al-Assad, then undertaking sub-speciality training in ophthalmology in London, assuming the mantle of President-in-waiting. Bashar became President upon the death of Hafez on June 10, 2000.
The state-run Syrian media sometimes refers to him as "Basil the Martyr" (Arabic: الشهيد باسل, Bāsil), and numerous squares and streets have been named after him. His statue is found in several Syrian cities, and even after his death he is often pictured at billboards with his father and brother. He is buried in Qardaha, his father's village of birth, in a large mausoleum, where Hafez al-Assad was laid to rest beside him in 2000.
He was a popular sportsman and horse riding champion, winning several tournaments in shooting and equestrian, including the gold medal of the Latakia Mediterranean Games in 1987. The International Fair Play Committee awarded him the Diploma of Attitude in 1991.
References
↑ Schmidt, William E. (January 22, 1994). "Assad's Son Killed in Auto Crash". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/22/world/assad-s-son-killed-in-an-auto-crash.html.
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Qardaha (Arabic: قرداحة) is a village in northwestern Syria, in the mountains overlooking the coastal town of Latakia.
It is mainly an Alawite town and the traditional home of the Assad family, that has ruled Syria since 1970. During the reign of Hafez al-Assad 1970-2000 the government poured massive investments into Qaradaha, Lattakia and the surrounding region. Today, this is evident already before entering Qardaha, as the broad Syrian coastal highway makes an inexplicable pass into the mountains just to reach Qardaha. Qardaha has a lot of luxurious villas.
Qardaha has so many Villages belongs to it such as A'aen al A'aros, Debash, Kabo, Bistan al basha, and Bhmra. Major families in Qardaha: Al-Assad, Al khayer, Othman, Shalish, Ismail, Jabbour, Nassif, Hatem, Suleiman, Deeb, Kina'an, Makhlouf, Aslan, Jarkas. A major statue of Hafez al-Assad is found in the town center, and a huge mausoleum containing the graves of Basil al-Assad and Hafez al-Assad is also located there. Hasan Alkhayer was also born in Qardaha.
The Aramaic meaning of Qardaha is the first village. The name of Qardaha is Phoenician and means "the place that manufactures, and sharpens the weapons".
All the villages and places in Alawite Mountains named in Phoenician language. People of the Qardaha and all the Alawite mountains are called by other syrians "The Germans" because of their looks.
It is said among the Circassian people of Syria that the town of Qardaha was actually founded by Circassian people during the time of the Mameluke warrior Sultan Kanchow Al Ghouri. Evidence for this can be seen by the large number of Circassians that live in the town and the entire Alawite Mountain region. There is even a street named Cherkess Street as well as a large family of the same name.Qardaha in the Circassian language means "Welcome".
================
Circassians A term that includes several groups linked by language and culture.
Circassian refers to indigenous peoples of the northwestern Caucasus who are found today as minority communities in Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Egypt. The term encompasses several groups linked by language and culture who refer to themselves in their own languages by different ethnonyms; primary among them are the Adyge, Abaza, and Ubykh. The terms Circassian (English), Çerkes (Turkish), Cherkess (Russian), and Sharkass (Arabic) are used by outsiders loosely to include various north Caucasian peoples. In addition to the Russian Federation and the Middle Eastern countries mentioned above, migrations since the 1960s have led to a Circassian presence in Western Europe and the United States. One can thus speak of a widely dispersed Circassian diaspora that is linked through kinship, intermarriage, trans-national social and political organizations, and cultural flows.
Alawi are considered more European than other Syrian tribes, and therefore were chosen by the French, to negotiate with d...uring the colonial period. From an integrational point of view, it would make sense, to have a sect that was closer even in religious beliefs to the European values in order to deal with the French colonialists and those that followed them in the modern era, it's just a shame that the Alawis have been so brutal against the rest of the population as part of their reign using 'terror' and allying with the CIA using torture against the population and those sent to them on rendition flights the same as was seen in Egypt leading to the uprising there.
===
FACTBOX-Key political risks to watch in Syria
03 May 2011 16:59
Source: reuters // Reuters
By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent
BEIRUT, May 3 (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who had boasted his country was immune to the unrest lashing the Arab world's autocrats, is now fighting for political survival.
The 45-year-old leader has tried economic carrots, political concessions and brute force -- including tank fire in the southern town of Deraa -- to try to quell an upheaval that rights groups say has cost at least 560 lives since mid-March.
The authorities contest the toll, saying on April 29 that 78 members of the security forces and 70 civilians had been killed.
Syria, mired in its gravest crisis since Assad's father crushed an armed Islamist revolt in 1982, risks international opprobrium(Disgrace arising from exceedingly shameful conduct; ignominy.
) and sanctions for its repressive response. The Assad family's grip on power looks at its shakiest in 30 years.
Instability in Syria, fulcrum of several Middle Eastern conflicts, carries huge but as yet uncertain implications for its neighbours, notably Lebanon and Israel, and for the region.
Here are some of the key risks to watch.
CHALLENGE TO ASSAD RULE
What sparked the revolt was the arrest of 15 youngsters for scrawling anti-government slogans in Deraa, where the first three deaths occurred on March 18.
Protests gradually spread across Syria as people demanded freedom from three decades of Baath Party rule, against a background of grievances over economic hardship and corruption.
Assad, portraying unrest as the work of armed gangs paid by malign powers, replaced his government and coughed up a series of concessions that did not mollify protesters increasingly enraged by the bloodshed inflicted by security forces.
Their initial chants for reform soon gave way to the battle cry of Arab uprisings that had already unseated the rulers of Egypt and Tunisia: "The people want the downfall of the regime."
On April 21 Assad ended 48 years of emergency law and scrapped a hated state security court, but the killing of 100 protesters the next day seemed to make these moves a mockery.
Similarly, limited prisoner releases were counterbalanced by the detention of hundreds of other dissenters and protesters.
Economic handouts and job creation promises failed to calm the resentment of many Syrians who believe only a small group of crony capitalists has benefited from Assad's reforms, ostensibly aimed at overhauling an inefficient socialist-style economy.
So far the armed forces and security services, many of whose commanders belong to Assad's family and his minority Alawite community, appear to have remained loyal -- unlike in Egypt and Tunisia where the military helped usher presidents from power.
Assad's ousting is no foregone conclusion. His opponents may they have breached the barrier of fear that has long underpinned Baathist rule, but ruthless repression could re-erect it.
The president can also play the "me-or-chaos" card which resonates with many Syrians. Some fear that militant Islamists could fill any power vacuum, others that civil war might engulf their country, as in next-door Lebanon and Iraq in the past.
* What to watch
-- Any signs of mutiny among the army and security forces
-- Any signs of protesters taking up arms
PARIAH STATUS?
The United States has condemned Assad's use of force -- he sent army tanks into Deraa and two suburbs of Damascus on April 25 -- but Western nations which launched air strikes on Muammar Gaddafi's Libya have not acted against the Syrian leader.
The Arab League, which swiftly suspended Libya's membership over Gaddafi's efforts to quell opposition, has remained silent on Syria, although it issued a blanket condemnation on April 26 of the use of force against pro-democracy Arab protesters.
Western criticism of Assad's crackdown was initially muted, partly because of fears that a collapse of his Alawite rule might lead to sectarian conflict with the Sunni majority or bring to power Islamist militants hostile to Israel.
The United States, which had sought to isolate Syria after the 2005 assassination of Lebanese statesman Rafik al-Hariri, has more recently tried to engage it, hoping to loosen its alliance with Iran and move it towards a peace deal with Israel.
Neither policy proved very successful.
Israel is in two minds. The removal of Assad, a foe who is allied with Iran and backs Lebanon's Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad, would seem a bonus. Yet Assad and his father have kept the border mostly quiet since the 1973 war, even though Israel still occupies Syria's Golan Heights.
No country has much leverage over Syria. Even Turkey, which has developed close links with Damascus in the last few years, has seen Assad ignore its advice to enact reforms.
The United States has kept sanctions on Syria since 2004 and added new ones against Assad's brother and cousin, as well as the General Intelligence Directorate and its chief, on April 29, but stopped short of targeting the Syrian president. The European Union has agreed in principle to enforce an arms embargo on Syria. The U.N. Human Rights Council condemned Syria on April 29 for using deadly force against protesters, but China, Russia and Lebanon had earlier blocked a European push for the U.N. Security Council to do likewise.
Iran could be a big loser if Assad's rule collapses because Syria, its main Arab ally since 1980, has facilitated Tehran's efforts to build a Middle Eastern "axis of resistance" to Israel and the United States via Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Lebanon, Iraq and other countries will worry that any ethnic or sectarian conflict in a destabilised Syria could spill across their borders, whipping up regional tensions between Arabs and Kurds, Christians and Muslims, or Sunnis and Shi'ites.
What to watch:
* Western moves to impose or tighten sanctions
* Any Arab League position on Syria
ECONOMIC FALLOUT
The turmoil will hit an economy grappling with unemployment, poverty, and water and power shortages, along with falling oil output and rapid population growth of 2.5 percent a year.
The International Monetary Fund said on April 27 Syria was set for 3 percent growth in 2011 versus 3.2 percent in 2010, with inflation reaching 6 percent against 4.4 percent last year and the fiscal deficit widening to 6.8 percent of GDP from 4.8.
The unrest has ravaged the tourism industry, one of Syria's fastest-growing sectors, and may scare off foreign investors -- Syria has delayed bidding for its third mobile operator licence, Saudi Telecom <7010.SE>, one of the bidders, said on April 27.
A government goal of luring more than $40 billion in private investment to overhaul creaking infrastructure and create jobs over five years had looked implausible even before the protests, given corruption levels and uncertainty about the rule of law.
Foreign direct investment fell to $1.4 billion in 2009 from $2.4 billion in 2008, according to the World Bank.
Syria, now a net oil importer, needs to invest in refineries to cut fuel import costs in a country that produces 380,000 barrels per day of crude, down from a 590,000 bpd peak in 1996.
Despite fiscal strains, Syria has opened the spending taps to try to calm discontent, cutting taxes on some foods, giving cash to poor families, reducing income tax, raising the minimum wage and extending health cover to civil service pensioners -- measures the IMF says will cost about 2 percent of GDP.
Unemployment is officially 10 percent. Independent estimates say it is closer to 25 percent. The International Labour Organisation says 60 percent of those aged 15 to 24 lack jobs.
Tougher international sanctions would inflict more economic pain -- without necessarily swaying Syrian policy-makers.
U.S. sanctions bar the export of certain goods with over 10 percent of U.S.-produced components, restrict dealings with the Commercial Bank of Syria and ban the U.S. financial system from dealing with individuals linked to militant groups.
Any punitive measures by the European Union, which accounted for 36 percent of Syria's exports and 29 percent of its imports in 2008, would probably target Syrian leaders, not trade.
What to watch:
* Impact on foreign investment, trade, tourism
* Worsening budget deficit, pressure on Syrian pound
====
U.S. slaps sanctions on Syrian president, top aides
18 May 2011 17:01
Source: reuters // Reuters
SYflag510
By Arshad Mohammed and Andrew Quinn
WASHINGTON, May 18 (Reuters) - The United States imposed sanctions on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and six other top aides for human rights abuses on Wednesday in a dramatic escalation of pressure on Syria to cease its brutal crackdown on protesters.
Targeting Assad personally with sanctions, which the United States and European Union have so far avoided, is a significant slap at Damascus and raises questions about whether Washington and the West may ultimately seek Assad's removal from power.
Syrian activists say at least 700 civilians have been killed in two months of clashes between government forces and protesters seeking an end to his 11-year rule. The protests in Syria began after demonstrations toppled authoritarian leaders in Tunisia and Egypt.
The move, announced by the Treasury Department, freezes any assets of the Syrian officials that are in the United States or otherwise fall within U.S. jurisdiction and it generally bars U.S. individuals and companies from dealing with them.
In addition to Assad, the Treasury said the sanctions would target Vice President Farouq al-Shara, Prime Minister Adel Safar, Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar, Defense Minister Ali Habib as well as Abdul Fatah Qudsiya, the head of Syrian military intelligence, and Mohammed Dib Zaitoun, director of the political security directorate.
While it was not immediately clear what practical effect the sanctions would have or whether the seven had significant assets that would be captured by the U.S. move, the symbolic gesture was profound.
"The actions the administration has taken today send an unequivocal message to President Assad, the Syrian leadership, and regime insiders that they will be held accountable for the ongoing violence and repression in Syria," said Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen said in a written statement.
"President al-Assad and his regime must immediately end the use of violence, answer the calls of the Syrian people for a more representative government, and embark upon the path of meaningful democratic reform," he added.
European governments agreed on Tuesday to tighten sanctions against the Syrian leadership, but said they would decide next week about whether to include Assad on the list.
U.S. President Barack Obama last month signed an executive order imposing a first round of U.S. sanctions against Syria's intelligence agency and two relatives of Assad's for alleged human rights abuses.
The EU, for its part, put 13 Syrian officials on its sanctions list in what it described as a move to gradually increase pressure. (Reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Andrew Quinn, editing by Sandra Maler)
===
Syria under pressure as US slaps sanctions on Assad
19 May 2011 00:09
Source: reuters // Reuters
* Washington targets Assad with personal sanctions
* Growing pressure on Syria to stop violent crackdown
By Arshad Mohammed and Khaled Yacoub Oweis
WASHINGTON/AMMAN, May 19 (Reuters) - Syria was under growing pressure on Thursday to stop using military force against anti-government protesters after the United States slapped sanctions on President Bashar al-Assad over human rights violations.
Broadening its campaign against pro-democracy rallies, Syrian tanks have been shelling a border town for days in the latest attempt to crush a revolt against Assad's 11-year rule.
Western powers have condemned Assad's crackdown on two months of unrest which has killed at least 700 civilians, according to human rights groups.
Washington's decision to target Assad personally with sanctions raises the stakes in the conflict and poses questions about whether the West may ultimately seek his overthrow.
Leading Syrian opposition figure Haitham al-Maleh said the decision meant "members of the regime are now under siege".
"Any move by the international community may help the Syrian people in continuing their uprising," he told Reuters from Damascus.
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ More on Middle East unrest: [nTOPMEAST] [ID:nLDE71O2CH] Middle East unrest graphics http://link.reuters.com/heh98r For interactive factbox http://link.reuters.com/puk87r For Syria graphic http://link.reuters.com/tew88r ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
The Treasury Department said it would freeze any of the assets owned by Syrian officials in the United States or which fall within U.S. jurisdiction, and bar U.S. individuals and companies from dealing with them.
The sanctions list also includes Vice President Farouq al-Shara, Prime Minister Adel Safar, Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar, Defence Minister Ali Habib plus Abdul Fatah Qudsiya, head of Syrian military intelligence, and Mohammed Dib Zaitoun, director of the political security directorate.
"The actions the administration has taken today send an unequivocal message to President Assad, the Syrian leadership and regime insiders that they will be held accountable for the ongoing violence and repression in Syria," Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen said in a statement.
An EU diplomat said the European Union was expected to extend sanctions on Syria next week to include Assad as well. "What I detect from members states...is that there is a clear majority, if not now a consensus, for putting him on the list," the diplomat told Reuters. [ID:nLDE74H27M]
REFORMS
The unrest in Syria began two months ago when protesters, inspired by uprisings in other parts of the Arab world, took to the streets calling for greater freedoms. The crackdown by troops, security forces and irregular Assad loyalists led them to go further and demand an end to Assad's rule.
Syrian authorities blame most of the violence on armed groups backed by Islamists and outside powers who they say have killed more than 120 soldiers and police.
A senior U.S. official said the new sanctions were meant to force Assad to carry out promised political reforms.
"President Assad has a clear choice: either to lead this transition to democracy or to leave," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters.
Switzerland said on Wednesday it would impose travel bans on 13 top Syrian officials -- but not Assad himself -- and freeze any of their assets held in Swiss banks, matching a decision by the EU last week.
Last month, Washington imposed a first round of sanctions on two relatives of Assad and the country's intelligence agency for alleged human rights abuses.
Syria has barred most international media from operating in the country, making it hard to verify reports from activists and officials.
On Saturday, Syrian troops went into Tel Kelakh -- a day after a demonstration there demanded "the overthrow of the regime", the slogan of revolutions that toppled Arab leaders in Egypt and Tunisia and challenged others across the Middle East.
"We're still without water, electricity or communications," a resident of Tel Kelakh said by satellite phone.
He said the army was storming houses and making arrests, but withdrawing from neighbourhoods after the raids. In a sign that the army was coming under fire in the town, he said some families "are resisting, preferring death to humiliation".
A witness on the Lebanese side of the border said heavy gunfire could be heard from nearby Tel Kelakh. (Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn in Washington, Nazih Siddiq in Wadi Khaled, Lebanon; writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton/David Stamp)
===
ANALYSIS-Syria brushes off sanctions over Assad crackdown
19 May 2011 15:27
Source: reuters // Reuters
* Syria says sanctions will have no impact
* Sanctions "may prolong protests but won't topple regime" * Govt has offered national dialogue, activists sceptical
By Dominic Evans
BEIRUT, May 19 (Reuters) - U.S. sanctions against Bashar al-Assad will not deter a defiant Syria from its campaign to crush protests and may come too late to give fresh impetus to a two-month wave of demonstrations calling for greater freedom.
Targeting the Syrian head of state directly for the first time, Washington imposed sanctions which freeze assets held by Assad, and a senior U.S. administration official said he faced a choice to lead "a transition to democracy or to leave".
But the steps were dismissed in Damascus by officials and Syrian analysts. State news agency SANA said the sanctions were an attack on the Syrian people on behalf of arch-foe Israel and vowed they would have no impact on "Syria's independent will".
The United States announced the largely symbolic steps on Wednesday to escalate pressure on Assad to end the crackdown in which rights groups say at least 700 civilians have been killed. <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ More on Middle East unrest: [nTOPMEAST] [ID:nLDE71O2CH] Middle East unrest graphics http://link.reuters.com/heh98r For interactive factbox http://link.reuters.com/puk87r For Syria graphic http://link.reuters.com/tew88r ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
Assad, whose minority Alawite family has held power over majority Sunni Muslim Syria for four decades, faces the most serious challenge to his 11-year rule from the wave of protests which erupted in the southern city of Deraa on March 18.
It is not clear what assets would be blocked, but a U.S. official suggested the sanctions would be significant if they were matched in coming days by similar European Union steps.
"These sanctions are a formality, they will not affect Syria," said Syrian political analyst Imad Shuaibi, adding they also appeared aimed at prodding Europe into following suit.
Assad has sent tanks and soldiers into the main protest centres in a determined effort to crush opposition inspired by Arab uprisings which toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.
Washington has condemned the repression as "barbaric", but Syria says it is battling armed, Islamist-backed groups that have killed 120 soldiers and police -- a battle it says it is winning.
"Sanctions against Syria's top government figures come at a time when the regime is gaining control over the protest movement and suppressing dissent," said Joshua Landis, associate professor of Middle East studies at Oklahoma University.
"The sanctions come too late to add momentum to the protest movement. They may prolong the movement but will not topple the regime," Landis wrote in his blog, Syria Comment.
CONDEMNATION
Before the unrest broke out, Western powers had been re-engaging with Assad after years of seeking to isolate him over Syria's backing of militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas and its alleged help for militants fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.
Some had hoped to loosen Syria's strong alliance with Iran, which Assad reinforced after taking power on his father's death in 2000, and encourage it to make peace with Israel which still occupies the Golan Heights seized from Syria in a 1967 war.
The United States and Europe have led the condemnation of Assad's crackdown, but he has also faced growing criticism from regional power Turkey, whose prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, has dismissed Damascus' explanations for the violence.
But, in contrast to the international response to fighting in Libya, Syria faces little prospect of military intervention and Russia and China have made clear they oppose any action against Syria at the United Nations Security Council.
Hazem Saghieh, columnist with the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat, said protesters would take heart that the United States was increasing pressure on Assad but predicted the Syrian leader would step up the crackdown in response.
"I don't think Assad has the luxury to change," he said. "To change means to relinquish power and advantages ... I think he will escalate the repression".
Last week an adviser to Assad said Syria had "passed the most dangerous moment" of the uprising and a government minister promised a national dialogue across the country within days.
Activists gave a sceptical response, calling on authorities to release political prisoners, amend laws which give sweeping powers to security forces and guarantee free speech.
"The opposition is not against dialogue, but it must have a purpose, which is the transformation of Syria from a dictatorship into a democracy," said Walid al-Bunni, who has been jailed twice for calling for democracy in Syria.
PROMISE OF NATIONAL DIALOGUE
But Syrian academic Sami Moubayed said the government was unlikely to offer concessions while the unrest continued, and suggested a "truce" under which demonstrators called off protests to give authorities time to implement reform.
"The government will not make concessions so long as the street is in a frenzy and the security scene is chaotic," said Moubayed, editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria.
Nearly a week since the dialogue was promised, there have been no announcements about when it will actually take place, or who might be involved, and critics see it as a stalling tactic.
"They say they will launch national dialogue, but there are no grounds for this dialogue," said Hilal Khashan, a political scientist at the American University of Beirut.
"An authoritarian regime is incapable of reform."
A Damscus-based analyst said the government promise of talks ran counter to its "sweeping, chaotic and counterproductive repressive campaign" against protesters.
"The regime ... calls for a national dialogue while suppressing any possibility that credible interlocutors will emerge," said the analyst, who declined to be named.
"With this approach, it will be left with only the Muslim Brotherhood and local religious opinion leaders to deal with, although these are precisely the people it would rather marginalise." (Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis)
====
May. 20, 2011 6:13 AM ET
Iraqis flee violence in Syria, return home
REBECCA SANTANAREBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press
BAGHDAD (AP) — It's easy to identify the Iraqis fleeing the violent uprising in Syria as they arrive by bus in Baghdad.
They're the ones carrying a sad array of worldly possessions: blankets and mattresses tied with cord; TVs and curtain rods; boxes once filled with food from the U.N.'s refugee agency now packed with clothes and baby toys.
"It is better to die in our own country than to die abroad," said Zeena Ibrahim, a 33-year-old pregnant mother of two.
She returned with her husband from Damascus, where they have lived since 2006. Her husband used to be in the Iraqi army, and after receiving repeated threats and attending funerals almost daily for fellow soldiers, the couple decided to flee to the safety of Syria.
Now that haven is gone. And as uprisings and revolutions sweep the Middle East, many Iraqis are beginning to return home.
It is a development that says just as much about the improving security in Iraq as it does about the deteriorating conditions in countries that used to be stable.
More than 850 people have been killed in Syria as the regime of President Bashar Assad has cracked down on a popular uprising that began in March. Although Iraq still has its share of bombings and shootings, it is nothing compared with 2006 or 2007, when bombings were a daily occurrence and death squads tortured people with electric drills.
"No doubt Iraq's situation now is better than the situation in several countries in the region and this has encouraged some Iraqis to return to their country and enjoy some peace," said Salam al-Khafaji, Iraq's deputy migration minister.
How many will come home remains to be seen and is likely dependent on just how bad things get in the region — especially in neighboring Syria, where many Iraqis had fled.
The movement is raising concern among Iraqis about how the newcomers will affect the country's economy and still shaky relations between Sunnis and Shiites.
Iraq has seen waves of outward migration beginning with the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 and continuing through the sanctions of the 1990s. There was a brief period after the U.S. invasion when Iraqis came home, but that quickly changed when the bombings and killings began.
The International Organization for Migration estimates that about 2 million Iraqis are in neighboring states. Some are in Jordan, but most live in Syria, which until 2008 allowed Iraqis to enter without visas.
Al-Khafaji said the ministry does not have numbers on people returning from Syria. But anecdotal evidence at the vacant lot where the buses arrive from Syria suggests the beginning of what could be an exodus if the situation there deteriorates further.
Buses pull in after the roughly 10-hour overnight journey from Damascus to Baghdad.
Before the uprising began, about 12-15 buses traveled between Baghdad and Damascus each day, said bus company owner Mohammed Nosh. Now about 25-30 buses make the daily trip, he said.
Mustafa Munaf of the al-Baqie travel agency said between 750 to 1,000 people have been traveling on his buses from Syria on a weekly basis since March, while only about 250 make the return journey. Many are men going to Syria to collect their wives and children who were sent there during the insurgency while they stayed in Iraq to work.
Other travel agencies said traffic from Baghdad to Syria had dropped 50 percent while return traffic was up 75 percent. Many send empty buses to Damascus to pick up passengers.
Some returning Iraqis report fighting in their neighborhoods in Syria, with police everywhere. Others describe how Iraqis are being targeted.
"The situation is very bad — killings and robberies," said Hassan Abdul-Hussein, a father of six who used to live in Damascus. He and his family left Iraq to find work nearly a year ago. "On the walls, they wrote in graffiti, 'Iraqis leave to your country.'"
According to the U.N.'s refugee agency, 3,040 people returned to Iraq in January, 3,250 in February and 4,570 in March. That's a jump from the 2,220 who returned home in December. With the exception of a jump in Christian families fleeing their homes after attacks on Christians, statistics from the IOM suggest few families are fleeing their Iraqi homes now.
Some are returning from Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Iraq's Migration Ministry says 2,250 have come back from Egypt since the protests began there in January. The government evacuated 383 people from Libya and 261 were evacuated from Yemen.
Al-Khafaji said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki evacuated people on his personal jet from various countries, but he did not have those figures. Others have made their way back from Tunisia on their own, he said. He knew of only a few students who went back to Egypt to continue their studies.
Returnees are supposed to register with the ministry, but most go directly to family members who help them find a place to stay, meaning statistics are incomplete.
Salim Rahim moved his family of five to Libya in the 1990s when his wife found a job at a university. But after more than a decade in Tripoli and Misrata, they fled without even their children's stuffed animals. An ambulance driver helped them escape Misrata, and they eventually made it to Tunisia where the Iraqi government got them on a plane home.
"We left Misrata because life stopped there. Food prices doubled and tripled. There is no government there," said Salim Rahim. Their two cars were destroyed by shelling, and a tank round blew a hole in their apartment.
At one point, they were too scared to even talk by phone with family in Iraq because the Libyan government was showing TV footage of people arrested for allegedly speaking with foreign media.
Rahim's wife feared Moammar Gadhafi's Sunni government in Libya would discover her family was Shiite, so she stripped all their possessions of any mention of their beliefs.
Some have returned to Iraq for good, while others will wait to see what happens in the countries they left, especially in Syria, where events are still unfolding.
Shakir Mahmoud, 43, had been living in Damascus for almost four years after his house in Baghdad was blown up. He said he would wait in Iraq to see if the situation improves in Syria before deciding whether to return.
While the Iraqi security situation has improved dramatically, the economy has not. Many Iraqis abroad left jobs behind and have little prospect for finding a new one in a country where unemployment can sometimes go as high as 30 percent.
"I have no job, no salary, no house. I have nothing here," Mahmoud said.
Iraqi officials seem to be preparing for even more returnees. Government officials had visited Libya before the uprising to encourage Iraqis there to return home, saying their country needed doctors, lawyers and professors.
Iraq has given returning citizens 300,000 Iraqi dinars — about $250 — and there have been vague promises to find them government jobs and let students complete their degrees. So far, those promises have failed to materialize.
Many Iraqis who never left eye the returnees with mixed emotions. They say it's good for people to be back in their homeland, especially well-educated professionals.
But Iraqis also have held protests demanding change. They want more food rations and better government services such as electricity and water. They question how the government can take care of those who return when it cannot serve the roughly 31 million people already here.
Most Iraqis who went to Syria are believed to be Sunni, and the prospect of a large-scale Sunni return also raises concerns in a country still dealing with the legacy of sectarian violence.
"There are some immigrants who were active in provoking sectarian tensions," said Talal Mawlood, 29, of Baghdad. "Those kind of people, we don't want them back."
__
Associated Press writers Bushra Juhi in Baghdad and Sameer N. Yacoub in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
===
At least 30 dead after forces fire at crowd in Syria
By REUTERS
05/20/2011 23:13
Crowds come under fire in at least 2 protests in Homs; rights group says largest demonstration since uprising began being held in Banias.
AMMAN - Syrian security forces shot dead at least 30 demonstrators on Friday during protests that broke out across the country in defiance of a military crackdown which has killed hundreds of people, a rights activist said.
Other activists reported demonstrations across Syria, from Banias and Latakia on the Mediterranean coast to the oil producing region of Deir al-Zor, Qamishli in the Kurdish east and the Hauran Plain in the south, one day after the United States told President Bashar al-Assad to reform or step down.
RELATED:
Assad: Security forces made mistakes during uprising
New anti-Syria measures threatened over crackdown
Syria has barred most international media since the protests broke out two months ago, making it impossible to verify independently accounts from activists and officials.
"No dialogue with tanks," said banners carried by Kurdish protesters who shouted "azadi", the Kurdish word for freedom, rejecting promises by the authorities for a national dialogue, a witness said.
Protests erupted in Damascus suburbs and the capital's Barzeh district, where two witnesses said security forces fired at protesters and chased them in the streets.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain, said at least 831 civilians had been killed since the uprising against autocratic rule erupted in the southern city of Deraa nine weeks ago. It said at least 10,000 people had been arrested, including hundreds across Syria on Friday. Some protesters were calling for freedom, activists said, while others called for "the overthrow of the regime", the slogan of uprisings which toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.
=====
Syria forces killed 70 protesters Friday-activists
04 Jun 2011 19:02
Source: reuters // Reuters
protestsyria
EDITOR'S NOTE: REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE CONTENT OF THE VIDEO FROM WHICH THIS STILL IMAGE WAS TAKEN. People follow a vehicle carrying a coffin during a mass funeral for people killed in the latest crackdown on protests in Homs, in this still image taken from video uploaded on a social media website May 21, 2011. REUTERS/Social Media Website via Reuters TV
* Activists say biggest protests took place in Hama, Idlib * Some activists say the death toll could top 100
* Businesses in Hama closed on Saturday
(Adds Clinton on Internet closure paragraphs 16-17)
By Mariam Karouny
BEIRUT, June 4 (Reuters) - Syrian forces killed at least 70 protesters on Friday, activists said, one of the bloodiest days since the start of an 11-week revolt against the authoritarian rule of President Bashar al-Assad.
Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets on Friday in defiance of security forces determined to crush the uprising, and some activists said the death toll could hit 100.
Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said at least 60 people were killed in Hama, where Assad's father Hafez crushed an armed revolt 29 years ago by killing up to 30,000 people and razing parts of the city.
A political activist in Hama said tens of thousands of people were attending the funerals of dead protesters on Saturday, and that more protests were planned later in the day.
"Anger is very high in the city, people will never be silent or scared. The whole city is shut today and people are calling for a three-day strike," the activist, who gave his name as Omar, told Reuters by phone from the city.
"We expect protests after the evening prayers."
Residents and activists said that security forces and snipers fired at demonstrators who thronged Hama on Friday.
On top of the casualties there, Syrian human rights group Sawasiah said one person was killed in Damascus and two in the northwestern province of Idlib. Seven people were killed in the town of Rastan in central Syria, which has been under military assault and besieged by tanks since Sunday.
Rights groups say security forces have killed more than 1,000 civilians during the uprising, provoking international outrage at Assad's ruthless handling of the demonstrators.
Assad has tried brute force and political concessions, often simultaneously, to quell protests. The tactic has so far failed to stop the revolt against 41 years of rule by the Assad family, members of the minority Alawite sect in mainly Sunni Syria.
In Deraa, birthplace of the revolt, hundreds defied a military curfew and demonstrated on Friday, two residents said.
Syrian forces fired on demonstrations in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor and in Damascus' Barzeh district. Activists and residents said thousands marched in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Kurdish northeast, several Damascus suburbs, the city of Homs and the towns of Madaya and Zabadani in the west.
"It is worth noting that Hama and Idlib, where the biggest demonstrations occurred, used to be the stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood," said one activist who declined to be named.
"The number of people who took to the streets could be a message from the (Muslim) Brotherhood to the regime that: "now we are taking part in the revolution in full weight"."
ACTIVIST FREED
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington was "deeply concerned" by reports that Internet service and some mobile phone networks had been shut down in much of Syria.
"We condemn any effort to suppress the Syrian people's exercise of their rights to free expression, assembly and association," she said in a statement. "Attempting to silence the population cannot prevent the transition currently taking place... the Syrian people will find a way to make their voices heard."
Syrian authorities released a prominent activist on Saturday who had been in jail since 2008, Abdulrahman said.
Ali Abdallah, in his 50s, had criticised Syria's ally Iran. He was a member of the Damascus Declaration, a rights movement named after a document calling for a democratic constitution and an end of the Baath Party's five-decade monopoly on power.
Syrian authorities blame the violence on armed groups backed by Islamists and foreign powers, and say the groups have fired on civilians and security forces alike. Authorities have prevented most international media from operating in Syria, making it impossible to verify accounts of the violence.
Activists say there have been some instances of citizens resisting security forces with personal weapons, and of security police shooting soldiers who refused to fire at protesters.
Assad has sent in tanks to crush demonstrations in some flashpoints but has also offered some reforms, such as an amnesty for political prisoners and a national dialogue -- measures dismissed by opposition figures as too little too late.
The United States, the European Union and Australia have imposed sanctions on Syria, but perhaps because of reluctance to get entangled in another confrontation after Libya, their reaction has been less vehement than some activists had hoped. (Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, editing by Tim Pearce)
=====
Gunmen kill 37 in single attack on Syrian security post-TV
06 Jun 2011 16:29
Source: reuters // Reuters
BEIRUT, June 6 (Reuters) - Gunmen killed at least 37 people in a single attack on a Syrian security post, state television said on Monday.
"The armed groups in Jisr al-Shughour carried out a genuine massacre and mutilated some of the bodies," the television said.
State TV had earlier said that the death toll among security forces in the town had reached 40. It said security forces had clashed with hundreds of gunmen who had set up blockades in the town.
===
Syria forces kill 19 in biggest protests - activists
17 Jun 2011 23:48
Source: reuters // Reuters
* Syrian army encircles two towns in country's north
* Big powers consult over U.N. Security Council resolution
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
AMMAN, June 17 (Reuters) - Syrian forces shot dead 19 people on Friday when they fired at demonstrators demanding the removal of President Bashar al-Assad in the biggest protest since unrest against Baathist rule erupted in March, activists said.
European powers, which had initiated a detente(A relaxing or easing, as of tension between rivals.) with Assad prior to the street protests to try to draw the Syrian leader away from Iran and also stabilise Lebanon, said Damascus should face tougher sanctions for the violence.
Tens of thousands of people rallied across the country, defying Assad's military crackdown and ignoring a pledge that his tycoon cousin Rami Makhlouf, a symbol of corruption, would renounce his business empire and channel his wealth to charity.
"Protests last week were big and this week they are bigger still. The demonstrators have not held squares consistently yet in big cities like we had seen in Egypt, but we're heading in this direction," opposition figure Walid al-Bunni told Reuters by telephone from Damascus.
"The security grip is weakening because the protests are growing in numbers and spreading, and more people are risking their lives to demonstrate. The Syrian people realise that this is an opportunity for liberty that comes once in hundreds of years," said Bunni, who was a political prisoner for eight years.
The worst bloodshed was in Homs, a merchant city of one million people in central Syria, where the Local Coordination Committees, a main activist group linked to protesters, said 10 demonstrators were killed. State television said a policeman was killed by gunmen.
One protester was also reported killed in the northern commercial hub of Aleppo, the first to die there in the unrest.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which operates from Britain, said it could confirm only 10 civilians killed overall in Syria.
The Syrian government has barred most international journalists from the country, making it difficult to verify accounts from activists and officials.
Syrian authorities blame the violence on "armed terrorist groups" and Islamists, backed by foreign powers.
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ More on Syrian unrest [nLDE72T0KH] Graphic http://r.reuters.com/nyw99r Suite of graphics on region http://r.reuters.com/nym77r ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
Friday Muslim prayers have provided a platform for the biggest protests, inspired by revolts across the Arab world.
Witnesses and activists said tens of thousands of people protested in the southern province of Deraa where the revolt began, as well as in the Kurdish northeast, the province of Deir al-Zor, which borders Iraq's Sunni heartland, the city of Hama north of Damascus, the coast and suburbs of the capital itself.
Two towns on the main Damascus-Aleppo highway north of Homs were also encircled by troops and tanks, residents said, five days after the army retook the town of Jisr al-Shughour, sending thousands feeling across the nearby border into Turkey.
Refugees from the northwestern region said troops and gunmen loyal to Assad, known as 'shabbiha' were pressing on with a scorched earthed campaign in the hill farm area by burning crops, ransacking houses and shooting randomly.
MORE REFUGEES
The International Federation for Human Rights and the U.S. based Damascus Centre for Human Rights Studies said in a statement that, according to local sources, the Syrian forces killed more than 130 people and arrested over 2,000 in Jisr al-Shughour and surrounding villages over the last few days.
The number of refugees who had crossed over from Syria has reached 9,600, and another 10,000 were sheltering by the border just inside Syria, according to Turkish officials.
Syrian rights groups say at least 1,300 civilians have been killed and 10,000 people have been detained since March.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 300 soldiers and police have also been killed.
Assad has responded to the unrest with a mix of military repression and political gestures aimed at placating protesters.
Assad faces international condemnation over the violence, and has seen the first signs of cracks in his security forces after a clash in Jisr al-Shughour earlier this month in which the government said 120 security personnel were killed.
There have been no mass desertions from the military, but the loyalty of Sunni Muslim conscripts might waver if the crackdown on mainly Sunni protesters continues.
Assad's family and many military commanders are members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
SECURITY COUNCIL DEADLOCK
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, trying to break a deadlock over a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Syria's crackdown.
Their discussion focused on "how the U.S. and Russia can work together to make sure that we can get to a U.N. Security Council resolution", a State Department spokeswoman said.
Russia and China dislike the idea of any Council judgment on Syria and have played little role in discussions on a draft resolution to condemn Syrian bloodshed against protesters.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France and Germany had agreed to lobby for stronger sanctions against Syria for "unacceptable actions and repression" of protesters.
"I believe there is a realisation that force is being used against the people in a way that is not acceptable," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after talks with Sarkozy. "Therefore both of us will talk to Russia in our own ways to (ensure) we are successful."
A witness in the Damascus suburb of Irbin said protesters burned a Russian flag to protest against Moscow's stance.
In the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli two people were killed in a clash between Sunni and Alawite residents, a military source said, after an anti-Assad demonstration erupted following noon prayers. (Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Yara Bayoumy in Beirut, Tulay Kardeniz in Guvecci, Yann Le Guernigou and Stephen Brown in Berlin, Tabassum Zakaria in Washington; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Jon Hemming)
====
Reuters
Syrian economy could be regime's weak spot
-- The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own --
By Una Galani
DUBAI, June 21 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The Syrian economy could prove to be Bashar al-Assad's weak spot. With no end in sight to the violent crackdown on dissidents, the nation's vision for growth is shattered, financial reforms are being unwound, and key revenue streams look strained. A more marked decline in Syria's economic health may force the regime to reform or fall. But sanctions from the West are only part of the answer if the goal is to keep pressuring the regime.
It is far from clear that Assad is still in control, but he was certainly right when he highlighted the danger of "weakness or collapse of the Syrian economy." After growing at an average clip of around 5 percent over the last five years, the economy is forecast, by some, to contract as much as 3 percent this year as tourism and foreign investment grind to a halt.
Tourism accounts for around 23 percent of Syria's hard currency earnings, by the government's own estimate. Oil related revenues account for 5 percent of GDP. But with hotels almost empty and the growing likelihood of oil sanctions, Syria is desperately trying to retain local and foreign currency by increasing interest rates on deposits and curbing foreign currency sales.
Foreign exchange reserves were estimated at around $17 billion -- equivalent to seven months of imports -- before the crisis gained momentum according to figures from the International Monetary Fund. A move by Assad's cousin, Rami Makhlouf, to deposit $1 billion into the central bank, coupled with an increase in fuel subsidies by a country already forecast to have a fiscal deficit of 3.1 percent in 2011, suggest these may be shrinking.
Without external pressure, Syria could stumble along long enough for the regime to suppress the uprising -- the country is largely self sufficient in food. Oil sanctions from Syria's largest customers - Italy, France, Germany - could potentially cut off a third of Syria's total exports and make it even harder to fund the military. But the other two-thirds of Syria's exports are directed towards Arab neighbours, according to Capital Economics. They would have to play their part for sanctions to reach their goal.
CONTEXT NEWS
-- The European Union expressed disappointment at a speech by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on June 20 and said it was preparing to expand its sanctions on Syria in response to worsening violence against his opponents.
-- "The EU is actively preparing to expand its restrictive measures ... with a view to achieving a fundamental change of policy by the Syrian leadership without delay," a statement agreed by EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg said.
-- EU diplomats said they expected the broader sanctions -- including further asset freezes and restrictions on companies associated with individuals linked to the repression -- would be approved by the time of an EU summit on June 23-24.
-- The EU statement followed a speech by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad earlier in the day that opponents said did not meet popular demands for sweeping political change.
-- Turkish President Abdullah Gul separately said that the speech was "not enough", and added that Assad should transform Syria into a multi-party system.
((una.galani@thomsonreuters.com))
(Editing by Pierre Briançon and David Evans)
==
Kurdish Leader: Syrian Kurds Split on Protests, Don’t Want Independence
28/06/2011 04:15:00RUDAW EXCLUSIVE
http://www.rudaw.net/english/news/syria/3784.html
Kurdish parties in Syria are divided on whether to participate in the protests that have been met with bloody resistance by the regime, Syrian Kurdish leader Fawzi Shingar said.
“Before there were efforts to create a unified front under the name of Council of Syrian-Kurdish Parties which included 12 parties,” Shingar, founder of the Kurdish Wifaq Party in Syria, told Rudaw. “But after Syrian security forces made the situation worse, some Kurdish parties such as the Kurdish Freedom Party in Syria, the Kurdish Union Party in Syria and the Future Movement reacted by joining the protests and adopting their motto to remove the regime.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Shingar said international intervention may eventually be needed in Syria and that Kurds could overtake Hasaka but do not want independence.
He was wary of talks with the regime, however, which has invited opposition parties, including the Kurds, to the table since early on in the demonstrations. He said Kurdish groups are willing to negotiate with the regime – but only under certain conditions.
“They have to remove all of their tanks from the streets and Syrian officials need to come on TV and apologize to the Syrian people for all of the people who have died,” Shingar said. “They should also explain what happened to their reform [proposals] and what have they achieved. The regime has been talking about reforms for the last 45 years, but has done nothing.”
Shingar believes that the biggest influence is the Kurdish youth, who hold protests daily. The political parties cannot be compared to the power of the people, he argued, and he expects the parties’ divisions over the demonstrations will end soon.
“The parties cannot control the situation and the people cannot separate themselves from the parties”
“We and other parties participated in the protests, but those who started and continue them today are the youth,” he said. “I also believe that the Kurdish political parties’ divided positions will not last long. In the end, they will sing the same slogans together.”
Protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime started in mid-March in Syria and have grown throughout the country. But Shingar believes that Assad’s Baathist regime may not collapse that easily.
“The regime will resist,” he said. “The Syrian state has been supporting the Baathists for the past 45 years. But we hope that the situation doesn’t become violent like what is happening in Libya. We hope the regime will let a temporary council govern the country for six months until elections are held for a new president and parliament.”
So far, the international community has only condemned the Syrian regime for its heavy-handed crackdown on protestors and imposed sanctions on Syrian officials. Shingar argues that these measures are needed now, but if the situation worsens, the opposition will welcome an international alliance like the one formed against Libya.
“The situation in Syria isn’t at the level where an alliance is needed, but if the situation calls for [international intervention] then we will seek anyone’s support,” he said.
Several weeks into the demonstrations Syrian Kurds were surprisingly quiet, keeping a wary eye on the protests but not joining them. Now that they are involved, Shingar said the organizing is “haphazard” and without proper leadership.
“The parties cannot control the situation and the people cannot separate themselves from the parties,” he said. “Those who are active work haphazardly and without any planning, and the government’s policy so far has been to make the Kurdish areas neutral so they won’t have to attack them.”
Some military outposts that the Syrian regime stationed in the Kurdish areas after the 2004 uprising were withdrawn at the outset of the protests. According to Shingar, the area is now mainly controlled by the police and intelligence services, and could easily be taken over.
“The Kurds could take control of their region in 24 hours, including Hassaka which means the Jezirie region,” he said. “Efren and Kobanie are separated from those regions. They could rise up as well. For now though, freedom and economic opportunities are more important.”
The Kurdish areas of Syria are fertile and contain much of the country’s limited oil.
“The problem with us, the Kurds, is that we still don’t have a common agenda”
Yet Shingar said no Kurdish party wants independence from Syria because the Kurds are an inseparable part of the country.
“Until now not a single Kurdish party in Syria has promoted independence from Syria,” he said. “We as Kurds in Syria are a minority, our geography is divided and we are partners of Syria in any way shape or form.”
Two major Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Iraqi Kurdistan carry weight in Kurdish politics and can change the course of the Kurdish protests in Syria. PKK’s jailed leader Abdulla Ocalana said that the Kurds must talk with the Syrian regime while the KDP’s stance isn’t clear yet.
“I think the KDP doesn’t make decisions on Syrian Kurds because it sees this as a domestic Syrian issue,” Shingar said. “[They say] ‘We will leave that for the Kurds and Kurdish-Syrian parties of Syria to decide for themselves.’ But in the end, this is a Kurdish issue and it’s the responsibility of every Kurd to support Kurds in any part of Kurdistan.”
Last month, a Syrian opposition conference was held in the Turkish city of Antalya that included Kurdish leaders but no major parties, which were not invited to the important gathering. Shingar criticizes Syrian Kurds for not having a clear agenda to present in conferences and other events.
“The problem with us, the Kurds, is that we still don’t have a common agenda,” he said. “We still don’t have a piece of paper to present to the Syrian opposition or the Syrian government … It’s very important that Kurdish parties and intellectuals hold discussions and form a council. Otherwise, we will have problems.”
===
‘Syrians angry with US and France meddling in their country’s affairs’
Published: 12 July, 2011, 01:26
Damascus: Pro-government protesters during two-pronged demonstrations outside the American and French embassy in the Syrian capital days. (AFP Photo/Louai Beshara)
(20.2Mb) embed video
TRENDS: Arab world protests
TAGS: Conflict, Middle East, Protest, Politics, USA, Opposition
The US government is expected to protest to Damascus after hundreds of supporters of the Assad regime stormed the US embassy and US ambassador’s residence in Damascus on Monday.
US officials said that the Syrian authorities failed to provide adequate protection to diplomatic missions, adding that they intend to demand compensation for the damage to the US facilities.
The protesters were not able to break into the US embassy compound due to the quick response by US Marine stationed at the mission. No injuries were reported to embassy personnel, the Associated Press reported.
However, the mob damaged one of the embassy’s buildings, smashing windows and putting up a Syrian flag atop the compound.
After the protesters were dispersed from the US embassy, they reportedly attacked the residence of US Ambassador Robert Ford.
The rallies also targeted the French mission in Damascus, but were confronted by French embassy security guards, who fired in the air to hold the protestors back.
Up to three protesters were reportedly injured after the guards attacked them with clubs.
The attacks come after visits by the US and French ambassadors to the restive city of Hama in central Syria, AP reported.
The Syrian authorities called the visits interference in the country’s internal affairs.
Despite a possibility that the embassy attacks were backed by the Syrian government, some demonstrators came there to express their genuine anger over foreign interference in Syrian affairs, Middle East writer and commentator Karl Sharoo told RT.
“There is a blatant intervention by the US and French governments, at least if they were fully aware of what their ambassadors were doing, in a very fluid, dynamic situation on the ground in Syria,” he said.
“I would not be surprised if some of the demonstrators were actually driven genuinely by anger, because that is a sort of intrusion that nobody can tolerate,” Sharoo added.
==
U.S. EMBASSY OFFICIAL IN DAMASCUS SAYS SYRIAN AUTHORITIES "DESPE
31 Jul 2011 13:11
Source: reuters // Reuters
U.S. EMBASSY OFFICIAL IN DAMASCUS SAYS SYRIAN AUTHORITIES "DESPERATE... ENGAGING IN FULL ARMED WARFARE ON THEIR OWN CITIZENS" BY STORMING HAMA
==
FACTBOX-Syria's city of Hama, site of new assault
31 Jul 2011 09:03
Source: reuters // Reuters
July 31 (Reuters) - Syrian tanks stormed Hama on Sunday to crush demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad's rule. [ID:nL
Here are some details about the city which was the site of a massacre in 1982:
* 1982:
-- In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Syria's Muslim Brotherhood sought to destabilise and unseat President Hafez al-Assad and his government through political assassinations and urban guerilla warfare. In February 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood ambushed government forces who were searching for dissidents in Hama.
-- Syrian government forces attacked the city, razing the old quarters of Hama to crush the armed uprising by the Brotherhood, who had taken refuge there.
-- Estimates of the death toll in the three weeks of operations in Hama vary from 10,000 to more than 30,000 out of a population of 350,000. Syria then imprisoned much of the membership of the local Islamist groups.
-- Syrian human rights groups said that women, children and the elderly were among those killed in the crackdown and thousands were forced to flee the city.
* 2011:
-- In June, activists said Syria forces killed at least 60 protesters in the city, in one of the bloodiest days of the uprising against Assad. Residents said security forces and snipers had fired on crowds of demonstrators.
-- Assad sacked the governor of Hama province on July 2, a day after tens of thousands of protesters massed in the provincial capital to demand the Syrian leader step down.
-- The demonstration in Hama was part of nationwide protests which activists said were some of the biggest since the uprising against Assad's rule erupted in mid-March.
-- In a symbolic show of solidarity, U.S. ambassador Robert Ford and French ambassador Eric Chevallier visited Hama on July 8 to put pressure on Assad not to crush the protest. Syria condemned the action and summoned them to Damascus on July 10.
-- Ford, who entered the U.S. foreign service in 1985 and previously served as U.S. ambassador to Algeria, had only arrived in Damascus in January. After Ford posted a letter on the embassy's Facebook page, a mob stormed the embassy compound July 11, tearing down plaques.
* ABOUT HAMA:
-- Hama has been settled as far back as the Bronze Age and Iron Age. Famous for its citadel and its ancient Norias (waterwheels), the younger Assad and his government has sought to promote the city as a tourist destination.
Sources: Reuters/www.globalsecurity.org/homsonline (Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)
==
AMMAN, July 31 (Reuters) - At least 45 civilians were killed in a tank assault on the city of Hama on Sunday to crush pro-democracy protests, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, quoting hospital officials in the city. (Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom)
==
Reuters
Syria matters beyond Syria
(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own)
By Hugo Dixon
LONDON, Aug 1 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The campaign to bring down the regime of president Bashar al-Assad of Syria is one of the world's most remarkable examples of nonviolent struggle.
Unlike in Egypt and Tunisia, the protestors are facing tanks. At the weekend, the Syrian army stormed the city of Hama. Assad looked like he was trying to break the morale of demonstrators before the start of the religious Muslim season of Ramadan, when protests are expected to mount.
Before the latest crackdown in Hama, the protests have given rise to a civilian death toll of 1,634, according to Avaaz, the human rights group. In one particularly gruesome episode, a 13-year-old boy had his penis cut off. But the demonstrators have largely been peaceful. It is a very different situation from Libya where the uprising soon turned violent and the country descended into a civil war, backed by foreign military intervention, all too quickly.
Over 500 Syrian soldiers have also died, according to the government. But it is not clear who was responsible for the deaths. Soldiers have been mutinying after being asked to kill unarmed protestors -- and some of the military have lost their lives at the hands of troops loyal to the regime.
The Syrian revolution has similarities to Iran's Green Revolution in 2009, Burma's Saffron Revolution in 2007, and China's Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989. In these cases, the army killed protestors and put down the revolutions.
That could still be the outcome in Syria. But there's a difference here too. The protests have continued for over four months and kept getting bigger. Part of the reason is that Syrian activists received prior training in the techniques of nonviolent struggle and have been organising themselves ever since. The Chinese, Burmese and Iranian would-be revolutionaries were much less well ordered.
If the Syrians succeed in bringing Assad down, they will have created a model that other oppressed people will be able to follow. Many non-democratic regimes elsewhere should feel vulnerable.
A Reuters Breakingkviews column explaining how Syria's non-violent activists are organised will be published later today.
CONTEXT NEWS
-- Rights activists in Syria said 80 civilians were killed in July 31 tank-backed assaults on the central city of Hama. It was in Hama that president Bashar al-Assad's father crushed an armed Muslim Brotherhood revolt 29 years ago by razing neighbourhoods and killing many thousands of people.
((hugo.dixon@thomsonreuters.com))
(Editing by Robert Cole and David Evans)
===
Obama, Cameron discuss markets, Syria -White House
13 Aug 2011 17:44
Source: reuters // Reuters
WASHINGTON, Aug 13 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama spoke on Saturday with British Prime Minister David Cameron about recent developments in the global financial system, the White House said, after a violently volatile week in markets.
The two leaders also called for an immediate end to attacks by the Syrian government against protesters demanding the departure of President Bashar al-Assad, and agreed to "consult on further steps in the days ahead," it said in a statement. (Reporting by Alister Bull; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
====
ANALYSIS-Saudi switch against Syria's Assad is blow to Iran
09 Aug 2011 09:58
Source: reuters // Reuters
* Oil kingdom moves against "wounded regime"
* Iran connection makes risk of regime change worthwhile
* Sectarian strategy domestically popular, risky in Syria
By Joseph Logan
DUBAI, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia, self-appointed guardian of Sunni Islam, is deeply wary of popular uprisings that have convulsed the Arab world, but it has lost patience with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's violent attempts to crush a mainly Sunni protest movement.
Saudi-Syrian relations were rarely warm, with Riyadh riled by Syria's alliance with its Shi'ite regional rival Iran, and they chilled further after the 2005 assassination of Lebanese statesman Rafik al-Hariri, a friend of the Saudi royal family.
But until this week Saudi King Abdullah had kept silent on the violence in Syria, which human rights groups say has cost more than 1,600 civilian lives in five months of turmoil.
Now the Saudis have taken a stand, perhaps deciding that Syria's diplomatic isolation and the bloodshed unleashed by its minority Alawite rulers on their majority Sunni opponents have made Damascus a ripe target of diplomatic opportunity.
"They realise the regime in Syria is facing a serious, nationwide, deep rebellion and is therefore vulnerable," said Beirut-based Middle East analyst Rami Khouri.
The kingdom, which brooks no dissent at home and helped Bahrain crush Shi'ite-led protests in March, recalled its ambassador from Damascus on Monday and denounced the violence in Syria, which Assad blames on armed gangs with foreign backing.
The Saudi decision was announced in a statement in the name of King Abdullah, who warned Syria it faced ruin over the crackdown, among the bloodiest in Arab uprisings that have already brought down the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt.
Analysts suggested that Saudi Arabia sees in Assad's woes a chance to strike a blow at Iran, even at the cost of undermining an established ruler, with a chance of chaos -- or even representative government -- in a nation at the heart of the Arab world.
"The benefits of hitting the Iranian connection outweigh the negatives of a new democracy in Syria", should one emerge in a post-Assad Syria, Khouri said.
IMPACT ON THE STREET
The Saudi shift was prefigured in the regional political blocs over which the kingdom casts a long shadow, and mirrored by the countries and institutions for which its oil wealth and claim to religious rectitude are persuasive.
The Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council -- which includes Bahrain -- on Saturday expressed its "concern and regret" over Syria's crackdown, echoing Western calls for political reform.
A day later, the Arab League, whose new head had visited Assad soon after taking office, called for an immediate halt to violence against demonstrators during military operations in Hama, Deir al-Zor and elsewhere in Syria.
The king's warning to Syria, said one Saudi commentator, has paved the way for more states to pile pressure on Syria's rulers while leaving some margin for them to avoid downfall.
"The statement wasn't isolated from the worldwide movement to put pressure on the Syria regime. Saudi Arabia is important when it comes to future decisions, actions taken to pressure the regime," said Jamal al-Khashoggi.
"For Saudi Arabia to come out criticising the regime will no doubt have an impact on the Syrian street. It will fuel the tension, fuel the anger ... It will create pressure on Syria to recognise its position for what it is."
The move has had the immediate effect of cranking up the chorus of condemnation surrounding Syria, already facing sanctions from the United States and Europe.
Bahrain and Kuwait recalled their ambassadors from Damascus hours after the king's message, and Sunni Islam's most venerable institution of learning, al-Azhar in Cairo, called the Syrian assault on protesters an unacceptable "human tragedy."
SECTARIAN RISKS
The latter voice echoes the Sunni bonds Saudi Arabia was invoking by moving against Syria during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, on the heels of a tank assault against a rebellious, largely Sunni city, Hama, where Assad's father killed thousands to put down an Islamist armed revolt in 1982.
The Assads' Alawite sect is deemed heretical by Saudi Arabia's austere brand of Sunni Islam.
Videos posted on YouTube after the king's message appear to show Syrians in Saudi Arabia cheering the defence of his co-religionists in Syria.
"I don't think it's a coincidence that this [the Saudi decision] happened during Ramadan," said Gregory Gause, a political science professor at the University of Vermont.
"There is a heightened sense of the importance and role of religion, and people in Syria, an overwhelmingly Sunni country, were sure to read it in a sectarian way," he said.
"They (the Saudis) increasingly see Iran and the Arab upheavals as requiring them to play their hole card: We're Sunnis, they're Shi'a, and there are more of us than there are of them."
Anti-Assad protesters have sometimes shouted slogans against Iran and Syria's close Lebanese Shi'ite ally Hezbollah, once wildly popular for its confrontations with Israel.
Any appeal to sectarianism, Syria's regime and opposition alike have warned, risks tearing Syria apart.
Yet it appears to be a risk that Saudi Arabia, having seen off a domestic challenge between 2003-2006 from militants who derived their ideology from a form of Salafism, a puritanical set of Muslim doctrine, is now willing to take.
"The leadership feels that the kind of Salafist, jihadist movement that threatened them is under control, that they've crushed it and controlled it ideologically," Gause said.
"The upshot of encouraging it in the region is that I think they think they've got a handle on it." (Editing by Mark Heinrich and Alistair Lyon)
===
Iran cleric warns of plots against Syria
Sun Aug 14, 2011 10:19AM GMT
Iranian Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi
Iranian Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi has called on Muslims across the world to be cautious about US and Israeli plots for destabilization in Syria.
In a statement on Sunday, Ayatollah Makarem said Syria has two important features in the region: standing in the first front against Israel and preventing US, Britain, and France's ambitions to be fulfilled in the region.
"Therefore, the arrogant powers, Israel and unfortunately some Arab countries have been trying to destruct stability in the Islamic state (Syria)," he said.
The Ayatollah further pointed out that the US and Israel now want to find a base in Syria after they lost their bases in Egypt, Yemen, and Tunisia.
He also urged Muslims to understand the current situation of Syria and try to stop the plots, which will cause a civil war in the country and led to its destruction.
Ayatollah Makarem said the Syrian government should also be committed to its reform promises.
Syria has been experiencing unrest in the past months, with demonstrations held both against and in support of the government.
Hundreds of people, including security forces, have been killed during clashes in the country since the beginning of the unrest in mid-March.
The Syrian opposition claims security forces are behind the killings, but the government blames the deadly violence on foreign-backed armed gangs.
Meanwhile, political analysts say the recent decisions by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait to recall their ambassadors from Damascus could be interpreted as a prelude to foreign intervention in Syria.
======================
Wahhabis weave web of plot in Syria
By Ismail Salami
Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:38:51 GMT
In an unprecedented move, the Arab league decided to suspend Syria and call for sanctions on the country, an act which evidently reeks of the influence the West and others exercise on those who should be the main game players rather than being merely influenced by others. What a shame!
It is not difficult to conjecture that the move is a prelude to a US-led military invasion of Syrian in the style of the Libya war and an eventual war in the region. It hardly needs saying that the Arab League would have acted with calculated wisdom and prudence, if it had thought about the consequences of such irrationality.
The decision comes at a time when President Bashar al-Assad has accepted the reforms proposed by the Arab League.
A statement, read by the Qatari Prime Minister,
Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, said the League had decided “to suspend Syrian delegations' activities in Arab League meetings'' and to implement ''economic and political sanctions” against Damascus.
Sheikh Hamad said the suspension would last “until the total implementation [by Syria] of the Arab plan for resolving the crisis accepted by Damascus on November 2.”
In response to this move fraught with impending threat, tens of thousands of Syrians poured into the streets of Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia, Tartous and Hasakeh to protest the move which they see as clear betrayal of their country by the Arab League.
The facts on the ground suggest that there is an urging demand for social and political reforms in the country but the situation is not as bad in Syria as in other Arab countries where the hope for reforms is zero. Calling for reforms on some levels is one thing but demanding an ouster of the ruler is a horse of a different color. As the situation stands in Syria, there is little demand for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad. However, Western powers are calling on the Syrian president to step down. The influence of Western media on the international public opinion is so powerful that they are reluctant to see a foreign hand manipulating the events.
Reports reveal that the US and Israel have hired Saudi elements and the Saudi-backed Lebanese March 14 forces in order to foment tension in the country, thereby creating a rift between the Syrian people and the government. Washington is monitoring every move with minute precision as the fate of Syria is politically of paramount importance to the empire as it serves as an ally for Iran and poses a danger to the Zionist regime. Indeed there are some parties which follow their interests in the country.
Apart from Washington who cherishes the idea of overthrowing the regime of Bashar al-Assad and installing a puppet regime in Syria with the firm intention of serving the interests of the Zionist regime in the region, the Saudi Wahhabis insist on the collapse of the Syrian regime. For Washington and Israel, the ouster of al-Assad will ensure the two regimes' vantage point in the Middle East to contain the ever-increasing influence of the Islamic Republic in the region and for the Saudis, it serves a similar purpose on a wider scope. In fact, the Saudi Wahhabis hold the Shia Muslims in abhorrence and make every possible effort to create Shiaphobia and Iranophobia in the world.
To the Wahhabis, Shia Muslims and moderate Sunnis are but infidels and should be killed and their blood is not upon their shoulders. What they conceive of the Shia Muslims is indeed a horrid image which fails to fit into any plausibly logical order. This irrational hatred becomes the prime motivation for the Wahhabis to engage in stoking up unrest in some border cities in Syria which throws full support behind Iran and Hezbollah. In a similar vein, the Saudi Wahhabis fully backed the dictatorial Bahrain regime in eliminating the Shia Muslims and crushing with brutality the popular uprising in the country. This double standard in Saudi policy deserves due attention. They back the despotic Bahraini regime which spares no efforts in quelling the pro-democracy protesters who are killed on a daily basis while on the other hand, they fund and back the insurgents in Syria to overthrow the regime. It seems that democracy is defined differently in different contexts and situations.
Parenthetically, the Saudi Wahhabis play a double game in their relations with Washington and Israel. In fact, they have an ambivalent feeling for these two. On the one hand, Wahhabis treat them with hatred and eliminate their elements under the influence of their extremism and on the other hand, they enter into easy alliance with the Zionists and the US when the trio have a common enemy in several regions of the world.
There are times when you marvel at how events happening in one place are twisted to the benefit of one group and to the loss of another.
Concerning the US interference and the conspiracy of the Saudi Wahhabis in Syria, either we should choose to remain ignorant or we should open our eyes to the reality of things with surmountable doubt and reluctance.
-- Ismail Salami is an Iranian author and political analyst. A prolific writer, he has written numerous books and articles on the Middle East. His articles have been translated into a number of languages.
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