Jan. 21, 2014 5:09 PM ET
By ZEINA KARAM and LORI HINNANT, Associated Press THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES
Ibraheem Qaddah, 33, a former Free Syian Army fighter from Daraa, speaks with with The Associated Press at Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Mafraq, Jordan, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. For some of the more than 2 million Syrian refugees scattered around the region, there is little hope that the peace conference in Geneva can deliver a solution to the conflict, and scant interest in a settlement with Assad’s government. “We lost our faith in the international community. We don’t care about the Geneva conference and whether it takes place or not,” said Qaddah, whose arm was amputated after an injury by the Syrian government forces' shelling and was smuggled with his family to Jordan two months ago. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)
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MONTREUX, Switzerland (AP) — In nearly the same breath, the world's most powerful diplomats have talked about the importance of this week's peace conference on Syria and downplayed expectations for a breakthrough.
The timeframe for the talks is a week to 10 days, and then a break — but for what, and for how long?
Syria's Western-backed opposition and President Bashar Assad's handpicked representatives have never spoken face-to-face and it's not at all clear how much either side — or their proxy powerbrokers — really want an end to the war. A look at the goals of the participants and how the conference, which opens Wednesday, could unfold.
WHAT'S AT STAKE
Fighting in Syria has killed more than 130,000 people and left millions of refugees, either in camps or squats in neighboring countries or within Syria's borders. The economy has been devastated, and bombs and gunfire have ruined once-thriving cities. The rebellion started in March 2011, and Syria has seen little but violence ever since. The contrast for the peace conference in the Alps town of Montreux could hardly be more stark — Switzerland has stayed out of international conflict since 1815, when it was declared neutral at the end of the Napoleonic wars.
The dichotomy isn't lost on Syrians suffering from the war. The government carried out airstrikes across the country on Tuesday, including in Daraa province in the south, outside the capital, Damascus, in Homs province in central Syria and in Aleppo in the north. The deadliest of the attacks hit opposition-held areas of Aleppo, killing at least 10 people.
For some of the more than 2 million Syrian refugees scattered around the region, there was scant interest in a settlement with Assad's government.
"We lost our faith in the international community. We don't care about the Geneva conference and whether it takes place or not," said Ibraheem Qaddah, a former rebel fighter with an amputated arm, now holed up in Jordan's sprawling Zaatari refugee camp. "We have lost a lot of relatives and friends and family members in the fighting, and we've lost Syria."
NEW LEADERSHIP? UNLIKELY THIS TIME AROUND
Syria's Western-backed Syrian National Coalition wants a transitional government to replace Assad, reiterating Tuesday that it finally decided to attend the peace conference in order to establish a transitional government with full executive powers "in which killers and criminals do not participate."
That's the stated goal of the peace conference, agreed upon by international powers in preliminary talks in June.
But Assad, whose soldiers have notched up recent military victories, points to the ascendance of Islamic militants to temper Western enthusiasm for the rebels. He has said he has no intention of stepping down and, on the contrary, may run again as president later this year.
Still, by agreeing to meet them, Assad for the first time has acknowledged an opposition that he has long derided and dismissed as "terrorists" and "mercenaries."
CEASE-FIRES, HUMANITARIAN CORRIDORS, PRISONER EXCHANGES
"We must take small steps," Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, said in Paris on Tuesday.
A comprehensive end to the war in Syria is probably not possible, but smaller goals may be achievable.
Syria's government last week proposed a cease-fire in the embattled city of Aleppo and a prisoner exchange with the opposition, but left the terms vague. The opposition has accused the government of reneging on promises before and declaring cease-fires in order to buy time. There are also questions as to whether a truce is remotely possible in a devastated city where scattered rebel groups have been locked for months in a stalemate with government troops.
Prisoner exchanges pose similar problems: With no unified command, the prospect of pulling together a rebel database of those detained seems impossibly remote. And Assad's government operated secret prisons for years, if not decades, before the fighting started. That doesn't preclude small exchanges and — as Steinmeier said — small steps are the first goal.
Humanitarian corridors would seem a likely starting point, but as one rebel brigade after another has fallen away from the Syrian National Council, it's unclear how the shrinking umbrella group could enforce any agreement it reaches. The rebels could benefit — if they can be persuaded not to seize the supplies for their own forces, and resolve with the government who polices the routes and guarantees the safety of the police.
HOW IT COULD UNFOLD
The first direct talks between the opposition and the government are scheduled to start in Geneva on Friday. News agencies in Russia, which is spearheading the talks along with the United States, said those discussions are expected to last seven to 10 days, then break for a short time.
The reports did not specify the purpose of the break, its duration or how talks could resume. But any agreements reached between the two sides would have to be thoroughly vetted. In the case of the Syrian opposition, that will be complicated by defections and its total inability to influence fighters within Syria.
For a recent comparison, the Dayton peace talks that ended the Bosnian war in 1995 took place over 21 days under far more auspicious circumstances, where the leaders were looking for political cover for a war they wanted to end. In Syria, neither side is looking for — or expecting — a quick end to the fighting. And the fighting has evolved into a proxy war between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, as well as touching on post-Cold War tensions between Russia and the United States.
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Associated Press writers Ryan Lucas in Beirut, Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Omar Akour in Zaatari Camp, Jordan, Elena Becatoros in Athens, and Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
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Follow Zeina Karam at : https://twitter.com/zkaram
Follow Lori Hinnant at: https://twitter.com/lhinnant
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please take the matter in your own hands and talk to the Government ,Demand only complete military operation until all terrorists are killed in Mastung,Akhtar abad,Sariab,Dasht.Asim Kurd Gilu is also the leader of the terrorists.But please BEAWARE last year The ukjahati council team played very dangerous game including,asadi,s hashim ,qayyum,s saddat etc,as they worked their best for agencies to bulldoze the dharna,and at the end s,saadat deleted the demand of military operation,which if carried out all the tragedies from Hazara town till today would have been avoided.So Please do not allow these agents of agencies to talk with the government,they will AGAIN sell the BLOOD of Martyrs.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=526736754108178&l=529192407b
dear Brothers, Its the request of the european hazaras from hdp to take this protest in their Hands and ask the Army chief of Pakistan to come to alamdar road and make sure us that he will protect us and start target operations, nawaz Sharif and others cant do anything, when u give responsibility to army chief he will do it because, the Moral of army will be down if they do not fulfill their objectives, so Abdul khaliq must
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Geneva II – Syrian Foreign Minister: “The West Publicly Claims to Be Fighting Terrorism, Whilst It Is Covertly Nourishing It.”
By: on: 22.01.2014 [19:55 ] (69 reads)
Montreux, (SANA) - The international conference on Syria, Geneva2, kicked off on Wednesday morning with the participation of Syria’s official delegation, headed by Deputy Premier, Foreign and Expatriates Minister, Walid al-Moallem.
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Minister al-Moallem said at the opening session of the conference:
Ladies and Gentlemen, On behalf of the Syrian Arab Republic, SYRIAN – steeped in history for seven thousand years. ARAB – proud of its steadfast pan-Arab heritage despite the deliberate acts of aggression of supposed brotherly Arabs. REPUBLIC – a civil state that some, sitting in this room, have tried to return to medieval times. Never have I been in a more difficult position; my delegation and I carry the weight of three years of hardship endured by my fellow countrymen – the blood of our martyrs, the tears of our bereaved, the anguish of families waiting for news of a loved one – kidnapped or missing, the cries of our children whose tender fingers were the targets of mortar shelling into their classrooms, the hopes of an entire generation destroyed before their very eyes, the courage of mothers and fathers who have sent all their sons to defend our country, the heartbreak of families whose homes have been destroyed and are now displaced or refugees.
My delegation and I also carry the hope of a nation for the years to come – the right of every child to safely go to school again, the right of women to leave their homes without fear of being kidnapped, killed or raped; the dream of our youth to fulfill their vast potential; the return of security so that every man can leave his family safe in the knowledge that he will return.
Finally, today, the moment of truth; the truth that many have systematically tried to bury in a series of campaigns of misinformation, deception and fabrication leading to killing and terror. A truth that refused to be buried, a truth clear for all to see – the delegation of the Syrian Arab Republic representing the Syrian people, the government, the state, the Army and the President – Bashar al-Assad.
It is regrettable, Ladies and Gentlemen, that seated amongst us today in this room, are representatives of countries that have the blood of Syrians on their hands, countries that have exported terrorism along with clemency for the perpetrators, as if it was their God given right to determine who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. Countries that have prevented believers from visiting holy places of worship whilst abetting, financing and supporting terrorists. Countries that gave themselves the authority to grant and deny legitimacy to others as they saw fit, never looking at their own archaic glasshouses before throwing stones at acclaimed fortified towers. Countries that shamelessly lecture us in democracy, in development and in progress whilst drowning in their own ignorance and medieval norms. Countries that have become accustomed to being entirely owned by kings and princes who have the sole right to distribute their national wealth granting their associates whilst denying those who fall out of favor.
They lectured Syria – a distinguished, virtuous, sovereign state, they lectured her on honour whilst they themselves were immersed in the mud of enslavement, infanticide and other medieval practices. After all their efforts and subsequent failures, their masks fell from their quivering faces, to reveal their perverse ambitions. A desire to destabilize and destroy Syria by exporting their national product: terrorism. They used their petrodollars to buy weapons, recruit mercenaries and saturate airtime covering up their mindless brutality with lies under the guise of the so-called “ Syrian revolution that will fulfill the aspirations of the Syrian people.”
Ladies and Gentlemen, how is what has happened and continues to plague Syria, meeting these aspirations? How can a Chechen, Afghani, Saudi, Turkish or even French and English terrorists deliver on the aspirations of the Syrian people, and with what? An Islamic state that knows nothing of Islam except perverse Wahhabism? Who declared anyway that the Syrian people aspire to live thousands of years in the past?
In Syria, Ladies and Gentlemen, the wombs of pregnant women are butchered and their foetuses killed; women are raped, dead or alive, in practices so heinous, so vile and repulsive that they can only be attributed to their perverse doctrine. In Syria, Ladies and Gentlemen, men are slaughtered in front of their children in the name of this revolution; worse still, this is done whilst the children of these foreign perpetrators sing and dance. In Syria, how can so-called revolutionaries cannibalize a man’s heart and claim to promote freedom, democracy and a better life?
Under the pretext of the “Great Syrian Revolution,” civilians, clergymen, women and children are killed, victims are indiscriminately blown up in streets and buildings regardless of their political views or ideologies; books and libraries are burned, graves are dug up and artifacts stolen. In the name of the revolution, children are killed in their schools and students in their universities, women are extorted in the name of jihad al-nikah and other forms, mosques are shelled whilst worshipers kneel at prayer, heads are severed and hung in the streets, people are burned alive in a true holocaust that history and many countries will deny without being accused of anti-Semitism.
In the name of a revolution, “to free the oppressed Syrian people from the regime and to spread democracy,” does a father blow himself up with his wife and children to prevent foreign intruders from entering his home? Most of us in this room are fathers – I ask you then, what would compel a man to kill his own family to protect them from freedom fighting monsters. This is what happened in Adra, a place that most of you have not heard of but where the same alien monsters attacked: killing, looting, beheading, slaughtering, raping and burning people alive. You have heard nothing of this brutality for sure, yet you have heard of other places where the same heinous crimes were committed and where the same blood soaked finger was pointed at the Syrian Army and government. And when these flagrant lies were no longer credible, they stopped spinning their web of deceit.
This is what their masters ordered them to do, these countries that spearheaded the war against Syria, trying to increase their influence in the region with bribes and money, exporting human monsters fully soaked in abhorrent Wahabi ideology, all at the expense of Syrian blood. From this stage, loud and clear, you know as well as I do that they will not stop in Syria, even if some sitting in this room refuse to acknowledge or consider themselves immune.
Ladies and Gentlemen, everything you have heard would not have been possible, had our border sharing countries been good neighbours during these challenging years. Unfortunately they were far from it; with backstabbers to the North, silent bystanders to the truth in the West, a weak South accustomed to doing the bidding of others, or the tired and exhausted East still reeling from the plots to destroy it along with Syria.
Indeed, this misery and destruction, which has engulfed Syria, has been made possible by the decision of Erdogan’s government to invite and host these criminal terrorists before they entered into Syria. Clearly, oblivious to the fact that magic eventually turns on the magician, it is now beginning to taste the sour seed it has sown. For terrorism knows no religion, and is loyal only unto itself. Erdogan’s government has recklessly morphed from a zero problems with its neighbours policy to zero foreign policy and international diplomacy altogether, crucially leaving it with zero credibility.
Nevertheless, it continued on the same atrocious path falsely believing that the dream of Sayyid Qutb and Mohammad Abdel Wahab before him was finally being realized. They wreaked havoc from Tunisia, to Libya, to Egypt and then to Syria, determined to achieve an illusion that only exists in their sick minds. Despite the fact that it has proven to be a failure, they nevertheless are still determined to pursue it. Logically speaking, this can only be described as stupidity, because if you don’t learn from history, you will lose sight of the present; and history tells us: if your neighbor’s house is on fire, it is impossible for you to remain safe.
Some neighbours started fires within Syria whilst others recruited terrorists from around the globe – and here we are confronted with shockingly farcical double standards: 83 nationalities are fighting in Syria – nobody denounces this, nobody condemns it, nobody reconsiders their position – and they impertinently continue to call it a glorious SYRIAN Revolution! While when a few scores of young resistant fighters supported the Syrian Army in a few places, all hell broke loose and it suddenly became foreign intervention! Demands were made for the departure of foreign troops and the protection of Syrian sovereignty and for it not to be violated. Here I affirm, Syria – the sovereign and independent state, will continue to do whatever it takes to defend herself with whatever means it deems necessary, without paying the least bit of attention to any uproar, denunciations, statements or positions expressed by others. These have been and always will be Syria’s sovereign decisions.
Despite all of this, the Syrian people remained steadfast; and the response was to impose sanctions on our food, our bread and our children’s milk. To starve the population, pushing them into sickness and death under the injustice of these sanctions. At the same time, factories were looted and burned, crippling our food and pharmaceutical industries; hospitals and healthcare centers were destroyed; our railroads and electricity lines sabotaged, and even our places of worship – Christian and Muslim – were not spared their terrorism.
When all of this failed, America threatened to strike Syria, fabricating with her allies, Western and Arab, the story about the use of chemical weapons, which failed to convince even their own public, let alone ours. Countries that celebrate democracy, freedom and human rights regrettably only choose to speak the language of blood, war, colonialism and hegemony. Democracy is imposed with fire, freedom with warplanes and human rights by human killing, because they have become accustomed to the world doing their bidding: if they want something, it will happen; if they don’t, it won’t. They have heedlessly forgotten that the perpetrators who blew themselves up in New York follow the same doctrine and come from the same source as those blowing themselves up in Syria. They have heedlessly forgotten that the terrorist that was in America yesterday is in Syria today, and who knows where he will be tomorrow. What is certain, however, is that he will not stop here. Afghanistan is an ideal lesson for anyone who wants to learn – anyone! Unfortunately, most do not want to learn; neither America nor some of the ‘civilized’ western countries that follow its lead, starting from the city of lights to the kingdom over which “the sun never set,” in the past; despite the fact that they have all felt the bitter taste of terrorism in the past.
And then suddenly they became “Friends of Syria.” Four of these ‘friends’ are autocratic, oppressive monarchies that know nothing of a civil state or democracy, whilst others are the same colonial powers which occupied, pillaged and partitioned Syria less than one hundred years ago. These so called ‘friends’ are now convening conferences to publicly declare their friendship with the Syrian people, whilst covertly facilitating their hardship and destroying their livelihoods. They openly express their outrage over the humanitarian plight of Syrians whilst deceiving the international community of their complicity. If you were truly concerned about the humanitarian situation in Syria, you would remove your strangle hold on her economy by lifting the sanctions and the embargo, and by partnering with her government in tightening security by fighting the influx of weapons and terrorists. Only then can we assure you that we will be well as we once were, without your deep concern for our wellbeing.
Some of you may be asking yourselves: Are foreigners the sole manufacturers of the happenings in Syria? No Ladies and Gentlemen, Syrians amongst us here, having been legitimized by foreign agendas, have played a contributing role as facilitators and implementers. They did this at the expense of Syrian blood and the people whose aspirations they claim to represent, whilst they themselves were divided hundreds of times and their leaders on the ground were fleeing far and wide. They sold themselves to Israel becoming her eyes on the ground, and her fingers on the trigger for Syria’s destruction; and when they failed, Israel intervened directly to reduce the capabilities of the Syrian Army and thus ensuring the continued implementation of her decades old plan for Syria.
Our people were being slaughtered while they were living in five star hotels; they opposed from abroad, met abroad betraying Syria and selling themselves to the highest foreign bidder. And yet, they still claim to speak in the name of the Syrian people! No, Ladies and Gentlemen, anyone wishing to speak on behalf of the Syrian people cannot be a traitor to their cause and an agent for their enemies. Those wishing to speak on behalf of the people of Syria should do so from within her borders: living in her destroyed houses, sending their children to her schools in the morning not knowing if they will return safe from mortar shelling, tolerating the freezing cold winters because of the shortage in heating oil and queuing for hours to buy bread for their families because sanctions have prevented us from importing wheat when we were once exporters. Anyone wanting to speak in the name of the Syrian people should first endure three years of terrorism, confronting it head on, and then come here and speak on behalf of the Syrian people.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the Syrian Arab Republic – people and state, has fulfilled its duties. It has welcomed hundreds of international journalists and facilitated their mobility, security and access; and they in turn have reflected the stark and horrific realities they witnessed to their audiences, realities that have perplexed many Western media organisations who couldn’t bear their propaganda and narrative being exposed and contradicted. The examples are too many to count. We allowed international aid and relief organizations into the country, but the clandestine agents of certain parties sitting here, obstructed them from reaching those in dire need of aid. They came under terrorist attack several times, whilst we, as a state, did our duty in protecting them and facilitating their work. We issued numerous amnesties and released thousands of prisoners, some even members of armed groups, at the anger and dismay of their victim’s families; these families though, like the rest of us, ultimately accepted that Syria’s interests come before anything else, and hence we must conceal our wounds and rise above hatred and rancor.
What have you done, you who claim to speak on behalf of the Syrian people. Where is your vision for this great country? Where are your ideas or your political manifesto? Who are your agents of change on the ground other than your armed criminal gangs? I am certain that you have nothing and this is only too apparent in the areas that your mercenaries have occupied or to use your words “liberated.”
In these areas, have you freed the population or have you hijacked their moderate culture to enforce your radical and oppressive practices? Have you implemented your development agenda by building schools and health centres? No, you have destroyed them and allowed polio to return after it had previously been eradicated in Syria. Have you protected Syria’s artifacts and museums? No, you have looted our national sites for your personal profit. Have you demonstrated your commitment to justice and human rights? No, you have enforced public executions and beheadings. In short, you have done nothing at all except muster the disgrace and shame of begging America to strike Syria. Even the opposition, over which you are the self-appointed masters and guardians, do not acknowledge you or the methods in which you manage your own affairs, let alone the affairs of a country.
A country they want to homogenize; not in the sectarian, ethnic or religious sense, but rather in a warped ideological sense. Anyone against them, whether Christian or Muslim, is an infidel; they killed Muslims of all sects and targeted Syrian Christians with severity. Even nuns and bishops were targeted, kidnapping them after they attacked Ma’loula, the last community that still speaks the language of Jesus Christ. They did all this to force Syrian Christians to flee their country. But little did they know, that in Syria we are one. When Christianity is attacked all Syrians are Christians, when mosques are targeted all Syrians are Muslims. Every Syrian is from Raqqa, Lattakia, Sweida, Homs or the bleeding Aleppo when any one of these places is targeted. Their abhorrent attempts to sow sectarian and religious sedition will never be embraced by any levelheaded Syrian. In short, Ladies and Gentlemen, your “glorious Syrian revolution” has left no mortal sin uncommitted.
There is another side to this dark gloomy picture. A light at the end of the tunnel shinning through the Syrian people’s determination and steadfastness, the Syrian Army’s courage in protecting our citizens and the Syrian state’s resilience and perseverance. During everything that has happened, there are states that have shown us true friendship, honest states that stood on the side of right against wrong, even when the wrong was clear for all to see. On behalf of the Syrian people and state, I would like to thank Russia and China for respecting Syria’s sovereignty and independence. Russia has been a true champion on the international stage strongly defending, not only with words but also with deeds, the founding principles of the United Nations of respecting the sovereignty of states. Similarly China, the BRICS countries, Iran, Iraq and other Arab and Muslim countries, in addition to African and Latin American countries, have also genuinely safeguarded the aspirations of the Syrian people and not the ambitions of other governments for Syria.
Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Syrian people, like other people of the region, aspire to more freedom, justice and human rights; they aspire to more plurality and democracy, to a better Syria, a safe, prosperous and healthy Syria. They aspire to building strong institutions not destroying them, to safeguarding our national artifacts and heritage sites not looting and demolishing them. They aspire to a strong national army, which protects our honour, our people and our national wealth, an army that defends Syria’s borders, her sovereignty and independence. They do not, Ladies and Gentlemen, aspire to a mercenary army ‘Free’ to kidnap civilians for ransom or to use them as human shields, ‘Free’ to steal humanitarian aid, extort the poor and illegally trade in the organs of living women and children, ‘Free’ to canibalise human hearts and livers, barbequing heads, recruiting child soldiers and raping women. All of this is done with the might of arms; arms provided by countries, represented here, who claim to be championing “moderate groups”. Tell us, for God’s sake, where is the moderation in everything I have described?
Where are these vague moderate groups that you are hiding behind? Are they the same old groups that continue to be supported militarily and publicly by the West, that have undergone an even uglier face-lift in the hope of convincing us that they are fighting terrorism? We all know that no matter how hard their propaganda machine tries to polish their image under the name of moderation, their extremism and terrorism is one and the same. They know, as we all do, that under the pretext of supporting these groups, al-Qaeda and its affiliates are being armed in Syria, Iraq and other countries in the region.
This is the reality, Ladies and Gentlemen, so wake up to the undeniable reality that the West is supporting some Arab countries to supply lethal weapons to al-Qaeda. The West publically claims to be fighting terrorism, whilst in fact it is covertly nourishing it. Anyone who cannot see this truth is either ignorantly blind or willfully so in order to finish what they have begun.
Is this the Syria that you want? The loss of thousands of martyrs and our once cherished safety and national security replaced with apocalyptic devastation. Are these the aspirations of the Syrian people that you wanted to fulfill? No, Ladies and Gentlemen, Syria will not remain so, and that is why we are here. Despite all that has been done by some, we have come to save Syria: to stop the beheadings, to stop the cannibalizing and the butchering. We have come to help mothers and children return to the homes they were driven out of by terrorists. We have come to protect the civil and open-minded nature of the state, to stop the march of the Tatars and the Mongols across our region. We have come to prevent the collapse of the entire Middle East, to protect civilization, culture and diversity, and to preserve the dialogue of civilizations in the birthplace of religions. We have come to protect tolerant Islam that has been distorted, and to protect the Christians of the Levant. We are here to tell our Syrian expatriates, to return to their home country because they will always be foreigners anywhere else, and regardless of our differences we are all still brothers and sisters.
We have come to stop terrorism as other countries that have experienced its bitter taste have done, whilst affirming loudly and consistently that a dialogue between Syrians is the only solution; but as with other countries that have been struck by terrorism, we have a constitutional duty to defend our citizens and we shall continue to strike terrorism that attacks Syrians regardless of their political affiliations. We have come to hold those accountable, for as long as particular countries continue to support terrorism, this conference will bear no fruit. Political pluralism and terrorism cannot coexist in the same landscape. Politics can only prosper by fighting terrorism; it cannot grow in its shadow.
We are here as representatives of the Syrian people and the state; but let it be clear to all, – and experience is the best proof – that nobody has the authority to grant or withdraw legitimacy from a president, a government, a constitution, a law or anything else in Syria except Syrians themselves; this is their constitutional right and duty. Therefore, whatever agreement is reached here will be subject to a national referendum. We are tasked with conveying our people’s desires, not with determining their destiny; those who want to listen to the will of the Syrian people should not appoint themselves as their spokesperson. Syrians alone have the right to choose their government, their parliament and their constitution; everything else is just talk and has no significance.
Finally, to all those here and everyone watching around the world: in Syria we are fighting terrorism, terrorism which has destroyed and continues to destroy; terrorism which since the 1980’s Syria has been calling, on deaf ears, for a unified front to defeat it. Terrorism has struck in America, France, Britain, Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan; the list goes on and it continues to spread. Let us all cooperate to fight it, let’s work hand in hand to stop its black, horrifying and obscurantist ideology. Then, let us as Syrians stand united to focus on Syria and start rebuilding its social fabric and material structures.
As I said, dialogue is the foundation to this process, and despite our gratitude to the host country, we affirm that the real dialogue between Syrians should in fact be on Syrian soil and under Syrian skies. Exactly one year ago, the Syrian government put forward its vision for a political solution; think of how much innocent blood we would have saved had some countries resorted to reason instead of terrorism and destruction. For a whole year, we have been calling for dialogue, but terrorism continued to strike at the Syrian state, her people and institutions.
Today, in this gathering of Arab and Western powers, we are presented with a simple choice: we can choose to fight terrorism and extremism together and to start a new political process, or you can continue to support terrorism in Syria. Let us reject and isolate the black hands and the false faces, which publicly smile but covertly feed terrorist ideology, striking Syria today, but ultimately spreading to infect us all. This is the moment of truth and destiny; let us rise to the challenge.
Thank you .
http://www.globalresearch.ca/geneva-ii-syrian-foreign-minister-the-west-publicly-claims-to-be-fighting-terrorism-whilst-it-is-covertly-nourishing-it/5365833
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Jan. 24, 2014 4:26 PM ET
Both sides in Syrian talks to meet in 'same room'
By ZEINA KARAM and LORI HINNANT, Associated Press THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES
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U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi listens during a press briefing at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 24, 2014. After three days of escalating rhetoric _ and a day spent assiduously avoiding contact within the United Nations _ the two sides will meet “in the same room,” said the U.N. mediator trying to forge an end to the civil war _ or at least a measure of common ground to stem a civil war that has left 130,000 people dead. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
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GENEVA (AP) — Bending to intense international pressure, Syria's government and the Western-backed opposition agreed Friday to face each other for the first time since the start of the uprising against President Bashar Assad.
After three days of hostile rhetoric and five hours spent assiduously avoiding contact within the United Nations, the two sides will meet "in the same room," said the U.N. mediator trying to forge an end to the civil war that has left 130,000 people dead since 2011.
Mediator Lakhdar Brahimi met separately with Assad's delegation and representatives with the Syrian National Coalition, who arrived at the U.N. European headquarters five hours apart to ensure their paths would not cross.
"We never expected it to be easy and I'm sure it's not going to be, but I think the two parties understand what's at stake," Brahimi said. "Their country is in very, very bad shape."
Brahimi, a famously patient mediator, is credited with efforts to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan after the U.S. ousted their governments. But he faces a formidable task to build peace in Syria, which has been flooded with al-Qaida-inspired militants. The conflict has become a proxy war between regional powers Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Syria's government has made military gains and has capitalized on the influx of foreign militants, while the coalition nearly collapsed as it wavered on whether to attend the talks at all. After Brahimi spoke, a member of the group said it still wasn't clear what would happen Saturday.
"Everybody will be in the same room, but everybody will address Mr. Brahimi. He will be the one who is going to conduct the negotiations," said Louay Safi, who is taking part in the talks. "We will be addressing him. There will be no direct negotiation with the regime."
The coalition, which has the support of the U.S. and other Western powers, is largely made up of exiles and lacks any real influence on the opposition now riven by infighting among factions ranging from moderates to hard-line Islamic groups. Nearly 1,400 fighters have been killed in the last three weeks as the rebel groups grapple for dominance, according to activists.
Omran al-Zoubi, Syria's information minister, said Assad's delegation was committed.
"We will stay here until we do the job. We will not be provoked. We will not retreat and we will be wise and flexible," he said.
Underscoring the foreign involvement in the conflict, Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah fighters fought alongside forces loyal to Assad around the area of eastern Ghouta, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Among those arrayed against them were extremists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a hard-line group dominated by foreign jihadis, the Observatory reported.
Syria's economy, once among the region's strongest, has been ruined. A quarter of its population has fled to camps in neighboring countries or within Syria. The front lines have been largely frozen for months, although Assad's forces — more cohesive than the rebellion and supported by Russia as well as Iran — have recently made inroads into territory captured by the opposition.
Russia and the United States, which have backed opposite sides in the fight, have raised the pressure for the peace conference, seeing it as the only hope to end a civil war that has destabilized the region and threatens to turn into a long stalemate.
The talks, first conceived in 2012, were repeatedly postponed by the government and the coalition as both jockeyed for advantage. The opposition confirmed it would attend only on Monday — less than 48 hours before the peace conference began — after the U.N. secretary-general rescinded his last-minute invitation to Iran.
Lina Khatib, Middle East director for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said both sides had a lot to gain by staying, and predicted the talks would at least lead to some sort of limited deal.
"Gaining legitimacy is a primary motive for both sides," she said. "Ultimately this is an opportunity that is too important for them to lose by withdrawing."
Pressure from the U.S. and Russia played a crucial role, as their positions converged, Khatib said.
"It's become very clear that a military solution to the conflict in Syria is not possible," she said.
At the heart of the talks is Assad's future. The U.S. and opposition want him out, saying a leader who unleashed his military on a peaceful protest had forfeited legitimacy. But Assad, whose family has ruled Syria since 1970, has insisted he's going nowhere.
Hasni Abidi, director of the Geneva-based Arab and Mediterranean Studies Center, said the talks have gotten off to a predictably rocky start but represent a strategic opportunity for both the government and the opposition.
"It's the beginning of the talks, and each side wants to place the bar very high," he said.
"For the Syrian regime, it is a chance to gain time," he said, while for the opposition, it is a chance for a political solution knowing that the West is not going to intervene militarily.
Protesters in several Syrian towns demonstrated against the peace talks, saying Assad had shown by years of military strikes against his people that he favors violence over negotiations.
"We are bombed and nobody cares," said one demonstrator in the town of Sabqa.
"The Assad regime doesn't understand the language of dialogue. We will remove this criminal regime by force," according to one sign held by protesters.
The two sides' willingness to meet with Brahimi — even separately — gave some hope the negotiations might bear fruit. Brahimi himself has said both sides may bend on humanitarian corridors, prisoner exchanges and local cease-fires.
___
Associated Press reporters Desmond Butler in Istanbul, Turkey; Bassem Mroue and Diaa Hadid in Beirut, Lebanon; and Matthew Lee in Davos, Switzerland, contributed.
___
Follow Zeina Karam at: https://twitter.com/zkaram
Follow Lori Hinnant at: https://twitter.com/lhinnant
Associated Press
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Showing posts with label Damascus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Damascus. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Saturday, September 07, 2013
‘Saudi spymaster behind US war plan’
‘Saudi spymaster behind US war plan’
Sat, 07 Sep 2013 06:21:42 GMT
New information has emerged, indicating that Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar Sultan has been playing a key role in convincing the US administration to develop and execute a plan for attacking Syria.
“The Saudis…were brought, by members of the Free Syrian Army - which is the Western-backed rebel group - a Syrian who had been exposed to an agent, a chemical agent. The Saudis arranged for that Syrian to be flown to Britain for treatment and to be tested,” the Wall Street Journal correspondent Adam Entous said in an interview with Democracy Now television on Friday.
He added, “That was sort of the first case that was offered credible evidence that chemical weapons had been used.”
“And what you saw in the months that followed was, first, Saudi intelligence, … Bandar’s intelligence agency, concluded that chemical weapons were being used on a small scale by the regime. Followed by that, the Brits and the French were convinced of the same conclusion. It took US intelligence agencies really until June to reach that conclusion. And that’s what led the Obama administration… At least publicly it was cited by the Obama administration as the trigger for Obama’s decision to instruct the CIA and authorize the CIA to start arming the rebels at this Jordan base,” he added.
Entous added that Prince Sultan is already leading a covert campaign with the CIA to support the Takfiri militants operating in Syria.
He added that the Saudi prince is making frequent visits to Paris and Moscow as part of his efforts to undermine the Syrian government.
Entous also said that Sultan has been very aggressively involved in arming and funding the militants in Syria since 2011.
““Really what he’s doing is he’s reprising a role that he played in the 1980s, when he worked with the [former US President Ronald] Reagan administration to arrange money and arms for Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan and also worked with the CIA in Nicaragua to support the Contras,” the Wall Street Journal correspondent added.”
“So in many ways, this is a very familiar position for Prince Bandar, and it’s amazing to see the extent to which veterans of the CIA were excited to see him come back because, in the words of a diplomat who knows Bandar, he brings the Arabic term wasta, which means under-the-table clout. You know his checks are not going to bounce and that he’ll be able to deliver the money from the Saudis,” Entous added.
A Mint Press News report said earlier this month that Syrians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta stated that Saudi Arabia provided chemical weapons for an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group, which they blame for the August 21 chemical attack in the region.
The article co-authored by a veteran Associated Press reporter, said interviews with doctors, residents, anti-government forces and their families in Ghouta suggest the terrorists in question received chemical weapons via the Saudi spymaster.
Also, more than a dozen militants interviewed said their salaries came from the Saudi government. They reportedly said Prince Bandar is referred to as “al-Habib (the beloved)” by al-Qaeda militants fighting in Syria.
The recent war rhetoric against Syria first gained momentum on August 21, when the militants operating inside the Middle Eastern country and its foreign-backed opposition claimed that over a thousand people had been killed in a government chemical attack on the outskirts of Damascus.
The Syrian government categorically rejected the accusation.
Nevertheless, a number of Western countries, including the US, France, and the UK, quickly started campaigning for war.
Blatant calls for war by the US President Barack Obama administration have not faded despite reluctance by some of its closest allies to engage in any military intervention in Syria.
Obama has sought authorization for strikes on Syria from a skeptical Congress.
The UN, Iran, Russia, and China have warned against war.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Syrian army hits rebels, Riyadh accuses Assad of genocide
Syrian army hits rebels, Riyadh accuses Assad of genocide
Tue, Jun 25 11:33 AM EDT
1 of 4
By Oliver Holmes
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's military pounded rebel bastions in Damascus on Tuesday and Saudi Arabia demanded an arms embargo on what it called President Bashar al-Assad's genocidal and illegitimate regime.
Attacking Iran, Russia and Lebanon's Hezbollah for supporting Assad, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said the kingdom could not be silent and called for arms to be supplied to Syrian rebels, now militarily on the back foot.
"Syria is facing a double-edged attack, it is facing genocide by the government and an invasion from outside the government, and ... a massive flow of weapons to aid and abet that invasion and that genocide. This must end," he told a news conference with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Jeddah.
"The kingdom calls for issuing an unequivocal international resolution to halt the provision of arms to the Syrian regime and states the illegitimacy of the regime," Prince Saud said.
In Damascus, Assad's gunners fired mortars and artillery at Zamalka and Irbin, just east of the government-held city centre, in an assault backed by air strikes, opposition activists said.
Mostly Sunni Muslim rebels who grabbed footholds in Damascus nearly a year ago now say they face a grinding advance by the Syrian military, buoyed by support from Assad's regional Shi'ite allies, notably Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters on the ground.
If the insurgents are driven from the capital's eastern suburbs, they would lose arms supply routes and suffer a severe blow in their drive to end four decades of Assad family rule.
The Saudi minister's strongly worded remarks reinforced signs that the Syrian war is entangling much of the Middle East.
Security in neighboring Iraq and Lebanon, where the conflict has aggravated Sunni-Shi'ite tensions, has crumbled.
Suicide bombers killed eight people north of Baghdad on Tuesday, a day after 39 people died when 10 car bombs exploded in the capital. Violence has spiraled in Iraq since April.
"GETTING OUT OF HAND"
In Lebanon, clashes between the Lebanese army and gunmen led by a fiercely anti-Hezbollah Sunni cleric engulfed the southern port of Sidon on Sunday. At least 40 people were killed, including 18 soldiers, security sources said.
Sectarian hatred has even flared in Sunni-majority Egypt, where a crowd attacked and killed five Shi'ites on Sunday.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League mediator, urged the United States and Russia to help "contain this situation that is getting out of hand, not only in Syria but also in the region".
Speaking in Geneva before preparatory talks with U.S. and Russian officials, he said he doubted that a Syria peace conference proposed by Moscow and Washington could take place next month, citing disarray among Assad's political opponents.
More than 93,000 people have been killed in Syria since peaceful protests erupted in March 2011. Assad's violent response helped generate what is now a civil war that has driven nearly 1.7 million refugees into neighboring countries.
Outgunned rebels are looking to Western and Arab nations to help them to reverse Assad's battlefield gains of the last few weeks. But although the United States announced unspecified military aid this month, it is unclear whether this can shift the balance against the Syrian leader and his allies.
Kerry wants to ensure that aid to the rebels is properly coordinated, in part out of concern that weapons could end up in the hands of Islamist militants who are prominent in their ranks.
"Our goal is very clear, we cannot let this be a wider war, we cannot let this contribute to more bloodshed and prolongation of the agony of the people of Syria," he said.
Saudi Arabia, a Sunni state which views Shi'ite Iran as its arch-rival, has increased aid to Syrian rebels in recent months, supplying anti-aircraft missiles among other weapons.
Prince Saud denounced foreign involvement in Syria "by Hezbollah and other militias supported by the forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard", and also took a swipe at Moscow.
"There is no logic that allows Russia to publicly arm the Syrian regime and the foreign forces that support it."
(Additional reporting by Mahmoud Habboush in Dubai and Lesley Wroughton in Jeddah; Writing by Alistair Lyon, editing by Peter Millership)
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Damascus mosque blast kills 42 including senior Syrian imam
Damascus mosque blast kills 42 including senior Syrian imam
Thu, Mar 21 20:31 PM EDT
BEIRUT (Reuters) - An explosion at a mosque in the Syrian capital on Thursday killed at least 42 people, including a senior pro-government Muslim cleric, and wounded 84, the Syrian health ministry said.
State television and anti-government activists earlier had reported 15 dead. The television said a "terrorist suicide blast" hit the Iman Mosque in central Damascus, and Mohammed al-Buti, imam of the ancient Ummayyad Mosque, was among the dead.
"The death toll from the suicide bombing of the Iman Mosque in Damascus is 42 martyrs and 84 wounded," the health ministry said later in a statement.
While attacks in the capital during Syria's two-year-long rebellion have become almost commonplace, an attack on a mosque was deeply shocking to both sides in the conflict.
Buti, a government-appointed cleric reviled by the Syrian opposition movement, delivered the official weekly Friday mosque sermons on state television.
In one of his televised speeches, Buti described those fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad as 'scum'. He also used his position to call on Syrians to join the armed forces and help Assad defeat his rivals in the rebellion.
Rebel spokesman Loay Maqdad said units associated with the opposition's Free Syrian Army were not behind the attack.
"We in the Free Syrian Army do not take any responsibility for this operation. We do not do these types of suicide bombings and we do not target mosques," he told Al Arabiya television.
Video released by Syria's al-Ikhbariya channel showed dozens of limp bodies lying on the bloodied carpet of the mosque, as emergency workers rushed in to give survivors first aid. Mangled limbs lay among the wreckage.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists across Syria, said earlier that around 15 people died in the blast in central Damascus.
The Observatory said it was unclear if the explosion was caused by a car bomb or a mortar shell. Dozens more were wounded in the attack it said.
The Iman mosque is next door to the offices of Assad's ruling Baath party, as well as other government compounds.
Locals were panicked after the blast and described seeing ambulances rushing to the area while traffic came to a standstill. Residents near the mosque said the strong, acrid smell of gun powder still hung in the air.
"RECEIVING GOD'S WRATH"
Buti, 84, led the funeral prayers for Assad's father, the late President Hafez al-Assad.
The imam's critics saw him as a religious mouthpiece in support of Assad. When the revolt started in March 2011, he quickly threw his support behind the Assad family, which has ruled Syria for more than four decades.
Buti was a Sunni Muslim, the sect which makes up the majority of Syria's population.
Sunnis have led the revolt against Assad, a movement that began as peaceful protests but devolved into bloody civil war that has sparked sectarian bloodshed between Sunnis and Assad's minority Alawite population.
It was unclear who was behind the Damascus blast, although Syria TV immediately accused "terrorists," a term frequently used to described rebels. If opposition fighters were responsible, it would signal the ease with which they are able to strike in the heart of the capital compared to a year ago.
Some opposition activists argued the rebels could not have been behind the attack, and called it a government plot. They said it was unlikely that rebels, many of whom are deeply religious, would target a mosque.
"The regime eliminated Buti," said Leena al-Shami, a Damascus activist speaking on Skype. "One of the last things he said is that Assad is the prince of Muslims and Syrians fight with him, as in jihad (holy war).
"I don't think Buti could have done more, his role was over. Now the regime wanted to make a martyr of him."
Some locals recalled one of Buti's more memorable sermons from early on in the revolt, in which he told President Assad he had a vision that Syria would 'receive God's wrath', but would survive.
(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Michael Roddy)
Sunday, March 03, 2013
Shi'ite fighters rally to defend Damascus shrine
Shi'ite fighters rally to defend Damascus shrine
Sun, Mar 03 10:23 AM EST
By Mariam Karouny
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Shi'ite fighters from Iraq and Lebanon have joined fellow Shi'ite Syrian gunmen to defend a shrine south of Damascus which they fear is threatened by Sunni rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad.
The presence of Shi'ite combatants from neighboring states - confirmed by sources in Iraq and Syria and highlighted in videos glorifying their mission - underlines how Syria's conflict is inflaming sectarian feelings in the region.
Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas brigade, named after a seventh century martyr son of Imam Ali who is considered the father of Shi'ite Islam, was formed several months ago and fights mainly around the shrine of Sayyida Zeinab on the southern outskirts of the Syrian capital, a source close to the brigade said.
Abbas's sister Zeinab is buried in the gold-domed mausoleum, intricately decorated with blue ceramic tiles and surrounded by a white marble courtyard which used to fill with pilgrims before the uprising against Assad erupted and grew into a civil war.
The source said the brigade was set up in response to the perceived danger to the shrine and mosque from Sunni fighters who desecrated other places of worship for Shi'ites, who are a minority in Syria.
"They are there for one purpose and that is to defend the shrine," he said, adding they were operating independently of Assad's forces around the capital.
He said Iraqi fighters at Sayyida Zeinab were motivated partly by the desire to prevent a repeat of the wholesale sectarian violence that followed the 2006 attack on the Iraq's Shi'ite Imam al-Askari mosque, blamed on al Qaeda, which cost thousands of lives, both Sunni and Shi'ite.
Syria's conflict has already attracted hardline Sunni fighters some from Afghanistan, Libya and Chechnya, many of whom consider Shi'ites infidels and their shrines as non-Islamic symbols of paganism which should be torn down.
A video posted online two months ago showed Sunni Muslim rebels burning a husseiniya - a Shi'ite religious site - in Syria's northern Idlib province, one of several recent attacks against properties associated with religious minorities.
An Iraqi Shi'ite official said Iraqi Shi'ites - some of whom had lived in southern Damascus since fleeing Iraq's own violence - started to mobilize last summer in response to rebels in the area he described as "hardliners and Salafis", referring to the ultraconservative school of Sunni Islam.
Rebels "wanted to destroy the Sayyida Zeinab shrine and hundreds of Iraqi Shi'ites who were already living in Syria stood up to them and fought back," he told Reuters from Iraq.
"Now they are more organized, under the Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas Brigade," he said. Sources close to the brigade say it is divided into smaller groups named after the 12 Shi'ite imams and is mainly composed of Iraqi, Lebanese and Syrian Shi'ites.
The brigade is still made up mainly of Iraqis, the official said, though he said they came to Damascus individually and not under the auspices of the state or any organization.
Rebels accuse Lebanon's Hezbollah, an ally of Assad, of fighting alongside his forces. The group denies the accusations and says only that its loyalists are fighting in border villages to defend Shi'ites there.
"CUT OFF THE HANDS"
The brigade has put out two videos that play heavily on the historical feud between Sunnis and Shi'ites. The first, called "O Zeinab", shows the shrine damaged with a chandelier on the floor. "We will cut off the hands of the perpetrators," says a chant on the soundtrack.
The videos mix recent footage of the current conflict around Sayyida Zeinab with scenes from a drama portraying Abbas's death in 680 AD at the hands of the Damascus-based Umayyad Caliph Yezid's army at the battle of Kerbala, in modern-day Iraq.
Those images reinforce the sense of a conflict that transcends state borders. While Shi'ites form barely 2 percent of the population in Syria, they are a majority in Iraq and Iran and a strong force in neighboring Lebanon - countries where sympathy for Syria's Shi'ite and Alawite minorities runs deep.
"The Umayyad descendents are back with their injustice, O Zeinab," chants an Iraqi-accented voice in the first video, released in December.
Fighters in camouflage uniform, their faces blanked out, fire rocket-propelled grenades and shoot automatic rifles during apparent street battles. Some take up sniper positions, and all of them seem well-trained. Destruction and piles of rubble can be seen in front of closed shops.
It ends with a black-clad Zeinab addressing Yezid. "You will not succeed in erasing our memory," she says.
In the second video released this month the chanter says: "We will not allow (Zeinab) to be captive twice," a reference to her capture after the battle of Kerbala.
One of the fighters filmed in the first video is shown in the second, this time with his face uncovered - because he has been killed in battle, becoming "a martyr defending Zeinab".
At least six fighters are seen shooting from a roof while others are seen praying inside the shrine. The tone of the video is more defiant, the "enemy" now mentioned by name.
"If we receive the order ... we will turn things upside down and burn Damascus," it says. "You Free Army (the rebel army name) get ready. We are coming, we are coming."
The anger on display is mirrored on social media by Sunni fighters and reflects the deepening rifts across Syria between majority Sunnis, Alawites and Shi'ites who are being driven further and further apart by the violence.
In a video posted on YouTube last July a Sunni commander warns residents of the northern village of Binnish not to deal with Shi'ites in neighboring villages, warning that even trading bread or other goods with them is punishable by death.
"The people of Foa (village) are Shi'ites and they are our enemy across the globe. Understand this. Whoever deal with them even if it is a grain, a single grain of wheat, his punishment will be the same," the rebel commander says, to the chants of Allahu Akbar (God is greatest).
"I swear, I swear, I swear - if it is proven that a man from this village is dealing with them I will kill him at the door of the mosque," he said.
(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
Friday, February 22, 2013
Car bomb kills over 60 near Damascus ruling party office
Thu, Feb 21 17:22 PM EST
By Dominic Evans
BEIRUT (Reuters) - A car bomb killed more than 50 people and wounded 200 in central Damascus on Thursday when it blew up on a busy highway close to ruling Baath Party offices and the Russian Embassy, state media and activists said.
Syrian television showed charred and bloodied bodies strewn across the street after the blast, which it described as a suicide bombing by "terrorists" battling President Bashar al-Assad. It said 53 people were killed.
Central Damascus has been relatively insulated from almost two years of unrest and civil war in which around 70,000 people have been killed across the country, but the bloodshed has shattered suburbs around the capital.
Rebels who control districts to the south and east of Damascus have attacked Assad's power base for nearly a month and struck with devastating bombs over the last year.
The al Qaeda-linked rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra, which claimed responsibility for several of those bombs, says it carried out 17 attacks around Damascus in the first half of February, including at least seven bombings.
Activists said most of the victims of Thursday's attack in the city's Mazraa district were civilians, including children, possibly from a school behind the Baath building.
Opposition activists reported further explosions elsewhere in the city after the explosion which struck shortly before 11 a.m. (0900 GMT).
One resident in the heart of the capital heard three or four projectiles whistling through the sky, followed by explosions. At least one of them landed in a public garden in the Abu Rummaneh district, she said, but no one was hurt.
EMBASSY DAMAGED
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors violence via a network of sources inside Syria, said the Mazraa car bomb was detonated at a checkpoint close to the Baath Party building, located about 200 meters (660 feet) from the Russian embassy.
It said 56 people were killed, of which at least 15 were from Syria's security forces and the rest civilians. Eight other people were killed by a car bomb in the Barzeh district of northeast Damascus, one of several explosions which followed the Mazraa attack.
Russia's Itar-Tass news agency quoted a diplomat as saying the Mazraa blast blew out windows at the Russian Embassy, but no employees were wounded. "The building has really been damaged ... The windows are shattered," the diplomat said.
The vehicle was carrying between 1 and 1.5 metric tons (1.65 tons) of explosives, Damascus Governor Bishr Sabban told Reuters.
A correspondent for Syrian television said he saw seven body bags with corpses at the scene. He counted 17 burnt-out cars and another 40 that were destroyed or badly damaged by the force of the blast, which ripped a crater 1.5 meters deep into the road.
Syrian TV said security forces had detained a would-be suicide bomber with five bombs in his car, one of them weighing 300 kg (440 pounds).
In the southern city of Deraa, where the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011, warplanes bombed the city's old district for the first time in nearly two years of conflict, killing 18 people, activists said.
A rebel officer in the Tawheed al-Janoub brigade which led a rebel offensive this week in Deraa said there were at least five air strikes on the city on Thursday.
"The (rebel) attacks on several major checkpoints in the Hay al-Saad neighborhood and its declaration as a liberated area have prompted this response," said Abdullah Masalmah, an activist from the city, via Skype.
Fighting has intensified in southern Syria in recent weeks, leading to a sharp increase in refugee flows to neighboring Jordan, according to officials. A Jordanian military source said 4,288 refugees arrived in the last 24 hours alone.
Nayef Hawatmeh, head of the Damascus-based Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was lightly wounded by an explosion in a mosque next to his office, a DFLP official said.
Talal Abu Tharifa told Reuters in Gaza that glass fragments had caused a slight wound to Hawatmeh's hand.
(Additional reporting by Marwan Makdesi in Damascus, Laila Bassam and Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow; Editing by Andrew Roche)
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Bomb kills Assad army chiefs; "decisive" Damascus battle
SYRIA FRAGMENTING Kamel believes Syria is already fragmenting, and that the Free Syrian Army, the umbrella for a plethora of armed groups fighting to overthrow Assad, is little more than a franchise of Sunni Muslim groups. "The Free Syrian army is only a slogan. There is no unity in these rebel groups," he argues. "To have an FSA you would need a command structure, and everybody following that command structure." Instead, he says, "There are different groups supplied financially and militarily by different states and they are quasi-independent." "Different regions are controlled by different groups, whether of ideological or sectarian background, and whether Bashar's regime remains a player, we already have a lot more players than before," Kamel says. "I don't discount the possibility that you (will) have different rebel groups struggling with each other for control of territory." Close watchers of Syria say the real danger is of a prolonged and very bloody civil war and a sectarian struggle, exacerbated by the lack of a unified and credible opposition. "I don't think there is anybody to take over," said George Joffe, a Middle East expert at Cambridge University. "The really big problem is that there is no credible opposition." "How do you bring them together, how do you get them to collaborate at this late stage because they are diametrically opposed on what should be done?" he said. Sarkis Naoum, a long-time critic of the Assad dictatorship who writes for Beirut's an-Nahar newspaper, says: "The opposition is fractured, with some outside and some inside (the country), some are Islamists, some are secular, but it is not easy to have an organised opposition with a government-in-waiting after 40 years of totalitarian rule." "Any perception that a post-Assad Syria will involve a smooth transition is misplaced," insists Ayman Kamel.RIDDLED WITH RIVALRIES The political opposition in exile, represented by the Syrian National Council, which groups the Muslim Brotherhood, pro-democracy activists and leftist groups, is riddled with ideological and religious rivalries impeding its attempt to forge a political alternative to Assad. While the SNC has been an international voice for the opposition, rebel commanders on the ground say the exiled leadership has little connection to what is happening in Syria. The disarray among the opposition is on display in the contradictory statements on how to deal with the conflict, with some groups calling for more arms while others demanding a negotiated settlement. As soon as some prominent SNC members announced the formation of a new political coalition that plans to establish a post-Assad transitional government, it was attacked by both the head of the SNC, Abdelbasset Seida, and the commander of the Free Syrian Army, General Riad al-Asaad. Seida said: "If each group came out alone announcing the formation of a new government without talks, this would end up in having a series of weak governments that don't represent anyone." Asaad called the new coalition "opportunists" seeking to benefit from the rebels' gains. On the ground, the picture is getting darker. State authority is slowly and incrementally disintegrating. Many areas of Syria are outside government control, regionalism is taking over from national unity, and rebel groups are multiplying with very different agendas and leaderships. The government military onslaught has been stepped up since insurgents took their battle to Damascus and Aleppo last month and carried out a bomb attack against Assad's inner circle that killed his brother-in-law and three other top military leaders. The conflict has left 18,000 dead and displaced hundreds of thousands, according to United Nations and activist figures. It is complicated by Syria's religious divisions. The Assads and the military elite units belong to the Alawite sect, a minority in a Sunni Muslim country. The Alawites form about 12 percent of Syria's 23 million people but are reckoned to make up 40 percent of the army and the bulk of the pro-Assad Shabbiha militia. Sunnis, who account for the majority of the opposition, form 75 percent of the population. SUPERIOR FIREPOWER Although the authorities have the upper hand because of superior firepower and units of loyal elite troops, the insurgents are highly motivated combatants who are becoming better armed, better trained and better organised. As the conflict rages on without any solution, Syrians say homegrown Islamist jihadists and groups of fighters from al Qaeda have been taking an active role. Most analysts agree that there is no "good or happy scenario" and that the chances of a negotiated settlement under the auspices of U.N. envoy Kofi Annan are nil. Assad's forces' success in retaking insurgent-held territory in Damascus by using airpower, and their ferocious campaign in Aleppo, show the government still has the capacity to fight back and hold its ground, but most analysts believe it will find it difficult to sustain the momentum in the long-term. Some think the authorities have prepared a fall-back position as an insurance policy should Assad's rule collapse: a retreat to an Alawite enclave on the north-west coast after expanding it by sectarian cleansing of some cities including Aleppo and Homs. "I believe (the regime) has already begun to plan such an eventuality but that will set up a much wider conflict inside Syria itself," said Joffe. "Aleppo is part of their focus to cleanse this coastal area, absolutely to clear it up to the Turkish border. I am sure that's the plan but whether they can do it or not it is something I don't know." Such an enclave, coupled with the flow of refugees across the border and rising sectarian tensions in the region, could have effects beyond Syria to Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq, which have their own sectarian and ethnic mixes of Alawites, Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds and where tensions are already high. With no Western appetite for military intervention and no prospect of an internationally mediated political resolution, many see the civil war spreading and tearing the country apart. "Disintegration of Syria is a possibility and the problem is it won't work. It would create a power vacuum in which others get dragged in just like Iraq. It is a very frightening scenario," Joffe said. Lebanese columnist Rajeh Khoury predicted: "Syria could plunge into a long protracted civil war that could last years. The civil war in Lebanon, with its much smaller population of five million, lasted 15 years due to foreign interference so Syria would be much more complicated. "The Syrian crisis is so inflammatory that its flames will affect the region in one way or another." (Additional reporting by Layla Bassam; Editing by Giles Elgood) =============== Obama authorizes secret support for Syrian rebels Wed, Aug 01 21:04 PM EDT By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said. Obama's order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence "finding," broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad. This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad's armed opponents - a shift that intensified following last month's failure of the U.N. Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against the Damascus government. The White House is for now apparently stopping short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some U.S. allies do just that. But U.S. and European officials have said that there have been noticeable improvements in the coherence and effectiveness of Syrian rebel groups in the past few weeks. That represents a significant change in assessments of the rebels by Western officials, who previously characterized Assad's opponents as a disorganized, almost chaotic, rabble. Precisely when Obama signed the secret intelligence authorization, an action not previously reported, could not be determined. The full extent of clandestine support that agencies like the CIA might be providing also is unclear. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined comment. 'NERVE CENTER' A U.S. government source acknowledged that under provisions of the presidential finding, the United States was collaborating with a secret command center operated by Turkey and its allies. Last week, Reuters reported that, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey had established a secret base near the Syrian border to help direct vital military and communications support to Assad's opponents. This "nerve center" is in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 60 miles from the Syrian border, which is also home to Incirlik, a U.S. air base where U.S. military and intelligence agencies maintain a substantial presence. Turkey's moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad's departure with growing vehemence. Turkish authorities are said by current and former U.S. government officials to be increasingly involved in providing Syrian rebels with training and possibly equipment. European government sources said wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing significant financing to the rebels. Senior officials of the Saudi and Qatari governments have publicly called for Assad's departure. On Tuesday, NBC News reported that the Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles, weapons that could be used against Assad's helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Syrian government armed forces have employed such air power more extensively in recent days. NBC said the shoulder-fired missiles, also known as MANPADs, had been delivered to the rebels via Turkey. On Wednesday, however, Bassam al-Dada, a political adviser to the Free Syrian Army, denied the NBC report, telling the Arabic-language TV network Al-Arabiya that the group had "not obtained any such weapons at all." U.S. government sources said they could not confirm the MANPADs deliveries, but could not rule them out either. Current and former U.S. and European officials previously said that weapons supplies, which were being organized and financed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, were largely limited to guns and a limited number of anti-tank weapons, such as bazookas. Indications are that U.S. agencies have not been involved in providing weapons to Assad's opponents. In order to do so, Obama would have to approve a supplement, known as a "memorandum of notification, to his initial broad intelligence finding. Further such memoranda would have to be signed by Obama to authorize other specific clandestine operations to support Syrian rebels. Reuters first reported last week that the White House had crafted a directive authorizing greater U.S. covert assistance to Syrian rebels. It was unclear at that time whether Obama had signed it. OVERT SUPPORT Separately from the president's secret order, the Obama administration has stated publicly that it is providing some backing for Assad's opponents. The State Department said on Wednesday the U.S. government had set aside a total of $25 million for "non-lethal" assistance to the Syrian opposition. A U.S. official said that was mostly for communications equipment, including encrypted radios. The State Department also says the United States has set aside $64 million in humanitarian assistance for the Syrian people, including contributions to the World Food Program, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other aid agencies. Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury confirmed it had granted authorization to the Syrian Support Group, Washington representative of one of the most active rebel factions, the Free Syrian Army, to conduct financial transactions on the rebel group's behalf. The authorization was first reported on Friday by Al-Monitor, a Middle East news and commentary website. Last year, when rebels began organizing themselves to challenge the rule of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Obama also signed an initial "finding" broadly authorizing secret U.S. backing for them. But the president moved cautiously in authorizing specific measures to support them. Some U.S. lawmakers, such as Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have criticized Obama for moving too slowly to assist the rebels and have suggested the U.S. government become directly involved in arming Assad's opponents. Other lawmakers have suggested caution, saying too little is known about the many rebel groups. Recent news reports from the region have suggested that the influence and numbers of Islamist militants, some of them connected to al Qaeda or its affiliates, have been growing among Assad's opponents. U.S. and European officials say that, so far, intelligence agencies do not believe the militants' role in the anti-Assad opposition is dominant. While U.S. and allied government experts believe that the Syrian rebels have been making some progress against Assad's forces lately, most believe the conflict is nowhere near resolution, and could go on for years. (Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Warren Strobel and Peter Cooney) ==
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