Abbas congratulates Al-Assad for re-election as Syrian president

26 June 2014
Source: Middle East Monitor

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has said the re-election of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad started "a countdown to the end of Syria's crisis".

Agency France Press quotes Abbas as saying in a hand written message to Al-Assad: "Your election to the presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic guarantees Syria's unity and sovereignty, and starts of a countdown to the end of Syria's crisis and its war against terrorism."

This is the clearest support that Al-Assad has received from the PA since the beginning of the Syrian uprising in mid-2011. Abbas expressed his hopes for stability in Syria and "success" for Al-Assad.
The PA's relations with the Syria regime deteriorated when a verbal clash about the reliability of talks with the Israeli occupation erupted between Abbas and Al-Assad during an Arab League meeting held in Libya in 2010.

As Syria's relations with Hamas were good at the time, Fatah demanded that the reconciliation file with Hamas be moved away from Damascus. But then Al-Assad's regime got angry with Hamas when it decided to support the popular Syrian uprising.

This development made Fatah repair its relations with Al-Assad and the PA sent missions to talk with the Syrian regime about the Yarmouk refugee camp, which has been under siege for about a year.

Link:  www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/12365-abbas-congratulates-al-assad-for-re-election-as-syrian-president.

Iran Is Increasingly Calling The Shots For Assad In Syria

Jul. 24, 2013
Michael B Kelley
Source: Business Insider

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been forced gradually to cede power to Iran to prop up his regime during the grinding conflict in Syria.

The implications for the Middle East could be dramatic.

"Whether Assad stays or goes is becoming irrelevant," a diplomat in the region told Khaled Yacoub Oweis of Reuters. "The conflict is now bigger than him, and it will continue without him. Iran is calling the shots." 

Assad has been increasingly leaning on Iranian troops, Hezbollah guerrilla fighters from Lebanon, and Shi'ite militias from Iraq as he preserves his elite loyalist units after 28 months of fighting. 

Consequently, Hezbollah and Iranian troops have become directly involved in the command structures of Assad's forces.

"Now the operations are well-planned and the objectives are precise," Rami Abdel, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP in April. "This is because Iranian officers are on the ground, leading operations, while new Iranian weapons conceived for this kind of battle are flowing in."

Iran has had troops on the ground to fight for Assad's regime in August, and Quds forces from the foreign operations arm of the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) may have been there as early as 2011.

More recently Iran has been training Syrian militias in guerrilla tactics while Iranian officers and Hezbollah fighters lead in battle.

"[Assad] can no longer call a division head and tell him to bomb the hell out of this neighborhood or that," Abu Nawar, a Jordanian military analyst, told Reuters. "His command has been eroded and the command structure is now multinational."

Right now the fighting inside Syria is most intense in Homs, which is a key corridor between Damascus, Lebanon, and the coastal Alawite heartland.

There is also talk that Assad is aiming to form an Alawite state in that area to sequester himself and his less fervent sect of Shia Islam from wider Sunni-Muslim war playing out in Syria and Iraq.
Martin Chulov and Mona Mahmood of the Guardian report that Assad asked a well-known diplomatic figure "to approach the former Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, late last year with a request that Israel not stand in the way of attempts to form an Alawite state."

(Previous reports of sectarian cleansing of Sunnis along the coast corroborate that notion.)
Iran is primarily concerned with maintaining the Shi'ite crescent — which includes Shi'ites from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria — and is fully determined to keep its geographical link to Lebanon intact.

 Essentially, Iran holds sway over a huge swath of the Middle East right now (i.e. the Shi'ite crescent), with the crux being Syria.

The ongoing war in the area could drag on for years, and the outcome will alter the balance between Shias and Sunnis as well as between Iran and Israel/U.S.

As Iranian-American journalist Ali Gharib recently wrote in a Daily Best piece about the hawkish stance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "The U.S. and Iran are on a collision course, one that ends very badly for everyone involved."


 
 Link: .businessinsider.com/iran-is-calling-the-shots-in-syria-2013-7.

Al Qaeda splinter group in Syria leaves two provinces - activists

March 14, 2014
By Alexander Dziadosz
Source: Yahoo News

BEIRUT (Reuters) - An al Qaeda splinter group in Syria pulled out of two provinces in the country's northwest on Friday and headed to its eastern strongholds after months of clashes with rival rebels, activists said.

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a former al Qaeda affiliate, and competing insurgents have been fighting since the start of the year, killing over 3,000 people and undermining the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

On Friday, ISIL - which alienated many rebels by seizing territory and killing rival commanders - finished withdrawing from the Idlib and Latakia provinces and moved its forces toward the eastern Raqqa province and the eastern outskirts of the northern city of Aleppo, activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the withdrawal was overseen by the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's acknowledged branch in Syria, making the two provinces "completely free" of ISIL forces.

ISIL, which draws strength from a core of experienced foreign fighters, was initially welcomed in many rebel-controlled areas because of its fighting prowess and reputation for being relatively free of corruption.
The group later alienated many residents with a drive to implement a strict interpretation of Islamic law, but has also maintained sympathy in some areas because of its reputation for keeping looting and thievery in check.

"There's been an uneasy calm on all sides" since the withdrawal of ISIL forces, one activist from Idlib province said. "Civilians aren't celebrating because ISIL had eliminated thieves and bandits."

The Observatory's director Rami Abdulrahman said ISIL had been weakened by clashes and defections in the areas it had withdrawn from, but still had control over Raqqa province and plenty of resources to draw on.

AMBUSH

A video posted online on Friday showed two fighters touring what they said were abandoned buildings that had been used by ISIL as a court and a prison in a town in the Jebel al-Akrad region. One fighter said the withdrawal had happened peacefully after negotiations between ISIL and other rebels.

ISIL started off as a rebranding of al Qaeda's branch in neighboring Iraq, but the parent organization announced it was cutting ties with the group last month over its refusal to limit itself to fighting in Iraq.

The Nusra Front, al Qaeda's Syria branch, has occasionally clashed with ISIL but has also tried to broker truces between ISIL and rival factions and fought alongside the group against government forces in other areas.

The infighting has nevertheless further complicated a war that has killed over 140,000 people and forced millions to flee their homes. The war enters its fourth year this month.

In a separate incident, the Syrian army killed 20 militants in an ambush in Tel Kalakh, a village 40 km (25 miles) west of Homs, a military source told Reuters. Lebanon's Al Manar television channel also reported the incident.

The source said the attack happened near a customs checkpoint close to the border with Lebanon, about 4 km (2.5 miles) from the village.

Pro-government Twitter accounts said the militants had been trying to enter Lebanon's Wadi Khaled after fleeing the Sunni town of al-Hosn, but Reuters could not independently verify these reports.

The source also said Syria's army had reached the eastern entrances of Yabroud, a rebel-held town near the border with Lebanon where the military has been making recent advances.

(Additional reporting by Stephen Kalin and Mariam Karouny; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

 

Moazzam Begg: the real reason my passport was confiscated

February 28, 2014
by Moazzam Begg
islam21c.com 
Source: muslimvillage. com. 


Moazzam Begg reveals why the British government has been continually harassing him since his return from Guantanamo, and took his passport for the second time in eight years.

In the summer of 2012 I wrote about the first of my two visits to Syria to investigate leads into cases of British and American complicity in the rendition of terrorism suspects to the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
This followed on from something I learned first-hand from CIA and US military intelligence agents who threatened to send me to Egypt or Syria if I failed to co-operate with them during my time in the Bagram prison. I made British MI5/MI6 agents, who were present at every leg of my unlawful imprisonment, fully aware of these threats. Their response was that I had to co-operate with their US counterparts.

On my eventual return to the UK from Guantanamo, along with three other British citizens I received a letter from the Home Office informing me that my ability to apply for a passport had been restricted by the Home Secretary under the powers of the ‘Royal Prerogative’.

Having returned from three years of separation from my loved ones, spent mostly in solitary confinement and after suffering the effects of regular human rights violations, I didn’t challenge the decision immediately. Instead, I tried to rebuild my lost connection to a traumatised family, including a son I’d never seen.

UK torture complicity
As part of my work for CagePrisoners, however, I soon began campaigning for prisoners detained at Guantanamo and others held in secret detention sites or who had disappeared after being rendered to countries like Libya, Egypt, and Syria. We conducted numerous investigations into recurrent reports of extreme torture carried out by the Syrian regime and discovered the complicity of the governments of the US, Canada, France, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and Britain.

I was also constantly being invited to speak all over the world about issues pertaining to Guantanamo, torture, the rule of law and the war terror. Thus, in 2009 I mounted a successful challenge to get my passport back.

My subsequent extensive travel abroad was greeted simultaneously by meetings with people in power—including unexpected praise from US ambassadors in Luxembourg—to armed police escorting me off planes in order to deny me entry to Canada (where I’d gone to meet with Canadian rendition victims sent to Syria).
Returning to the UK airports was often an ordeal in its own right as I would be stopped almost every time and questioned under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This happened even on visits to Brussels where I was invited to speak at the European Parliament by British MEPs as well as trips to Malaysia where I had been giving evidence in war crimes tribunals set up by the former prime minister there. Often British police would ask me if I had gone to these places to further my claims about British complicity in torture.

During this period three very important things happened which I believe the British intelligence services have been unable to recover from:

1. A major civil action was taken by 16 former Guantanamo prisoners against the British government and intelligence services for complicity in torture and false imprisonment.

2. Prime Minister David Cameron ordered a judge-led inquiry to be launched into allegations that the UK was complicit in torture

3. The Metropolitan police began a criminal investigation against British intelligence services into recurrent allegations of complicity in kidnap, torture and false imprisonment

In 2010 we won an out-of-court settlement against the government after it was compelled to hand over documents that showed how British government ministers had decided we should be consigned to Guantanamo, despite evidence of mistreatment.

At the end of the discussions with the government the then Justice Minister, Kenneth Clarke QC, sat with us and listened. Several of the world’s supposedly most dangerous terrorists sat in a room with a senior Tory minister discussing the previous government’s wrongs. I handed Clarke a copy of my book hoping there might be some proper understanding after this but, all the while the government was preparing the Justice and Security Bill[11]—which was passed as law earlier this year—that would ensure damaging and embarrassing civil actions such as ours would henceforth be heard in secret under colour of ‘national security concerns.’
The inquiry into torture by Sir Peter Gibson was shelved last week in favour of the Intelligence and Security Committee but in his interim report Gibson concluded that MI5 had at best ‘turned a blind eye’[12] to our abuse.

The criminal investigation is still on-going but I have sat for hours with the Metropolitan Police giving testimony to them about what happened in Bagram and Guantanamo and, they have gone to meet with rendition victims in Libya[13] and continue to investigate the claims of Shaker Aamer[14] who has been in Guantanamo without charge for twelve years.

Last year several former Guantanamo prisoners, including me, met with Asa Hutchinson, who had served as US Undersecretary for Homeland Security while we were captives. In a report by the Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment, which included him and two former senior US generals, the practice of torture by the US administration was described as “indisputable”. The report[15] also stated bluntly that our treatment and indefinite detention was “abhorrent and intolerable”. There was also no escaping the fact that the British government had colluded in sending and keeping us there.

Visiting Syria
Following the uprisings of the ‘Arab spring’ I was able to make several visits to the Arab world and follow up cases of rendition, including the shocking case of a man whose tortured false testimony[16] was used as a justification by both the US and UK to invade Iraq.

In July last year, I visited Syria where I met numerous former prisoners who had been held by the Assad regime as well as a few victims of US and UK rendition. One of the men, a Libyan who had resided in Syria, had been rendered to Libya after a phone call by a British Libyan dissident had been intercepted by MI5 and its contents disclosed to Assad’s Mukhābarāt (intelligence agency). Documents[17] found in the headquarters of Gaddafi’s Mukhābarāt after the fall of Tripoli clearly prove British involvement.
A few months later, in October 2012, I was called by an MI5 officer who said they wanted to talk to me about my views on the situation in Syria after having read my article[18]. I told them that they must be aware that I was investigating several leads regarding British and American complicity in rendition and torture in Syria. They called back after consulting with their lawyers and said they understood that and would still like to meet. I agreed to speak to them and meet at a hotel in East London. Both MI5 and I had our lawyers present.

MI5 was concerned about the possibility of Britons in Syria being radicalised and returning to pose a potential threat to national security. I told them that Britain had nothing to worry about, especially since British foreign policy, at the time, seemed in favour of the rebels. At the end of the meeting I was assured by MI5 that my proposed return to Syria to continue my work would not be hindered, and it wasn’t.

 Subsequently, I travelled to Syria without incident. I spent much time accumulating testimony and information for a report on the situation of the current prisoners as well as the accounts of those who had been detained and tortured in the past. I witnessed the squalid refugee camps, I visited the wounded, young and old, some of whom I buried, I saw the carnage of Assad’s killing machine and I saw the beautiful young faces of children aged beyond their years. I witnessed the harsh winter and saw farmers chop down their olive trees to warm themselves and I heard the horror stories of torture under the rule of both Bashar and Hafiz al-Assad. However, I also saw aid coming in from all over the Muslim world which included British ambulances, British fire engines, British garbage disposal trucks; British aid centres and hospitals with British doctors (one of whom was killed[19] saving lives a few months ago) and volunteers from Britain’s Muslim community. And yes, there were some British fighters too. I do not believe any of them posed any kind of threat to the UK.

I returned home without hindrance, except for the customary Schedule 7 stop. I was briefly questioned about my visit by border police and returned home shortly after. I came back ‘radicalised’ enough to speak at numerous events for various charities working out in Syria. I also conducted interviews[20] with people on the ground that are close to the fighters to answer questions about any tangible threat to the UK to help allay the fears of the British public and intelligence services.

Schedule 7 stops
Since then I have been ‘randomly’ stopped[21] more times than I can recall under Schedule 7 while travelling.

The last time this happened, last month, I was en route to a conference[22] in Turkey about the mass-imprisonments and torture occurring in Egypt following the military coup. British police suggested that I might be going to Syria, despite showing them details of itinerary and return flights for the following weekend.
I was made to miss my flight but the police were prepared to rebook me for the next available one meaning that they were neither preventing me from going to Turkey, or even potentially to Syria. I refused their offer as I would have had missed the conference by then and opted to returned home. However, they took possession of my iPad and phone and kept them for a week. Both items contained sensitive information and documents pertaining to CagePrisoners’ investigations on both complicity in torture and responses to the British government’s measures in tackling extremism.

In anticipation of future harassment at airports I began legal proceedings to challenge the constant harassment at airports under Schedule 7 and informed the Home Office, the border police and British airports about my intended travel via my lawyers. We received a response from their lawyers, which acknowledged the letter but did little else.

Change of language

The language and attitude of the British government has steadily changed towards the Syrian opposition especially since much of it has openly chosen an Islamic path, something the west has been unwilling to engage with and unprepared to accept. Britain went to war based on the falsehood that Iraq may have possessed weapons of mass destruction. Clear evidence of the use of chemical weapons, in addition to over 120,000 dead through the use of conventional ones in Syria has not elicited any such response, and most people are grateful for it. No one wants to see British involvement in Syria, especially the Syrians who know well what happened next door in Iraq.

As a result, however, the Assad regime is now regarded as the better of the two choices. That is why last month the decision to stop[23] even non-lethal aid for western-backed factions in Syria was taken by Britain. But, despite there being no evidence of a tangible threat from British fighters returning from Syria (the contrary[24] in fact) and certainly not the type that might have been posed from the same in Iraq or Afghanistan because of the presence of British troops, the government now wants to remove not just the passport but the nationality[25] of Britons suspected of being involved in fighting in Syria. The government’s myopic insistence on this point cannot fathom that this is simply about Syria, not Britian. The counterterrorism industry, it seems, has too many vested interests for the language to be tempered with reason.

Instead of easing the arduous journeys for the numerous convoys leaving with aid from Britain for Syria every month, border authorities detain the aid workers for hours on end—both on exit from and re-entry to the UK. On several occasions volunteers have been turned back, vehicles confiscated and money and goods collected by the community for the beleaguered Syrian people seized.

Britain has refused[26] to take any Syrian refugees despite the unprecedented crisis facing millions fleeing the war. It also did next to nothing for the British Muslim Dr. Abbas Khan[27] and has been heavily criticised for shirking its duty regarding one of its own citizens while he was horrifically tortured and murdered.

Simply speaking, the British government has lost all touch with the reality on the ground and the enormous sentiments in the Muslim community, and beyond, regarding the Syrian conflict.

Losing my passport – again

After a trip to South Africa[28] last month—which had coincided with the funeral of Nelson Mandela—where I spoke extensively about the complicity of the British government in rendition and torture, I was met upon arrival at Heathrow by officials who served me with a notice to seize my passport under the ‘Royal Prerogative’ stating that it was assessed my previous visits to Syria had constituted involvement in terrorism. No explanation other than that was given.

I am certain that the only reason I am being continually harassed—something that began long before any visit to Syria—is because CagePrisoners and I are at the forefront of investigations and assertions based on hard evidence that British governments, past and present, have been wilfully complicit in torture.

How logical is it to stop me from travelling anywhere in the world simply because they want to prevent me from going to Syria? Numerous British citizens have been prevented from entering Turkey (the key entry point to Syria) at the behest of the British authorities. They could have done the same with me.

It is these government-shaking issues that are the real reason why I have been continually harassed and targeted by the authorities in this country. I am not and never have been in anyway a threat to them, unless words seeking accountability are a threat.

At a time when Islam and the Muslim community is facing an unprecedented attack via politicians, the media and ultimately some sections of the public susceptible to this onslaught, it has been the aim of CagePrisoners and myself in trying to empower the community that is being purposefully undermined.
The struggle for reason and justice is clearly a longer one than I once imagined but since our aim is a good and just one, I do not believe our detractors will succeed.

Link:  :http://muslimvillage.com/2014/02/28/50644/moazzam-begg-real-reason-passport-confiscated/.

What Sen. John McCain was doing in Syria

May 28, 2013
By Peter Weber 
Source: The Week

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) spent a few hours of his Memorial Day in Syria, meeting with rebel leaders who are trying to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. McCain, the Senate's most prominent supporter of greater U.S. intervention in Syria's civil war, snuck into the country from Turkey. He's the highest-ranking American to visit Syria during the two-year-old conflict.

McCain's visit to Syria was kept secret until he was back in Turkey, at which point The Daily Beast's Josh Rogin published an article on the covert trip. McCain's office then confirmed it. How under-the-radar was the excursion?

McCain's detour was coordinated by the U.S.-based Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nonprofit group that supports the Syrian rebels. Two of the organization's top leaders accompanied McCain, as did Gen. Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Rebel leaders from around the country gathered to meet with McCain and Idris.

Since early April, the U.S. has been providing some Syrian rebels with body armor and night-vision glasses, along with food and medical aid. The Daily Beast's Rogin says the rebels asked McCain for weapons and other military aid. Idris tells Rogin:

     We need American help to have change on the ground; we are now in a very critical situation.... What we want from the U.S. government is to take the decision to support the Syrian revolution with weapons and ammunition, anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft weapons.... Of course we want a no-fly zone and we ask for strategic strikes against Hezbollah both inside Lebanon and inside Syria. [Daily Beast]

The last items on Idris' wish list seem unlikely, at least for now, but as the Syrian war starts spreading into neighboring Lebanon, giving the rebels weapons isn't far-fetched. The European Union late Monday lifted its embargo on arming the opposition, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted last week to arm and provide military training to vetted anti-Assad factions.

Still, President Obama is less than enthusiastic about entangling the U.S. in Syria's civil war. As McCain was meeting with rebel leaders, Secretary of State John Kerry was flying to Paris towork on proposed Syrian peace talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose government is Assad's biggest backer outside the region. (Rebel leaders reportedly told McCain that there are a growing number of Russian military advisers in Damascus.)

The Obama administration is right to tread carefully, says Patrick Brennan at National Review. Gen. Idris, "a defector from Assad's army who has won fans in the West by rejecting the most extreme and jihadist elements of the opposition," is better than the other anti-Assad forces, notably the radical Islamists of the Nusrah Front. But Idris, "unfortunately, appears to have very little influence or credibility among the rebels," and it's not clear McCain's proposed U.S. military aid would change that, Brennan says.

For now, the U.S. is facilitating the flow of arms from Gulf nations, especially Qatar, to the rebel groups, attempting to keep the weapons out of undesirables' hands. How well that's working is anyone's guess for now, but it's clear that those undesirables, whom Idris has been picked to sideline and provide an alternative to, are the most effective fighters in Syria. They're actually doing a good business in recruiting fighters from the umbrella Free Syrian Army — that's the group Idris is supposed to run some day, and presumably Senator McCain believes he could do so with hundreds of millions of American dollars to fund and control them. Since the fighting has recently intensified and Assad's forces, with Hezbollah and direct Iranian aid at their backs, seem to be winning back some territory, it will be not a surprise if there are increased calls for supporting a leader such as Idris, and whatever troops he can attract, but on the ground in Syria, the credibility and importance of the most effective fighting forces — jihadists — will keep growing. [National Review]

The "optimal geopolitical result" for the U.S. in Syria would be a stalemate, says Paul Mirengoff at Power Line. But the Syrian government appears to be breaking the deadlock, with the help of Hezbollah, and "the revival of Assad's fortunes makes me think that U.S. non-involvement should no longer be considered our best option."

If we were to rank the three possible outcomes of the Syrian civil war — Assad/Hezbollah wins; the rebels win; no one wins — a victory by Assad/Hezbollah would finish third.... Will President Obama provide any support to opposition forces? He is said to be considering it, and continued reports of use of chemical weapons by the regime — which crosses Obama's famous "red line" — could provide the pretext for a shift in course.... For the U.S., there are no good options in Syria. But at this juncture, helping the rebels avoid defeat in Qusair and other key fronts may be the best of the bad ones. [Power Line]

Read more:http://theweek.com/article/index/244727/what-sen-john-mccain-was-doing-in-syria

Disputes over arms for Syria cloud U.S.-Russian peace drive

14 hours ago
By Alissa de Carbonnel | Reuters 
Source: Yahoo News

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Disputes between Russia and the West over arming warring sides in Syria on Tuesday dimmed prospects for peace talks that were also clouded by disarray among President Bashar al-Assad's political foes.

As Western nations debate what action, if any, they should take on Syria, Assad's main allies - Russia, Iran and Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah group - have been closing ranks behind him.

Russia, which has protected Assad diplomatically since the Syrian uprising erupted in March 2011, said it would deliver an advanced S-300 air defense system to Damascus despite U.S., French and Israeli objections, arguing that it would help deter "hotheads" intent on intervention in the conflict.

Moscow also accused the European Union of "throwing fuel on the fire" and "undermining" the chances of holding a peace conference at Geneva by letting an arms embargo on Syria expire.

France and Britain, the EU's strongest military powers and most ardent advocates of scrapping the embargo, said they had not yet decided to arm Syrian rebels, but wanted to put Assad under pressure to negotiate.

"Our focus in the coming weeks is the Geneva conference," said British Foreign Secretary William Hague. "What this is doing is sending that signal loud and clear to the regime and ... being very clear about the flexibility that we have if it refuses to negotiate."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Western powers were putting the very idea of a conference at risk while his deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, defended Moscow's missile shipment.

"We think this delivery is a stabilizing factor and that such steps in many ways restrain some hotheads," he said.

The S-300s can intercept manned aircraft and guided missiles and their delivery could improve Assad's chances of retaining power. Western nations criticize such arms deliveries in much the same terms as Moscow assails weapons supplies to rebels.

Israel's defense minister said the air defense missiles had not yet left Russia, but hinted at military action if they were delivered: "I hope they will not leave, and if, God forbid, they reach Syria, we will know what to do," Moshe Yaalon said.

Despite their differences, the United States and Russia are trying to convene an international conference next month to end a 26-month-old conflict that has killed more than 80,000 people and threatens to ignite wider Middle Eastern confrontations.

But the opposing sides remain far apart on whether Assad should play any role in any political transition - and the main Western-backed opposition has not even said if it will attend.

Diplomats in Geneva said a meeting could be held at the U.N. there on June 15-16 just before the U.S., Russian and EU leaders meet at a Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland on June 17.

"CHASE THEM TO HELL"

Fighting in Syria has intensified on several fronts in recent weeks and is spilling dangerously into Lebanon, whose Hezbollah guerrillas now openly fight alongside Assad's forces.

In a weekend speech, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah promised victory for his Iranian-backed group, saying the battle in Syria was vital for its primary struggle against Israel.

On the ever more volatile Lebanese-Syrian border, gunmen killed three Lebanese soldiers at a checkpoint in the Bekaa Valley before fleeing toward Syria, Lebanese officials said.

Hours earlier a rocket fired into the mainly Shi'ite town of Hermel in the Bekaa killed a woman and wounded two people.

A Syrian rebel leader threatened reprisals against Hezbollah unless the Arab League and the United Nations acted within 24 hours to halt the militant group's intervention in Syria.

"We will chase them all the way to hell if a decision is not taken to stop Hezbollah's attack on Syrian land," Brigadier-General Salem Idris told Al-Arabiya television channel.

Idris, a defector from Assad's military, is a favored channel for Western aid to rebels, although his control over diverse armed factions is thought to be limited.

Violence in Syria is gradually spreading to Lebanon, raising fears for the fate of a small nation that lost anywhere between 100,000 and 150,000 dead in its own 1975-90 civil war.

Syria's civil war has divided Lebanon, with most Lebanese Shi'ites supporting Assad, whose minority Alawite sect is rooted in Shi'ite Islam. Many Lebanese Sunnis back the mostly Sunni Syrian rebels, putting the Lebanese army under extra pressure to keep a lid on sectarian tensions.

Assad's government, whose forces have been staging fierce offensives on rebel strongholds around Damascus and the border town of Qusair, has named representatives for the peace talks Washington and Moscow hope to convene in Geneva in June.

But opposition political factions, not to mention the rebel combatants over whom they wield scant control, remain riven by internal divisions even after six days of talks in Istanbul.

The 60-member Syrian National Coalition has failed to agree to include more liberals in its ranks to the dismay of Western and some Arab backers keen to reduce the influence of Islamists.

The disarray raises questions about the opposition's ability to agree any sort of inclusive transitional government and could strengthen Assad's hand before any peace talks.

Western and Arab envoys sought to break the opposition deadlock which could even scupper the U.S.-Russian initiative.

"Effectively, without an opposition overhaul there will not be a Geneva," a frustrated regional official in Istanbul said.

Israel airstrikes loom over US diplomacy on Syria

1 hr 8 mins ago
By BRADLEY KLAPPER | Associated Press
Source: Yahoo News

MOSCOW (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry is making his case to Russian President Vladimir Putin for Russia to take a tougher stance on Syria at a time when Israel's weekend air strikes against the beleaguered Mideast nation have added an unpredictable factor to the talks.

Kerry arrived Tuesday in Moscow for talks with the most powerful ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Officials said Kerry hopes to change Moscow's thinking on Syria with two new angles: American threats to arm the Syrian rebels and evidence of chemical weapon attacks by the Assad regime.

Over the weekend, Israeli warplanes targeted what Israel claimed were caches of Iranian missiles bound for Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terror group. Such weapons would allow Hezbollah to strike Tel Aviv and as far as southern Israel from inside Lebanese territory.

Israel's willingness to hit Syrian targets it sees as threats to its own existence has complicated the Obama administration's internal debate over what to do about Syria.

Israel's actions put Damascus and Moscow on notice that the U.S. and its allies may not wait for an international green light to become more actively engaged in the Syrian conflict. The administration said last week it was rethinking its opposition to arming the Syrian rebels or taking other aggressive steps to turn the tide of the two-year-old civil war toward the rebels.

At the same time, Israeli involvement in the war carries risks. Instead of prodding Russia into calling for Assad's ouster, it could bring greater Arab sympathy for Assad and prompt deeper involvement from Iran and Hezbollah, actors committed as much to preserving Assad as to fighting the Jewish state.

Although Israel hasn't officially acknowledged it carried out the airstrikes, Syrian officials on Monday were blaming Israel, calling them a "declaration of war" that would cause the Jewish state to "suffer."

Russia, alongside China, has blocked U.S.-led efforts three times at the United Nations to pressure Assad into stepping down.

U.S. officials are hoping Syria's behavior could shift Russia's stance.

"We have consistently, in our conversations with the Russians and others, pointed clearly to Assad's behavior as proof that further support for the regime is not in the interest of the Syrian people or in the interest of the countries that have in the past supported Assad," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

U.S. officials said the administration doesn't believe the weekend activity will force President Barack Obama's hand, noting that the main U.S. concern is the use of chemical weapons by Assad, while Israel's top concern is conventional weapons falling into the hands of its enemies.

The chemical weapons argument is now under surprising attack, with former war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte saying over the weekend she and fellow members of a four-member U.N. human rights panel have indications the nerve agent sarin was used by Syrian rebel forces, not by government forces.

That theory was rejected by U.S. officials. The State Department said the administration continues to believe that Syria's large chemical weapons stockpiles remain securely in the regime's control.

The Obama administration opened the door to new military options in Syria after declaring last week it strongly believed the Assad regime used chemical weapons in two attacks in March. Two days after that announcement, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said arming the Syrian rebels was a policy consideration.

Until now, U.S. efforts to bolster the rebels' fighting skills and gather intelligence on the groups operating inside Syria have been limited to small training camps in Jordan, according to two U.S. officials who weren't authorized to speak about secret activities and demanded anonymity.

There are several options for escalation, ranging from arming the rebels to targeted airstrikes and no-fly zones. However, arming the rebels is the most likely escalation, officials said.

While the Israeli actions have made Kerry's Russia efforts more unpredictable, some in Congress tried to be optimistic.

Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he hopes Kerry can persuade Russia to use its influence to convince the besieged Syrian leader that he should step down.

"Hopefully the cooperation on the (Boston) Marathon bombing will open the door there," Ruppersberger said.

After visiting Moscow for the first time since he became secretary of state, Kerry will travel to Rome for talks with members of the new Italian government, as well as meetings with Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh to discuss Middle East peace prospects.

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

Spoils of war: Captured cousin takes FSA closer to Lion's Den

October 7th, 2012 Source: Albawaba Syrian opposition forces have captured Housam al-Assad, the cousin of the embattled President Bashar al-Assad, a senior religious figure has announced. Assad’s cousin was arrest by al-Farouq brigade of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Sheikh Adnan Al Arour, a Sunni Muslim preacher and a major Salafist leader in Syria, announced on his Twitter account Sunday. “Housam al-Assad, the cousin of dog Bashar has been captured by al-Farouq Brigade and brought him in like a pig, so that you know, oh Russia and Iran who the Syrian people are,” Sheikh Arour said. The sheikh has become one of the Syrian uprising’s symbolic figures and a source of motivation for those who aspire for ousting the regime of President Al Assad in Syria. The 73-year-old Aroor fled Syria under the rule of Hafez Al Assad following the 1982 Massacre in his hometown of Hama and settled in Saudi Arabia ever since. Sheikh Aroor is seen by many as a moderate Sunni cleric who supports democratic reforms and who has long stood against the Baathist regime. Meanwhile, on the frontlines Syrian troops shelled areas of Homs city and the Houla region where they clashed with rebels on Saturday, as a monitoring group said rebels seized a village near the Turkish border. Rebels captured Khirbat al-Joz in the northwest province of Idlib near the border after a fierce battle in which 25 troops and three insurgents were killed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Nearly 80 percent of towns and villages along the Turkish border are outside the control of Damascus, according to the group. AFP correspondent have passed through large swathes of territory in the Idlib and Aleppo provinces of northern Syria that have fallen outside government control, with residents managing their own affairs. Four civilians, including a woman, and six rebels were killed in the Houla region of the central province of Homs in clashes and shelling by regime forces, the Britain-based Observatory said.

Will Syria's Kurds benefit from the crisis?

10 August 2012
By Jonathan Marcus
source:BBC News Magazine

In any assessment of the potential winners and losers from the political chaos in Syria, the country's Kurdish minority could be among the winners.

The Kurds make up a little over 10% of the population. Long marginalised by the Alawite-dominated government, they are largely concentrated in north-eastern Syria, up towards the Turkish border.

Aaron David Miller, a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, believes that the Kurds could be one of the main beneficiaries of the demise of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

"Syria is coming apart, and there's not much chance it will be reassembled with the kind of centralised authority we saw under the Assads."

For the Syrian Kurds, whom he describes as "part of the largest single ethnic grouping in the region that lacks a state", there is "an opportunity to create more autonomy and respect for Kurdish rights".

"They have the motivation, opportunity, and their Kurdish allies in Iraq and Turkey to encourage them. But what will hold them back is Turkey's determination to prevent a mini-statelet in Syria along with the Kurds own internal divisions," he says.

"It is unlikely," he believes, "that Syria's Kurds will be able to establish a separate entity in Syria. Nor will the United States, nor the international community accept that."

"At the same time, the several dimensions of the Kurdish problem - the Iraqi Kurds' growing determination to remain a separate entity; Turkish determination to avoid another mini-Kurdistan along the Syrian-Iraqi border; and the issue of the PKK, the armed Kurdish insurgents fighting the Turkish Army - will create a real flashpoint."

There in a nutshell is the scale of the problem.

The Kurds' future in Syria will have an important bearing upon what sort of country it is going to become.
Turkish worry

But the fate of the Syrian Kurds also has ramifications well beyond the country's borders. These processes are already under way.

Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern Politics at the London School of Economics, told me that "the Syrian Kurds have already seized the moment and are laying the foundation for an autonomous region like their counterparts in Iraq".

"The exit of Assad's forces from the Kurdish areas has complicated the crisis and deepened Turkey's fears that its borders with Iraq and Syria will be volatile for years to come," he says.

"The Kurdish factor in the Syrian crisis will prove to be as significant as the Kurdish question in Iraq."

Prof Ofra Bengio, head of the Kurdish Studies programme at the Moshe Dayan Centre at Tel Aviv University, agrees.

"The Kurdish dimension is likely to become a potent factor in the near future because of the weakening of each of the states in which they live, because co-operation among the states for curbing the Kurds is non-existent, and because the Kurds have made headway in the United States and in the West, where they proved their loyalty and lack of religious extremism.

"In a word, the West might like to support them."

If a Kurdish spectre is stalking the region then it is probably Turkey that has most reason to be worried.

Even as Ankara has watched developments in Syria with unease, its own struggle with guerrilla fighters of the Kurdish PKK has flared up again - Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davotoglu insisting that the Syrian government is encouraging the PKK, to get its own back for Turkey's insistence that President Assad must go.

But it is even more complicated than this. The dominant Kurdish faction inside Syria is a close ally - some say even an off-shoot - of the PKK. It has little love for the mainstream Syrian opposition championed by the Turks.
Colonial borders

Whilst fighting the PKK on one front, Turkey is desperately trying to curb the political ambitions of Syria's Kurds by political means.

Indeed the ramifications of the Kurdish issue go even further. Prof Gerges insists that the Kurdish question "is here to stay".

"It transcends national borders and has the potential to redraw the Sykes-Pico agreement, which, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, established existing nation-state boundaries.

Kurds in Syria have long complained of discrimination by the government

"Although it is too early to talk about the emergence of a greater Kurdistan, an imagined community of Kurds resonates deeply among Kurds across Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran."

It is in this sense the upheavals associated with the "Arab Spring" take on their full regional significance.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement (named not surprisingly after the two negotiators, Mr Georges Picot and Sir Mark Sykes) was a secret understanding made between France and Britain in 1916 for the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire.

The agreement led to the division of Turkish-held areas of the Levant into various French and British administered territories which eventually gave rise to the modern-day states of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and ultimately Israel.

Fawaz Gerges asserts that the events in Syria and their potential repercussions risk over-turning this familiar world; a broader re-ordering of the region in which Kurdish aspirations are just one part of a very complex picture.

"Many of the problems in the contemporary Middle East are traced to that colonial-era Sykes-Picot map, which established the state system in the region. The Palestine and Kurdish questions are cases in point."

"National borders do not correspond to imagined communities. Although the state system has established deep roots in the Middle East in the last nine decades, the current uprisings have starkly exposed the fragility of the colonial system imposed on the region.

"My take is that the great powers, together with their local partners, will fight tooth and nail to prevent the redrawing of the borders of the state system in the Middle East.

"For once the map is re-drawn, where would the limits be? There would be a real danger of perpetual instability and conflict," he says.

Sowing chaos?

The Kurds of Syria, of course, are not in quite the same position as their brothers in Iraq and would find it much harder to break away.

Noted Syria expert Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma says that while Syria's Kurds are a compact minority they are not a majority even in the north eastern border area with Turkey - where they constitute some 30-40% of the population.

They have sometimes tense relations with local Sunni Arab tribes who see this as an integral part of Syrian territory, reinforced by the fact that this is an area rich in oil resources vital to the Syrian economy.

Prof Landis argues that what is going on in the Kurdish north-east offers a useful pointer to President Assad's "Plan B" should his control over key cities like Damascus and Aleppo crumble.

He says that the "embattled president withdrew government forces from the north-east because he couldn't control it and wanted to focus on the most important battles in Aleppo and Damascus".

"But in the back of the president's mind, there may be the thought that empowering the Kurds is a way of weakening the Sunni Arab majority and underlining the risks of fragmentation should his government fall. It's a strategy of playing upon divisions to sow chaos," he said.

This way, says Prof Landis, "the Syrian Army - which is rapidly becoming an Alawite militia, whilst still the strongest military force - may lose control over large swathes of the country, but will remain a vital factor in determining the political outcome in Syria".

It is a bleak prospect.

Prof Landis asserts that President Assad "may lose Syria, but could still remain a player, and his Alawite minority will not be destroyed".

"That's the future of Syria," he says, with little enthusiasm. "It's what Lebanon was and what Iraq became."

Syria rebels claim upper hand as battle for Aleppo grinds towards stalemate

8 August 2012
Martin Chulov
Source:The Guardian

The day started in Salahedin just as it had for the past fortnight, with rebels under fierce assault from a nearby ring road and the Syrian Air Force blitzing them from the skies.

Just before daybreak, however, the frontline – thus far seemingly solid – began to wobble. Rebels briefly withdrew as the regime pushed forward with men and tanks. This, it seemed, was the start of the battle for Aleppo, an inexorable showdown for which the whole city had been nervously preparing.

Then, only several hours after daybreak, the regime retreated and the weary guerillas returned to their sandbags. Government claims to have conquered the enemy stronghold were false, as were the rebels' later claims to have breached regime lines. Nothing seems to be going to script in this war.

All the might that the forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad can muster is now camped just over a large bank of land to the east of Salahedin, the suburb of Aleppo that has become the focal point of the conflict. All the men the guerrilla force can assemble are holed up in crumbling buildings, the closest of them only 200m from the nearest regime tank.

Yet the decisive battle that most in Aleppo seemed to have feared is slowly giving way to another – even more dreaded – reality. Stalemate, with neither side willing or able to advance. A new sense is beginning to settle in that neither Salahedin, nor the rest of Syria's second city, will see an end to the fighting any time soon.

Despite its superior numbers and weaponry, the army appears in no hurry to bring the uprising here to an end. The siege that has crippled the city is likely to get far worse.

"This will be a second Baba Amr," said Sheikh Salim al-Hoss, as he rested under a mulberry tree in a commandeered schoolyard just outside Aleppo. "They are going to wear us down. They think they have time on their side."

Hoss was sitting with members of a military council, who were all breaking their daily Ramadan fast on Tuesday night, largely in silence. Snipers had killed two young rebels from their unit in the late afternoon and the rush to bury them before sunset seemed to have numbed the men.

The effect on one of the dead men's fathers was more profound. He stood trembling and bewildered later in the evening as he received condolences in a hastily erected mourning tent. A tear ran down his face as lines of wellwishers reached for his hand.

Just before noon he had spoken to his 24-year-old son, Ala'a Tamur, by phone in between battles on Salahedin's main frontline. Just before dinner he buried him.

"Be proud you have a martyr, uncle," one of the men's colleagues told the boy's bereft father. The 73-year-old stared and nodded.

Street 15 in Salahedin now resembles Leningrad in its darkest days, and the suburb itself is in far worse shape than when the Guardian last visited on Saturday. Most streets on the eastern side are now impassable by car. Broken sewage and water pipes and food leftovers have formed a festering stew over the few surfaces that aren't littered with the flotsam and jetsam of war. And Salahedin has a new arrival – flies, which swarm around anything organic. They are so thick in some parts that rebels look for detours to avoid them. As they do they need to avoid trampling on the only other thing that seems to be living at ground zero of the battle for Syria – kittens.

Rebels have taken in many of them, and it's not uncommon to find a gnarled, sweaty guerrilla sleeping on the floor of a commandeered flat with an abandoned kitten asleep on his chest.

Two men sleeping in what passes for a first aid clinic in one part of Salahedin had to throw their new pets aside late on Wednesday, when a wounded rebel appeared like a ghost in their darkened doorway. He fell on a foam mattress clutching his left side. "A sniper, haram," he said. "I was going to meet the defector."

"Press hard [on the wound], press until it hurts," one bystander said. The men instead offered caresses and comforting words, then bundled him into the back of a 4x4, which rushed him away.

Snipers continue to filter into Salahedin despite the almost impossible journey to get here. "We had four in this quarter alone today," said a rebel from Damascus, who himself defected three months ago. "There would be many more if they could find a way."

Recent senior defectors, among them two colonels from Aleppo who made their way to a nearby town on Tuesday, claimed that the fear of large numbers of defections if a ground attack was launched was shaping regime tactics.

"If they send the army in, they will throw off their clothes and leave," one of the men said. They want to sit back and bomb, just like they did in Homs."

The defectors also claimed that jets would bomb Aleppo and the eastern hinterland between 3am and 5am. On cue, the jets arrived. The fulfilled prediction means the two officers will now be asked to help devise tactics to repel the assault.

Whoever can prevail in a war of attrition will prevail in Aleppo and likely in the overall uprising. Though battle-weary and at times despairing, and still underprepared, the rebel forces appear to have the stamina to see the fight to a conclusion.

Whether the people of Aleppo share their commitment is yet to be determined. The few cars moving on the largely empty streets were mostly carrying refugees. Those who remain have little reason to fully embrace the uprising that is now affecting all of them.

As the Guardian left Aleppo late on Wednesday, our car was flagged down by a smiling rebel standing next to a thin 23-year-old. He had defected an hour before from the air force intelligence headquarters in the west of the city. Among Syria's pervasive security apparatus, none strike more fear into citizens.

The defector, Khaldoun al-Shabibi, said that the tables were, however, turning. "They are terrified in there," he said. "Every time there is gunfire anywhere near the building they shoot crazily at anything outside.

"It was never like that before. It's a sign that things are changing."

Misrepresenting the Syrian Revolution

2 Aug 2012
By Leila Nachawati for ISN Security Watch
Source: ISN Security Watch

If one wishes to frame the current conflict in Syria in black and white terms, then it is a conflict between those who are comfortable with the status quo and those who are not. People from different religions -- Christians, Shia and Sunni Muslims, Alawi, Druze, Ismaili -- and ethnic groups -- Palestinians, Iraqis, Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians -- may be found on either side of the divide. And although the Alawi community (to which the ruling Assad family belongs) has long dominated the government and key military positions, people from each group have benefited from a system of institutionalized corruption and injustice. The uprising that started in March 2011 challenges that system as a whole, regardless of the religious elements. If one wishes to reduce the conflict down to its essence, one should focus on this aspect rather than any religious or ethnic overlays.

Despite the violence the regime has displayed -- and its attempt to exploit sectarian, ethnic and religious elements to present itself as necessary to maintain cohesion -- the goal of the Syrian revolution remains the same: to overthrow the regime and make way for a country where justice, freedom and dignity are respected. However, now that the country has entered a stage where the days of the Assad regime may be numbered, we are witnessing an international tendency to assess the situation with analysis that disregards the political and sociological aspects and instead focuses on religious and sectarian elements. What should be noted is that these analyses are directly dependent on each country´s geostrategic interests.

(Over-)Simplifying a complex reality

Religious and sectarian readings fall short of capturing the reality of a complex and diverse Syrian society where co-existence has persisted for decades, despite attempts to turn groups of population against one another. A Syrian journalist (name known to the author) told the ISN that sectarian clashes will happen "and it should not surprise anyone, given Assad's support in the past for radical groups - in Lebanon and Iraq – and the way he has promoted sectarianism as a way to keep people divided and frightened."

She also noted that some small, destructive cells "can have a disproportionately big impact, but this does not mean that the revolution has become sectarian as such. In fact the revolutionary camp is careful - in every address, statement and declaration - to make reference to there being room for every Syrian group in the future Syria."

According to Syrian blogger Yassin Swehat, a very complex reality is being increasingly simplified and therefore dramatically diverging from the narrative of activists on the ground. In an interview with the ISN, Swehat argued that this demonstrates the inability of many in the international community to see Syrians “as anything more than tribes and religious communities who follow irrational impulses and are deprived of all historic, economic and socio-political context.­­”

Geostrategic interests at stake

Every geostrategic power has something to gain from the depiction of Syrian society as divided and fragmented. Unlike other uprisings in the region, the Syrian revolution has, it could be argued, no real allies. Russia and China, for example, have been quite consistent in their support for the Syrian regime. By supporting Assad - who claims to be fighting Islamist terrorist gangs and a Western conspiracy against the country - Russia and China have nevertheless displayed their own power ambitions. Through military aid (and by replicating the narrative propagated by pro-Assad sources) they seek to present themselves as an alternative to the influence of the United States and its allies.

Iran continues to support the Assad regime for similar reasons. By portraying the Syrian uprising as Western-, Israeli- and Saudi-backed,’ Iran’s narrative aims to promote Shia hegemony across the region. At a press conference on 28 July, Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Akbar Salehi announced that "whoever thinks there will be a regime change in Syria is being very naïve." And when asked about whether Iran would resort to the mutual self-defense pact formed with Syria to protect the Assad regime, an explicit denial was noticeably absent.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, needs a narrative to counter Iran’s. Riyadh supports the Free Syrian Army by portraying it as part of a religious struggle between the Sunni faith and the allegedly anti-religious Assad regime. At the same time, the Saudi regime is fearful of the Syrian revolution being framed as a liberation movement – a sentiment that could spread to Saudi Arabia, where the legitimacy of the ruling monarchy is increasingly being questioned. The most profitable scenario, therefore seems to be a military struggle in which neither the regime nor the Free Syrian Army succeed -- a struggle that would wear Syrians out and weaken the country as a whole.

Counter-intuitive as it may seem Israel may once have had a good ally in Syria. Instead, deterioration of central authority in Syria could re-activate conflict over the Golan Heights and make attacks on Israeli-held territory more likely. A long struggle and a weakening of Syria would therefore also be the most positive scenario for Israel. Viewing the Assad regime as ‘a lesser evil’ is seemingly apparent in the US’ public stance, which shifted from being openly critical to more lenient following a meeting between President Barack Obama and Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak in February 2012.

The US’ and European Union´s most recent statements regarding Syria reveal the disconnection between international interests and the true needs and demands of Syrians. Both powers seem eager to support retired Brigadier Manaf Tlass as the politician to lead a post-Assad Syria. A pillar of the Syrian establishment, Tlass is the son of former Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass. A fact worth noting is that the elder Tlass was in office during the 1982 Hama massacre, an event which reportedly left more than 10, 000 dead. The younger Tlass is a member of Bashar al-Assad's inner circle and closely associated with the abuses of the Assad regime. Indeed his defection and announcement that he intends to preserve state institutions was received with scorn by activists.

The most complete revolution

Despite the loss of human life, the hundreds of thousands displaced or forced to flee and the devastation being wreaked on the country, prolonging the armed confrontation seems to be the most positive scenario from the viewpoint of certain geostrategic powers. Delegitimizing the revolution and diluting its proclamations of freedom and justice in favor of religious and ethnic framings are not useful for Syrians but suit outside powers.

Despite attempts to hijack it, the Syrian revolution continues. Defections increase as the Syrian army becomes increasingly desperate and violent, killing more than a hundred civilians a day. Thousands continue to demonstrate all over the country, especially on Fridays: these days continue to be given a different name every week to honor the cities, the victims and the values of the revolution. Syrians continue to question the regime as a whole as an oppressive system, beyond any religious components.

For Syrian activist Sara Ajlyakin, "this is the most radical and complete revolution because it is against the regime in its entirety. Syrians are fighting alone against its figures, its extensions, its capital. Cosmetic change is not possible. If the revolution succeeds the regime will fall entirely" she told the ISN.