While internet services might have been restored, Syria’s
international airports in Damascus and Aleppo remain closed as battles throughout
the country intensify. Meanwhile, political opposition groups seem close to forming
a transitional government, but the divide with rebels continues to grow. In short, the sum total of our collective follies
in Syria still favors chaos and continued bloodshed at this stage.
Saturday December
1, 2012
Today’s
Death Toll: 138, including 13 children and
5 women: 70 in Damascus and Suburbs (25 in Beit Lahm massacre), 22 in Aleppo,
17 martyrs in Daraa (most in Tafas), 10 in Deir Ezzor, 10 in Idlib, 8 in Homs
and 1 in Hama. Points of Random Shelling:
188. Clashes: 101. In Damascus,
rebels downed a MiG in Dmair in Damascus Suburbs, and conducted a fierce attack
on Aqraba Checkpoint leading to closure of Damascus International Airport
Highway and massive loses among regime forces. Rebels also shelled a military
barracks in Harran Al-Awameed near to Damascus International Airport and attacked
several regime’s checkpoints in Harasta, Zamalka and Rankous. In Daraa, rebels
stormed Border Point 34 near the Cavalry Battalion and Border Point 44 near the
Naseeb Border Centre with Jordan. In Idlib, rebels blocked an attack by
a military convoy (LCC).
In Jordan, 4 children
have so far died on account of extreme cold weather in Al-Zaatari Refugee Camp.
Activists in Dar
Azzah, Aleppo Province, claim that their town has been hit with Scud 7 missiles.
News
Special
Reports
But Prince said only four Internet
cables connect Syria to the outside world. Three of them run underseas, and the
fourth is an overland line through Turkey. "In order for a whole country
outage, all four of these cables would have had to been cut simultaneously,"
he wrote. "That is unlikely to have happened." … The last four sites
accessed on CloudFlare before the outage were a photo-sharing site, a Syrian
news site, a Muslim-oriented social networking site and a porn site, according
to Prince.
Some are torn by ideology: In a
family, some remain fiercely loyal to Assad, alienating those who became regime
opponents. Despite years of discrimination under the Assad family rule, even
some Sunni Muslims back him, whether out of fear of the alternative or belief
in the regime narrative boasting of Syria as an oasis of secularism and stability
in a turbulent region. Others families are divided by circumstances: Young army
conscripts find themselves fighting for a regime they fear defecting from even
as their brothers join the rebels.
Twenty months into the revolution
against President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian opposition is finally receiving
international recognition. But rebel leaders say it won’t matter unless the
West starts sending them weapons—and blame the U.S. for standing in the way.
Mike Giglio reports.
For months, rebels fighting to
overthrow President Bashar al-Assad have used Skype, a peer-to-peer Internet
communication system, to organize and talk to outside news organizations and
activists. A few days ago, Jad al-Yamani, an activist in Homs, sent a message
to rebel fighters that tanks were moving toward a government checkpoint. He
notified the other fighters so that they could go observe the checkpoint.
“Through Skype you know how the army moves or can stop it,” Mr. Yamani said.
New Zealand freelance journalist Glen
Johnson has been in the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo and gives a first-hand
account of what the locals are living through.
The best way to understand what is
going on in Syria is by listening to what Syrians have to say about their own
country. Here, you are introduced to three different voices from the Syrian
opposition, to show the diversity and richness of Syrian voices.
I ask the rebel local commander,
Muatasim Bila Abul Fida, how he thinks all of this will play out. His answer
strikes me as very honest. “Without the help of Iran and Hezbollah, he would be
gone by now,” he says of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. But even after
he goes, there will be a great sorting out. “It will take five or six years,”
he adds, because the Islamist parties “want Shariah, and we want democracy.” … Without
a strong, galvanizing Syrian leader with a compelling unifying vision, backed
by the international community, getting rid of Assad will not bring order to
Syria. And disorder in Syria will not have the same consequences as disorder in
other countries in the region. … We could be entering a new age of Middle East
border-drawing — the do-it-yourself version — where the borders of the Middle
East get redrawn, not by colonial outsiders from the top down but by the Middle
Easterners themselves, from the bottom up.
In the last three weeks, the military
dynamics in Syria have shifted so dramatically that, although it’s too soon to
predict an endgame, it is clear that the Assad regime is now losing the war.
This has had a galvanizing effect on Western powers, now panicking about their
lack of influence with the armed opposition.
Video Highlights
In this video from Ras Al-Ain, the Kurdish majority town
captured by Jihadis from Jabhat Al-Nusrah two weeks ago, we see loyalist
soldiers caught by the Jihadis pleading for their lives, asserting that they
are Sunnis. One claims to be a Sunni from Daraa. But the Jihadis keep ignoring
their pleas. At one point they shoot the arm of one of the most insistent
interlocutors, the shooting takes place when the interlocutor conveniently goes
off-camera, then returns with what appears to be blood on his arm and falls to
the ground. Eventually, one of the Jihadis seem to be executing all prisoners
even as they lie on the ground asserting that they are Sunnis and chanting “God
bless the Free Syrian Army.” As the Jihadis were preparing to leave, one of
them says: “you should have known you were messing with Al-Qaeda, with Jabhat
Al-Nusra.” This gratuitous signature statement volunteered at the end, among
other inconsistencies, threw doubts on the clip in the minds of many of the
activists who reviewed it. Another problematic feature is the fact that the
assertive interlocutor to whom we alluded above seems to have sprung back to
life near the end (3:57) and is “shot” again repeatedly, but doesn’t seem to
die. There is no blood anywhere coming out of the bodies after being shot. Jabhat
Al-Nusrah has a deservedly bad reputation among activists and its affiliation
with Al-Qaeda is known, but activists refused to be fooled and many believe
this video to be a fabrication, awaiting the opinion of experts http://youtu.be/ubLVetmxJug
This video, on the other hand, is genuine. It shows a couple of rebels
roughing up a pro-Assad colonel whom they arrested. He, too, is shouting “God
bless the Free Syrian Army,” to no avail http://youtu.be/qPOgFOe7vF4
Iran’s Al-Alam TV wanted to document the conditions along the
highway leading Damascus International Airport: traffic is down to a trickle
and at 1:30 we can hear the sounds of heavy artillery in the background. We are
also shown a checkpoint manned by loyalist militias http://youtu.be/mp-Z7AzQqUw
Reports from the ground indicate that rebels control around 20 military
bases around Damascus, and a 20 KM stretch of the highway leading to DIA. The
fighting around the airport is said to have intensified forcing a total
blackout in the areas, even as power and internet services seem to have been
restored elsewhere.
The ensuing aerial bombardment left many dead in Dhiayabiyeh http://youtu.be/lPGiOU1SmTA Including
children http://youtu.be/TGovH3xbaH0
An old woman in Lattakia explains how the local church was
destroyed during shelling by pro-Assad militias as she curses Bashar Al-Assad http://youtu.be/1u7MbBVi-vw
Locals in Binnish, Idlib chants slogans against the “secular”
Syrian National Council and National Coalitions and demand the establishment of
a Caliphate http://youtu.be/PN7o2b2c0Ag
In Ma’arrat Al-Nouman, rebels bring down a MiG http://youtu.be/P3zAD6nNU9Q
Aerial bombardment leaves many dead in Sfeireh, Aleppo http://youtu.be/2ZyHqRlsNPA , http://youtu.be/Ak29SiqOEc0
In Aleppo City, rebels firing improvised bombs at a checkpoint
manned by pro-Assad militias http://youtu.be/OkzdtB7ngQY
Pulling bodies from under the rubble in Al-Ansari http://youtu.be/ZLjKH2SHz70
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