Fahrenheit 40 – the temperature at which skin freezes and
children die, the temperature which some Syrian refugees will have to endure sheltered
only by open skies and Heaven’s grace, as world leaders keep giving them cold
shoulders, and hearts. Fahrenheit 40 – the temperature at which humanity loses all
meaning, and neither God nor mammon seems to give a damn.
Monday January
14, 2013
Today’s
Death Toll: 151, including
21 children and 12 women: 74 martyrs in Damascus and suburbs including 30 in
Moaddamiya, 31 in Aleppo, 15 in Daraa, 9 in Homs, 8 in Hama, 7 in Deir Ezzor, 5
in Idlib and 2 in Raqqa (LCCs).
Points
of Random Shelling: 329: including 24 by war planes, 8 by cluster bombs, 2 by vacuum bombs
and 2 by explosive barrels. Artillery shelling hit 127 locations, mortar hit
103 and rocket shelling hit 63 locations allover Syria (LCCs).
Clashes: FSA rebels clashed with regime army in 126 locations. In Deir
Ezzor, FSA shelled the military airport with mortars; in Aleppo, Hanano Barrack
was targeted; in Daraa, FSA captured some soldiers and officers in Basr Alharir,
and in Damascus suburbs the FSA liberated the meteorological center located in
east of the town in the Widyan Al-Rabie area and arrested a number of soldiers.
The center was being used as headquarters for pro-regime militias (LCCs).
News
Syria
refugees say rape is a key reason they fled, report says Rape is one of
the primary reasons that Syrian refugees say they fled their country, “a
significant and disturbing feature” of the war raging between rebels and Syrian
government forces, the International Rescue Committee said Monday. In a new
report based on hundreds of interviews in Jordan and Lebanon, the assistance
group said refugees recounted Syrian women and girls being gang-raped in front
of their families or assaulted by armed men in public. Others were kidnapped,
violated, tortured and killed, the refugee aid group was told.
Syria
Launches Deadly Airstrikes in Damascus Suburbs The government has
mounted attacks for days to push rebels out of Daraya and neighboring
Moadamiyeh, trying to increase the buffer zone around the nearby presidential
palace and the neighborhood of Kafr Souseh, where some key security offices
are.
Syria:
Airstrike on Market Kills and Injures Scores The attack in Azaz, a city
near the border with Turkey, was particularly devastating. It followed earlier
airstrikes that hit health facilities in the city, making it almost impossible
for local medical staff to cope with the scale of the latest emergency. The
injured were transported to medical facilities elsewhere in the region,
including to an MSF field hospital in the Aleppo area.
Syria
rebels seize 'game-changing' arms cache Abu Hasan, a commander of
Jabhat-al-Nusra, a group taking part in the capture of the base, told Al
Jazeera that the weapons fighters seized will be a "game-changer" for
the rebels. "These weapons will benefit us a lot in our work on the
ground," he said. "And by God's will, we will capture more places
like that one. They will have great importance on the battlefield."
Syria:
Army Using New Type of Cluster Munition Evidence indicates that Syrian
forces used BM-21 Grad multi-barrel rocket launchers to deliver cluster
munitions in attacks near the city of Idlib in December 2012 and in Latamneh, a
town northwest of Hama, on January 3, 2013. These are the first known instances
of Syrian use of ground-based cluster munitions.
Azeris
Say Armenians Fleeing Syria Resettled in Separatist Area About 6,000
Syrians have sought refuge in Armenia, the New York Times reported last month,
adding that an estimated 80,000 of Syria’s 120,000 Armenians live in Aleppo,
where rebels have been battling government forces after pushing into the
commercial hub in July.
Special
Reports
Some six months after Syria's rebels
tried to storm the country's largest city, they can claim the eastern part of
Aleppo and perhaps 60 percent overall. In the west, the government army has the
remaining 40 percent of the city.
Ibrahim's plight is indicative of the
growing anarchy gripping Syria's liberated areas. In a country where the rule
of law is vanishing as the state increasingly recedes, every fighter is
policeman and prosecutor. Some have embraced their newfound powers judiciously.
Most, however, have abused it. This exploitation of the war has reduced support
for nationalist FSA units. Instead, Syrians are increasingly backing Islamists
who largely eschew the material spoils of war.
Fifty-seven countries on Monday urged
the UN Security Council to ask the International Criminal Court at The Hague to
investigate possible war crimes in Syria. The call comes as other groups report
a spike in sexual violence in Syria.
Six months ago the city of Maarat
al-Nu'man was still functioning. Today it's rubble. It's a process that has
played out over and over across Syria.
As winter clutches northern Syria,
thousands displaced by the civil war take cold comfort in a temporary tent
city.
By learning the positions of IRGC
personnel operating in Syria, however, we can draw at least three important
conclusions: first, the IRGC is deploying active duty combat commanders to
Syria; second, the Quds Force is drawing from IRGC-GF personnel, indicating
that they seek to draw on the Ground Forces’ training and experience conducting
internal security and conventional or counter-insurgent operations; finally,
several of the IRGC-GF personnel deployed to Syria hail from provincial units
that face tribal and ethnic unrest (East Azerbaijan, Khouzestan, and Fars),
further indicating that the Quds Force has tapped specific elements of the
IRGC-GF for their unique experience in combating internal uprisings.
For the rebels, the airbase capture
indicates that major regime positions in the provinces are vulnerable. But it
also suggests that better-defended areas -- such as Damascus and environs,
where regime forces are relatively dense and well supported -- will remain a
serious challenge. In addition, the battle raises questions about the regime's
strategy of maintaining some military presence, in every province. Although
this approach allows Assad to maintain the image that he has not lost any
province, it is costing the regime a good deal of personnel and equipment while
providing the rebels with better arms and ammunition. Currently, several other
northern airfields are under attack; if the rebels can overcome their
organizational limitations and capture those bases as well, it would be a still
greater, even strategic, defeat for the regime.
Syria's sectarian civil war has
upended the political equation across the region, from Baghdad to Lebanon.
Video Highlights
Leaked video: pro-Assad militias torture a captive by dragging
his body around the streets of his neighborhood. At minute 4.44, the man asks: “For
the sake of God, just let me say goodbye to my children.” The answer: “Would you
let me fuck your wife? If you let me fuck your wife, I’ll let you see your
children.” The man says: “My wife is my soul and the crown on my head.” The man
gets struck a few more times for his trouble, the video ends with the men deciding
to consult their colonel as to what to do next. We do not see the execution,
but local activists report that the man was indeed executed. http://youtu.be/_KI_t3IpmU0
Treating the wounded women and children of Kfarzeiteh, Hama http://youtu.be/xV72vJXOQFM , http://youtu.be/mkmb_F-74FQ
Locals in Mouadamiyah Suburb in Damascus sift through the rubble
in search of victims in aftermath of an aerial raid that killed 30 locals http://youtu.be/0_Bgh5VmWCg , http://youtu.be/pAfi5QfLd3M Dead
children http://youtu.be/gyHExsuXxKs
, http://youtu.be/8tDjgH1Clfg
Meanwhile, to the East, the suburb of Saqba and other towns in
Eastern Ghouta are also pounded http://youtu.be/rjTR74ZcurE
Locals sift through the rubble in Haydariyeh Neighborhood in
Aleppo City, in search of victims in the aftermath of an aerial bombardment http://youtu.be/gh67U6Krro0 , http://youtu.be/0e2MwOMqNZU The raid http://youtu.be/Y_dKo75oVpY
Rebels might have liberated the Taftanaz military airbase, but the
regime took out its revenge on the town of Taftanaz turning it to rubble http://youtu.be/9VDxO24W3Jg Still,
rebels are now in a position of several helicopter gunships http://youtu.be/6lR_uxy2X98
The town of Talbisseh, Homs, is hit with incendiary cluster
bombs from a passing warplane. Local activists confuse these bombs with
phosphorous bombs http://youtu.be/wFs9mlIb6Og
In the town of Saida, Daraa, rebels stormed the headquarters of
the pro-Assad militias after weeks of clashes, many were killed on both sides,
but rebels managed to captures 20 officers in hope to setting up another
prisoners swap. But, according to local activists, pro-regime militias went on a
rampage arresting civilians from buses and threatening to kill the lot if
rebels failed to free their comrades. Eventually, both sides released their captives.
The headquarters set on fire http://youtu.be/wZT3BnsA_aA
Some of the rebels killed during the attack http://youtu.be/qU9EdCaYGVM
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