Assad is scheduled to make a new speech on Sunday, and while
many experts expect some dramatic announcement to be made, I expect a litany of
accusations, foolish assertions and defiance. Assad will likely try to make
himself a hero of the resistance fighting against unbelievable odds, and will
then make some announcements that will pave the way for violent crackdown in
Damascus, Homs and elsewhere.
Saturday January
5, 2013
Today’s
Death Toll: 79, including
6 children and 10 women: 35 martyrs were reported in Damascus and Suburbs, 18
in Daraa, 8 in Idlib including 6 members from the same family in Qmeinas, 5 in
Hama, 5 in Homs, 4 in Aleppo and 4 in Deir Ezzor (LCCs).
Points
of Random Shelling: 165: 5 points that were shelled by warplanes, 1 point using cluster
bombs and 1 point with vacuum bombs, 79 points were shelled with mortar, 59
points with heavy caliber artillery, 19 points with rockets (LCCs).
Clashes: The Free Syrian Army
clashed with the regime forces in 85 locations. In Deir Ezzor, the FSA took
control of a tank and used it to shell Deir Ezzor Military Airport. They also
gain control over the Technical Services Center in Hweiqa. In Aleppo, the FSA shelled
Managh Military Airport. In Damascus, the FSA targeted loyalist headquarters along
Damascus International Airport Highway. In Homs, the FSA attacked several
regime checkpoints in Rastan city. Finally, in Hama, the FSA repelled an attempt to storm Taybat Al-Imam (LCCs).
News
Syrian
rebel leader talks victory and squalor "The trouble with Idlib
is that it has many military airports." Aloush said his Liwaa Islam
militia and other groups want to knock the bases "to minimize the reach of
the regime's warplanes." Opposition and government sources have reported
that the extremist al-Nusra Front, which the United States has designated as a
terrorist group, was taking part in the assault on Taftanaz.
Syrian
army rockets rebellious Damascus district Government forces
fired rockets at Jobar, a Sunni enclave close to the centre of Damascus, a day
after bombarding Daraya, a suburb in the east and part of a crescent of
rebel-held areas on the outskirts, said Housam, an activist in the capital. "The
shelling began in the early hours of the morning, it has intensified since 11
a.m., and now it has become really heavy. Yesterday it was Daraya and today
Jobar is the hottest spot in Damascus," he said by Skype.
Shell
hits Damascus Christian district: NGO "A shell was fired on
Bab Tuma," a Christian quarter of Damascus's old city, said the Syrian
Observatory for Human rights, without specifying exactly where it landed or where
it was fired from. Bab Tuma was targeted for the first time in the 21-month
conflict by a car bomb in October that killed at least 13 people, but has been
spared the violent clashes that have torn apart the rest of the country.
U.S.
troops arrive in Turkey; rebels battle for airport in Syria A
group of 27 U.S. troops landed in Gaziantep, Turkey, where they will survey the
Patriot deployment, according to Turkish state news agency, Anadolu… The
missiles and troops will be under the overall control of NATO, but the missiles
will be operated by U.S. forces
Syrian
warplanes bomb Damascus suburbs Government troops are bombing
neighborhoods around the capital on Friday, including the rebel stronghold of
Douma, activists say.
Dylan
Connor: Voice of the Syrian Movement The war in Syria may be 6,000
miles away from the United States, but one musician in Connecticut is using his
music to bring people there and here together.
Special
Reports
Children often show signs of trauma
from their experiences inside Syria. A U.N. team interviewing Syrian children
in a refugee camp found that most lost a loved one in the fighting, and almost
half have post-traumatic stress disorder.
Syria:
How Activist Vanished Into 'Black Hole' When Zed didn't answer
calls, Sky's Tim Marshall wasn't worried - until he found out he was in the
hands of Syria's secret police.
Without doubt, Iran has tremendous
geopolitical and strategic interests in Syria, but the country has additionally
become a crucial economic lifeline for Iran. As both countries become
increasingly isolated from the international community their economic ties have
become exceedingly more important. However, billions of dollars in Iranian
investments have been suspended with the current crisis in Syria. And until
there is a resolution to the nearing two-year conflict, with either Assad
regaining control or the establishment of a new government, economic conditions
will continue to be threatened.
Tragically mixing international apathy
with a largely stalemated civil war means that the most likely scenario for
Syria is one of sustained conflict with no obvious end in sight.
Al-Nusra, a group the U.S. has
identified as a terrorist organization, has been steadily attacking
Syrian-government targets—and becoming more legitimate in the eyes of the
people.
With no sign of the west relaxing its
ban on arming opposition forces, rebels are forced to focus on a gradual war of
attrition.
Moscow does not care about the
political organization of a future government in Syria. It wants more
negotiations that last as long as possible, as both sides keep arming (with
Russia arming at least the state army, if not other groups, be they Islamist or
not), and it wants the continuation of "small" atrocities that don’t
escalate into a regional war. A frozen conflict is lucrative, as dignitaries
and businessmen in Moscow learned in Chechnya, Transnistria and the two
separatist regions in Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
To help oust Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad, an opposition group has drafted a plan for a transitional justice
system that would impose harsh penalties against die-hard members of his inner
circle but provide amnesty for most of his Alawite supporters. The goal is to
provide a legal framework that reassures Alawites this isn’t a fight to the
death and that they will have a place in a post-Assad Syria. The plan would
also encourage the rule of law in areas that have been liberated from Assad’s
control, stemming the growing trend toward warlordism and revenge killings.
Mr. Assad remains in power in part
because two years into the uprising, a critical bloc of Syrians remains on the
fence. Among them are business owners who drive the economy, bankers who
finance it, and the security officials and government employees who hold the
keys to the mundane but crucial business of maintaining an authoritarian state.
If they abandoned the government or embraced the rebels en masse, they might
change the tide. Instead, their uncertainty contributes to the stalemate.
A number of reports indicate that the
government forces purposefully surrendered territories with little to no
resistance. They would have done this in order to shorten their communication
lines and to cut some expenses - but also in order to let the population taste
a nightmare version of freedom which would conceivably lead many people to
choose Assad's rule as the lesser evil. With millions homeless in the middle of
winter, most of them in rebel-held areas, and food, running water and cooking
oil sparse, such a scenario is not altogether out of question. Even more
importantly, recent reports indicate that the rebels themselves may actively
contribute to such an outcome. In-fighting, looting and random abductions have
become the order of the day in many places. Aleppo, an affluent city of
merchants where insurgents from the poorer countryside have flocked, may be an
extreme example, but it is by far not the only one.
Video Highlights
Pro-Assad Alawite militias are carrying out a massive ethnic cleansing
campaign in the villages of the Homs countryside, especially in the villages
around Homs City and the town of Rastan. This video shows some of the women and
children who were forced out of the village of Tissneen, http://youtu.be/sKd0rFiOlfU The men,
including the teenage boys, were killed. Many of the inhabitants are Turkmen.
Alawite families were safely evacuated by pro-Assad militias to make room for
their attack. But it took rebel intervention to secure the release of Sunni
inhabitants, or at least the women and children http://youtu.be/V5wTgIH5TNs , http://youtu.be/S7Ex5lRmBn8
Meanwhile, in the city of Homs itself, clashes between loyalists and
rebels are increasing http://youtu.be/yTduT62-gYI
Rebels try to take down a lo flying helicopter http://youtu.be/XC427_UnT7c
Leaked video: Pro-Assad Alawite militias in action. This clip
was taken from the Facebook page of an Assad supporter, it shows the activities
of pro-Assad militias in Homs City. The sound track is a religious Shiite song
praising Imam Ali, who in Alawite doctrine is an incarnation of God. This
doctrine among others is one of those elements that distinguish Alawites from
other Shiite groups. To many Alawites, this has indeed become a holy war
against the Sunnis. It is against this development that the activities of
Jabhat Al-Nusra and the increasing sectarianism among the rebels have to be
understood. From the beginning of the revolution, Assad and his supporters have
done all they can to use sectarianism as their rallying cry for Alawites, and
they have indeed been quite successful. By leaking videos showing Alawites
militias in action committing atrocities, abusing their prisoners and
terrorizing the local population, it was only a matter of time before Sunnis
produced their own sectarian militias. Still, it took almost a year before this
development was consolidated, and almost 18 months, before Jabhat Al-Nusra
became the go-to group among Sunni rebels. Many people forget, by the Treasury
Department have designated both the pro-Assad militias as well as Jabhat
Al-Nusra as terrorist organizations http://youtu.be/McDE4ZSf3PQ
This video shows pro-Assad militias cutting off the genitals of their dead
prisoners http://youtu.be/qyYS4iDN_dA
As for this, it documents the continued use of scuds against rebel positions http://youtu.be/ylXI9Cl46YU
In Bosra Al-Sham, Daraa, a member of Jabhat Al-Nusra carries out
a suicide attack against a pro-Assad outpost leaving 60 dead http://youtu.be/Jsxf4xoOnh8
This video from Eastern Ghoutah, Damascus, is a before and after
montage: the first part is taken from the mobile phone of a loyalist solider
made before an attack on his outpost, the second part is a clip made by rebels
showing how they imprisoned some of the same soldiers hours later when they
took control of the outpost http://youtu.be/e-HzJRdVG-0
Local activists in Qaboun, Damascus City, find 5 unidentified
bodies that were burnt and left in their neighborhoods by pro-Assad militias http://youtu.be/FlnNZ03z6E0
In Aleppo, rebels shell the military Airport at Managh http://youtu.be/EVmRHgKyE_c , http://youtu.be/J38hckoFy6Y , http://youtu.be/RTmmSwTCTt4
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