A provisional government is needed to claim control over the
embassies around the world and increase the diplomatic isolation of the regime.
Local governments are needed in order to manage the liberated territories. But
a charter is needed as well in order to govern the operations of all governments.
If a charter is well-drafted it could finally provide that much needed vision for
the future of the country and could serve as the nucleus for a future national constitution.
After 2 years of bloodshed, and seeing that the conflict could still drag on
for few more years, it’s about time we began discussing the specifics of what we
are exactly fighting for.
Tuesday January
8, 2013
Today’s
Death Toll: 118, including 3 children and 3 women. 47 martyrs were reported in Idlib
most in Al-Mastumeh, 35 in Damascus and its Suburbs, 15 in Deir Ezzor, 9 in
Aleppo, 6 in Homs, 3 in Daraa and 1 in Hama (LCCs).
Points
of Random Shelling: 193: 11 points shelled by warplanes, 80 points shelled with heavy
caliber artillery with the fiercest shelling reported in Damascus Suburbs, 52
points with mortar, 50 points with rockets (LCCs).
Clashes: The Free Syrian Army
clashed with the regime forces in 84 locations. FSA rebels managed to shoot
down a regime helicopter gunship over Taftanaz Military Airport, they also
attacked the regime Malaab checkpoint located in Salah Al-Dein neighborhood in
Aleppo. Rebels also repelled the attempts of regime forces to storm Busr
Al-Harir in Daraa and the Mouadamieh and Darayya subirbs in Damascus. They also
took control of the military security headquarter in Harasta. In Deir Ezzor,
FSA rebels targeted an aircraft loaded with ammunition and set it on fire, they
also blew up the building occupied by regime forces in the neighborhood of
Jbeila, and destroyed the ammunition depot when they targeted Deir Ezzor
Military Airport (LCCs).
News
Syrians
brush off Assad speech as fighting rages Damascus residents said
Assad's speech, which offered no concessions to his foes, was met with
celebratory gunfire in pro-Assad neighborhoods. But even there, some saw no
sign peace was closer: a loyalist resident of southern Damascus reached by
internet said the speech was eloquent but empty. "It sounded more like
gloating than making promises," said the woman, who gave only her first
name, Aliaa. "I agree with the ideas but words are really just words until
he takes some action. He needs to do something. But even so, everything he
suggests now, it is too late, the rebels aren't going to stop."
Syria
conflict blocks aid to 1 million needy, U.N. agency says The World Food
Program says fighting has prevented deliveries of aid. In addition, hundreds of
thousands are ill-equipped for the harsh winter.
UK
meeting plans for possible post-Assad Syria The meeting will take place
on Wednesday and Thursday, and delegates will include Syria experts, academics
in post-conflict stabilization, representatives of the Syrian National
Coalition (SNC) opposition group and other agencies. The gathering highlights
jitters over the shape of a post-Assad Syria, and experts fear regional and
sectarian rivalries could extend the bloodshed and destabilize other countries
in the strategically sensitive and volatile region.
World
ignoring Syria's systematic ruin: Jumblatt World powers are abandoning
Syria to be "systematically destroyed" by a civil war which has
already wrecked whole cities in a once-great Arab nation, Lebanon's Druze
leader Walid Jumblatt said. Accusing them of "indifference or
conspiracy", Jumblatt said none of the international players, which are
deeply divided over the 21-month-old uprising against President Bashar
al-Assad, had shown any urgency to stem the bloodshed. Jumblatt has called for
foreign states to do more to help rebels defeat Assad swiftly and avoid the
partition of Syria, home to majority Sunni Muslims as well as minorities
including Assad's Alawites, Christians, Kurds, Shi'ites and Druze.
France’s
Le Pen says 'blind West’ aiding Syrian war Le Pen spoke to SAMA TV,
which is part of Dounia TV, a conglomerate run by businessman and cousin of
Bashar al-Assad, Rami Makhlouf, in a video that was uploaded to YouTube on
January 2. The interview is the first accorded to a French politician since the
start of the Syrian uprising. Speaking of an “Islamist fundamentalist” takeover
of the country, the far-right leader said from her office in Paris that the rebellion
had been “in part aided by the blindness of Western countries”. Le Pen said
that Western powers were “doing in Syria exactly the same thing as they did in
Libya, but secretly”. She said that by allegedly supporting Qatari and Saudi
schemes to arm dissident militants in Syria, European leaders were “helping to
fuel the civil war of which civilians are the first victims”.
Syria
Refugee Camp Riot Breaks Out In Jordan A winter storm is magnifying the
misery for tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing the country's civil war,
turning a refugee camp into a muddy swamp where howling winds tore down tents
and exposed the displaced residents to freezing temperatures. Some frustrated
refugees at a camp in Zaatari, where about 50,000 are sheltered, attacked aid
workers with sticks and stones after the tents collapsed in 35 mph (60 kph)
winds, said Ghazi Sarhan, spokesman for the Jordanian charity that helps run
the camp. Police said seven Jordanian workers were injured. After three days of
rain, muddy water engulfed tents housing refugees including pregnant women and
infants. Those who didn't move out used buckets to bail out the water; others
built walls of mud to try to stay dry. Conditions in the Zaatari camp were
"worse than living in Syria," said Fadi Suleiman, a 30-year-old
refugee.
Israel
reportedly told Pentagon about Syria poison gas Israel notified the
Pentagon that Syria was preparing a chemical believed to be deadly sarin gas
and loading it into dozens of 500-pound bombs destined for airplanes. Israel's
warning to the United States at the end of November, involving intelligence
showing up on satellite imagery, brought together the U.S., Arab states, Russia
and China to deal with Syria's deadly civil war, The New York Times reported
Tuesday.
Fears
raised over Syria uranium stockpile Nuclear experts in the US and
Middle East have raised concerns about the security of up to 50 tonnes of
unenriched uranium in Syria amid fears that civil war could put the stockpile
at risk. Since the start of the uprising against Bashar al-Assad two years ago,
western governments have been heavily focused on the fate of Syria’s chemical
weapons and worries that those stocks might be taken over by militant groups. But
government officials and nuclear experts have also expressed fears to the
Financial Times about what may be a significant stockpile of uranium inside
Syria.
Study
shows rise of al Qaeda affiliate in Syria A jihadist group with links
to al Qaeda has become the most effective of the different factions fighting
the regime, according to a new analysis, and now has some 5,000 fighters. The
group is Jabhat al-Nusra, which was designated an al Qaeda affiliate by the
United States government last month. It is led by veterans of the Iraqi
insurgency "and has shown itself to be the principal force against Assad
and the Shabiha," according to the study.
Syrian
minister: Enemies 'brainwashed' slain rebel son A Syrian Cabinet minister
confirmed the death of his rebel son, and, without a trace of grief, coldly
rejected the young man's embrace of the opposition, according to a state news
report. "I disapprove and condemn whatever my son did," said Mohammad
Turki al-Sayyed, minister of state for the People's Assembly Affairs, who
acknowledged the death of his son, Bassim. "I said it before and I disavow
him again, fully even after his death."
Special
Reports
The Rebellion
Syrians know this will be a long war.
Most still believe in victory, but many know that victory is a distant dream
that could take years to achieve. History is not on the side of expediency -- civil
wars through history have lasted an average of seven to fifteen years and the
Lebanese Civil War (Syria's neighbor with a similarly sectarian population) was
one of those that lasted fifteen. The fact is, the Syrian Civil War is just
getting started. Assad may fall in the next few years, perhaps faster with
Western support or another dramatic development, but the war after the war
could rage for several years more. But none of this matters, and it certainly
doesn't matter to that FSA commander who is questioning the revolution. These
are academic discussions which belonged in the room when the decision to revolt
was being made. It doesn't matter now, there is no going back and the only path
forward is victory at any cost. "We will fight or we will die. We have no
choice now." He's right.
The combination of a public warning by
Mr. Obama and more sharply worded private messages sent to the Syrian leader
and his military commanders through Russia and others, including Iraq, Turkey and
possibly Jordan, stopped the chemical mixing and the bomb preparation. A week
later Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said the worst fears were over — for
the time being. But concern remains that Mr. Assad could now use the weapons
produced that week at any moment. American and European officials say that
while a crisis was averted in that week from late November to early December,
they are by no means resting easy.
After nearly two years of civil
strife, neither side sees a reason to quit fighting… The regime does not seem
to have lost its taste for bloodshed, and it may even believe that it can fight
on indefinitely from Alawite bastions (mainly the coastal area between Latakia
and Tartus) even if the opposition is able to take Damascus. The resistance,
for its part, has gained battlefield experience the hard way and is a far better
fighting force than it was in the early months of the war. It is now
better-armed as well, and its international support is growing as Assad's
wanes. With neither side feeling pressure to negotiate a settlement involving
power-sharing, the Syrian war grinds on.
The Opposition
… a functioning bureaucracy will be
central to any transition plan due to the need for continuity of
government. Ministries, departments, and
agencies—including the security services—employ people and provide services,
albeit often ineffectively and corruptly.
The preservation of these organs, as imperfect as they are, can
facilitate the rapid dispersal of international assistance post-Assad and
reassure millions of Syrians who fear the chaos of revolutionary rule. Reform will come in time. It is important to distinguish government and
its associated bureaucracy from the ruling clique, which has become a militia,
willing and even eager to risk destroying Syria to try to save itself.
Many Syrian opposition political
forces still refuse to form an interim government on the ground, claiming that
to do so would be premature. This may once have been true, but no longer. The
preconditions which certain opposition members have demanded before forming the
transitional government will never come to fruition. Therefore, the
transitional government or government-in-exile should be formed immediately …
the longer the forming of the transitional government takes, the more chaotic
the situation will be, the more difficult it will be to establish a central
authority, and the more difficult it will be to provide the liberated areas
with social services, judicial institutions, health services, and humanitarian
assistance.
The Country
Whether people can forgive and live
together again has been a contested issue in the recent history of many
countries, from South Africa to Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Chile, Cambodia,
Lebanon and Iraq. There is no universal solution, and while the blood is still
flowing even to ask the question may seem premature. It can probably only find
an answer once a minimum of justice has been achieved. But it has to be raised,
and the sooner the better. Once Syrians emerge from the present nightmare – in
one, three or ten years – they will be forced to look into one another’s eyes.
They will have seen and heard things they wish they hadn’t.
The Humanitarian Front
The World Food Program said Tuesday it
is unable to help an estimated 1 million Syrians who are going hungry, blaming
a lack of security in the war-stricken country. This month, the agency aims to
help 1.5 million of the 2.5 million Syrians whom the Syrian Arab Red Crescent
says need food aid, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said. The poor security and the
agency's inability to use the Syrian port of Tartous for shipments means that a
large number of people in the some of the country's hardest hit areas will not
get help, she said. "Our main partner, the Red Crescent, is overstretched
and has no more capacity to expand further," Byrs said.
As government forces fight on in parts
of Aleppo, in large areas that have been under rebel control for six months or
more complaints are getting louder about indiscipline among the fighters,
looting and a general lack of security and necessities like running water,
bread and electricity in districts that have been pounded by tanks and hit by
Assad's air force. Recognizing that mistrust, rebel units have set up command
and policing structures they see forming a basis of institutions which might
one day run the whole country and which, meanwhile, they hope can show Arab and
Western supporters that they have the organization to handle aid in the form of
money and weapons. For those who fear the worst for Syria now that the revolt
has unleashed long suppressed ethnic and sectarian rivalries, however, evidence
in Aleppo that these new institutions have had little practical impact on often
rival rebel groups is ominous. And all the while relations grow testier between
the rebels and Aleppines, for whom many fighters harbor some disdain after the
urbanites' failed to rise up on their own against Assad.
The 29-year-old teacher opened his
makeshift school in the abandoned palace after Syrian rebel fighters took over
previous, official schools in the northern city as their barracks and
headquarters, resulting in all becoming targets for government shelling. Dozens
of children study in the improvised classrooms set up around the building's
courtyard as the chatter of light weapons and the boom of artillery shells and
mortars echo from not far away.
Before the revolution, Mohammed, 29,
was working as a tailor in Beirut, but last August returned to his home in the
rebellious town of Harithan, a few kilometres northwest of Aleppo, for Ramadan.
On August 22 he went into the city to buy a mobile phone SIM card, but the
regime's shabiha thugs stopped him at a checkpoint in Sadala Square, discovered
that he came from Harithan and arrested him.
The tragedy is that there is scant
sign that Mr. Assad will be compelled to face reality any time soon. Despite
their gains, Syria’s rebels continue to lack the heavy weapons necessary to
break the regime’s hold over Damascus or to stop the artillery, missiles and
planes Mr. Assad is using to pummel cities. With the United States and other
Western governments refusing to help, recent reports have said that rebel arms
supplies are drying up.
Syria under the rule of Hafez al-Assad
acquired the image of a bastion of intransigent anti-imperialism that made it
attractive to a section of the western left. The process reflected changes in
regional politics whose effects are felt to this day, say Hazem Saghieh &
Samer Frangie.
The Electronic Front
U.K. game developer Auroch Digital
launched Endgame: Syria as part of its Game The News project, which aims to get
the public interacting with and reconsidering the concept of gaming, with
politically and socially relevant topics infiltrating a medium usually reserved
purely for fiction. The latter, says Auroch Digital’s creative director Tomas
Rawlings, is a trend that we should not be afraid to challenge.
Last Friday, the high-profile art
startup Artsy changed its primary URL from Art.sy to Artsy.net, prompted by tensions
in the Middle East and a 36-hour site outage Wednesday. The .sy top-level
domain was a large part of the site’s identity, even factoring in the company
logo, which suggests a line before the last two letters of the name. But while
the Manhattan-based company has prominent investors from around the world,
Wendi Murdoch and Dasha Zhukova among them, the change means they’ll be losing
ties to one country they’d probably just as soon do without: Syria, which hosts
the .sy web suffix and whose recent problems, server-related and otherwise,
accounted for the site’s going down.
Video Highlights
Leaked video shows pro-Assad Alawite militias beaten a prisoner
to death in revenge for their fallen colleagues http://youtu.be/3l-cW_WB2_Y
Syrian opposition members and expatriates celebrate the launch of a new
hospital at Bab el-Hawa, a border crossing between Syria and Turkey http://youtu.be/gQWJhbo3Yj0 , http://youtu.be/gQWJhbo3Yj0
Rebels in Basr Al-Harir, Daraa take possession of a tank http://youtu.be/ta3TuyasysE Scenes from
the clashes http://youtu.be/vR_umr9KwhU
, http://youtu.be/LUxaIny56II , http://youtu.be/sKwjr-cvvPw
Rebels in Damascus take control of the Political Security headquarters
in Harasta Suburb in Eastern Ghoutah http://youtu.be/OZqT3n4GVXE In Mazzeh,
the regime uses missile launchers station in the Mazzeh Military Airport to
target restive suburbs in the south http://youtu.be/4EPoLNDpXvs
Scenes from the clashes in Taftanaz Military Airport http://youtu.be/BjPv25gQFCA , http://youtu.be/VSkcw8bzMBs , http://youtu.be/G2qFSeJ97a8
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