Let’s be clear: opposition leader Moaz Al-Khatib’s recent
activities and statements will not change the positions of Russia and Iran on transition
in Syria, and will not convince the regime to halt its crackdown, release
political prisoners and enter into serious negotiations to hand power over to the
opposition. But what Moaz managed to accomplish is to show the world that a
potential leader with a vision and moral gumption is emerging on the scene. Too
bad, his fellow opposition members have for the most part chosen to vilify him
rather than understand the true nature and measure of his activities. What Syrian
opposition groups need to understand is that military means are not going to
seal the deal for change in Syria, and will only get you so far before politics
have to weigh in. People like Moaz Al-Khatib will be instrumental in ensuring
that the interests of the average Syrian are represented and not only those of
various ideological groups.
Sunday February
3, 2013
Today’s
Death Toll: 140 martyrs,
including 11 women, 15 children and 3 martyrs under torture: 41 in Aleppo; 36
in Damascus and Suburbs; 16 in Homs; 13 in Idlib; 13 in Hama; 8 in Deir Ezzor;
7 in Daraa; 6 in Raqqa (LCCs).
Points
of Random Shelling: 309 points,
including 21 points of warplane shelling, 2 of which were bombed with explosive
barrels, 2 with vacuum bombs, 1 with cluster bombs. 122 points shelled with
artillery, and 100 points with mortars. 61 points were shelled with rockets (LCCs).
Clashes: 107. Successful operations include shooting down a regime
helicopter in the Raqqa suburbs, and storming the police headquarters and
seizing a large amount of ammunition and arms. In Damascus Suburbs, FSA rebels destroyed
one of the checkpoints at the intersection of Baghdad and Adawi streets (LCCs).
News
Syria
Rebels Blame Regime for Civilian Massacre Video footage posted by
activists on the Internet and purported to be of the attack's aftermath showed
several residential buildings in a neighborhood identified as Ansari reduced to
heaps of rubble and engulfed in smoke. Rescuers, many of them appearing to be
rebel fighters by their dress and weapons, could be seen on the video
frantically pulling out the dead and wounded, including children.
Syria:
'Children Are Biggest Casualty' Doctors in Aleppo tell Sky's Stuart
Ramsay that more children are being killed and injured in greater numbers than
rebel fighters.
Israeli
Strike Into Syria Said to Damage Research Site While the main target of
the attack on Wednesday appears to have been SA-17 missiles and their launchers
— which the Israelis feared were about to be moved to Hezbollah forces in
Lebanon — video shown on Syrian television appears to back up assertions that
the research center north of Damascus was also damaged. That complex, the
Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, has been the target of American
and Western sanctions for more than a decade because of intelligence suggesting
that it was the training site for engineers who worked on chemical and
biological weaponry.
President Assad
accuses Israel of destabilising Syria President Assad said on Sunday
that last Wednesday's raid "unmasked the true role Israel is playing, in
collaboration with foreign enemy forces and their agents on Syrian soil, to
destabilise and weaken Syria". But he said, in a meeting with Saeed
Jalili, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, that his country's
military was able to confront "current threats... and aggression".
Syrian
opposition chief under fire for talks with Assad allies The Russian and
Iranian foreign ministers, and U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, portrayed Syrian
National Coalition leader Moaz Alkhatib's new willingness to talk with the
Assad regime as a major step towards resolving the two-year-old war.
Hopes of
Syria talks rise as 5,000 die in a month Assad backers Iran and Russia
speak to opposition as January toll reported amid worsening refugee crisis.
Syria
opposition creates Aleppo police force The move is part of rebels'
attempt to restore law and order in areas under their control in the northern
city.
Special
Reports
The top priority is bringing an end to
the slaughter. But we must ensure that, after Assad, revenge does not lead to
abuses.
Israel's defense minister indicated
that his country was behind the airstrike on Syria last week, noting that
Israel has issued warnings against moving weapons into Lebanon.
In a small town in Syria's east [Mayadeen],
Islamist militants have taken unclothed mannequins they see as sexually
enticing out of the shops. Members of the al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda's Syria
affiliate, have also prevented women from wearing trousers, preferring that
they adopt the shapeless head-to-toe black veil. The town of 54,000 on the
Euphrates river offers a snapshot of what life could be like if Islamist rebels
take control of significant areas of Syria as President Bashar al-Assad loses
further ground… Government forces left the town in November and half its
inhabitants fled during the fighting. Now al-Nusra, the Free Syrian Army, local
militia and tribal groups have carved the town into fiefdoms. Residents say
there are around 8,000 armed men in total.
Syria
Deeply
As part of our series of interviews
with journalists covering the Syria crisis, we reached out to Miriam Elder of
The Guardian. Elder, the newspaper’s Moscow correspondent, discusses Russian
media’s coverage of the war in Syria, its longtime ally. “The last report I can
remember seeing from Syria,” she says, “was at the beginning of September.”
As part of our series of interviews
with journalists covering the Syria crisis, we reached out to Nicholas Kristof
of the New York Times. Kristof is a bi-weekly columnist and a two-time winner
of the Pulitzer Prize. He has been covering the Syria story since its earliest
days, reporting from Syria in late November. ‘It’s frustrating that we have
this apathy,’ he tells us.
Al Husseini hopes to leverage his good
reputation, religious credentials and independence into a political
organization that would take root during Syria’s transition, hoping to
attenuate calls for vengeance and help bring to fruition a civil and modern
government. He has teamed up with roughly 100 civil and religious leaders to
establish the Building Civilization Movement. The only name he would mention
among them is a famous Sufi scholar, Sheikh Muhammad Al Yaqoubi. Preaching a
tolerant brand of Islam that has deep roots in Syria is both the natural and
only way for the country to heal after the war ends, Al Husseini said.
Salafism, a conservative branch of Sunni Islam which is gaining in prominence
due to support from Arab Gulf countries, will subside “when the fighting ends
and the money runs out, and people will return to their true nature,” he said.
In our effort to showcase unseen
images of the Syrian crisis, we’ve featured the work of photojournalist Nicole
Tung. Tung is a 26-year-old American whose photos from Syria have been
published in TIME magazine, The New York Times, and other global news outlets.
The Hong Kong native is a graduate of New York University and has traveled in
and out of Syria since the early months of the war. Here, she photographs
patients in and around the hard-hit Aleppo suburb of Sha’ar, including the
Sunni stronghold’s since-destroyed Dar al-Shifa Hospital.
It’s also important that we not get
caught be the dreaded gandarma, the Turkish border police, who patrol these
routes with frequency. If we stumble upon one, I am instructed in the car, I am
to ditch my flak helmet in the brush or hand it off to the fixer. I am to say
two words, in Arabic: “Ana Suria.” (“I am Syrian.”)
Carl
F. Hobert – Teach Deeply: Why We Need to Educate America’s Students About the
World Syria Deeply’s founder, Lara Setrakian asked me to coordinate a
new education initiative called Teach Deeply, addressing that need. Today,
we’re very proud to launch our first project, Teach Syria. It’s a simple
tech-savvy solution for increasing foreign policy education in our nation’s
schools, in partnership with IAmSyria.org
and President-Elect Steve Armstrong of the National Council for the Social
Studies (NCSS) as an Advisor. (Note: for the sake of transparency, I have
to say that I am the President of IAmSyria.org).
My
new paper, prepared for a briefing in Washington, D.C. that took place on
January 15, 2013, is now out and is titled “Syria
2013: Rise of the Warlords.” It should be read in conjunction with my
previous briefing “The
Shredded Tapestry,” and my recent essay “The
Creation of an Unbridgeable Divide.”
Video Highlights
Rebels in Karnaz, Hama, bring down a MiG fighter http://youtu.be/A-qqITlr04U
Rebels in Basr Al-Harir, Daraa, confiscates Iranian-made munitions
from a depot belonging to pro-Assad militias http://youtu.be/Z2aQrZWRWJk
An aerial raid on Al-Ansari Al-Sharqi Neighborhood, Aleppo City,
leaves scores of civilian casualties http://youtu.be/h3K-nncuRoo
Locals dig through the rubble in search of the dead and wounded http://youtu.be/ynnUeprnSo8 , http://youtu.be/-Mdps0qOWGg , http://youtu.be/4thOF70OhE4 Local are
angry, threaten Assad with death. Some claim that an ambulance that entered the
neighborhood was somehow involved in helping MiGs target the building that was
hit. The building was mostly hosting refugees from nearby neighborhoods http://youtu.be/zHVz2J5pwpc
Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Hanano, members of the Islamic
Front for the Liberation of Syria carry out a garbage collection campaign http://youtu.be/Fn-VLY8mmPY , http://youtu.be/BI3T-C7wIAo
MiGs continue their pounding of rebel strongholds in Homs City: Jobar
http://youtu.be/9Qo0mBQwqBs , http://youtu.be/twB18J98naQ
Elsewhere in Homs Province, the pounding of the town of Al-Hosn
continues http://youtu.be/zJuRTUJ6hTQ
Rebels bring down a helicopter gunship in the town of Tabaqa,
Raqqa http://youtu.be/miyNDw2sxYE Local
reports speak of some damage caused by the shelling to the nearby Euphrates Dam.
Should the Dam burst, hundreds of thousands of people will be affected, especially
the inhabitants of Tabaqa and Raqqa City.
An IED explodes in Baghdad Street, Damascus City, injuring one
passerby http://youtu.be/ebgkdpuVfnM
Meanwhile, deadly clashes between rebels and loyalist militias continue
in Southern Ghoutah http://youtu.be/R15uArmZgyk
The pounding of the town of Daraya continues http://youtu.be/ZoWld85RqQU , http://youtu.be/wS38974ZcYI
Rebels in Daraa City mount on an attack on loyalist headquarters in Al-Balad
District http://youtu.be/H1qt34IhvYo
, http://youtu.be/gUcBdqwZgSY But
pounding by regime loyalists continues http://youtu.be/vdaoCspZQOw
In this video, fighters claiming to be members of Jabhat Al-Nusra
claim to have discovered documents showing where chemical weapons are stored. They
promise to invade thee locations take over the weapons for future use against
Alawites and Zionists. The video appears something manufactured by the regime,
since the speakers misquote the Qur’an on several occasions http://youtu.be/S-nO8vzlR80
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