Battle fatigue on part of pro-Assad troops and militias coupled
with the call to Jihad might just act as prelude for the introduction of
foreign Shia militias, and perhaps for official Iranian intervention similar to
the old Syrian intervention in Lebanon. The Islamic Reformation has found its
new theater of operations. The plot thickens, and the blood flows.
Tuesday March
12, 2013
Today’s
Death Toll: 103 martyrs,
including 5 women, 2 children, and 1 martyr under torture: 50 martyrs in
Damascus and suburbs including 30 FSA rebels, 16 in Aleppo, 12 in Daraa, 11 in
Hama, 6 in Homs, 2 in Idlib, 1 in Quneitera, 1 in Hassakeh and 1 in Lattakia (LCCs).
Points
of Random Shelling: 276 points. Aerial bombardments
in 21 points. Scud bombing in 2 points. Shelling using Surface-to-Surface
missiles in 2 points. Shelling using Thermobaric bombs in Raqqa city. Artillery
shelling in 96 points. Mortar shelling in 90 points. Rocket shelling in 65
points (LCCs).
Clashes: 135. Successful operations
include liberation of the Industrial Institute in Deir Ezzor City, repelling
attempts by regime forces to retake Barzerh Neighborhood in Damascus City (LCCs).
News
In
Secular Syria, Top Muslim Cleric Picks Sides In Civil War Hassoun's
decree struck many Syrians as very strange because Assad's government has long
dismissed the uprising as the work of jihadis. The regime has often claimed
that extremists from abroad have been inciting violence within Syria. In
addition, the Assad regime has long championed itself as secular. The Baath
Party, to which Assad belongs, has ruled Syria for over 40 years, sometimes
acting in ways that were hostile to religiosity.
Syria’s
Assad running out of troops to fight rebels Jeffrey White with the
Washington Institute reports that an estimated 40 government soldiers are
killed every day. Mr. White’s just toured Syria, and his estimate comes from
the country’s funeral data. “In [the funeral worker’s] view, the army was
exhausting itself,” Mr. White said, in The Guardian. Mr. White also confirms
what the United Nations just reported — that Syria’s government has been
increasingly relying on armed militia groups for aid.
Signs
of Strain on Syria’s Military Build The government has long lacked
enough reliably loyal troops to blanket contested areas with patrols or take
them with ground operations, so instead has relied on indiscriminate air
strikes and artillery attacks that have pushed the death toll well above
70,000, according to United Nations estimates. Now, to fill the gap, the
government is increasingly relying on paramilitary groups, according to
analysts and a recent United Nations report.
Syria's
Children Risk Becoming 'Lost Generation,' UNICEF Warns "Millions
of children inside Syria and across the region are witnessing their past and
their futures disappear amidst the rubble and destruction of this prolonged
conflict," UNICEF chief Anthony Lake said in a report published two years
to the day after the Syrian conflict began. The Geneva-based agency pointed out
that nearly half of the four million in dire need of aid inside Syria are under
the age of 18, and 536,000 of them are children under the age of five.
Britain
could sidestep EU ban on arming Syria rebels: PM Asked by a
parliamentary committee whether Britain would veto the arms embargo when it
comes up for renewal in three months' time, Cameron said he would "like to
continue with an EU approach." "I hope that we can persuade our
European partners if and when it becomes necessary (to provide weapons) they'll
agree with us," he told the House of Commons Liaison Committee. "But
if we can't, then it's not out of the question we might have to do things in
our own way. It's possible. "We are still an independent country, we can
have an independent foreign policy." Pressed on whether Britain could
sidestep the arms ban, Cameron said: "If for instance we felt that action
needed to be taken to help bring about change in Syria, to help end this
appalling bloodshed, and if we felt our European partners were holding that
back, then we'd have to change the approach."
Israel's
Peres urges Arab intervention in Syria Israel's Shimon Peres called
Tuesday for Arab intervention "to stop the massacre" in Syria as he
delivered the first speech by an Israeli head of state to the European
Parliament in almost three decades. The free world "cannot stand by when a
massacre is carried out by the Syrian president against his own people and his
own children. It breaks all our hearts," he said. Saying "the
intervention of Western forces would be perceived as foreign
interference," Peres said the best option to end two years of tragedy in
Syria "might be achieved by empowering the Arab League, of which Syria is
a member, to intervene." The 22-member Arab League pulled out its observer
mission to Syria after only a month in January last year amid controversy after
failing to halt the regime's campaign against the rebels. "The Arab League
can and should form a provisional government in Syria to stop the massacre, to
prevent Syria from falling to pieces," Peres told the 754-member European
Parliament. "The United Nations should support the Arab League to build an
Arab force in blue helmets," he said. Asked at a news conference
immediately afterwards whether he was indeed calling for military intervention
by an Arab force, Peres said he did mean "a force" but that its
actions could be as a peacekeeping force and "not necessarily
military".
Fearful
Syrian voters will keep Assad in power: Qassem Sheikh Naim Qassem, who
predicted a year ago that Assad would not be dislodged from power, said the
Syrian leader would win a vote because his supporters understood that their
communities' very existence depended on him. "I believe that in a year's
time he will stand for the presidency. It will be the people's choice, and I
believe the people will choose him," said the bearded, turban-wearing
Shi'ite cleric, speaking carefully and deliberately. "The crisis in Syria
is prolonged, and the West and the international community have been surprised
by the degree of steadfastness and popularity of the regime."
Syria crisis:
Clashes as rebels target Baba Amr in Homs For a third day, rebel forces
tried to regain control of the Baba Amr neighbourhood; pro-regime troops
responded with artillery attacks. There have also been clashes on the key road
between Damascus and the airport, as well as in the city of Aleppo.
U.N.:
Both Syrian rebels and government forces guilty The Syrian war has
never been a simple fight between good rebels and evil government forces, and
the United Nations has said so several times in the past. But this week, U.N.
investigators released a particularly detailed and horrific report that slams
both sides, accusing rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad of
murder, rape, torture and forced disappearances. Government forces and the
rebels have violated international humanitarian law in the two-year war, said
Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the U.N. Independent International Commission of
Inquiry on Syria. "The war displays all the signs of a destructive
stalemate," he told the U.N. Security Council this week.
France
says Syria balance of power must be changed "France is thinking -
although it is a European decision - of going further in lifting the
embargo," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told a parliamentary committee. Just
days after EU governments agreed a hard-fought compromise on a limited easing
of the arms embargo to help Assad's opponents, Fabius said there would be steps
taken to go further. He did not give more details. "You will ask me is
that not contradictory with finding a political solution, but we don't think
so," he said. "If we want President Bashar al Assad to shift then he
must be made to understand that he cannot win through military force. There is
a new balance of power that has to be created."
UN
peacekeepers held in Syria ‘reach Israel’ UN peacekeepers held by
rebels for several days in southern Syria and freed at the weekend crossed into
Israel from neighbouring Jordan last night, a military spokeswoman said. The
spokeswoman would not comment, however, on a report by an Israeli newspaper
that Israeli troops had later escorted the 21 Filipino peacekeepers back to
their base along the Syrian frontier with the Golan Heights, which are occupied
by Israel.
Special
Reports
With Al-Assad driven out, the
Saudi-based, fundamentalist Wahhabi Sect that had been established among the
Syrian tribes can, the reasoning goes, secure the continuation of Sunni
domination there. That would protect the security of the Kingdom and the wealth
and power of all of the other rulers along the Gulf… The Saudis may be able to
get the Russians to bend. Saudi Arabia has the means to make life for the
Russians dangerous. Wahhabi cadres operating in the Moslem regions of Russia
are already starting uprisings. Once-peaceful areas in Russia are no longer
safe, and Moscow has not figured how to deal with the problem. Is Russia
prepared to sacrifice its own stability to save Al-Assad? The Saudis are in a
position to force Putin to consider seriously the answer to that question.
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
This leaked video from the majority-Alawite village of Al-Amriyeh
in North Homs shows a regime representative reading a list of names of people
who will be given weapons by the regime. The scuffle that ensures when he is done
reading the names reflects the anger of people whose name was not on the list. The
video basically corroborates the existence of a policy calling for arming
Alawite and Shia villages to use them as part of popular militias to help
regime operations in their areas http://youtu.be/pl5M5vD_lzU
The town of Maarbah in Daraa Province comes under intense
shelling http://youtu.be/gzX5jswSDSk
Aerial raids on the town of Heesh, idlib Province, intensifies http://youtu.be/7RIca7s-ciw Scenes from
the clashes around Heesh http://youtu.be/SWjpx7aci3M
In Damascus City, Jobar Neighborhood and surroundings
come under renewed shelling and bombardment http://youtu.be/t2At2q1TGzA , http://youtu.be/Ctx4CGjJCIw
In Mazzeh Neighborhood, regime forces destroy homes near the
Mazzeh Military Airport http://youtu.be/HBWmA3K7n3o
In Western Ghoutah, Damascus, rebels attack a loyalist outpost
and take it over. We see them here pulling the dead bodies of regime loyalists
from under the rubble in preparation or mass burial http://youtu.be/zJ5_s31VV7Y
Rebel strongholds in Homs City come under renewed pounding: Bab
Houd http://youtu.be/DFmhtR07sA0 Khaldiyeh
http://youtu.be/LbL99v1QZJw Rebels
attack loyalist outpost near Baba Amr http://youtu.be/kQnSyEmj0fY
An Alawite opposition figure claim on Al-Arabiya TV that the
number of Alawite soldiers and officers who have been killed since the
beginning of the Revolution is around 40,000. No independent confirmation is
available http://youtu.be/h8-UhLVPLMI
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