All decent people of the world have a common enemy: those
who want to shape the world in accordance to their own desires, interests and
beliefs irrespective of the desires, interests and beliefs of others, those are
not willing to engage in the give-and-take of life in the name of whatever selfish
principle they hold. That’s why the people of Kafrenbel, Saraqib, Houleh,
Mayadeen, Daraya and Sanamein in Syria can stand in solidarity with the people
of Boston, irrespective of differences and distances.
Friday April
19, 2013
Death
Toll: 138 martyrs, including 17 women
and 26 children: 56 in Damascus and Suburbs; 26 in Homs most of them from Deir
Balbah; 21 in Idlib; 21 in Aleppo; 6 in Daraa; 3 in Hama; 2 in Deir Ezzor; 2 in
Raqqa; and 1 in Qunaitera (LCC).
News
UN/Arab
League envoy: Syria not cooperating, Security Council needs to take war
seriously The joint U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria on Friday gave the
Security Council a grim assessment of the Syrian civil war, saying that
Damascus is completely uncooperative in negotiations. "With the Syrians, I
got nowhere," Lakhdar Brahimi told reporters after the closed-door
briefing… Brahimi also chided the Security Council for its ongoing deadlock
over the war. Western and Arab nations blame the conflict on Assad's
government. Russia insists on assigning equal blame to the Syrian rebel
opposition, and has used it veto, along with China, to block draft council
resolutions. "On the Security Council, with the Americans and the
Russians, we made some progress but it is too little," Brahimi said… Brahimi
denied rumors he was resigning.
Syria's
Assad warns Jordan as southern border seethes Assad told Jordan this
week it would be playing with fire by supporting the rebels, saying the
Western-backed kingdom was just as vulnerable as his country to al Qaeda
militants gaining ground in Syria's two-year conflict. His comments came after
weeks of fighting in southern Syria, where rebels have seized military bases,
made advances close to the Jordanian border and the Israeli-occupied Golan
Heights, and cut two main roads to Damascus.
Russia
slams U.S. deployments in Jordan Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman
Alexander Lukashevich said such a move ran counter to internationally agreed
principles for ending the crisis through negotiations. “These are absolutely
not the actions that we now need to bring Syria out of its dead end,”
Lukashevich told reporters. “These actions exacerbate the Syria crisis, which
is now gaining the dimensions of a regional crisis,” the spokesman said.
More
U.S. Support for Syria Rebels Would Hinge on Pledges to Abide by Law Secretary
of State John Kerry planned to meet with opposition leaders in Istanbul on
Saturday, as well as with foreign ministers from nations that are supporting
them, to discuss both what the United States plans to do to help the rebels and
what it expects from them. “It’s not a quid pro quo, but we want the opposition
to do more,” said a senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to
discuss the administration’s strategy. “Secretary Kerry will be discussing what
steps we want them to take.”
Special
Reports
We
Need a Game Changer in Syria: Syria is really a proxy religious war between the
Sunnis and the Shiites Another policy option is to impose a no-fly zone
over Syria. This would remove the decisive tactical advantage of Assad's air
force. This is feasible even though Syria possesses capable air defenses as
they are no match for U.S. air power. A no-fly zone would not immediately end
the conflict, but neutralizing the Syrian air force would erase one of the
regime's most decisive advantages. Control of the air did the job in Bosnia and
Kosovo. Keeping Assad's airplanes on the ground would show the Syrian military that
it was saluting the wrong guy. Meanwhile, the opposition will remember the
nations that came to its aid. Our closest allies, including Saudi Arabia and
Qatar, are arming the rebels and eager to see Assad go. Allowing Syria to
become an ungoverned land and thus a haven for terror and crime on the
Mediterranean will prove far costlier in the long run. It may even provoke a
larger regional war. And it must be wrong to let a massacre continue out of
fear that something worse may follow, allowing the moderates to lose out to the
radicals. If the Assad regime collapses, and if the jihadists ever acquire
weapons of mass destruction such as chemical weapons, then we will then have a
regional disaster. At the very least we should provide the Syrian resistance
forces with everything we can in the way of communications, intelligence and
other non-lethal assistance, and also seek to establish safe zones along
Syria's borders with Jordan and Turkey where refugees could escape. The
overthrow of Assad would remove the increasing Iranian presence in the region
and change the regional balance of power.
Dennis
Ross: It's Time to Act in Syria - American values and interests are at stake in
stopping the country's slow-motion destruction. The zero-sum nature of
the conflict makes it hard to create a political process that brings elements
of the opposition together with members of the regime who don't have blood on
their hands. The continuing Russian and Iranian protection of the Assad regime
also reduces the prospect of Assad choosing to go. And as long as he remains,
it is highly unlikely that there will be a political process to manage the
transition. While a political process is unquestionably desirable, it is not
made more likely by the ongoing military stalemate, which only raises the costs
and deepens the sectarian divide… While there are costs in acting, the costs of
inaction are growing by the day. Ironically, the costs of inaction may not only
be felt in Syria, with the Syrian public, and in the surrounding areas.
Inaction may also have implications for America's Iran policy. If we want
diplomacy to work with Iran on the nuclear issue, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
must be convinced that the United States will actually use force if
negotiations fail -- and America's hesitant posture toward Syria signals not
readiness to use force, but reluctance.
Damascus
fragments as the din of war grows louder State media report daily on
operations by the "heroic" armed forces against "armed terrorist
gangs" like Liwa al-Tawhid in Jobar or the Free Syrian Army in nearby
Qaboun – both suburbs of Damascus proper, not the surrounding Damascus region,
which is now largely beyond government control. "The steadfastness of the
army will defeat the terrorist plots and conspiracies," the slogan says. In
the city though, the reality is stalemate punctuated by sniper and mortar fire.
There are no ground operations by an army unused to street fighting and, it is
said, worried about casualties and mass defections: thus the constant use of
artillery and air strikes – like the one that killed 10 children in Qaboun last
weekend.
Jennifer
Rubin: Obama’s Syria ruse The president was definitive, and if he
really didn’t mean what he said, then he shouldn’t have said it. The U.S.
dodging now signals to Tehran and Pyongyang that even when we draw a “red
line,” we may not really mean it. That imperils our ability to force Iran to
give up its nuclear weapons program and to contain Kim Jong Un. It is
symptomatic of this administration in which every line is apparently written in
sand. Neither Damascus nor Tehran (not to mention Jerusalem) believes we will
take military action if needed to prevent acquisition or use of WMD’s in the
Middle East. That makes it a far more dangerous place, and Americans far less
safe.
Portrait
of a Chechen Jihadist: Meet Abu Hamza, a Chechen who went to Syria to fight.
With family in both Russia and Georgia, Abu Hamza, as he asked to be
called, has been crossing back and forth across the border between the two
countries for most of his 29 years. Late last year, in an unraveling marriage
and only able to find sporadic work, he followed his brother-in-law to Syria.
There, he joined a group of 60 or so militants opposed to Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad -- one of the thousands of independent brigades that make up
the so-called Free Syrian Army. "I went there
because I saw videos on the Internet of innocent women and children being
killed by the regime. I wanted to fight the [Syrian] government and help the
opposition; I wanted to kill Bashar," he said.
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.”
Despite their ongoing
travails, over the last few days, Syrian activists, protesters and rebels
filled social media sites with condemnations of the attack in Boston. But, as
usual, it was the wonderful people of Kafrenbel, Idlib Province, who captured
the moment and sentiment.
Video Highlights
Scenes from the aftermath of an aerial raid on the town of Saraqib, Idlib
Province http://youtu.be/W6o8TD--I_4 ,
http://youtu.be/x91XaKlNduY The
attack left 8 children and a woman dead.
Rebels clash with loyalists in the neighborhood of Boustan Al-Qasr,
Aleppo City http://youtu.be/nRMBzNhGiGw
, http://youtu.be/Z8eY5ho6j8I
The pounding of Deir Ezzor City by pro-Assad militias continue http://youtu.be/6euo2lm2UQU , http://youtu.be/V_ggEqsLiIc
The battle for the town of Basr Al-Harir in Daraa Province intensifies
http://youtu.be/PGHgu7e6m3c , http://youtu.be/y5cvALJbUOQ , http://youtu.be/RtHvuS9cQoQ , http://youtu.be/uCd3wt3jluY , http://youtu.be/TRsWQDhlZ0o , http://youtu.be/1F9RdyZkaN8
The pounding of rebel strongholds in and around Damascus City by
pro-Assad militias continues: Zamalka http://youtu.be/qUh7dIj5onI
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