Syrians have been demanding a no-fly zone long before the death toll
reached 1,000. With the official death toll now around 100,000, we can safely
say that President
Obama is not in the habit of rushing into things, jumping to
conclusions or shooting from the hip. In fact, President Obama has just demonstrated
the veracity of a very interesting hypothesis, namely that refraining from
action for long enough period can have the same devastating effect as rushing
into it. Now, and on the basis of these findings, would the President be willing
to undertake some course correction? Would he finally change his “calculus?”
Friday April
26, 2013
Death
Toll: 139 martyrs, including 16 women, 14 children and 5 under torture: 29 in Damascus
and Suburbs; 27 in Homs; 19 in Idlib; 16 in Hama; 15 in Daraa; 11 in Hasakeh;
11 in Deir Ezzor; 11 in Aleppo (LCC).
News
Obama
says Syria chemical weapons reports a 'game changer' U.S. President
Barack Obama issued a cautious warning Friday that Syria's reported use of
chemical weapons could be a "game changer" that could provoke
international intervention in the country's ongoing civil war. Although U.S.
intelligence reports Syria may have crossed that line, Obama did not commit to
any specific action… "We have to act prudently," he said. "We
have to make these assessments deliberately. But I think all of us ...
recognize how we cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like
chemical weapons on civilian populations."
Turkey
says chemical arms use would escalate Syria crisis Turkey said on
Friday any use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would
"take the crisis to another level", but remained cautious about any
foreign military intervention in the conflict on its border… "We have been
hearing allegations of the use of chemical weapons for quite some time now and
these new findings take things to another level. They are very alarming,"
Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Levent Gumrukcu said.
'Action
on Syria red line sends message to Iran' Deputy Foreign Minister Ze'ev
Elkin warned Friday that a failure by the international community to act
against Syria for using chemical weapons would show Iran that the US does not
act when its "red lines" are crossed. Elkin was speaking in an Army
Radio interview a day after US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that the
US intelligence community believes that some chemical weapons, likely sarin
gas, have been used in the Syrian civil war. Hagel's announcement came after
Israel's top military intelligence analyst said Tuesday that the regime of
Syrian President Bashar Assad had already used chemical weapons in its fight
against the country's opposition.
U.S.
Not Rushing to Act on Signs Syria Used Chemical Arms President Obama
repeated his past assertions that the use of chemical weapons would cross a
line and produce an American response, but he indicated that he was not yet
satisfied with what he had been told, calling it “preliminary.” He gave no hint
about what would convince him or what action he might take. “We have to act
prudently,” he told reporters before a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan.
“We have to make these assessments deliberately. But I think all of us, not
just in the United States but around the world, recognize how we cannot stand
by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian
populations.”
White
House: Obama's "red line" on Syria chemical weapons not crossed The
White House said the evidence of Syrian chemical weapons attacks is still too
thin and President Obama's red line has not been crossed, and that means
military intervention by the United States in the Syrian civil war is not
imminent and not guaranteed but more study and investigation is needed.
U.S. Seeks Support for Syria
Intervention US President Barack Obama met Tuesday with Qatari Emir
Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani in Washington. Obama was due Friday to confer with
King Abdullah of Jordan for their second summit in less than a month. Meanwhile,
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel visited the United Arab Emirates, on the final
stage of his first tour to the Middle East since becoming Pentagon chief
Pentagon nearly two months ago. "It is clear that a decision has been made
in Washington and elsewhere that the situation in Syria has reached the point
of no return and requires international intervention," Oraib Rentawi of
the Amman-based al-Quds Centre for Political Studies, told dpa. "These
meetings are designed to determine how and what type of intervention will take
place."
"Evidence"
of Syria chemical weapons use not up to U.N. standard Weapons
inspectors will only determine whether banned chemical agents were used in the
two-year-old conflict if they are able to access sites and take soil, blood,
urine or tissue samples and examine them in certified laboratories, according
to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which works
with the United Nations on inspections. That type of evidence, needed to show
definitively if banned chemicals were found, has not been presented by
governments and intelligence agencies accusing Syria of using chemical weapons
against insurgents.
Syrians
Report Broad Fighting and Suspicious Airstrike Activist groups in
eastern Syria asserted that the military airstrike, which hit the eastern city
of Deir al-Zour, was carried out by a warplane that had flown across the border
with Iraq. Some accused Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq, whose
Shiite-dominated government is engrossed in a worsening conflict with Sunni
militants, of ordering the strike. Others said the plane was a Syrian Air Force
MiG that had crossed into Iraqi airspace before turning back into Syria for its
bombing sortie.
Syrian
air strikes, shelling batter rebels in Damascus suburbs Assad's forces,
which have been trying to dislodge rebels from several outlying districts south
and east of the capital, focused their assault on Jobar, just inside central
Damascus. The army seized the town of Otaiba on Wednesday, cutting a weapons
supply route from the Jordanian border into the eastern fringes of Damascus
that rebels had used for eight months.
Muslim
clerics in Syria urge release of kidnapped bishops Imams and preachers
at mosques throughout the Syrian capital said in Friday sermons that the kidnappers were “violating the sanctity of Christian and
Islamic clergymen,” the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported. Greek
Orthodox Archbishop Paul Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim
were abducted Monday when gunmen stopped their vehicle near the battleground
northern city of Aleppo, where both are based. The deacon who was driving their
car was shot and killed in the attack. The two were on their way back to Aleppo
from a “humanitarian mission” to neighboring Turkey, church officials said.
Investigative
Reports
Covert
help for Syria's rebels in Jordan More evidence has come to light of
Syrian rebels receiving training from Western sources in neighbouring Jordan -
but the Jordanian Islamists are also taking an interest in the conflict, as the
BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse reports.
Damascus,
the city where everything's for sale but no one's buying: Syrian capital has
escaped fighting that has ravaged Homs and Aleppo, but it has been reduced to
an economic dead zone In a city that lives in fear of car bombings and
to a soundtrack of artillery salvoes and air strikes against rebel positions,
nightlife is a thing of the past. Damascus was once famous for its clubs,
restaurants and tourist attractions. Now they are struggling to survive a
crisis that is crippling the economy as well as killing and displacing Syrians.
Syria
Plays on Fears to Blunt American Support of Rebels Confident they can
sell their message, government officials have eased their reluctance to allow
foreign reporters into Syria, paraded prisoners they described as extremist
fighters and relied unofficially on a Syrian-American businessman to help tap
into American fears of groups like Al Qaeda. “We are partners in fighting
terrorism,” Syria’s prime minister, Wael Nader al-Halqi, said. Omran al-Zoubi,
the information minister, said: “It’s a war for civilization, identity and
culture. Syria, if you want, is the last real secular state in the Arab world.”
Photo
Essay - Aleppo: Scenes from a City of Ruins Italian photographer
Alessio Romenzi has been chronicling the Syrian civil war for months. The
following pictures of his are from a few days in mid-April spent in the
battle-scarred city of Aleppo. They include a glimpse of a rebel fighter
encamped in the famed Great Mosque of Aleppo, built nearly a thousand years ago
by the once mighty Umayyad dynasty.
‘Liberal’
court in Aleppo struggles for influence The Shariah courts have the
backing of an array of hard-line rebel groups whose fighters help enforce their
decisions in rebel-controlled districts of Syria’s main northern city. The
judges of the rival Unified Judicial Council mostly lack the firepower to
enforce their writ, but Chief Justice Marwan Kaed, who was a civil judge in
Bashar Assad’s regime, is proud of presiding over a more liberal legal system.
Analyses
& Op-Eds
Syria
chemical weapons: Pentagon weighs evidence, plans response Pentagon
officials say they are still trying to confirm reports that Syria has used
chemical weapons against civilians, but that they are preparing a military
option for any outcome.
Aaron
David Miller - Obama's Syria Dilemma: Damned if he does; damned if he doesn't.
Whatever Obama does on Syria, he should make sure that he doesn't say
anything that he's not prepared to act on. "As president of the United
States, I don't bluff," he famously said with regard to U.S. policy toward
Tehran. It's just as good advice when it comes to America's approach to
Damascus. U.S. street cred is already at all time low in the Middle East. We
don't need what remains of U.S. credibility to be lost in the gap between the
president's words and his deeds.
Israel
Sees U.S. Response to Syria as Gauge on Iran But to the Israelis, how
Mr. Obama navigates the next few weeks will be viewed as a gauge for what he
might do later regarding the potentially bigger confrontation in the region. “There
is a question here: when a red line is set, can we stick by it?” Zeev Elkin,
Israel’s deputy foreign minister, said Friday in a radio interview. “If the
Iranians will see that the red lines laid by the international community are
flexible, then will they continue to progress?” Mr. Obama, during his visit to
Israel and Jordan last month, repeated that Iran would not obtain a nuclear
weapon on his watch. Yet judging when it would be too late to stop Iran is an
even greater intelligence challenge than determining whether chemical weapons
were used in Syria near Aleppo and Damascus.
Joseph
Holliday - Assad’s Chemical Romance: How the Syrian dictator’s cynical and
clever chemical weapons strategy outfoxed Obama. The Syrian regime's
subtle approach deliberately offers the Obama administration the option to
remain quiet about chemical attacks and thereby avoid the obligation to make
good on its threats. But even more worrying, Assad's limited use of chemical
weapons is intended to desensitize the United States and the international
community in order to facilitate a more comprehensive deployment in the future
-- without triggering intervention.
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.”
Calculus
White
House: “red line not crossed” + military intervention “not imminent” = Slaughter
Can Continue.
President
Obama: use of chemical weapons could be “a game changer.” Indeed, instead
of hide-and-seek Assad might now be expected to play possum, at least until the
current storm of vague reports and speculations blows over.
Video Highlights
War planes dropped explosive barrels on the town of Saraqib,
Idlib http://youtu.be/FXs_g87gftE , http://youtu.be/9Lu2uYPcAfI
, http://youtu.be/TJIUka-Aj-E
The pounding of rebel strongholds in Eastern Damascus, including
Eastern Ghoutah, intensifies: Jobar http://youtu.be/Yx0TuURx1B4
Tanks take part in the pounding http://youtu.be/AhfquH3Z0Xw
Rebels damage one of the attacking tanks http://youtu.be/XkKskWXcTqg
A building catches fire http://youtu.be/GFuYty1NPSM
Zamalka http://youtu.be/JEZSxkywxP4
The Southern Highway http://youtu.be/MeC6vFAfiP0
Misraba targeted by warplanes http://youtu.be/ajaA3m3d6cs
Douma and Arbeen as well http://youtu.be/76dYuhwL844
, http://youtu.be/WfsnGj9oI0w Ain
Terma http://youtu.be/oPgYcOWGBww
Warplanes pound rebel strongholds in Daraa City http://youtu.be/5MuqZgmcEYI , http://youtu.be/Alwun6GrdaU
A bomb leaves a family in pieces near the village of Ghariyeh,
Daraa Provcince http://youtu.be/8BnsUbWAI8w
Scenes from the clashes between loyalists and rebels in the mountains
of North Latakia http://youtu.be/b701AnV3ETQ
, http://youtu.be/Tx-GzHWKXPo The
resort town of Salma, a rebel stronghold, is now being pounded by fighter
jets http://youtu.be/8mJ-61Hy4zA , http://youtu.be/VJCpInLfbCc , http://youtu.be/aKsFzQ5vSeU , http://youtu.be/19_Jr8ljy24
An aerial raid on the town of Alboukamal in Deir Ezzor province http://youtu.be/LtKe2klV78s , http://youtu.be/Fy5UibmGnrs
War planes target the city of Tabqa in the liberated province of
Raqqa http://youtu.be/_BrnYT2WLMY
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