Delivering aid just to create the appearance of doing something knowing
that it could never be enough to reverse the tide will not win appreciation, make
friends or end the conflict. Syria will continue to fall apart, dragging the
region along with it. Meanwhile, policymakers will keep limiting the debate to
Syria ignoring the real issue of fallouts and its implications for regional
stability.
Wednesday
May 1, 2013
Death Toll: 95 martyrs, including 6 women, 8 children and 2 martyrs
under torture: 36 reported in Damascus and Suburbs; 18 in Aleppo; 16 in Hama;
14 in Homs; 5 in Deir Ezzor; 3 in Daraa; 2 in Hassaka and 1 martyr in Lattakia (LCC).
News
Syria's
Assad reportedly makes rare public appearance The broadcast showed
Assad speaking to staff on the occasion of International Workers Day, or May
Day, at the Umayyad Electrical Station in the Tishrin Park district. Similar
still images also appeared on a page used by the Syrian presidency on the
popular social network Facebook…The television showed Assad, confident and
wearing a dark business suit, talking with workers and shaking their hands.
Later he is shown encircled by the staff in a garden.
Syria
activists say rockets hit central Damascus The Britain-based Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights said the rockets fell on the Bab Mesalla
neighborhood in central Damascus. Initial information indicates that there were
casualties, but the number could not be obtained immediately, the Observatory
said. It said police sealed off the area, which has restaurants, shops and a
main public transportation station linking Damascus with the southern provinces
of Daraa and Sweida. Meanwhile, the Observatory said that a bomb exploded in a
nearby neighborhood, near police headquarters on Khalid Bin Walid Street. It
said several people, including children, were wounded in the blast.
U.S.
delivers first aid shipment to Free Syrian Army "The Syrian
Support Group was the U.S. government's key partner in organizing and
delivering the supplies directly into Syria. With the protection and oversight
of General Idris and Col. Abdel Jabar al-Akaidi, the supplies will be
distributed to units under the command of the Supreme Military Council
operating throughout each of Syria's 14 provinces," the SSG said in a
statement provided to The Cable.
Syrian
activists draw their own red line … in front of the White House A group
of Syrian activists extended a long, symbolic red line in front of the White
House Sunday in a call for the Obama administration to respond aggressively to
the Syrian regime's alleged use of chemical weapons. The Syrian American
Council, a U.S.-based group that supports the Syrian opposition, organized a
series of events in the Washington area over the weekend and coordinated the
White House protest. The group's sign, directed at President Barack Obama,
reads "Your credibility is on the line."
Investigative
Reports
U.N.
faces ghost of Iraq in evaluating chemical weapons use in Syria For
U.N. inspectors, the inquiry is reminiscent of the days when they scoured
Iraq’s deserts and industrial parks more than a decade ago in fruitless pursuit
of lethal stockpiles of chemical weapons that had long before been destroyed
and nuclear facilities that no longer existed. There are stark differences
between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and President Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. For one,
the United States, which led the push for invading Iraq, appears reluctant to
intervene militarily in the war in Syria. For another, U.N. inspectors may
never be permitted to step foot in Syria to examine the sites in question,
making it extremely difficult to establish definitively whether chemical
weapons were used and by whom. But officials at U.N. headquarters also see parallels
between the Iraq and Syria cases — and potential pitfalls. Among them is a
big-power rift between the United States and Russia and the reactivation of
several veterans of the Iraq inspections, including Sellstrom.
Syria’s
Opposition Hopes to Win the War by Selling Oil From their perch at the
margins of the conflict or overseas, the opposition’s leaders are struggling to
create an iota of legitimacy among the fighting factions on the ground. “Oil
will be one of the main resources for the government’s budget,” Yasser Tabbara,
advisor to the Syrian National Coalition’s interim Prime Minister Ghassan
Hitto, told TIME on Wednesday. Speaking by phone from Chicago, where he has
lived for years, Tabarra said opposition leaders were thrashing out details of
how to begin commercial oil production by using experts who have defected from
the regime, including Syria’s deputy oil minister. Since the regime controls
the oil pipelines, as well as the existing export terminals on the
Mediterranean, rebel groups would have to truck barrels of oil across rebel
territory into Turkey, where the nearest refineries are situated and where they
could—if they can produce enough oil—export to the rest of Europe. “It is part
of a larger plan to preserve the institutions and to keep as many public employees
working a s possible,” Tabarra says. Still, analysts warn that the plan is
deeply flawed—and in fact, that the E.U.’s decision could intensify the
violence in Syria, by setting up a deadly competition for control of a resource
that has languished amid two years of grinding civil war… Complicating the
issue is the fact that several of the rebel-held oil fields are believed to be
under the control of Jabhat al-Nusra,which has declared its allegiance to
al-Qaeda. “There is no way the E.U. is going to do business with al-Qaeda,”
says Ayham Kamel, a Syria analyst for the Eurasia Group in London.
Analyses
& Op-Eds
Aaron
David Miller: Obama's no-win options in Syria The fact is, Obama has no
good options. He'll pick the least worst one, providing some kind of weapons to
the rebels. That will make us feel better, neutralize the liberal
interventionists and conservative Republicans who've been blasting him and
respond to those who say he's backing away from his red line. It won't turn the
tide in Syria or necessarily prevent al-Assad from using chemical weapons. The
other alternatives -- do nothing or design a proactive and comprehensive
military strategy to take out the al-Assads -- aren't in the cards. But make no
mistake: Sooner rather than later, the president will likely be faced with
another decision point along the slippery slope of U.S. military intervention
in Syria.
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.”
Syrians opposed to
Assad accuse him of encouraging and planting extremists in the ranks of the
rebellion, including releasing hundreds of jihadis from prison early in the
uprising, knowing full well that they were bound to take up arms against it.
Ammar Abdulhamid, a
Washington-based Syrian pro-democracy activist and director of the Tharwa
Foundation, said that while the regime has probably lost control over these
cells by now, their presence has helped it achieve its goal…
Abdulhamid said
that if groups like al-Nusra increase their profile in Syria, there will be a
greater willingness among some Western leaders to listen to Assad's argument
again.
"The mantra of
'Either us or the extremists' is slowly but surely regaining some of its
popularity and relevance in decision-making circles in the West," he said.
Video Highlights
The children of Kafrenbel, Idlib, wonder how long it will take
Obama before he decides to step in http://youtu.be/TBoKUTYWLws
Lebanese preacher Ahmad Al-Assir fights alongside Syrian rebels during
a brief tour of the town of Qusair http://youtu.be/dyOr6ruATYo
Rebels combat loyalists in Al-Sayih Neighborhood in Homs City http://youtu.be/WSI60HbalVU
Rebels and loyalists clash in the town of Ariha, Idlib http://youtu.be/pKus3sufiBk , http://youtu.be/fSXXy9BdSbA
Regime pounds rebel strongholds in Damascus City: Al-Qadam http://youtu.be/lVNtILWqRpE Jobar
http://youtu.be/1Bq-I2m9jho
The nearby suburbs of Eastern Ghoutah were targeted by fighter
jets and heavy artillery: Saqba http://youtu.be/YKFcd02MRQA
Misraba http://youtu.be/9a6IU3IF1NE
Arbeen http://youtu.be/IXPZ7FITQf4
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