Yahoo: Assad predicts disaster if West meddles in Syria

[visionary]

Fascinating news from a spanish reporter who is in Syria (somewhere near the Turkish border west of Idlib.)
(He tweets in English and Spanish.)

(I discovered him while following Libya coverage on twitter a few months back.)

He says that the Free Syrian Army has control of half the villages in the area and they regularly patrol there.

Check out his twitter:

http://twitter.com/#!/javierespinosa2

---------- Post added December-10th-2011 at 09:06 AM ----------




http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/10/world/...html?hpt=hp_t2

At least 16 people were killed by security forces across Syria Saturday as unrest there continued, a human rights organizations said.

[visionary]

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/1...7B901R20111210

The U.N. Security Council agreed on Friday to France's request for a briefing on Syria's rights crackdown from the U.N. human rights chief, overcoming resistance from Russia, China and Brazil, Western envoys said.

The rights council is based in Geneva.
Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa, which have resisted Security Council action on Syria, have argued that complaints about Syrian rights abuses should be dealt with in Geneva, not New York.

France, Britain, Germany and the United States have been pushing for the council to take up the issue of Syria again. Last month, Russia and China vetoed a European-drafted resolution that would have condemned Damascus' crackdown on pro-democracy protesters and threatened possible sanctions.

One Western diplomat told Reuters that Friday's closed-door discussions on whether Pillay should brief the council grew "very heated" at times. French Ambassador Gerard Araud had threatened to demand a "procedural vote" if the council could not agree on his proposal for Pillay to brief the council.

There are no vetoes in procedural votes on whether the council should take up an issue. But the need for such a vote was avoided once council members agreed to invite Pillay.

---------- Post added December-10th-2011 at 10:34 AM ----------

http://twitter.com/#!/SultanAlQassemi

Al Jazeera: Arab foreign ministers meet in Cairo end of next week to discuss situation in Syria 5 minutes ago

---------- Post added December-10th-2011 at 10:39 AM ----------

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/1...7B80J020111209

Arab states won't allow Syrian "massacre"-Saudi prince

A senior Saudi prince said on Friday that Arab states would not stay on the sidelines and allow the "massacre" of the Syrian people, and he suggested President Bashar al-Assad was unlikely to step down voluntarily.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in Syria have stalled, with Assad rejecting a peace plan offered in early November by the 22-state Arab League.

That plan calls for government forces to be withdrawn to barracks and Arab observers to be allowed into Syria.

Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal, seen as influential though no longer holding public office, said he believed the Arab League was "not going to sit back and allow the continued massacre of the Syrian people".

Syria has been hit by United States and European Union economic sanctions and suspended from the Arab League for its crackdown on anti-Assad protesters.

"Sanctions have been imposed. I think more measures will be undertaken in the near future," Prince Turki told a conference in Vienna.

---------- Post added December-10th-2011 at 10:46 AM ----------

I hadn't seen this number before...but it sounds about right, considering the official totals lag behind a good bit.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/1...7B80E820111209

About 4,600 Syrians have been killed in nine months of protest and violent state suppression, according to Syrian activists.

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7B90F520111210

West warns Syria against storming rebel city

France called on world powers to "save the Syrian people" on Saturday as it joined the United States and Britain in raising an alarm that President Bashar al-Assad's forces may be about to storm the rebel stronghold of Homs.

[visionary]

http://twitter.com/#!/Jonny_Hallam

18 dead in Syria today (LCC) 14 minutes ago

http://twitter.com/#!/oh_bergine

Today Syria started a general strike paving the way for civil disobedience. Regime answered by burning down shops on strike ****YouBashar 15 minutes ago

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7B90F520111211

France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Paris believed Syria was behind attacks that wounded French peacekeepers in neighboring Lebanon Friday.

In Sunday's fighting, Syrian troops mainly from the 12th Armored Brigade based in Isra, 40-km (25 miles) from the border with Jordan, stormed the nearby town of Busra al-Harir.

A housewife in Busra who did not want to be named told Reuters by telephone that the town was being hit by machinegun fire from tanks. Her children were crying.

The sound of explosions and heavy machineguns was heard there and in Lujah, an area of rocky hills north of the town, where defectors from the army have been hiding and attacking military supply lines, residents and activists said.

[visionary]

Wow. It was officially 4,000 just a couple of weeks ago.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middle...=MasterAccount

UN says deaths in Syria unrest exceed 5,000

More than 5,000 people are now believed to have been killed in the Syrian government's crackdown on protests, the United Nations rights chief has told the UN Security Council.

The UN's Navi Pillay said on Monday there were reports of increased attacks by opposition groups on President Bashar al-Assad's security forces but highlighted "alarming" events in the besieged protest city of Homs, according to diplomats in the closed meeting.

More than 14,000 people are estimated to have been detained and at least 300 children are among the dead, Pillay told the 15-member council, according to diplomats.

After meeting with Pillay, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told reporters: "I think it is necessary that those countries in the Security Council which are still hesitating change their mind.

"I am really shocked about what I heard about the atrocities in Syria. We owe this to those who lost their lives," he said.

Among the council members, Russia, China, India, South Africa, and Brazil opposed or had strong reservations about any formal resolution which they said could be a first step to a Western campaign for regime change.

At the meeting, France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud said "history will judge the silence of some and the indifference of others" and that "the honor of the Security Council is at stake," French diplomats said.

[visionary]

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/Syria

10 hours 26 min ago

The conflict in Syria is beginning to look more like an insurgency after government troops attacked the towns of Idlib, Homs, Deraa and Hama.

Army defectors retaliated by killing a senior army officer in an ambush which they have described the fighting as "open warfare".

As many as 27 people have been killed in the latest clashes.

Al Jazeera's Nazanin Sadri reports. You can follow Nazanin on twitter: @NazSadri

10 hours 15 min ago

Local coordination committees in Syria have told Al Jazeera that extreme and rapid shelling by tanks in Daraa's Al Jaah have led to the martyrdom of Mr. Nawaf Abu-Tarka along with many others injured.

The village is in dire condition, crimes against humanity are being committed and all basic services have been cut off along with any communication.

The reason for shelling the town is because of a large number of the Syrian Free Army soldiers centered there.

2 hours 2 min ago

A Syrian Alawite centrist political figure said on Tuesday that four of his relatives were shot or kidnapped in sectarian violence in the city of Homs.

In a rare named testimony about sectarian killings that have racked the central city in the last few weeks, Mohammad

Saleh told Reuters that the four were targeted because they were Alawites, the same sect as President Bashar al-Assad.

"The violence by the regime has provoked counter violence. But a crime is a crime and it has to be condemned," said Saleh, a former political prisoner, by phone from Homs.


Fearing sectarian killings, thousands of Sunni families have escaped to other cities or to Jordan and Lebanon, according to residents, while thousands of Alawites have fled to ancestral mountain homes in villages to the west.

In the last few weeks reports have increased of kidnappings of groups of Sunnis and Alawites in the city, including women, although Alawite and Sunni figures have been meeting to stop the abductions. [Reuters]

9 hours 32 min ago

This amateur footage shows a funeral in Syria's Idlib that later turns into a protest against the Syrian government's crackdown on citizens looking for reforms and leadership changes.

[YOUTUBE]XDwxqoSHA4s[/YOUTUBE]

[visionary]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middle...429686966.html

Escalating violence in Syria leaves many dead

At least thirteen people have been killed in Syria's Hama province after troops fired on a car and provoked a reprisal ambush, activists said, in the latest bloodshed in a nine-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Wednesday was the second day in a row in which an attack by government forces on civilians appears to have brought a quick and deadly act of revenge by anti-government fighters.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said army deserters ambushed a convoy of four military jeeps, killing at least eight soldiers, in response to the army attack on a car, which left five people dead.

The vehicle "exploded in a ball of fire", Rami Abdul-Rahman, the director of the Syrian Observatory, said.

Hours later, he said, gunmen ambushed a convoy of four military jeeps passing through the nearby village of al-Asharna on the northern outskirts of the city of Hama, spraying it with bullets.

In other parts of Syria, the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC) activist network reported that at least 10 people were killed in the central city of Homs, three in the northeastern province of Idlib, two in the capital Damascus, two in Deir al-Zor, two in Deraa, one in the northeastern province of Qamishli, one in the northern city of al-Raqqa and one in the town of Zabadany near Damascus.

On the borders with neighbouring Lebanon, two people were wounded when a Syrian military patrol entered Lebanese territory and opened fire on a border town, a local official said.

"Syrian troops entered Lebanese territory today and opened fire on the village of Khirbat Daoud in Aarsal," Bakr Hujairi of the municipality of Aarsal, said.

---------- Post added December-15th-2011 at 02:40 AM ----------

Protesters in Syria show their uh...love...for Putin and Assad.



[YOUTUBE]K5tYk8m-pP0[/YOUTUBE]




http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/Syria

4 hours 57 min ago

Radwan Ziadeh, a member of the Syrian National Council, spoke to Al Jazeera about the upcoming national congress that will meet in Tunisia on Friday:

"This will be the first assembly of the Syrian National Council where all the members will meet to discuss the policy of the council and how to protect the civilians and to prepare a transition plan for after the Assad regime falls.

"If the Arab League did not push the case to the [UN] Security Council, what is the plan B? If Russia and China persist to veto action at the Security Council, what is the other option to protect the civilians?"

[visionary]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/15/world/...html?hpt=hp_t2

Syrian defectors tell of orders to kill and torture protesters

"At one point we killed eight people in 15 minutes. The protesters were unarmed. They didn't even have rocks! That's when I decided to defect. I threw away my gun and ran towards the protesters."

"About 1,500 protesters came.....They requested the release of an injured protester who was inside the hospital. They held olive branches. They had no arms. There were 35 army soldiers and about 50 mukhabarat personnel at the checkpoint. We also had a jeep with a mounted machine-gun. When the protesters were less than 100 meters away, we opened fire."

These statements are part of the testimony of two Syrian soldiers who say they deserted after being ordered by officers to fire on unarmed protesters.

A mukhabarat guy in civilian clothes shot the guy point blank and killed him, in front of his mother
Syrian deserter's testimony

They are among 63 who have fled to neighboring countries and told Human Rights Watch of their experiences. The organization has documented incidents where soldiers say they were ordered to kill or torture protestors, went on looting rampages or witnessed other soldiers being shot or tortured for disobeying orders or desertion.

The report, released Thursday, is titled, "By All Means Necessary," borrows the language allegedly used by officers as they issued orders to soldiers to put down protests. It identifies 74 commanders and officials accused of ordering attacks on unarmed protestors.

[visionary]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16210330

Russia has circulated a UN Security Council resolution aimed at ending the crisis in Syria, in a move that surprised the Western nations.

The draft condemns the violence by both Syria's government and the opposition, but does not mention sanctions.

Western nations said the proposal was not tough enough, but that they were prepared to work on the document.

The West has been pushing the council to act on Syria for months, but Russia - and China - vetoed such proposals.

[visionary]

http://twitter.com/#!/THE_47th

Another group defection in Jabal Azawiya.. It is a matter of days before u see Libyan style battles http://t.co/3ixwPhi5 24 minutes ago

[YOUTUBE]fGcqVavIR2s[/YOUTUBE]

[visionary]

http://twitter.com/#!/CFKlebergTT

Hopes of broken deadlock in UN on Syria rises. But given that Russia says ArabLeague too tough on Assad, deal may be hard to strike. 17 hours ago

Several activist sources tell me security forces have killed 14 civilians in Syria today. Homs:10 Hama:2 Daraa:2 29 minutes ago

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/Syria

1 hour 32 min ago -

The chairman of Libya's National Transitional Council has called on Syria's president to step down, saying the Syrian people have the right to determine their own destiny.

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil said Friday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should quit.

He said Assad can always put himself up for election in a democratic vote to see if his people really want him.

He says "if the Syrian people are willing to choose Assad, then let it be.''

Abdul-Jalil spoke at a development conference in Warsaw, Poland.

Not so sure about that. I doubt he would have said the same about Gaddafi.
Besides, it would be way too easy to rig an election even if he is "out of power".
Stepping down would be a positive step though.
Self-exile or asking the ICC to take custody of him might be a good idea too.
(At least he'll be gaurenteed to live for quite some time)

48 min 4 sec ago -

Tunisia's new President Moncef Marzouki said in an interview aired on Friday he was against foreign intervention in Syria, where thousands have been killed in months of anti-government protests.

"Of course I am opposed to foreign intervention in Syria," he told France 24 in his first comments on the crisis in Syria since taking office Tuesday, after the first elections since the Arab Spring was unleashed in his country.

"I am sorry to see the Syrian revolution sliding towards violence," he said.

"I hope that our Syrian brothers both inside and outside the country will unite and play a moral role to ensure that this revolution is democratic, peaceful, non-ethnic and without foreign intervention."

Tunisia is hosting a three-day meeting of the Syrian National Council, Syria's main opposition bloc.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16221649

Syria unrest: Mass rallies after Friday prayers

Syrian security forces have reportedly opened fire on anti-government protesters after hundreds of thousands took to the streets across the country.

Activists said at least one person had been killed in the restive central city of Homs, where 200,000 people took part in marches following Friday prayers.

There were also clashes in Hama, Deraa and Deir al-Zour.

[visionary]

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/Syria

9 hours 10 min ago

The Arab League expects the Damascus regime to sign up "soon" to an observer mission intended to monitor the protection of civilians, the bloc's number two Ahmed Ben Helli said on Saturday.

"There are positive signs... I expect the signing will happen soon," Ahmed Ben Helli told AFP ahead of a meeting of an Arab League ministerial commission in Qatar.

"It will not be today," he said, before the meeting, which had originally been scheduled to take place in Cairo alongside a now indefinitely postponed emergency foreign ministers' meeting.

According to the news, they have given them yet another deadline to agree to observers - Wednesday.
Anyone want to guess what the result will be?

7 hours 32 min ago

Al Jazeera's Gregg Carlstrom, currently based in Baghdad, reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has announced at a press conference of Arab journalists that an Iraqi political delegation is in Damascus to meet with Syrian officials and discuss an "Iraqi initiative" to deal with the crisis there.

The delegation, which is apparently headed by national security adviser Falah al-Fayyad, wants to convince the Syrian government and opposition to meet in Iraq to discuss ending Ba'ath party rule, constitutional amendments and elections.

Now that is interesting, but I can't imagine it will accomplish much.
Having the opposition meet with the government is dangerous, although less so in Iraq, I guess.
But if Maliki really is interested in pushing the government to end Ba'ath party rule, that is intriguing.



http://twitter.com/#!/Thanku4theAnger

AJA: Number of martyrs has now risen to 38 today in Syria killed by Bashar forces 15 minutes ago

[visionary]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middle...942857586.html

Syria signs Arab League peace deal

Syria has agreed to allow an Arab observer mission into the country to monitor Damascus' compliance with a peace agreement aimed at stopping violence, as human rights activists said that more than 100 people were killed across the country.

Faisal al-Maqdad, Syria's deputy foreign minister, Ahmed Ben Helli, the Arab League assistant secretary-general, signed the document at the Arab League headquarters in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on Monday.

Speaking at a news conference in Damascus, Walid Muallem, the Syrian foreign minister, said that Syria had only signed up to the deal after making sure it did not infringe on his country's sovereignty.

He said the deal was for an initial period of one month, renewable with the agreement of both sides.

The leader of the Syrian National Council, Syria's main opposition bloc, dismissed as a ploy Damascus's acceptance of an Arab League plan.

"The Syrian regime is manoeuvring to try to prevent the Syrian file being submitted to the UN Security Council," Burhan Ghalioun said.

"This is just a ploy. They have no intention of implementing any initiative."

'More than 100 killed'

As the observers' deal was signed, activists on Monday reported the deaths of more than 60 Syrian army defectors and at least 48 civilians.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the defectors were trying to flee from their base in Kan Safra to Kafar Ouwaied in Jabal al-Zawyeh when they were shot dead by members of Syria's regular army.

Meanwhile, the Local Co-ordination Committees activist network said that 14 civilians were killed in the province of Deraa, 12 in Homs, nine in Kansafra in the province of Idlib, three in Damascus, three in Qoriya in Deir Ezzor, three in Hama, two in Saraqeb, and one in the Damascus suburbs.

[visionary]

I'm seeing reports that 200-300 people have been killed in Syria in the past day or so.
Not sure about exact numbers, but it certainly seems that the Syrian government is going full out now at clamping down at the same time as they are trying to play along with the Arab League.

In other news:

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/Syria

23 hours 45 min ago -

The UN General Assembly on Monday condemned Syria for its nine-month crackdown on pro-democracy protesters and human rights abuses linked to it, in a vote that highlighted Damascus' growing isolation at the world body.

The 193-nation body's vote came a month after the assembly's human rights committee approved the draft resolution with strong Western and Arab backing.

In Monday's vote on the same resolution, which was drafted by Britain, France and Germany, 133 countries voted in favor, 11 against and 43 abstained. The vote was held shortly after Syria agreed to sign an Arab League deal that would allow monitors into the country to observe the situation there.

20 hours 39 min ago

More than 6,000 Syrians escaping the violence at home have fled to Libya.

They are discovering how difficult it is to settle into a country struggling to fulfil the promise of its own revolution.

Al Jazeera's Imran Khan reports from the Libyan city of Benghazi where he met some of those who have fled.

[YOUTUBE]bfDfpovioWQ[/YOUTUBE]