Flood of Refugees Underlines the Spreading Sectarian War
Posted by Joshua on Wednesday, September 5th, 2012
Record Number Of Syrians Fled Country In August
Listen to the Story on NPR Radio, All Things Considered [4 min 33 sec]
Activist groups are reporting that more than 5,000 people died in Syria in the month of August. Along with the death toll, the number of Syrians fleeing their country is also on the rise. Melissa Block talks to Joshua Landis about the bigger picture in Syria and what happens next…
LANDIS: The Syrian army remains very strong. Even though it’s losing ground, it has strong backing in Iran and Russia, and its got a command and control, which is what the opposition – although it has numbers, the opposition, and it has a lot of international support, it does not have good command and control. And it doesn’t have the kind of weaponry that the Syrian army has.
BLOCK: How resilient would you say the Syrian army is? How much can it take?
LANDIS: It can take a lot. This is the problem, is that the Syrian army is transforming itself. As the Sunni Arabs defect from the army, and increasingly, the Sunni elements in the army are not trusted, the army has been remaking itself as an Alawite militia, increasingly. And we’re seeing this war devolve into a civil war between Alawites, the Shiite heterodox group – 12 percent of Syrians – and the Syrian Sunni Arabs who are 70 percent of the population roughly. And that’s why things are becoming increasingly more brutal, but it’s also why the Syrian army will not likely give up.
If they were to give up, the leadership in the army will be killed. And many Alawites believe that they would be marginalized in society as the Sunni Arabs take over. So they’re fighting a very brutal war, and it’s hard to see how this comes to an end anytime soon…..
Syrian Children Offer Glimpse of a Future of Reprisals
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, September 3, 2012, New York Times
ZAATARI, Jordan — Like all the small children in the desert refugee camp here, Ibtisam, 11, is eager to go home to the toys, bicycles, books, cartoons and classmates she left behind in Syria.
But not if that means living with Alawites, members of the same minority offshoot of Shiite Islam as Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. “I hate the Alawites and the Shiites,” Ibtisam said as a crowd of children and adults nodded in agreement. “We are going to kill them with our knives, just like they killed us.” ….
“We hear it all the time from the kids, but also from the parents — that this is not political at all, and not a call for democracy, but is about people fed up and angry at rule by a minority, the Alawites,” said Saba al-Mobaslat, director for Jordan of the nonprofit group Save the Children, which provides toys to refugee children and tries to teach them understanding. “There is a concern that this is a whole generation that is being brought up to hate, that can’t see the other’s side.”
The roots of the animosity toward the Alawites from members of Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority, who make up about 75 percent of the population, run deep into history. During the 19th-century Ottoman Empire, the two groups lived in separate communities, and the Sunni majority so thoroughly marginalized Alawites that they were not even allowed to testify in court until after World War I.
Then, in a pattern repeated across the region, said Joshua Landis, a Syria scholar at the University of Oklahoma, French colonialists collaborated with the Alawite minority to control the conquered Syrian population — as colonialists did with Christians in Lebanon, Jews in Palestine and Sunni Muslims in Iraq. The French brought Alawites into the colony’s military to help control the Sunnis. And after Syria’s independence from France, the military eventually took control of the country, putting Alawites in top government positions, much to the resentment of the Sunni majority.
“Now the Alawites believe — possibly correctly — that the Sunnis are going to try to kill them, and that is why the Alawite Army now is killing Sunnis in this beastly way,” Professor Landis said. “The Alawites feel justified in brutality because they fear what may be in store for them if they lay down their guns.”
“I don’t see any way out of that,” he said, “except to say that we are in for a long, difficult ride, and you pray that the Syrians are going to get over this somehow.”….
Inside Syria’s Fracturing Rebellion
Sarah Birke and Katie Paul, August 30, 2012 | New Republic
JEBEL ZAWIYA, SYRIA—The unglamorous municipal building, on which black daubs evince graffiti wars between the regime (“Bashar Assad or the country burns!”) and the opposition (“Leave, oh Bashar!”) did not look fit for a king. But it was immediately obvious when the man in the pressed green khakis strode in that we were in the presence of a leader. Men who had been sitting around in the room chatting fell silent. The leather chair behind the desk was seamlessly vacated. A bulky companion, who appeared to be a bodyguard, took the chair nearest the door; the American-made weapon laid across his knees stood out against the Kalashnikovs we had seen slung over shoulders for the last few days.
We had sat waiting for two hours in Serjeh, a village perched on a ridge in the mountainous Jebel Zawiya region of Syria’s northwestern Idleb province, and were about to give up hope when Ahmed Abu Issa, the head of Saqour al-Sham (the “Sham Falcons”; Sham refers both to Damascus and Greater Syria) appeared. The 40-year-old cut a striking figure, with his bushel of thick hair and grey eyes that betrayed no emotion; a holster was strapped across broad shoulders and he trailed a waft of cologne. The enormous turquoise rock adorning his right ring finger was conspicuously displayed as he clamped his hands on the table.
As head of a group of some 4,000 or so fighters that operates out of Serjeh, Abu Issa is one of the most influential men in the province—and he knows it. Within two minutes of our arrival, intelligence networks had clicked into action, as a gun-toting teenager rode up to inquire as to the nature of our visit. Elsewhere around his territory, he runs three field hospitals, a court based on sharia law, and a prison. (He refused to show us the prison, though YouTube footage later revealed a less savory side of his outfit: some captives have been sent off in booby-trapped cars to be blown apart at army checkpoints.) His immediate motivations are the same, he tells us, as that of other rebel groups: the ouster of Assad. But in the longer-term he wants an Islamist state: “Not as the West understands it: one not too far to the left, and not too far to the right.”
The source of his authority derives neither from military prowess nor local prominence, but rather from a peculiar collection of personal attributes. Abu Issa has charisma by the bucketload: a spellbinding way of orating in flawless formal Arabic and, when addressing issues he deems unpleasant, one side of his upper lip momentarily curls up into a snarl. Rebel fighters have flocked to his side, he says, because of the “rectitude” of his vision and because “Syrians need someone to lead them.” Like many men in his brigade, he is also driven by personal scores to settle with the Assad family. His father was killed in the notorious Tadmor jail in the 1980s; he too spent time in prison in 2003 because the regime didn’t much like his sharia studies nor his “voluntary work” mediating disputes between local families. Sixteen relatives have perished in the current conflict, including two brothers and his sixteen-year-old son (after which he donned a more overtly religious tone.)
Money and weapons help draw followers as much as personal authority, of course. Asked how a small-town religious scholar is able to amass the military might to challenge the army, he is coy. “Need,” he says, with a sly smile, “is the mother of invention.” In fact, swashbuckling performances in videos have made Saquor al-Sham a name on forums outside the country and with it income from private Gulfi backers. Serjeh was something of this year’s Ramadan rebel financier hotspot.
This support leaves him better placed than most rebel groups. It also allows him to dismiss with the flap of a hand the floundering myriad opposition institutions—the Free Syrian Army, Syrian National Council, Muslim Brotherhood—who might want to have a say over his plans. Despite this independence, Abu Issa says he will not fight to impose his vision on Syria: “The political field is a market: you offer your goods and I offer mine,” he told us. “People will come to me because mine are clean.” But the spirit of cooperation many only extend so far: should there be any attempt to “force me to close my store,” he says, then “the sword will be the judgment.”….
the men in Jabal Zawiya offer an insight into the evolving power structures in Syria as Bashar al-Assad’s regime contracts. The groups are currently bound together by a common aim to rid the country of Assad and strive not to act like his regime, but the seeds of struggles are being planted—aided by the brewing geopolitical reckoning. Rather than build the united country once imagined by protesters, rebel warlords are each taking their own bit of land and implementing their own vision—though militarily coordination continues. ….
Turkey’s Anti-Assad Policy Ricochets Back:
Public Opinion Shifts Against Ankara As Conflict in Syria Crosses Border
BY JOE PARKINSON
ISTANBUL—The Turkish government, which is spearheading efforts to force Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power, is facing public skepticism over its Syria policy as the civil war next door increasingly spills across the border.
Developments in recent weeks have magnified Turks’ unease over Syria’s 18-month uprising.
More than 82,000 Syrians have now sought refuge in Turkey, at a cost of around $300 million to the Turkish government, Ankara said Tuesday, as Turkish border towns that relied on trade with Syria have seen economic activity wither and unemployment rise. Turkish television is showing footage of the country’s nationals, which have been …
Iran Supplying Syrian Military via Iraqi Airspace
By MICHAEL R. GORDON, September 4, 2012
WASHINGTON — Iran has resumed shipping military equipment to Syria over Iraqi airspace in a new effort to bolster the embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, according to senior American officials.
The Obama administration pressed Iraq to shut down the air corridor that Iran had been using earlier this year, raising the issue with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq. But as Syrian rebels gained ground and Mr. Assad’s government was rocked by a bombing that killed several high officials, Iran doubled down in supporting the Syrian leader. The flights started up again in July and, to the frustration of American officials, have continued ever since. ….
Assad assures Red Cross on aid operations
The Peninsula – 05 September, 2012
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad promised yesterday to allow the Red Cross to expand its humanitarian operations in his country which is gripped by a 17-month insurgency that forced more than 100,000 people to flee last month alone….
Some 100,000 refugees fled Syria during August making it by far the highest monthly total since hostilities began, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.The tide in people fleeing the civil war, a figure that includes both refugees who are registered and those awaiting registration with the Geneva-based U.N. refugee agency, underscores the intensifying violence between the regime of Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, and the armed anti-government groups.
The August total represents more than 40 percent of the 234,368 Syrian refugees who, as of the last count on September 2, had fled for surrounding countries since the uprising began 17 months ago.
The Making of a Syrian Rebel: The Saga of Abboud Barri
His callousness is more pronounced than most, but the story of Abboud Barri reflects the universal struggle to preserve humanity in the face of the exigencies of war
By Rania Abouzeid / Jabal al-Zawya | September 4, 2012 | 1
Free Syrian Army soldiers stand guard at a checkpoint in the northern town of Ariha, on the outskirts of Idlib, Syria, Sunday, June 10, 2012
Abboud Barri jiggles the dog tags as if they belonged to animals being raised in a puppy mill. “I have a lot of these,” Barri says. “Any buyers?” He is joking. The tags belong to human beings, soldiers of the hated Assad regime now held captive or killed by Barri, a local commander of one of the franchise groups of the rebel Free Syrian Army. Unlike some other militia leaders, Barri says he isn’t interested in ransoming his captives from their families. He says he keeps the ID tags so that those families know “to look for them in hell.”
He keeps the eight military-issued dog tags in the right pocket of his sand-colored desert camouflage cargo pants; they are war booty from his unit’s recent assault on a loyalist checkpoint in Kfranbel in Idlib province….
The fighter was extremely troubled as he recalled the incident. “See this blood,” he said pointing to a patch on the knees of his jeans, “it’s Alawite blood.” He held his head in his hands, asking God for forgiveness. “What are we becoming?” he said. There was no way to verify his account….
U.S. Hones Plans for Big Bailout of Egypt – WSJ
CAIRO—American diplomats are closing in on an agreement to dole out $1 billion in debt relief to Egypt, part of a gilded-charm offensive that Washington hopes will help shore up the country’s economy and prevent its new Islamist leadership from drifting beyond America’s foreign-policy orbit.
A team of senior State Department economic officials have spent the past week in Egypt’s capital completing the terms of an aid package that President Barack Obama first announced last year after Egypt’s pro-democracy uprising rattled the country’s once-promising economic future.
The money has since sat in policy limbo as Egyptian and American diplomats disagreed
Muslim Brotherhood establishes militia inside Syria
The Muslim Brotherhood has established its own militia inside Syria as the country’s rebels fracture between radical Islamists and their rivals, commanders and gun-runners have told The Daily Telegraph.
Who Will Govern Syrian Kurdistan?
By Giorgio Cafiero, August 31, 2012
Last month, as the Free Syrian Army took over areas of the Syrian-Turkish border, a power vacuum emerged in northeastern Syria. It was not the Free Syrian Army that filled the vacuum, but instead the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), the most heavily armed Kurdish faction in Syria. In early August, the Wall Street Journal reported that “Kurdish political parties and paramilitary groups have almost completely usurped the Syrian state apparatus,” taking over municipal buildings and vital infrastructure, providing security, and controlling the distribution of resources.
Egypt President Slams Syria in Iran
WSJ
TEHRAN, Iran—Egypt’s new president described the Syrian regime as “oppressive” and called for it to transfer power to a democratic system during a visit to Syria’s key regional ally Iran on Thursday.
President Mohammed Morsi’s visit to Iran is the first by an Egyptian leader to the Islamic Republic in decades. It represents a major thaw in relations between the two regional powerhouses following Mr. Morsi’s election win in June in the aftermath of the country’s 2011 uprising. But the two countries remain deeply divided over the situation in Syria.
Tehran cut ties with Egypt following Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. …
CBS News: Bosnians who fled Syria describe a hellish war
2012-08-30
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — A Bosnian woman who fled Syria says the war in the Arab country is worse than the fighting in her homeland 20 years ago. A group of 35 Bosnians landed at the Sarajevo airport Thursday, flying in from Istanbul …
Reuters reports: France plans to channel aid to rebel-held parts of Syria so that these “liberated zones” can administer themselves and staunch an outflow of refugees, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.
He said France and Turkey had identified areas in the north and south that had escaped President Bashar al-Assad’s control, creating a chance for local communities to govern themselves without feeling they had to flee to neighboring countries.
“Maybe in these liberated zones Syrians who want to flee the regime will find refuge which in turn makes it less necessary to cross the border whether in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan or Iraq,” Fabius said after a U.N. Security Council meeting in New York on Thursday.
However, civilians in rebel-held parts of Syria have suffered frequent deadly air strikes from Assad’s forces.
It was not clear how Fabius’s promise to allocate much of its future 5 million euros ($6.25 million) aid for Syria to these areas would protect civilians and deter them from fleeing.
The Associated Press reports: Turkey appealed to a reluctant U.N. Security Council Thursday for a safe haven for thousands of Syrians facing a “humanitarian disaster” as Britain and France said they would rule out no options — including a no-fly zone — to aid residents fleeing an escalating civil war.
But Turkish leaders held out little hope for the endorsement of a deeply divided council that has been paralyzed on taking action to stop the 18-month uprising that has killed more than 20,000 people.
“How long are we going to sit and watch while an entire generation is being wiped out by random bombardment and deliberate mass targeting?” asked Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. “Let’s not forget that if we do not act against such a crime against humanity happening in front of our eyes, we become accomplices to the crime.”
Davutoglu, whose country is hosting more than 80,000 Syrian refugees, said he came to the council with hope that its members would take “long overdue steps” to help suffering people and establish camps inside Syria for those forced to flee their homes.
“Apparently, I was wrong about my expectations,” he told the council. “This meeting will not even end with a presidential or press statement, let alone a robust resolution.”
The path to the council’s agreement on a safe zone for Syrians is fraught with obstacles, headed by the reluctance of Russia and China, Syria’s most important allies. They have vetoed three Western-backed resolutions in the Security Council seeking to pressure President Bashar Assad’s government with the threat of sanctions.
Comments (73)
Visitor said:
““Now the Alawites believe — possibly correctly — that the Sunnis are going to try to kill them, and that is why the Alawite Army now is killing Sunnis in this beastly way,” Professor Landis said. “The Alawites feel justified in brutality because they fear what may be in store for them if they lay down their guns.””
As much as we would like to pontificate from behind keyboards about the undesireability of executing revenge, yet if the statement of Dr. Landis is true, and all indications suggest that it is so,then reality must set in. The first dose of reality to take notice of is that we are dealing with human nature, and it is hard to gauge how much magnanimity the Syrians at large can continue to exhibit now or in the future.
Landis statement simply means that the Alawites are their worst enemies and are justifying any future retributions that will definitely be exacted upon them. The world has stood by callously while the Sunnis were subjected to horrible massacres. One may even say there was an element of collusion if not approval from certain quarters. It is only fair to expect that the world will do the same when and if the tables are turned. I only hope that the Sunnis wiil exact retribution in the name of justice and not as pure revenge.
There is no end without such retribution. Human nature DEMNANDS it.
September 5th, 2012, 11:45 am
Uzair8 said:
Thanks for the Sh. Hamza Yusuf and Imam Shakir videos brother Hamoudeh.
Allahu Akbar!!!
Ladies and Gentlemen. Brothers and Sisters. I feel in the muslim world we are about to see the tipping point, at which misled folk are going to recognise and accept the reality of the Syrian situation.
‘…the leadership of the Shia in Lebanon and Iran have revealed themselves to be the political machiavellian people that they are. They have revealed themselves to side with the tyrant against those who are oppressed, but the shia people, many of these people have nothing to do with that.’
Sh Hamza Yusuf
September 5th, 2012, 12:43 pm
zoo said:
A Turkish self assessment about Turkey’s suspicious and failed foreign policy toward Syria
A stroll down the Arab Street
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/a-stroll-down-the-arab-street.aspx?pageID=449&nID=29397&NewsCatID=398
Why, really, has Ankara put in so much time, resources and energy to toppling a neighboring dictator after befriending that same dictator for several years?
a) For purely humanitarian reasons, because that dictator had begun to kill his own people.
b) Because Ankara was given a subcontract from the Big Powers to topple the dictator.
c) Because Ankara wholeheartedly believes in the supremacy of (preferably Turkish-led) Sunni-ism in the Middle East.
d) a, b, and c
e) a, b, and c, plus delusions of neo-Ottoman grandeur.
….
Zionist-bashing did not give us a free ride on the Arab Street, so we have had to chose which direction to take at a junction we had not anticipated: the Shia Arab Street or the Sunni Arab Street? Naturally, we have chosen the latter, not knowing whether fighting Bashar al-Assad would give us a free ticket for a stroll, or for how long that free ticket would be valid. Until we have to choose between the Wahhabi Arab Street, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Arab Street, the Salafi Arab Street, or the Arab Street of our choice: the Arab Street that leads to a glorious Ottoman past.
….
He said the Syrian regime’s legitimacy was based on people’s fear. Why, then, Minister, did you become that illegitimate regime’s buddies, knowing that this illegitimacy was based on people’s fear?
September 5th, 2012, 12:48 pm
zoo said:
Is the rise of radical Islam in Europe fueled by the West’s support and complacency toward the Islamist Arab spring ‘revolutions’?
Germany: New Ad Campaign to Counter Muslim Radicalization
by Soeren Kern • September 5, 2012 at 5:00 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3321/germany-ad-campaign-muslim-radicalization
“Salafists are fighting the liberal-democratic legal system and in its place they want to introduce their radical ideology in Germany.” — German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich
The German government has launched a nationwide poster campaign aimed at fighting against the radicalization of young Muslim immigrants.
The ad campaign is the brainchild of German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, who has been leading Germany’s multifaceted response (here, here and here) to the rise of radical Islam there.
…
September 5th, 2012, 12:52 pm
zoo said:
Morsi blatantly interferes in Syrian affairs and calls for Iran not to interfere in Arab affairs. He ignores again Bahrain.
Obviously Morsi wants to become the long-waited leader and defender of all Arabs, as long a they are Sunnis.
http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-president-urges-syrian-regime-155308914.html
CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi gave his first major foreign policy speech on Wednesday, calling on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime to step down and warning Iran against interfering in Arab affairs.
September 5th, 2012, 1:02 pm
Uzair8 said:
President Morsi!
How cool is this guy?
Just when you thought he couldn’t get any cooler…LOL.
I bet if there was an election today in Egypt he’d get 90% of the vote.
September 5th, 2012, 1:11 pm
VISITOR said:
AL suspends Syrian Media broadcasts,
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/09/05/236280.html
——————————–
“Morsi blatantly interferes in Syrian affairs and calls for Iran not to interfere in Arab affairs. He ignores again Bahrain.”
Really???
And give one good reason for a non-Arab, non-Sunni, wilayat-faqih ruled Iran to have a say in Arab affairs.
Egypt is Arab. Arabs by in large are Sunnis. Iran is non-Arab. Mullah Iran is follower of a heretic creed that Arabs by in large feel no affinity with whatsoever. Iran has proven hostile to all Arabs and even to its Sunni population. Bahrain trouble is proven to be instigated by the mullahs and their stooges in Hizbistan.
Talk to your idiot in Damascus and if he likes Iran then he should go there and you may join him. We, Syrians, Arabs and Sunnis, have no need for fifth columns in our midst.
It is as simple as that.
September 5th, 2012, 1:16 pm
Johannes de Silentio said:
7 VAT
“Give one good reason for a non-Arab, non-Sunni, wilayat-faqih ruled Iran to have a say in Arab affairs.”
Because it can. It has the guns and the clout. That may change in the future, but right now, it can. And it does. Capish?
September 5th, 2012, 1:30 pm
VISITOR said:
Guns speak.
We have seen those guns in Bahrain.
Idiot.
September 5th, 2012, 2:10 pm
Citizen said:
Saudi Arabia Orders Al Qaeda Jihadists To Attack Iran And Israel
A top-level Saudi Government official and religious leader tells Saudi Arabia’s Salifist Jihadists they must conduct attacks against Iran and Israel.
Sheikh Ali Al-Rubaie is a Saudi Imam and top-level Saudi government official who gives out religious and government orders
Recently he called upon Saudi Arabia’s Salafist Jihadists, which consists of Al Qaeda and other Islamic Jihadist organizations, to wage Jihad against Syria.
Sheikh Al-Rubaie was even honored by President Obama for putting a bounty of Syria President Assad’s head.
Obama Honors Saudi Imam For Putting Bounty On Assad’s Head
Despite calling for Jihadists terrorist attacks against Christians and in Syria Obama honors Sheikh Al-Rubaie for issuing a bounty Syria’s President Assad.
Back in May Saudi Arabia’s Salafist Jihadists massacred numerous innocent civilians in Houla and immediately blamed the massacre on the Syria government shelling.
The media echoed the from these so-called ‘peaceful activists’ only to have UN investigators prove they were lying – specifically finding the civilians had been executed at close range or slashed to death with knives and other stabbing weapons.
This of course meant that the Saudi Arabia’s Salafi Jihadists, referred to by the western media as ‘peaceful activists’ but who actually the same Islamic fundamentalists referred to as Al Qaeda in other reports, must have been responsible for the massacre.
This is clear because they were the only forces on the ground near these civilians that were massacred but perhaps more egregious is the fact that the BBC was caught using photos of mass graves from the Iraq war claiming they were pictures of the massacre.
In any case, following the incident the Saudi Leader Sheikh Dr. Ali Al-Rubaie put a $450,000 bounty out on the head of Syria President Bashar Asad.
This is disturbing because Imam Al-Rubaie is not only a religious leaders for the terrorist Jihadists who staged this massacre but he is a top-level official of the Saudi government.
Despite all of this, here is our beloved President Obama issuing an award to Sheikh Al-Rubaie.
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/09/05/saudi-arabia-orders-al-qaeda-jihadists-attack-iran-israel-179531/
September 5th, 2012, 2:23 pm
Citizen said:
incubators of terror
US-Saudi Backed Al Qaeda Proxy Cells Now Waging Jihad Against Russia
Saudi Arabia’s Salafi Jihadists, the Islamic militants referred to as Al Qaeda by the corporate media, are now waging Jihad operations against Russia.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/ru/content/us-saudi-backed-al-qaeda-proxy-cells-now-waging-jihad-against-russia
Al-Qaeda Leader Strikes Deal With U.S., Saudis To Send 5,000 Jihadists To Syria
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2012/09/al-qaeda-leader-strikes-deal-with-u-s-saudis-to-send-5000-jihadists-to-syria-2462074.html
September 5th, 2012, 2:31 pm
Citizen said:
Source: Al-Qaeda-Trained Terrorists Sent to Syria from Waziristan
TEHRAN (FNA)- Al-Qaeda, backed by Turkey, the US and its regional Arab allies, has set up a new camp in Northern Waziristan in Pakistan to train Salafi and Jihadi terrorists and dispatches them to Syria via Turkish borders, sources said.
“A new Al-Qaeda has been created in the region through the financial and logistical backup of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and a number of western states, specially the US,” the source told FNA.
Ali Mahdian told FNA that the US and the British governments have been playing with the al-Qaeda through their Arab proxy regimes in the region in a bid to materialize their goals, specially in Syria.
He said the Saudi and Qatari regimes serve as interlocutors to facilitate the CIA and MI6 plans in Syria through instigating terrorist operations by Salafi and Arab Jihadi groups, adding that the terrorists do not know that they actually exercise the US plans.
“Turkey has also been misusing extremist Salafis and Al-Qaeda terrorists to intensify the crisis in Syria and it has recently augmented its efforts in this regard by helping the new Al-Qaeda branch set up a camp in Northern Waziristan in Pakistan to train Al-Qaeda and Taliban members as well as Turkish Salafis and Arab Jihadis who are later sent to Syria for terrorist operations,” said the source.
He said the camp in Waziristan is not just a training center, but a command center for terrorist operations against Syria.
Yet, the source said the US and Britain are looking at the new Al-Qaeda force as an instrument to attain their goals and do not intend to support them to ascend to power, “because if Salafi elements in Syria ascend to power, they will create many problems for the US, the Western states and Turkey in future”.
“Thus, the US, Britain and Turkey are looking at the Al-Qaeda as a tactical instrument,” he said, and warned of the regional and global repercussions of the US and Turkish aid to the Al-Qaeda and Salafi groups……………
http://tipggita32.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/source-al-qaeda-trained-terrorists-sent-to-syria-from-waziristan/
September 5th, 2012, 2:35 pm
zoo said:
Now that all other ideologies have failed in the Middle East, are Wars or Religions among the Moslems just started?
A centuries-old mistrust is at the heart of Sunni-Shia tension
Hassan Hassan
Sep 6, 2012
http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/a-centuries-old-mistrust-is-at-the-heart-of-sunni-shia-tension
By the middle of the 7th century, the Muslim empire extended from the Arabian Peninsula north to what is today’s east Afghanistan, southern Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Egypt, and west to northern Libya. Diverse ethnic groups came to be part of one empire, ruled by Arabs from Mecca.
New ethnic groups embraced the new faith, but some still felt uneasy about being ruled by people they had long perceived as inferior. So they set out to preserve their identity and culture, sparking a trend that still has reverberations across ethnic relations and state politics in the Middle East today.
The concept of “shu’ubiyya” – a categorisational term from the Arabic word for “people” or “nations” – rejected Arab hegemony within the empire and separated Arabs as a race from Islam as a religion. The trend was first limited to racial bias against Arabs, often citing support from religious texts, but later attained social, intellectual and political dimensions.
After the Arab revolts that swept the region last year, the Sunni-Shia rift widened to worrying levels as different countries and peoples in the region chose sides based on sectarian lines in the popular protests in Bahrain and Syria, the sectarian strife in Lebanon, and Iraq’s political crisis. The same sectarian sentiments are now creeping slowly into other countries, including Egypt and beyond. These increasing communal tensions are one of the products of the 2003 war in Iraq and the sectarian violence that followed, but they are also rooted in history.
…
September 5th, 2012, 2:53 pm
Hamoudeh al-Halabi said:
Shaykh Hisham Borhani in Support of the Rifa`i Shaykhs
http://freehalab.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/shaykh-hisham-burhani-in-support-of-the-rifai-shaykhs/
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Imam Zaid Shakir at DC rally for Syria
http://freehalab.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/shaykh-hamza-yusuf-imam-zaid-shakir-at-dc-rally-for-syria/
September 5th, 2012, 3:57 pm
Syrialover said:
RICHARD,
I made some comments in response to your post at the end of the last thread, in case you did not see them.
Zoo might also like to read them. Well “like” is probably too strong a word.
September 5th, 2012, 4:05 pm
Uzair8 said:
‘LANDIS: The Syrian army remains very strong.’
All things considered
Some other things that should be considered:
– Regime forces exhaustion.
– Lack of men, money and fuel.
September 5th, 2012, 4:09 pm
Uzair8 said:
Exhausted troops will become prone to errors and become increasingly vulnerable to attack.
Shabeeha losses will be even higher as they aren’t as well trained, armed or protected as soldiers are (eg body armour, helmet). I bet Shabeeha losses aren’t even disclosed or recorded. They are ‘deniables’ after all.
The number of wounded troops will also go up greatly and imagine the huge challenge (for regime) of treating and looking after them and the economic cost. I bet the regime will abandon it’s severely wounded in the battlefield or even execute them.
September 5th, 2012, 4:22 pm
annie said:
3. zoo
“Why, really, has Ankara put in so much time, resources and energy to toppling a neighboring dictator after befriending that same dictator for several years?
a) For purely humanitarian reasons, because that dictator had begun to kill his own people.”
Don’t you remember how Erdogan warned and pressed Bashar to initiate reforms and was ignored ?
Of course in politics reasons are hardly ever purely humanitarian
September 5th, 2012, 4:26 pm
Pirouz said:
Syria’s armed forces have held up remarkably well.
Personally, I think it’s a little more complicated than the army becoming an Alawite militia. All this time, we haven’t seen entire army units defecting from their officers and taking with them their AFVs and heavy weapons, as happened in Tehran in 1979. Instead, we continue to see ragtag collections of rebels, as well as armed “Jihadi” special groups. I don’t agree with Professor Landis in that I haven’t seen evidence that these armed rebel forces actually outnumber Syrian military forces.
September 5th, 2012, 4:30 pm
ghufran said:
قال رئيس الوزراء التركي رجب طيب أردوغان الأربعاء، إن صلاته بالجامع الأموي في دمشق وزيارته لقبر صلاح الدين الأيوبي باتت قريبة.
ونقلت وكالة أنباء (الأناضول) عن أردوغان، قوله إن أحزاب المعارضة التركية التي نصرت النظام السوري ستخجل في القريب العاجل من زيارة دمشق، فيما سيذهب وأعضاء حزبه إليها ليلتقوا بأخوتهم، ويتلون “سورة الفاتحة فوق قبر صلاح الدين الأيوبي”، ثم يصلّون في باحات جامع بني أمية الكبير، ويزورون تربة الصحابي بلال الحبشي والإمام إبن عربي، والكلية السليمانية ومحطة الحجاز.
If I was Erdogan, I would not say what he said unless I have solid information that a visit to Damascus will be an option for the much hated Turkish PM, he is liked by some,seen as a big mouth by many but he is unwelcome in Syria by a large chunk of the Syrian population.
I find Erdogan statement to be as empty as his previous threats.
September 5th, 2012, 4:41 pm
ghufran said:
مصدر عسكري سوري قال : ان كل مساعي الحصول على صواريخ من قوات الدفاع الجوي التابعة للجيش السوري لا قيمة لها موضحاً أن المنظومات الإلكترونية لدى القوات السورية تستطيع إبطال مفعول (منع إطلاق) الكثير من الصواريخ مباشرة عبر تغيير شيفرات (كود) الإطلاق.
كما لفت إلى أن جزء كبير من الصواريخ السورية توجد بمكان ومنصات إطلاقها في مكان آخر وبالتالي السيطرة عليها دون منصات الإطلاق (البطاريات) سيكون بلا جدوى إلى حين استعادة الجيش السوري لهذه الصواريخ في حال جرت السيطرة عليها من قبل مقاتلي المعارضة.
وقال خبراء عسكريون أيضاً أن مسلحي الجيش السوري تمكنوا من السيطرة على صواريخ قصيرة المدى لا تتجاوز 50 كم من إحدى كتائب الدفاع الجوي بريف حلب من نوع “فولغا” و”بيتشورا” لكن المسلحين لم يستطيعوا إطلاق أي منها وأن الجيش السوري استطاع استعادتها.
لكن مقاتلي المعارضة استطاعوا السيطرة على صواريخ من نوع كوبرا التي لا يتعدى مداها عدة كيلو مترات منذ فترة غير بعيدة كما أن إمداداً جاءهم من دول إقليمية إذ حصلوا على صواريخ من نوع كوبرا.
القدس العربي
I guess only time will tell which side is speaking the truth.
September 5th, 2012, 4:44 pm
DAMASCUSROSE said:
Situation in Aleppo is getting very grim, family members of mine are stuck and afraid to leave or flee to Damascus or to the north. Food and bread is getting so scarce, prices through the roof, terror reigning on children every night. Children with Leukemia can’t get to the hospital to receive treatment. Lebanese are renting two-room flats for north of $1300 a month, only the rich and well to do can afford to flee to Lebanon. Conditions in Turkey and Jordan are forcing many people to run back to Syria. It’s hell and this so-called “President” thinks he can ride this one out.
September 5th, 2012, 4:55 pm
zoo said:
#19 Gufran
Erdogan is receiving one slap after the other from his ‘allies’ who tell him to move his ass and invade Syria.
The Turkish journalists are ridiculing him and the great Vizir on a daily basis and he can’t shut them off as there are already a record number of journalists in jail in Turkey.
He has to vent his furor somewhere, otherwise it will hit his colon, if it has not already.
He is also encouraged by his copycat Morsi who has already reached a good level of megalomania after only a few weeks in power.
No wonder, after he bashed Iran, his supporters hails him as the hero of Sunnism, the modern Salah el Dine. Maybe he is taking it seriously.
September 5th, 2012, 4:58 pm
ghufran said:
It is very painful to hear stories about suffering that comes from inside or outside Syria, Syrians have had enough, violence is taking the country nowhere, it is time for fighters to let politicians talk and give guns a break. the regime failed in crushing the rebels who in return failed to topple the regime, the only thing that was defeated was the state and its reputation,whatever modest that reputation was.
Clinton’s visit to China was a failure too:
Clinton and China leaders fail to resolve differences over Syria crisis and sea row.
US secretary of state meets Chinese president but talks with his successor cancelled as visit fails to narrow gaps over divisions.
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 5 September 2012 04.32 EDT
comment: the chinese know that the US will be paralyzed until after November elections, they are also good at counting the billions of dollars they own in US treasury, Clinton failed because she did not have any cards on the table.
September 5th, 2012, 5:20 pm
Son of Damascus said:
Interesting interview by Dr. Landis on NPR. I would like to offer a small critique regarding this point he made:
If we are to compare the Assadi Army to the FSA in terms of a conventional army then yes much stronger, however that is a far fetched comparison.
Until now the FSA is not an Army but rather a militia group that does not all fall under the same leadership umbrella. The meeting this Thursday is supposed to address that, but even then it will take sometime for that.
If we take the FSA out of the equation and just look at the Assadi Army you would see that not only are they losing ground quickly but more importantly they are losing their supply routes that help replenish their tanks and armour. As such airbases have been used in much higher numbers, and helicopters are being relied upon for transport of troops and material. Furthermore the loss of the Taftanaz, and Abu AlThuhour airbases must be a major blow and if the reports from Al-Jazeera hold true the Hamadan Airbase in Deir Al-Zour has as well fallen this is a big blow (3 out of 15 Airbases have been effectively decommissioned by the FSA).
With the rebels taking the fight not only to Assadi bases directly but as well confronting Assadi forces in Latakia province shows the rebels are much better organized than we are lead to believe and the Assadi Army is much weaker than it is.
Also an army should not be judged on how long it can survive or stay intact especially when it is on the most part killing unarmed civilians but rather on their military victories against armed opponents. Every “victory” the Assadi army has had has been temporary at best, and the fact that a rebel force has been able to hold onto Aleppo for over 50 days now while everyday SANA reminds us that this time they really really cleansed it of rebels is a testament to how weak the Assadi Army really is.
September 5th, 2012, 5:30 pm
Son of Damascus said:
So I guess Syrian jails are not as cozy as Fisk had us to believe… Who would’ve ever believed that.
Syrian writer: Robert Fisk is indoctrinated by Syrian regime
Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, who spent 16 years as a political prisoner in Syria, says that the imprisonment conditions in Syria are very different to those portrayed by British journalist Fisk in a recent newspaper article
Syrian writer and thinker Yassin Al-Haj Saleh has vehemently criticised British journalist Robert Fisk, who is the Middle East correspondent of the British daily The Independent, for the image that he portrayed of Syrian political prisons in an article published on Sunday, 2 September, titled ‘Syria’s road from jihad to prison’.
Yassin accused Fisk, who visited Syria this week, of being “indoctrinated”; his article portrays the intelligence officers at one of Syria’s most notorious military prison as friendly, agreeing to leave Fisk alone with the prisoners, who Fisk describes as “Islamic jihadists.”
“Fisk reflected this view of the political prisons because he was just too embedded in the events, and couldn’t see the wider vision; he was indoctrinated,” Yassin told Ahram Online from Syria.
Yassin, who spent 16 years in military prisons in Syria, says that Fisk’s description is not related to the facts on the ground.
“He visited a prison where all the detainees he met were extremist jihadists who came to Syria from Algeria and Turkey to make big explosions, and when intelligence agencies arrest them, they do not torture them as we may expect. One of them told Fisk that he’s fine, and thanks god for that; another one said that he was tortured for only one day,” commented Yassin.
“The detainees are Salafist jihadists and yet the officer leaves Fisk alone to interview them freely.” Yassin added, marking the friendly behaviour that Fisk asserted he witnessed from the guards.
“Personally, I was jailed for 16 years, for minor charges. The imprisonment conditions were worse; no Western or local journalist could ever have visited me nor any human rights activists. This applies to everyone who was arrested during the revolution, the thing that Fisk never revealed,” Saleh argued.
[…]
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/18/107/51930/Books/Arab/Syrian-writer-Robert-Fisk-is-indoctrinated-by-Syri.aspx
September 5th, 2012, 5:46 pm
Uzair8 said:
If I’m correct Assad’s birthday is coming up on the 11th?
Perhaps the FSA can organise a surprise party for him at the palace.
September 5th, 2012, 5:50 pm
Uzair8 said:
Considering the regimes economic troubles is it still able to pay its propagandists?
Can anyone on the regimes payroll confirm whether they are still receiving their regular payments?
I wonder if this is related to the recent absenteeism of some Assadists on SC.
September 5th, 2012, 5:58 pm
Tara said:
Zoo@768 from the previous thread
“FSA new strategy: Bombing any village or town loyal to the government.(Kfaryeh in Edlib, Harem,Al Ghasania in Homs, Qasab in Latakya etc..),
A great way to win the hearts and minds”
——
If above true, can you tell me why the FSA has not brought up the fight to Alawi villages?
September 5th, 2012, 6:03 pm
ghufran said:
CNN) – Democrats voted to update their party’s platform Wednesday evening at their convention to include a reference to Jerusalem being the capital of Israel, as well as the insertion of the word “God,” neither of which was included in their platform this year but was in previous platforms.
comment: this is a lesson to every loser and militant out there who still can not see why Arabs and Muslims are the laughing stock of the world.
September 5th, 2012, 6:12 pm
Tara said:
Irritated,
I missed your funny sarcasm… Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed your vacation.
September 5th, 2012, 6:18 pm
ghufran said:
the rebels claimed they have shot another jet fighter:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/sep/05/syria-rebels-shoot-down-jet-video
September 5th, 2012, 6:21 pm
zoo said:
28. #Tara
The above is true as it was reported by several foreign and arab medias.
I don’t think the FSA makes a distinction between Alawites and Sunnis villages in the areas where they have their troops. The criteria is whether these villages are loyal to the regime or not.
I am sure that if the FSA is able to penetrate the areas where most Alawites villages loyal to the regime are, they will be ruthless: Just hear the hatred and calls for bloody revenge pouring from young sunni kids in the refugees camps.
September 5th, 2012, 6:28 pm
Tara said:
Someone from my family must work in movie making business if we were lied to about the reincarnation business.
Venice film festival: female film director defies Saudi prejudice
Saudi film pioneer Haifaa al-Mansour, who directed Wadjda, sometimes had to hide in van to film on location in Riyadh
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/aug/31/venice-film-female-director-saudi-prejudice
guardian.co.uk, Friday 31 August 2012 14.22 EDT
Bankrolled by German money and overseen by the producers of Paradise Now and Waltz With Bashir, Mansour’s film lifts the lid on the role of women in Saudi society. The title character is a rebellious 11-year-old girl who enters a local Qur’an-reading competition, planning to use the prize money to buy herself a bicycle.
Wadjda hurries through the dusty streets, scandalising the faithful with her Chuck Taylor trainers and indigo laces. She wants to race the boys and prove she’s the best. Her mother, however, is horrified. “Girls don’t ride bikes,” she says. “You won’t be able to have a child if you ride bikes.”
..
Wadjda’s father claims to love his wife, but is nonetheless off scouting a second wife who might bear him a son. Inside the school grounds, the girls are forbidden from touching the Qur’an if they are having their period and are summarily banned from laughing in the yard. “Do you not remember?” the teacher scolds them. “A woman’s voice is her nakedness.”
…..
Early evidence supports her view. Mansour’s film has already been snapped up for distribution in Germany, Switzerland and France, with further purchases expected in Venice this week. The one place where it is unlikely to play is in Saudi Arabia itself: the kingdom currently does not contain a single movie theatre. “Cinema is illegal in Saudi Arabia,” Mansour explains. “We are hoping this will change.”
….,
September 5th, 2012, 6:30 pm
Visitor said:
I do not believe that Dr. Landis has the latest information on the so-called Syrian Army more appropriately called the killing machine of thugs when he claims that this so-called army still maintains its strength,
http://ww1.aljazeera.net/news/pages/96f56d9a-f361-47dc-9c75-a46402b1dc9c?GoogleStatID=21
September 5th, 2012, 6:33 pm
Tara said:
Zoo@32
“just hear the hatred pouring from young Sunni kids in the refugee camps”
I heard it. I am wondering if you and I were two small Sunni kids in al Zaatari refugee camps missing a parent that was knife slaughtered by the shabeeha, a cousin child that was tortured in a security branch, uprooted from our little house, swallowing sands and sharing a bathroom with 200 people, would you and I not hate Alawis too?
September 5th, 2012, 6:38 pm
zoo said:
Morsi to Egyptians suffering of power outage and heat: Wear cotton!
President has not tackled Egypt’s biggest problems
By HAMZA HENDAWI | Associated Press – 1 hr 42 mins ago
http://news.yahoo.com/president-not-tackled-egypts-biggest-problems-204953256.html
CAIRO (AP) — Power and water outages are common across Egypt. Crime is rampant. The value of the currency is slipping.
Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi has yet to offer anything concrete on how he plans to tackle some of the nation’s most intractable problems. Instead, he is taking steps to shore up his Muslim Brotherhood group ahead of new parliamentary elections and is trying to project himself as a charismatic Arab leader standing up to authoritarian regimes in the Middle East.
…
“Experience has shown that foreign policy brings him more success and popularity than if he fulfilled his promises to the people,” said political scientist Mustafa Kamel el-Sayed of Cairo University.
…
“To me, as an Egyptian citizen, I am only concerned with what impacts on daily life, things like power cuts and the rights of the poor,” said Gamal Eid, a prominent activist and rights lawyer.
The country is suffering power and water outages with a frequency not seen in decades and during intense summer heat. People’s patience has been pushed to the limit as repeated promises of a quick end to the problem do not materialize.
Opening himself for criticism, Morsi has called on Egyptians to ration their use of electricity to reduce pressure on the grid and his prime minister urged people to wear cotton clothes to cope better with the heat at home when electricity is out. The latter suggestion drew ridicule from the media and on social media networks, with the U.S.-trained engineer nicknamed after a famous Egyptian cotton wear company.
…
Meanwhile, he moved to silence criticism of his rule, shutting down a hostile television channel and putting on trial its owner and chief presenter along with the editor of a daily newspaper that has been a sharp critic of the Brotherhood, a fundamentalist Islamist group whose long-term goal is to Islamize Egypt.
September 5th, 2012, 6:39 pm
Son of Damascus said:
Tara,
Re: FSA in Latakia
A different take on what happened in Qassab:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2012/sep/05/syria-rebels-down-jets-live#block-504763cfc0e3ec4f5dc5bc3a
Re: Irritated
Where did he go for vacation? Bakkourland?
September 5th, 2012, 6:40 pm
zoo said:
35. Tara
If the parents feed their children with primitive feeling of hatred and revenge then you can’t expect no peace ever in Syria and you should not be surprised that these same parents massacre innocents alawites, just because they are alawites. This is pure racism.
Do you wish for an alawite holocaust?
September 5th, 2012, 6:45 pm
Tara said:
SOD,
Funny..
Bakourland is Irritated’s favorite invention..
But no,بعيد الشرّ. He is our Irritated.
I made up the vacation thing.
September 5th, 2012, 6:52 pm
Visitor said:
“Do you wish for an alawite holocaust?”
You should ask yourself the same question. You may bring it upon yourself by your own actions.
But we still hope that the Sunnis will exact retribution for the sake of justice which should be retroactive to year 1963.
Syria can only survive when just retribution is fulfilled.
See comment #1 above.
September 5th, 2012, 6:54 pm
Tara said:
Zoo
No. I do not wish them a holocaust. I can nonetheless understand the profound hatred they may feel against Alawis in general. Acknowledging the current feelings and refraining from labeling them racists is an important step towards a possible reconciliation process. There must be an intense healing process to be taking place, designed with professional help, if we to put Syria back together. Ignoring their feelings or labeling it as racism without acknowledging it’s causes will only lead to repeating the history but this time in reverse.
September 5th, 2012, 7:00 pm
Visitor said:
I just read this from the link in comment 11 ,
“The Terrorist are responding to an open call for Jihad issued to all Saudi’s by the Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan anointed Prophet Sheik Ahmad Al Qaseer.”
Well, well, well…
Haven’t the menhebkjis on this blog gleefully declared Prince Bandar dead not long ago?
It looks like they now decided to ‘bring him back to life.’
Not that we believed them in the first place, but it is good to know that the Prince is alive by their admission. He is very much needed at this stage in order to effectively deal with the rogue regimes of Syria and Qom.
September 5th, 2012, 7:16 pm
zoo said:
#41 Tara
Is the opposition is faithful to its claimed “ideals”, it should prevent the depiction of alawites as heretics and as criminals and discourage any revenge feelings.
Unfortunately the opposition is so divided and ambiguous itself about what it really wants that this message is not coming out at all, quite the contrary. It bears the responsibility of demonizing the Alawites when the regime has never demonized the sunnis or any Syrian based on its ethnicity or religion
September 5th, 2012, 7:24 pm
Darryl said:
14. HAMOUDEH AL-HALABI said:
Well as UZAIR8 would say “brother Hamoudeh”, I have watched these videos where there is more noise from takbir than when the Israelites brought down the walls of Jericho in that famous Biblical story. Obama is lucky that the Whitehouse did not collapse on his head from the takbir noise.
Based on what I heard from these videos, the Jizya will be back on the agenda as there was no mention of having secular democracy anywhere. Someone who praised these videos was calling for a democracy in Syria at one time and nominated Dr Haythem Khoury for Prime Minister. Dr Khoury will be lucky to have a janitor job in that new Syria and he better save money to pay the Jizya and walk on the other side of the street.
September 5th, 2012, 7:49 pm
Tara said:
Zoo
I don’t believe morality can be lectured to the refugees at this point… It is very difficult to discuss ethics when your universal right as a child to have a living parent has been recently taken away from you. Those kids are no longer children..unfortunately. Their innocence has been stolen from them. I am sure what they feel towards Alawis are not different than what Syrian kids of our generation felt towards Israelis multiplied by 100 times. In this case, they are no longer watching atrocities perpetrated by a group of people against their own kind, rather they are now the ones exposed to those atrocities.
You are blaming it on the FSA and some one may blame it on the fact that Alawis’ voice was not loud enough or effective enough to distance the sect enough to prevent these feelings.
I am not trying to give them moral justification. Not at all…Genocide is not justifiable no matter what led to the dehumanization process that precede it. All I am saying is that the first stage in rebuilding should be well thought of and impeccably executed..
September 5th, 2012, 7:50 pm
Ghufran said:
قالت وزارة الإعلام يوم الخميس، إنه في اطار الحملة التي تستهدف سورية أوقفتا شركتا “نايل سات” و”عرب سات” للبث الفضائي، بث القنوات السورية في إجراء أحادي يخالف شروط العقد المبرم مع الشركات المذكورة، فيما اعتبر اتحاد الصحفيين السوريين أن “هذه الخطوة قرصنة اعلامية بحق الاعلام الوطني وحرية الكلمة بشكل عام.
So, if the state media is so bad and so ineffective why is the GCC very interested in blocking the reception of the sat. Channels?
Morsi,on the other hand, is all over the GCC media asserting his new status as the president of arab’s most populous nation. The guy won election by around half of the votes of egyptians who participated in presidential elections while most Arab leaders, including Bashar, were appointed not elected, having said that, Morsi is obviously does not have what it takes to be an effective politician, most people agree with his condemnation of the Syrian regime but that condemnation came days before a planned meeting for the Quartet about Syria, Morsi’s statements,true or not, will make him irrelevant in any future negotiation regarding a political solution.
September 5th, 2012, 8:05 pm
mjabali said:
Visitor:
You said today regarding the Shia:
“follower of a heretic creed that Arabs by in large feel no affinity with whatsoever.”
I told you before who knows more history that you. But let me teach you another lesson.
The Arab Shia are in Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrin, Saudia Arabia, Lebanon, Syria (I did not count Egypt because it has a little Arabic population and the rest are Egyptians), and Yemen.
They are the majority in Iraq and Bahrin with a very sizable portion in Lebanon. If you had not killed them from Syria in the last 1000 years, they would have been the majority there too.
As for being a heretic creed: you know what is tragic here mr. Visitor: is that an average man like you with average education gives himself the power to put the millions of Shia out of Islam and into the heretic category.
In Visitor’s creed: the ones that are deemed heretics do not deserve to live. What time period do you live in mr. Visitor?
As for the fifth column you are talking about I say wake up from your dreams where you talk like al-Baath. What fifth column?
As for you calls for killing: I say it is in your history. Killing and blood. The Alawis always saw this side of you.
September 5th, 2012, 8:13 pm
SYR.EXPAT said:
One of the gems from the interview with Prof. Landis is this quote:
“and that is why the Alawite Army now is killing Sunnis in this beastly way”
Syrian have been living under this bestial regime for close to 50 years. It’s bestial in every sense of the word. This bestial regime is killing Sunnis as the good professor has noted, not just Sunni insurgents. They [Assad and his thugs] were hiding their sectarianism, but now it is in full display. They are killing men, women, and children and are showing no mercy, not even to animals. This is why, as Shaykh Hamza has most astutely noted, those beasts will be shown no mercy from God.
“He [Allah] shows His justice to those who have no mercy and He shows His mercy to those who show mercy and these [the Assad regime and its thugs] are people who have proven themselves beyond the pale of mercy. They have shown no mercy, and so no mercy will be shown to them. Allah [the most exalted] will reveal himself [no physically of course] to these people [the Assad regime and its thugs] who have been destroying the homes, the villages, the hearts and even the children. This is how beyond the pale it’s come to where they can torture children. People like Hamza Al-Khatib, he will have his day. The people that did what they did to him and all the children of Dar’a and all the children of Darayya and all the children of Damascus and Aleppo and Hama. All of these places. They will have their day. Their Lord will not allow those things to have taken place with the free will that he’s given us in this world. He [Allah] will not leave them [the victims of Assad’s gangs] without judgement on those who tyrannized them and we believe this. Allah the most exalted is a just Lord and His justice will be established against those who abused their power.”
The sad part is that the Alawite community with some exceptions decided to stand by Assad right or wrong as a member of this community noted on this blog last year. As more and more Sunnis are losing their families and homes to the barbaric bombings by Assad and his thugs, mountains of anger are forming and the revenge mentality is settling in. I hope the victims of Assad can figure out a way to deal with this to prevent and ugly settling of score.
September 5th, 2012, 8:13 pm
Tara said:
Wishing the same fate to all the Syrian criminals!
• Mauritania has extradited Muammar Gaddafi’s former spy chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, to Libya. After arriving in Tripoli he was reportedly transferred to a prison by helicopter.
• The international tribunal in The Hague, where Senussi is wanted on charges of crimes against humanity, said it had no information about the extradition. Amnesty International has called on Libya hand over Senussi for trial in The Hague.
The Guardian.
September 5th, 2012, 8:15 pm
mjabali said:
Mr. Darryl:
Uzair6 Allahu Akbar was talking yesterday how he hates those with blood on their hands while he calls for the spilling of Syrian blood day after day. He has violent dreams as his companions.
As for his sidekick Visitor I wish he could answer your question because I and many would love to know the answer. It shows you that those who talk about religion really do not know that much about it. It is a very hard task to know all the answers. The dude talks as if he the head scholar in Umm al-Qura or al-Azhar.
September 5th, 2012, 8:20 pm
Ghufran said:
“This is a corrupt, undemocratic police state, but what is going on is not a war in Syria but a battle by outside players for Syria,” he said in an August interview in an office at the Writers Union building in Amman.
Mr. Muwaffaq Mahadin, a prominent opposition figure who writes for the independent Jordanian daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm, has extensive pro-democracy credentials. He was arrested several times for his political views and was even forced to flee the country for a decade, living in exile between Beirut and Damascus.
These days some revile him as a conspiracy theorist while others call him courageous. Regardless, his columns fuel heated debate among Jordanian intellectuals.
Over the years he spent in Damascus, Mr. Mahadin built strong ties with the Syrian opposition. He says the revolt in Syria was initially a spontaneous uprising of the street but was later hijacked by international powers.
Mr. Mahadin is just one of a number of leftist, anti-imperialist intellectuals who believe that the Syrian rebellion is being led by Islamists aligned with the West, manipulated by Gulf states including Qatar and Saudi Arabia on the behalf of the United States and Israel, in order to gain dominance in the region.
A group of 230 influential figures have signed an open letter in the press demanding that Jordan stand with Syria in the face of a global conspiracy.
September 5th, 2012, 8:21 pm
Richard said:
1. Visitor said:
“I only hope that the Sunnis wiil exact retribution in the name of justice and not as pure revenge.
There is no end without such retribution. Human nature DEMNANDS it.”
Good Lord. Human nature doesn’t demand retribution, human stupidity does. South Africa is example where human intelligence triumphed over human stupidity.
I hope for the best case for Syria, which would be massively unanswered injustice.
September 5th, 2012, 8:32 pm
Ghufran said:
بعد البيان الذي أعلنته تنسيقيات قدسيا ودومر والهامة حول قبولها بالتفاوض دون شروط مسبقة شهدت مدينة قدسيا جهوداً استثنائية لتجنيب المدينة وحشية القتال وما يمكن أن يترتب عليها من دمار وسفك للدماء يدفع المواطنون وحدهم ثمنها وتبعاتها المادية، خاصة وأن الأهالي يعانون الأمرين بعد استنزاف مدخراتهم بدفع إيجارات باهظة في المناطق التي نزحوا إليها وفقدان مصادر أرزاقهم نظرا لإغلاق محالهم وتعطل مصالحهم، ولم يعد بإمكانهم تحمل المزيد.
جهود المصالحة التي قادها وجهاء المنطقة قد أسفرت عن التوصل إلى اتفاق تقوم بموجبه المجموعات المسلحة بمغادرة المدينة لتجنيب قدسيا معركة بين هذه المجموعات وبين الجيش السوري. وبالمقابل تقوم اللجان الشعبية بإزالة كافة حواجزها وخاصة حاجز الصفصاف بشكل نهائي وإعادة فتح الطرقات المغلقة إضافة إلى العمل على عودة النازحين عن قدسيا إلى بيوتهم وأعمالهم بأسرع وقت ممكن.
ومن ثم يجري العمل على إعادة مؤسسات الدولة الخدمية إلى قدسيا ( مدارس -بلدية – هاتف – مياه – كهرباء -مستوصف – إطفاء – شرطة مدنية – شرطة مرور – محكمة ) وتشكيل لجنة من الأهالي في كل منطقة للتنسيق بينها لمتابعة ملفات المفقودين والمعتقلين والمطلوبين لتسويتها والعمل على محاصرة ووأد الخروقات الفردية في حال حصولها. بالإضافة إلى تشكيل لجنة لمتابعة أوضاع المتضررين بممتلكاتهم وحصر هذه الأضرار وتقديمها إلى الجهات الرسمية لتعويض الأهالي وفق التعليمات النافذة في هذا المجال.
September 5th, 2012, 8:37 pm
Richard said:
32. zoo said:
“I am sure that if the FSA is able to penetrate the areas where most Alawites villages loyal to the regime are, they will be ruthless: Just hear the hatred and calls for bloody revenge pouring from young sunni kids in the refugees camps.”
The longer the war goes on, the worse it all gets.
A stalemate will not lead to a resolution, it will lead to more parentless children.
Until one side demonstrates that they will prevail, there is no reason for either side to negotiate. The loser-lose-all psychology is not going away.
September 5th, 2012, 9:04 pm
Tara said:
Blood-soaked streets of Syria: Horrific images show city devastated by government air strike with parents struggling to help badly-wounded children
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198756/Syria-crisis-Horrific-images-city-devastated-government-parents-struggling-help-injured-children.html?openGraphAuthor=%2Fhome%2Fsearch.html%3Fs%3D%26authornamef%3DAnthony%2BBond%2B&videoPlayerURL=http%3A%2F%2Fc.brightcove.com%2Fservices%2Fviewer%2Ffederated_f9%3FisVid%3D1%26isUI%3D1%26publisherID%3D1418450360%26playerID%3D72484359001%26domain%3Dembed%26videoId%3D&hasBCVideo=true&BCVideoID=1824725386001
September 5th, 2012, 9:09 pm
Tara said:
Turkey accuses Syria of ‘state terrorism’
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY | Associated Press – 6 hrs ago
http://news.yahoo.com/turkey-accuses-syria-state-terrorism-184643785.html
BEIRUT (AP) — Turkey accused Syria of “state terrorism” Wednesday after a sharp spike in the death toll from the Syrian civil war, and Iran came under new scrutiny with the U.S. alleging that Tehran is flying weapons to President Bashar Assad’s regime across Iraqi airspace.
With violence escalating in the nearly 18-month-old crisis, strains rippled across the region as Egypt’s president urged Assad to take a lesson from the Arab Spring uprisings that deposed other leaders and step down.
..
“The regime has become one of state terrorism,” said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Syria is going through a huge humanitarian saga. Unfortunately, as usual, the international community is merely watching the slaughter, massacre and the elimination of Muslims.”
..
Tommy Vietor, the National Security Council spokesman at the White House, said Tehran “will stop at nothing to support a Syrian regime that is murdering its own people,” adding that Iraq, like all other nations, must block Iran from exporting arms.
September 5th, 2012, 9:20 pm
Ghufran said:
تعهَّد الرئيس المصري محمد مرسي بحماية الخليج ضد أية محاولة للسيطرة أو الهيمنة، مشددًا على رفض التدخل في شؤون أية دولة عربية أو المساس باستقرارها.
وقال مرسي أمام اجتماع وزراء الخارجية العرب اليوم بمقر جامعة الدول العربية في القاهرة: “أرحب بالدعم الذي قدَّمه الأشقاء في السعودية لليمن الشقيق فهم أخوة، ونحن نقدِّر ونثمِّن دورهم ونقف دومًا إلى جوارهم في السعودية والخليج، ونسعى لدرء أية محاولة للتدخل أو الهيمنة في مقدراتهم أو شؤونهم، في إطار من الالتزام المصري التاريخي بالعرب أينما كانوا”.
Money talks..
Morsi, has a lot to worry about at home, nobody will argue against Egypt’s weight and potential, but I would like Morsi to use both eyes to see the whole picture, I guess the color green coming from those Qatari deposits is a tongue booster.
September 5th, 2012, 9:50 pm
Ghufran said:
قال البنك المركزي الليبي الأربعاء إن قيمة أصوله تصل إلى 121 مليار دولار, مؤكدا من جهة أخرى أن القطاع المصرفي في ليبيا ممتاز.
وأضاف البنك في بيان لوكالة يونايتد برس إنترناشونال أن الأصول التي في حوزته هي في شكل احتياطيات ومشاركات, مشيرا إلى أن مدخراته من العملة الأجنبية تغطي واردات البلاد من السلع والخدمات لمدة خمسين شهرا (أربع سنوات وشهرين).
Libya has less than 7 million people.
September 5th, 2012, 9:56 pm
Atheist Syrian Salafist Against Dictatorships said:
Many cut and paste pieces without any mention of sources.
Please tell us from where you’re getting your little snippets of information, thanks.
September 5th, 2012, 11:01 pm
ann said:
fsa destroys mosque!
FSA destroys mosque to blame the Syria military
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/08/hillary-clinton-dances-in-south-africa/?iref=allsearch
September 5th, 2012, 11:13 pm
Syrain said:
تسجيل واضح يرصد لحظة سقوط مئذنة في حي الاذاعة بحلب
http://www.aksalser.com/?page=view_articles&id=07369fc32960d2b390001b2794e6b0c6&ar=661782952
September 5th, 2012, 11:21 pm
zoo said:
50 Ghufran
Thank God, some enlighted people are waking up to the vicious, devoring and destructive monster that this ‘revolution’ has turned out to be.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are feeding the monster in the name of a democracy they don’t even have and a freedom they don’t even give to more than half of their population.
September 5th, 2012, 11:56 pm
zoo said:
Fierce debate in Turkey about Syria’s policy while Erdogan is in a hurry to be in Syria so he can pray near Saladin grave… if Allah wants it.
Premier vows to pray in Damascus mosque ‘soon’
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/premier-vows-to-pray-in-damascus-mosque-soon.aspx?pageID=238&nID=29505&NewsCatID=338
…But we will go there in the shortest possible time, if Allah wills it; and embrace our brothers. That day is close. We will pray near the grave of Salahaddin Ayyubi and pray in the Umayyad Mosque. We will pray for our brotherhood freely in Hejaz Railway Station,” Erdoğan said,
……
Kılıçdaroğlu for his part continued to criticize the government’s foreign policy regarding Syria, suggesting that Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has used the U.N. as a “wailing wall,” and indicating that the government is not capable of dealing with the Syrian crisis.
“They pompously said that Turkey is the leader of its region. But look at our situation. Our foreign minister has turned the U.N. into a wailing wall. Does this befit the foreign minister of Turkey? I cannot accept this. The people do not accept this either,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, in a speech delivered at a meeting of the heads of provincial CHP women’s branches.
The CHP has been critical of the government’s Syria policy since the very beginning of the conflict, Kılıçdaroğlu said. “We prepared a resolution project and drew a roadmap [for ending the Syrian conflict] but they accused us of acting unethically. We urged them to correct their mistakes, but they did not.” k HDN
September 6th, 2012, 12:06 am
zoo said:
Is Turkish camp the Syrian rebels’ HQ? Is the Turkish government lying to its own people?
Thomas Seibert
Sep 5, 2012
http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/is-turkish-camp-the-syrian-rebels-hq
ISTANBUL // Turkey is offering more support for Syrian rebel fighters than the government in Ankara is ready to admit, opposition politicians say.
Turkish legislators visited a special camp for Syrian military deserters in Apaydin in the southern border province of Hatay yesterday. This camp, two kilometres from the Syrian border and closed to the media, is widely believed to be the headquarters of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) that is fighting to topple Bashar Al Assad’s regime.
Although Turkey hosts leaders of the main body of the political opposition, the Syrian National Council, the Turkish government insists that it is not giving military support to the rebels fighting Mr Al Assad’s security forces.
Turkish opposition leaders have pointed to the Apaydin camp as evidence to the contrary, claiming it houses about 300 Syrian ex-soldiers and policemen, including about 30 former generals, according to Turkish officials.
…
Riad Al Asaad, the FSA commander, is also believed to be in Apaydin.
“Apaydin is an illegal military base on Turkish territory,” Mehmet Ali Ediboglu, an opposition legislator from Hatay, said yesterday. “There are five or six other places in Hatay with weapons and training facilities” of the FSA, he added. “People in Hatay know the naked truth, but the government keeps telling lies.”
….
September 6th, 2012, 12:16 am
Ghufran said:
How many people here are willing to believe alarabiya without cross checking its claims?
أعلن المجلس العسكري الأعلى للجيش السوري الحر، انشقاق العميد عوض أحمد العلي، رئيس فرع الأمن الجنائي في دمشق، مشيراً إلى أنه وصل إلى تركيا، بحسب ما أفاد مراسل “العربية” من الحدود التركية–السورية.
Those individual defections have proven ineffective so far,however, any effort to stop blood shed must be encouraged, the question is : does it really change anything if one guy leaves and another takes over?
September 6th, 2012, 12:17 am
zoo said:
A Kurdish Spring in Turkey and Syria?
Ioannis Michaletos
September 5, 2012
http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/3935.cfm
The uprisings of the Arab Spring are spilling over into an awakening of Kurdish people and their national self-definition. The Kurds number some 30 million people scattered around Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and the Caucasus. The civil war in Syria has provided certain Kurdish armed groups with the opportunity to further arm themselves and enact a round of attacks against the Turkish Army, hoping to create a second autonomous Kurdish region in the Middle East, the first being Northern Iraq. Characteristically, Massoud Barzani, current president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, said, “The Kurdish nation will be united and the day of self-determination is coming.”
Since the end of 2011, as the war in Syria was building, Kurdish guerilla groups in Turkey, such as PKK, intensified their attacks. Turkish officials at that period frequently commented in the press that Northern Syria was becoming a de facto autonomous Kurdish region, from where guerillas would supply themselves with arms and launch attacks. Turkish Defense Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, “A plan to create a string of autonomous Kurdish states will set pace for the creation of the great Kurdistan that will eventual carve the Turkish territory.”
…
The major fear in Ankara is a prolonged civil war in Syria that will completely free the 2 million Kurdish minority from Damascus control, driving them toward an ethnic Kurdish hub and emergence of an all-out war in the whole of southeastern Turkey. The Kurds in Syria remain neutral in the fight between Assad’s government and its opponents, weighting the situation as to when it would be suitable to proclaim their own independence. Turkey on the other hand supports the Syrian National Council, which is under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and is being financed mostly by the emirate of Qatar. Thus Turkey is pursuing the ousting of Assad in order to forge closer ties with Qatar (and Egypt) and gain a leading role in the Islamic world, while also fueling the ambitions of the Kurds to dismember Turkey.
The Kurdish Democratic Union, or PYD, controls most of the 900 kilometer border line between Syria and Turkey. Should it decide to fully support PKK—who engages from the Turkish-Iraqi border—it will bring about a major military headache in Ankara, which will have to transfer military units from central Turkey in order to withstand the pressure.
…
The Kurdish uprising and rebel activity seems to be gaining momentum, and any developments will be critically linked to the eventual resolve of the Syrian crisis.
——-
Syria and Iran ‘backing Kurdish terrorist group’, says Turkey
Turkey has accused Syria and Iran of backing Kurdish terrorist attacks on military outposts in the south-east of the country that left 30 dead.
Syria and Iran ‘backing Kurdish terrorist group’, says Turkey
By Damien McElroy, Sherween, Aleppo
8:30PM BST 03 Sep 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/9518194/Syria-and-Iran-backing-Kurdish-terrorist-group-says-Turkey.html
September 6th, 2012, 12:24 am
Hamoudeh al-Halabi said:
Homs: What Barrel Bombings Look Like
http://freehalab.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/homs-what-barrel-bombings-look-like/
Thanks for the quotes from Sh. Hamza’s speech Uzair and Syr. Expat, I added them to the post:
http://freehalab.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/shaykh-hamza-yusuf-imam-zaid-shakir-at-dc-rally-for-syria/
September 6th, 2012, 12:35 am
Juergen said:
Syrian girl talks about how she was used by the regimes media to lie in tv
I hope those signs will all end up where they belong!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151073773771247&set=a.10150555196441247.389740.17702461246&type=1&theater
September 6th, 2012, 12:37 am
Syrialover said:
RICHARD
I’ve responded to your response at the end of the last thread. Thanks.
Though discussing Zoo is really wasting time splashing around in the shallows.
For those who missed it, here’s a cute Zooism, nested among his camouflage cliches:
“Unfortunately the opposition and the FSA have shown to be even more totalitarian than the regime they criticize. They put their ego and the foreign interests before the interests and the lives of the Syrians.”
(Zoo, previous thread – September 5th, 2012, 12:07 pm)
September 6th, 2012, 12:44 am
Visitor said:
These Alawites who according to this report are active participants in the Revolution should fear nothing as they will be treated as full fledged Syrians when the Revolution takes over Syria. They will have the same rights and duties as all other Syrians.
http://www.nowlebanon.com/Arabic/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=433333
Shabbiha however will have to be severely punished regardless of their affiliations. They have to pay the ultimate penalty for their atrocities and crimes against Syria and its people.
September 6th, 2012, 12:46 am
Syrialover said:
New thread started
September 6th, 2012, 2:20 am
Nouchik said:
The Syrian people should not have to flee their homes because of a man who doesn’t want to step down from his so called “elected” position. Syria should have a fair election where there is more than one candidate and where the people can vote for who they think is right for their county! The world needs to step up and stop the killings of the Syrian people especially the killings for innocent children. We need the world, not just one or two countries, to step up and stop the unfair treatment of the Syrian people. We need to find a solution for a fair and just Syrian that can thrive in the 21st century. Thank you for posting these updates and letting people say what they feel about the situation.
September 7th, 2012, 12:32 am
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