Washington and Western capitals are making headway in establishing a “contact group” among the regional states on Syria. The orchestrated warnings to Damascus from all US allies in the region is a success for the State Department’s diplomacy. It puts Syria’s Muslim neighbors in the lime-light and keeps the US, Western Powers, and Israel in the shadows, where they believe they must remain lest they de-legitimizing the Syrian opposition with excessive muscle flexing.

The Saudi Ambassador to Syria had invited guests to iftar at the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus in the hours before the King issued his recall. It would seem that the ambassador did not know his recall was to be announced. Al Watan newspaper says that the Saudi King’s letter appears to be an American letter that ignores the real events and proofs on the ground.

Everyone awaits Iran’s reaction today. Will Tehran come out with a strong statement backing Damascus and promising greater support for Syria or will it instead remain quite or content itself with a pro-forma statement of support for its regional ally? The Saudi statement ups the ante considerably for Damascus and turns the struggle for Syria into a more sharply defined religious and geo-strategic match between SA and Iran. Iran’s response will be key. Damascus may wait to make its own response until it communicates with Tehran.

Anthony Shadid writes today that “the business elite in Damascus has begun preparing for the government’s fall.” I wish we knew Anthony’s source for this important bit of info. He is in Lebanon, where he can meet with Syrian businessmen traveling through. It is hard to know what this would mean. How united are Syrian businessmen and what does it mean to prepare for the government’s fall? Buying gold? Or more? Surely this will be a Shadid feature in the coming days. My appetite is whetted and I am eager for the details.

A new Christian defense  minister has been appointed by Assad. General Daood Rajha, who was the army’s chief of staff, replaces General Ali Habib in the post.

Syria’s neighbours building a coalition against Assad’s government
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last week that his country’s patience with Syria has run out, and that the events taking place in Syria constituted an “internal matter” to Turkey.
By Exclusive Analysis – Telegraph
08 Aug 2011

The Gulf Cooperation Council, a coalition of six Arab, oil-rich, Gulf states dominated by Saudi Arabia, then issued a statement asking for an end to the bloodshed in Syria.

On Sunday, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, in the first such public speech, asked Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end the military campaign against protesters and to enact sweeping reforms.

It is very likely that these various statements were coordinated, and that they form part of a process aimed at building a coalition against Syria’s government. The next step would likely be for other Muslim and Arab states, prompted by Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to become more vocal in their criticism of President al-Assad.

Saudi Arabia, through its connections to insurgents and Sunni tribes in Iraq and to Sunni politicians in Lebanon, will likely provide additional financing for weapons smuggling operations into Syria.

Turkey is the only country with the military capability, national security interests and favourable geographic location that can intervene in Syria.
Related Articles

Turkey is increasingly likely to receive international support, from Nato and the Arab League and possibly from the UN Security Council, to send troops into northern Syria. In its initial stages, this would likely involve the creation of a 10km-20km buffer zone in Hasaka, Raqqa, Idlib and Aleppo Provinces.

Further, the statements by the GCC and Saudi Arabia indicate increased Arab support for Syria’s Sunni majority, which will likely lead to increased protests against the Ba’ath ruling party.

The risk of protests spreading to central Damascus and to Aleppo has therefore increased. Protests in Aleppo or in the Druse-dominated Suwayda province would increase the strain on the already overstretched Syrian Army and regime protection units, the Presidential Guard and the 4th Division, and making defections more likely and increasing the risk of an internal coup against President al-Assad.

Monday, August 8, 2011
Syrian president unites international community in condemnation of his violence
By James M. Dorsey

Syrian president Bashar al Assad has succeeded where US and European diplomacy failed: five months into anti-government demonstrations demanding his resignation, Mr. Assad has united the international community in decrying the brutality of his failed effort to crush the protests.
Increasingly cornered, Mr. Assad failed in the past week to read the writing on the wall. His ferocious attack on Hama, Syria’s fourth largest city and a symbol of resistance against his family’s four-decade old iron-fisted rule, prompted the United Nations Security Council to call last Tuesday for a halt to the crackdown for the first time since the protests erupted….

Syrian Military Mounts Assault on Another City
By ANTHONY SHADID, August 7, 2011

Other signs of pressure on the government have emerged, perhaps most importantly indications that the business elite in Damascus has begun preparing for the government’s fall. That elite has long proved one of the most important pillars of the Syrian leadership, notably during the Islamist revolt in 1982.

“The regime is its own worst enemy, and it can’t be saved from itself,” said a Damascus-based analyst who asked to remain anonymous. “It is ripe for collapse, but the question remains what will trigger it and when.”

Residents put the death toll in Deir al-Zour at 42, and one of them said a family of six trying to escape — a couple with four children — was among the dead. Activists said that many residents had left in recent days. A local man who gave his name as Maamoun said that pickup trucks packed with as many as 25 women and children each were fleeing down abandoned streets.

Syrian President Names New Defence Minister, 2011-08-08

DAMASCUS (AFP)–Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Monday appointed a new defence minister, state television reported, amid mounting Arab condemnation of nearly five months of deadly crackdown on dissent. “President Assad has signed a decree naming General Daood Rajha as the head of the defence ministry,” the television report said. Rajha, who was the army’s chief of staff, replaces General Ali Habib in the post.

DEBKA merrily admits that hama ‘protestors’ have ‘anti-tank weapons’

Turkey revives military threat as Syrian tanks storm Deir al-Zour
DEBKAfile, Aug 7 2011

After capturing the northern town of Hama in a bloody military assault, on Sunday Aug 7 Assad sent a whole division of 200 tanks and dozens of armored vehicles to blast their way into another rebellious city, Syria’s oil center of Deir el-Zour in the Euphrates Valley, a town of half a million inhabitants. At least 70 people were reported dead in one day. While Hama is a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold, Deir el-Zour is the urban center of some 2.1 million members of assorted nomadic Bedouin tribes. They too are Sunni Muslims though of different sects. The Baqqara tribal federation is the largest, numbering 1.2 million, followed by the Fadan Walad and the Fadan Kharsa of the Euphrates Valley and the al Shammar Karsah of Deir al Zour and its environs. Unlike the protesters of Hama, these tribesmen lack anti-tank weapons for battling Syrian armor and so their town may not hold out against the Syrian onslaught beyond two or three days. The tribesmen have meanwhile run for cover t!

o the dense papyrus groves of the river bank and the narrow wadis of the Iraqi al Anbar province just across the border. From these hiding places, our military sources expect them refugees to organize protracted guerrilla warfare against the Assad regime and Syrian army. These are the very tribes which from 2003 to 2006 joined al Qaeda in bloody warfare on US forces in central Iraq, preventing Anbar and the central Iraqi towns of Falujja and Ramadi ever being completely subdued and constantly convulsed by suicide attacks. It was only when Bush 43 agreed to implement the Awakening Councils plan put forward by Gen Petraeus, which involved substantial monthly payments to the tribal chiefs for warfare against al Qaeda, that Al Anbar was pacified.

Aware of the menace posed by these tribes, Syrian security services last week, ahead of the Deir el-Zour offensive, captured the Baqqara tribal chief Sheikh Nawaf al-Bashir as hostage against the tribes joining the uprising against the regime. Syrian military intelligence will find him a tough nut to crack, even for a heavy bribe. The upshot may well be that although the Syrian army finally subjugates Deir al-Zour and Abu Kemal on the Iraqi border, its forces will be cornered by Sunni tribes which control the road networks around the two eastern towns and prey to their raids. Assad’s offensive against the two towns also places at risk Syria’s small oil fields and pipeline system…..

Kuwait Joins Saudis in Pulling Ambassador from Syria on Violence
2011-08-08, By Dahlia Kholaif

Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) — Kuwait recalled its ambassador from Damascus for consultations, following a similar move by Saudi Arabia today, amid a deadly crackdown by Syrian forces against protesters. Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Al-Sabah, speaking to reporters in Parliament, also said members of the Gulf Cooperation Council will soon meet to discuss Syria.

Bahrain recalls ambassador from Syria “for consultations”

Arab League: don’t expect “drastic” steps over Syria

12 leading Aleppo Imams Condemning the Spilling of the Blood of Innocents.  al-Akhbar

They state that the regime is particularly responsible for the situation because it is the stronger.

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Shaykh Yaqoubi of the Ummayad Mosque States Support for Revolution – Youtube

Syrian Shaykh Yaqoubi at the recent Istanbul Ulema (scholar) Conference. The Shaykh was twice dismissed from his position at the Ummayad mosque in Damascus. He gives a message to the regime and the protestors. He reassures his listeners that a successful revolution will not mean a change on the position regarding Israel. He reminds the Cities of Syria their religious duty to support a just revolution. The Shaykh calls for a dialogue on a peaceful transition of power in which all sects are respected and protected and the economy is preserved.

‘Lebanese parties inflame Syrian unrest’ Iran TV

Syrian ministry of defense site has been hacked http://t.co/66nb90Y #Syria http://fb.me/ujGVf6re

Syrian Opposition Leader: Israelis Can Remain in Golan

Wash Post

Like Hama, Deir al-Zour had effectively fallen under the control of the protesters, who had erected barricades to keep the military out, enabling them to stage massive rallies that routinely drew tens of thousands of people.

Moreover, the city’s remote desert location near Iraq gives it a special sensitivity because many of its residents have family ties to tribes in the Iraqi province of Anbar and, like their kinsmen, typically keep weapons, raising the specter of armed confrontations between the military and anti-government forces.

Austria suspends its delivery of bank notes to Syria because of the brutal repression.

Majid Al Futtaim begins construction work on first mixed-use development in Syria

Deir ez-Zor

Activists say 50 people killed in Deir ez-Zor
07 Aug 2011

Syrian forces have launched an assault on two towns, reportedly killing dozens of people in an increasingly violent crackdown on anti-government protests.

According the Local Co-ordination Committees of Syria, an opposition human rights group, government forces killed more than 70 people across several cities.

Activists also told Al Jazeera on Sunday that troops had killed at least 50 people in the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor alone. The city was under siege and electricity and phone lines were cut, according to another source. “Shelling has been heard in several areas,” Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human rights, told the AFP news agency.

He also said that a sweeping campaign of arrests followed with “dozens” of people being taken into custody. Seven people, including two children, were also reported killed in the town of Al Holeh in the central Homs province. Abdel Rahman said about 25 tanks and troop carriers had entered Hula and carried out military operations.

Syrian Forces Open Fierce Assault on Eastern City, By ANTHONY SHADID, August 7, 2011

Analysis: Syria army keeps cohesion but risks overstretch

WINEP Outline of Key Syrian Opposition Members by Tabler – provides useful map

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s August 2 meeting in Washington with Syrian democracy activists, as well as U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford’s comments at his Senate confirmation hearing later the same day, highlight the administration’s outreach to the Syrian opposition — a historically divided group that now must come together and prepare for a post-Asad transition. This featured graphic, including the attached descriptive essay, outlines the Syrian opposition and its key players.

Syrian protesters win support of Iraqi kinsmen Reuters

Despite the military siege on their town, some Albu Kamal residents are trying to smuggle their women and children into Iraq for safety while they pursue protests against Assad’s rule.

“My uncle is trying to send his family to Iraq,” said Ahmed Jassim, a Qaim supermarket owner told Reuters by telephone. “But he wants stay there (in Albu Kamal) until there is victory.”

Syrian opposition admits armed insurgents are operating on fringe of uprising against Assad regime
By Adrian Blomfield, Telegraph

Syria’s opposition has admitted that armed insurgents are operating on the fringes of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, raising fears that extremists could take the country into civil war….

Saudi king recalls ambassador and demands end to Syria bloodshed, Guardian

Statement is sharpest criticism yet directed by Saudi Arabia against Arab state since Middle East unrest began

Erdoghan sends Turkish Foreign Minister to up the Pressure on Syria
Sibel Utku Bila, Sunday, August 7, 2011

ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News  PM Erdo?an’s statement that Ankara’s patience with Syria is running out draws a harsh response from Damascus ahead of a visit by the Turkish foreign minister. ‘The process from now on will take shape according to the response [al-Assad] will give and the practices on the ground,’ Erdo?an said Saturday.

Turkey is set to deliver a final warning to Syria that it must end the bloodshed sweeping the country and introduce reforms or Ankara will join international measures against the regime, officials said Sunday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu will go to Damascus on Tuesday to deliver this warning following the harshest reaction yet from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an to the deadly unrest sweeping Syria. Erdo?an said Saturday that Ankara’s patience with the situation was running out and that Davuto?lu would convey “a resolute message” to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that he risks losing Turkey’s support.

Turkey sends a message to Syria that Britain cannot –
Simon Tisdall: Syrian visit by the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has the appearance of a showdown – but President Bashar al-Assad might listen

The foreign secretary, William Hague, admitted last week there was not much more Britain could do to halt the Syrian crackdown, while his US counterpart, Hillary Clinton, has been reduced to counting the dead.

But Turkey, Syria’s more powerful neighbour, is less supine. It is sending its foreign minister to Damascus on Tuesday to read the riot act to Syria’s gore-soaked president, Bashar al-Assad….

US envoy vows to monitor Syria violence firsthand
7 August 2011
Agence France Presse

The US envoy to Syria has returned to monitor the “grotesque” crackdown there, placing himself on a collision course with Damascus, which has imposed strict constraints on diplomats…..

State Department urges Americans to leave Syria
By MATTHEW LEE Associated Press
Posted: 08/05/2011

WASHINGTON—The State Department on Friday urged Americans in Syria to leave the country immediately and advised those who remain in the country to restrict their movements, as the Syrian government intensified a violent crackdown on opposition protesters. The warning came as congressional calls grew for the Obama administration to impose severe new sanctions on President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Israel mum on Syria, US Jewish groups speak out
By GIL SHEFLER, JPOST CORRESPONDENT
08/05/2011

American Jewish Committee says resolution not enough, more measures targeting Syrian government, country’s energy sector should be passed.

NEW YORK – Condemnation of Syria in the wake of the crackdown on anti-government movement in Hama that started last weekend has been vocal and near universal.

Israel has been one of the few exceptions. Jerusalem has remained mute on the subject, perhaps because it has been preoccupied by protests at home over the cost of housing. More likely, however, because it does not want to be seen as supporting the movement that Syrian President Bashar Assad has accused of being orchestrated by Israel, in a bid to delegitimize it.

Jewish-American organizations, however, have no such qualms and have been more outspoken in their condemnation of Israel’s northeastern neighbor.

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday all issued statements criticizing Damascus.

“The people in Syria have been looking to the West and saying ‘your silence is killing us,’” said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents….

“They attack Israel, but when it came to Syria, where the violations are so blatant, they did not and it highlighted the double standard or quadruple standard found in the United Nations,” he said.

The message that human rights violations were unacceptable should be extended to Iran, which “provides weapons and manpower to suppress the popular expressions [in Syria],” Hoenlein said……..

The Anti-Defamation League also said the resolution approved by the Security Council was insufficient and urged the council pass sanctions against the government in Damascus.

“While it is appropriate for the Security Council to be dealing with the ongoing crisis in Syria, the council’s presidential statement condemning the Assad regime’s human rights violations and ruthless use of force against Syrian civilians is a wholly inadequate response,” ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said. “In light of the regime’s brutality in recent months, particularly its current actions in the town of Hama, we urge the council to adopt a resolution that will make it unambiguously clear to President Assad that unless he reverses course, the international community will impose immediate consequences on his repressive regime.”

Syria expresses dismay over Gulf council’s statement, 2011-08-07

DAMASCUS, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) — A source in Syrian Foreign Ministry expressed Sunday dismay over the statement issued a day earlier by the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council calling for an immediate end of the violence and for a prompt implementation of reforms in Syria.

In a statement faxed to Xinhua, the foreign ministry source said the GCC statement has “entirely disregarded facts presented by Syria, both in terms of slaughter and sabotage acts perpetrated by armed groups that target Syria’s security and sovereignty, or in terms of the package of significant reforms announced by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad” in a speech he made on June 20.

The statement said the Syrian president has underscored, in his speech, the importance of national dialogue as the best solution to the current crisis. But, it added, the “negative” stand showed by the Syrian opposition, in addition to the continued acts of killing and sabotaging, “haven’t prevented the Syrian leadership from working” to put the announced reforms into force.

It said breaking the current cycle of violence requires a call from “our Arab brothers in the GCC to stop all acts of vandalism, denounce armed violence carried out by groups that don’t want welfare for Syria, and give the necessary time for the presented reforms to yield fruits.”

The statement urged the Gulf leaders to reconsider their stands “taking into consideration what the Syrian leadership is doing to bypass the current crisis.”

The Gulf Cooperation Council expressed on Saturday its utmost concern over “the excessive use of force” in Syria, the six-member bloc said in a statement.

The bloc, grouping Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain, called for an end to “bloodshed” in Syria, which has been sweeping by pro-democracy protests since March.

The statement came one day after the U.S., French and German leaders vowed to mull over fresh punitive steps on Syria.

Meanwhile, Syrian president’s adviser for political and media affairs, Bouthayna Shaaban, said Sunday that if the Turkish foreign minister is visiting Syria to deliver a “firm message” to Syria, “he would hear stronger words.”

Weapons Smugglers Charged in Beirut as Solidere Says it Doesn’t Have Inspection Duty at Marina
by Naharnet Newsdesk

The military prosecutor general has charged two Lebanese men with allegedly smuggling weapons from the Beirut Marina to Syria, a security source told As Safir daily published Saturday.

Wasim Tamim and Samir Tamim, who hail from the northern port city of Tripoli, are members of the most prominent movements in the former parliamentary majority, sources said in reference to ex-PM Saad Hariri’s al-Mustaqbal movement.

The men were arrested in Beirut last Friday, they said, adding that they have carried out more than 30 smuggling operations from Beirut to the Syrian city of Banias.

Revolution Statistics According to Monajed:

Syrians killed: 2,293
Civilian casualties: 1,906
Army casualties: 387
Missing: 3,000
Banned from travel: 650
Protesters killed by torture: 53
Protesters currently incarcerated: around 15,000
Syrian refugees since the revolution: around 12,577
Refugees in Turkey: 10,227
Refugees in Lebanon: 2,300

Dr. Waleed Al Bunni & his 2 sons (18 & 14) were arrested

WikiLeaks Cables Show US Strategy for Regime Change in Syria as Protesters are Massacred
By: Kevin Gosztola Friday August 5, 2011

In the aftermath of a massacre in Hama, Syria state media broadcasted images of “burnt, buildings, makeshift barricades and deserted streets strewn with rubble,” according to the New York Times and claimed the revolt in Syria has ended. Meanwhile, The Guardian reports tens of thousands have taken to the streets all over the country and are continuing a five-months old uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at a press conference and said the Syrian government has killed more than 2,000 people in its brutal crackdown on protests in the past months. She told the press the US was extending sanctions against a “prominent businessman and MP,” who allegedly has close ties to Assad. This marked the “fourth round of US sanctions against Syria aimed at pressuring Assad’s government to ease its bloody crackdown against unarmed protesters,” according to The Guardian. However, numerous Syrian protesters and some US senators are dissatisfied, as the sanctions do not target Syria’s oil and gas sector.

As protests continue and the brutal crackdown on protests wears on, US State Embassy cables released by the media organization WikiLeaks provide a greater understanding of the Washington power politics that have led to this moment.

For the past five to six years, the US policy toward Syria has used what could be called a two-pronged strategy to push for regime change. The US has supported “civil society” activists or external opposition organizations. It has also worked to delegitimize, destabilize and isolate the country through the application of sanctions and various other measures, which could be applied to exploit vulnerabilities.

A cable from December 13, 2006, opens with the conclusion that the Syrian government has ended 2006 “in a position much stronger domestically and internationally than it did [in] 2005.” It features a collection of possible actions that could be taken to undermine the Assad regime.

The vulnerabilities listed include: the Rafiq Hariri investigation and tribunal (Hariri was a Lebanese Prime Minister who was assassinated in a major car bombing); the alliance with Tehran; the regime’s “inner circle”; divisions in the military-security services; the corrupt Baathist elites; previous failures of reform; the economy; the Kurds; extremists and the “Khaddam factor” (Abdul Halim Khaddam is an exiled former Syrian Vice President, whose name appears in a number of the cables released thus far.)

Some of the proposed actions for exploiting these vulnerabilities are outlined in the cable:

ENCOURAGE RUMORS AND SIGNALS OF EXTERNAL PLOTTING:

The regime is intensely sensitive to rumors about coup-plotting and restlessness in the security services and military. Regional allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia should be encouraged to meet with figures like Khaddam and Rifat Asad as a way of sending such signals, with appropriate leaking of the meetings afterwards. This again touches on this insular regime,s paranoia and increases the possibility of a self-defeating over-reaction.

THE KHADDAM FACTOR

…We should continue to encourage the Saudis and others to allow Khaddam access to their media outlets, providing him with venues for airing the SARG,s dirty laundry. We should anticipate an overreaction by the regime that will add to its isolation and alienation from its Arab neighbors…

HIGHLIGHT KURDISH COMPLAINTS: Highlighting Kurdish complaints in public statements, including publicizing human rights abuses will exacerbate regime,s concerns about the Kurdish population. Focus on economic hardship in Kurdish areas and the SARG,s long-standing refusal to offer citizenship to some 200,000 stateless Kurds. This issue would need to be handled carefully, since giving the wrong kind of prominence to Kurdish issues in Syria could be a liability for our efforts at uniting the opposition, given Syrian (mostly Arab) civil society’s skepticism of Kurdish objectives.

PLAY ON SUNNI FEARS OF IRANIAN INFLUENCE: There are fears in Syria that the Iranians are active in both Shia proselytizing and conversion of, mostly poor, Sunnis. Though often exaggerated, such fears reflect an element of the Sunni community in Syria that is increasingly upset by and focused on the spread of Iranian influence in their country through activities ranging from mosque construction to business. Both the local Egyptian and Saudi missions here, (as well as prominent Syrian Sunni religious leaders), are giving increasing attention to the matter and we should coordinate more closely with their governments on ways to better publicize and focus regional attention on the issue.

This is clearly manipulative and underhanded. It shouldn’t be surprising that the Assad regime would want to crack down violently on any protests. The shadiness of US relations with Syria is only amplified if you look at the other aspect of the US push for regime change: the public funding of opposition groups.

The US Doesn’t Undermine Countries, It Transforms Them….

Adonis, famous Alawi Poet, Asks Assad to Step Down

Samar Yazbek addresses her ALawite community: Bashar is a killer and his family is criminal – al-Arabiya

Clinton: Syria Death Toll Exceeds 2,000
Friday, 5 August 2011

Secretary of State Hillary said the United States is committed to doing all it can, including additional sanctions, to curb the abuses. But she said the U.S. effort needs help from countries with broader business dealings with Syria.

“But not just U.S. sanctions because, frankly, we do not have lot of business with Syria,” said Secretary Clinton. “We need to get Europeans and others [involved]. We need to get the Arab states. We need to get a much louder, more effective chorus of voices that are putting pressure on the Assad regime, and we’re working to obtain that.”

Syria’s general elections to take place by end of 2011: FM
2011-08-06

DAMASCUS, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) — Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al- Moallem said Saturday that the country’s general elections will take place by the end of this year, adding that it would be “free and fair.”

Al-Moallem made the statement during his meeting with foreign ambassadors in capital Damascus, in which he said the new parliament will represent the aspirations of the Syrian people.

The current parliament’s four-year term has expired earlier this year, and President Bashar al-Assad will set a date for new legislative elections before the end of 2011.

The Syrian leadership is going on with the process of reform, al-Moallem said, adding that all the reform steps announced by the president will be implemented soon.

He voiced the Syrian leadership’s keenness to maintain the security and stability of the country and to put an end to the sabotaging acts.

The Syrian leadership is still affirming that the only way out of the current ordeal is through a national dialogue, Al-Moallem told the ambassadors, adding that in the absence of the national dialogue “because of the negativity of the opposition,” the leadership has to move on with the reform.

The foreign minister’s remarks came as his country is facing an international outcry over the alleged crackdown on anti-government protestors. According to activists, more than 1,700 civilians have been killed since the crisis began in mid-March.

Washington Post:”Bashar al-Assad must step down”

By Robert P. Casey Jr, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian affairs.

Angry Arab,  “The Armed terrorist groups in Syria”

Syrian regime TV is quite repulsive. It is a combination of fake religiosity, Syrian chauvinism (a la Lebanese Phoenicianism) and tons of lies. Look at the constant references to “armed terrorist groups”: what are their ideological orientations? I ask because <b>the regime jails people on the left, center, and right and in between</b>. Unless the regime maintains that this bizarre “armed terrorist group” comprises people of different ideological stripes.

The Deir ez-Zor tribal meeting that I posted about last, is provided in greater length here. Thanks to Revlon who also provides as short summary

It shows proceedings of the tribal meeting that came on the heel of the abduction of Sheikh Shuyookh Syrian tribes Sheikh nawaf AlBasheer.???? ??????? ?? ??? ????? , Aug 3, 2011

Young tribal member (5 minutes)

– Wheather there is dialogue or no diologue – although I am against dialogue with the regime because no regime will negotiate its own suicide. they are merely playing for time.

– I am calling you – al-mujahidiin – and I emphasis the word, “mujahidiin” because this is a jihad and we are a jihadist society. We need to create a generation of Jihadists.

– No regime will sign to its surrender.
– The soldiers, shabbeha and foreign mercenaries besieging our city are terrified of us. They think of us as cannibals. This plays into our hands!
– The city of deirAlZor did not have and now does not have arms, as they claim.

– The regime has succeded in subjugating us because we have lost faith in God and Jihad. We have to regain them back. There is no going back
– Our elements are urged to head to our strategic points in the city. We have selected them so as our spies can provide advance warning for any impending threat from the regime forces.

Sheikh

– A couiple of days ago a group of us, including lawyers and Doctors met with a delegation from the Army
– Our demands were as follows:
o The release of all political prisnors, prior to the arrest of Sheikh Nawaf
o The withdrawal of Army and security forces from the city.
– The army negotiator replied that they agreed with some tribal benefactors on granting the tribes 20 license plates for automobiles and 5000 job opportunities.
– We rejected their offer as silly.
– The negotiating officer telephoned Officer Riadh Shaleesh and informed him of the tribal meeting demands.
– Shaleesh’s response: The army is in a mission and shall not withdraw.
– The Sheikh concluded by saying: By tomorrow, if our demands are not met we will bring our arms and go down to the city.

A religious tribal member:

– A religious prelude
– Jihad is part of the heritage of the Islamic Umma
– Our Sunni brothers make up the majority of the army; We want them out of the army.
– The regime are forcing our Sunni brothers to kill each other by sending Homsi’s to Kill Deiri’s and Hasakawi’s to kill in dar3awi’s. This should stop.
– We want peace. But if Jihad is forced on us so be it!

Sheikh conclusion remarks

– We welcome and respect the statements of the members
– This regime does not appreciate our peaceful stance and is not serious about dialogue.
– We have been pleading for dialogue for the last 5 months! Alas this regime is bent on staying in power.
– Frankly, as for 3alawis, the mind set of their professors and shepards in this conflict are one and the same.
– Notwithstanding, we have a committee to keep the channel of dialogue, while we stay alert with our guns to defend ourselves.
– We either live proud or die martyrs defending our honour and territories.
– We are proud tribes; when dar3a pleaded for help they addressed the tribes of our city first!
– I ask the able to donate for our cause.

Revlon’s impressions:

The speakers were representative of the young revolutionists, religious members, and the the tribal chief.
One of the members had a machine gun strapped to his shoulder. This is nothing recent and has nothing to do with the revolution . They have always been armed. It is part of their way of life.
The speech of all members was defiant, with tribal and religious undertones.
The decision is a declaration of rebellion until the approval of the demands of the tribes.

Establishing Transition Council is important
by Haytham Khoury

The importance of establishment of a transition council in Syria cannot be underemphasised. Here is an excerpt of a paper sent to the Antalya Conference on may 29th, 2011 with title “The Urgency for a Transition Council in Syria”. Unfortunately, the Conference was not able to adopt it because of the lack of preparations and the lack of high-caliber attendees.

Dubious portrayal of Syrian events
Friday, August 5, 2011
Bahad?r Dinçer

The biased media coverage of the events in Syria seems to intentionally downplay the real issues at stake by focusing on the claims of conflict between the Shiite and Sunni population.

The military and regime are depicted as the saviors of the people. On the other hand, the Syrian people who have deployed peaceful means of protest with no reference to sectarian ideology are shown as armed gangs. However, the current situation is actually an issue of “victimization.” In reality, the scenario of “sectarian conflict” reflects the attempts to legitimize certain interests rooted in the status quo. The winners and rewards of such a scenario must be analyzed. First and foremost, if a sectarian conflict erupts, the center of the struggle will shift. This will allow time for the Syrian regime to relax.

Moreover, the possibility of a sectarian conflict doesn’t only serve the regional powers, but also certain global ones. When their inaction is questioned, they can justify it by saying “they are struggling with primordial religious problems, they have no legitimate demands.” Furthermore, the rhetoric of “sectarian conflict” that fragments the Middle East can also please those that don’t want the Muslim world to unite. In this sense, the expansionary policies of the Iranian regime can indirectly aid those that have certain interests in the region.

Samir Qantari, the general director of the National Socialist Syrian party,  assassinated: paper, 2011-08-04 16:35:38

DAMASCUS, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) — “Terrorist and armed” groups have assassinated a chemist in Syria’s northern province of Idlib, the private al-Watan newspaper reported Thursday.

Chemist Samir Qantari, the general director of the National Socialist Syrian party, was shot in his pharmacy at the northern town of Maart al-Numan on the outskirts of Idlib, the paper said, adding that the killing reflected the remarkable development in the “terrorist groups’ tactics and it seems like an immediate implementation of what was posted on the Facebook of the ‘list of assassinations’.”

The chemist’s name was posted on the Facebook two days ahead of his killing, al-Watan said, noting that the list included more than 100 names, most of them civilians or people working at local municipalities.

In a related development, the Syrian TV said Wednesday that ” armed terrorist” groups in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour had attacked public and private properties and stole their contents before smashing them completely.

The groups killed one law-enforcement agent and burned his body, the TV said, adding that security agents had seized a suspicious car loaded with weapons and Molotov bombs.

It added that gunmen broke into a station for the border guards near al-Furat Oil Company, kidnapped three guards and captured their weapons.

Russia welcomes UN stand against foreign involvement in Syria
English.news.cn 2011-08-04 20:49:06

MOSCOW, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) — Russia welcomed a UN Security Council call to refrain from external interference in Syria’s internal strife, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

“Moscow is convinced that the settlement of the situation in Syria must be conducted by the Syrians themselves without any interference from the outside and be based on the all-Syrian dialogue, which is the only way to resolve the crisis,” a statement on the ministry’s official website said.

Weapons Smugglers Charged in Beirut as Solidere Says it Doesn’t Have Inspection Duty at Marina, by Naharnet Newsdesk

The military prosecutor general has charged two Lebanese men with allegedly smuggling weapons from the Beirut Marina to Syria, a security source told As Safir daily published Saturday.

Wasim Tamim and Samir Tamim, who hail from the northern port city of Tripoli, are members of the most prominent movements in the former parliamentary majority, sources said in reference to ex-PM Saad Hariri’s al-Mustaqbal movement.

The men were arrested in Beirut last Friday, they said, adding that they have carried out more than 30 smuggling operations from Beirut to the Syrian city of Banias.

LA Times [Reg]: City of Aleppo seems in own world amid revolt elsewhere in Syria, 2011-08-07

Two days before black smoke left a pall over Hama, a bloodied symbol of the uprising against the government of Syria, the country’s second-largest city, Aleppo, held a cultural festival featuring a 3,600-foot-long Syrian flag wrapped around its …

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood holds first public vote
2011-08-07

CAIRO, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) — The general Shoura Council of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) held a public internal vote over three vacant seats, Egypt’s official news agency MENA reported on Saturday.

The votes ended with the victory of Hossam Abu-Bakr, Abdel-Azim el-Sharqawi and Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim who won the membership of the MB’s Guidance Office.

This historic vote was set to replace senior figures who resigned from the Guidance Office to join the Freedom and Justice Party, which was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood for the upcoming parliamentary elections and approved by the Egyptian Committee of Party Affairs in June.

Three replaced figures were party leader Mohamed Mursi, deputy leader Essam Elarian and secretary-general Mohamed Saed Elkatatny.

The MB, which was officially banned in 1954 and currently the country’s most organized group, has said they would not run for the coming presidential election.

The Freedom and Justice Party aims to contest up to half of the parliamentary seats in the elections due in November.

The “mine field” of Syria unrest
Aug 4, 2011 14:10 Moscow Time

……The UN Security Council statement, which experts see as balanced, may facilitate a peaceful solution to the crisis. A different reaction would be disastrous under the circumstances, says Sergei Demidenko, an Oriental expert from the Strategic Evaluation and Analysis Institute:

“Should the UN choose to impose severe sanctions on Syria, they will rock it. Syria’s multi-ethnic and multi-confessional balance is too fragile to withstand sanctions. If the current government leaves now, the country will plunge into chaos. The opposition has no clear-cut program for getting the country out of the mess. As a result, the entire region may fall into turmoil.”

Iran’s lawmakers must have masters degree
http://newsleaks.in/iran%E2%80%99s-lawmakers-must-have-masters-degree/
All candidates running for Iran’s parliament must have postgraduate degrees in future, the Guardian Council’s spokesman, Abbasali Kadkhodai, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.

The new law has already been approved by the Iranian parliament and is aimed at improving the quality of the country’s lawmakers, he said.

Syrian forces arrest opposition leader Bunni -group

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian forces arrested on Saturday a veteran opposition leader who had called for a national conference to seek a peaceful transition of power after a five-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, a rights group said.

Walid al-Bunni, who has been in hiding, was seized with his sons, 19-year Moayad and 18-year Iyad, by secret police in his hometown of Tel, north of the capital Damascus, the Syrian Human Rights Organisation Sawasiah said in a statement.

A day before his arrest, Bunni told Reuters the uprising must remain peaceful, even as the death toll from a government crackdown rises.

“There will be more martyrs, but the protest movement must remain nonviolent,” he added. He urged rank-and-file soldiers, who he said had begun to defect from the military, not to take up arms against Assad’s forces.

“The best thing these conscripts can do is to go home. Using arms will give an excuse for Iran and Hezbollah and other outside parties to intervene,” Bunni said.
more….

Hezbollah: UNHCR report on Syria false
August 08, 2011,The Daily Star

BEIRUT: Hezbollah has denied reports that its members were involved in the killing of Syrian soldiers who had deserted the regime, the party said in a statement Sunday.

Radio France, citing an as-yet unpublished report from a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees committee, reported over the weekend that Hezbollah members, as well as members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, had killed Syrian Army defectors.

Hezbollah slammed the U.N. study as a fabrication and part of a wider plot against the resistance.

WikiLeaks: Bush, Obama Passed on Sanctioning Syrian Insiders
by Kevin G. Hal, Thursday, August 4, 2011 by McClatchy

WASHINGTON — Two U.S. administrations declined in recent years to place sanctions on Syrian officials who now are involved in that country’s harsh crackdown on dissidents, despite the officials’ involvement in crushing internal opposition previously, according to secret State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks.

The struggle continues … demonstrators shout slogans against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in front of the Syrian Embassy in Turkey. (Photo: Reuters) In one instance, the top diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus asked the State Department in 2007 to impose sanctions on Ali Mamluk, the chief of intelligence for Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“The role of the organization he heads in suppressing internal dissent is publicly known in Syria and stating as much in our statement would resonate well here,” wrote Michael Corbin, the embassy’s charge d’affaires.

But no action was taken against Mamluk until this April, after security forces had killed scores of civilians in the Syrian town of Deraa in protests that have since spread to much of the country.

In the same cable, Corbin opposed sanctions for Mohammad Suleiman, who at the time was a special Assad adviser for arms procurement and strategic weapons. Corbin argued that Suleiman’s activities weren’t well-known enough that the Treasury Department could impose the sanctions without revealing classified information.

“His activities are not widely known, which will make it difficult to obtain unclassified material” needed for the Treasury Department to cite when sanctioning Suleiman, Corbin wrote.

Suleiman never was sanctioned. On Aug. 1, 2008, a sniper killed him in the Syrian coastal town of Tartous. Syria blamed Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency but offered no proof. A secret cable dated April 9, 2009, offers another possibility: that Suleiman was killed because he had $80 million in cash in the basement of one of his homes, which investigators who were looking into his slaying later found.

How to deal with Assad’s inner circle clearly has been a difficult problem for the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, according to the cables, part of the vast trove of State Department communications that WikiLeaks has shared with McClatchy and other news organizations.

Despite suggestions as long ago as 2006 that Assad was falling short on promises to open his country’s political system, neither administration was willing to take firm action against his closest advisers, though such sanctions — which would have prohibited U.S. citizens and companies from doing business with them — often were discussed, the cables show.

That same ambiguity exists today, with the Obama administration refusing to call for Assad to leave office, even as the White House regularly denounces the harsh crackdown in which as many as 1,600 people are thought to have died. The most recent White House statement came Sunday, after Syrian troops moved into the restive city of Hama and killed an estimated 75 people.

A Jan. 4, 2006, confidential cable from the previous charge d’affaires in Damascus, Stephen Seche, spelled out why the Bush administration was reluctant to target Assad’s inner circle.

“Most Syrians we talk to believe that President Assad still represents their best hope for change without instability. It is their fear of instability that stops the majority of Syrians from pushing harder for internal change,” Seche wrote.

The hesitancy to pressure Assad’s inner circle as a way to bring political change to Syria that’s reflected in the cables recalls the conflict between how officials today describe the Libyan regime of Moammar Gadhafi and the way Gadhafi’s regime was portrayed in diplomatic cables before the current uprising in that country.

As McClatchy outlined in a story in April, those cables often portrayed Gadhafi’s regime as moving toward greater openness and described Gadhafi’s son Saif as one of the main proponents of greater respect for human rights. The International Criminal Court indicted Saif Gadhafi on war crimes charges in June, along with his father.

Corbin raised the issue of sanctions in several cables, including one classified secret and dated Jan. 24, 2008, in which he suggested that the U.S. target four men who make and move money for Assad.

The four included Assad’s father-in-law, Fawas Arkhas; financier Zufair Sahloul, who was said to be able to “move $10 million anywhere in the world in 24 hours”; and Assad’s uncle and financial adviser Mohammad Makhlouf. The U.S. still has made no move to sanction them, although the European Union sanctioned Makhlouf on Tuesday.

The fourth person Corbin suggested the U.S. move against was Nabil al Kuzbari, whom Corbin identified as an Assad confidant who ran investment schemes on behalf of Syria’s top business families. The U.S. moved to sanction him only this May.

Despite its refusal to move in some cases, the Bush administration did impose sanctions on some Assad confidants, including Assad’s cousin and economic power broker Rami Makhlouf, after the embassy in Damascus suggested that they be targeted.

A secret cable sent Jan. 31, 2008, described Rami Makhlouf as the “poster boy” of corruption, squeezing out legitimate businesses and benefiting from his family ties to make money in banking, the power sector and cellular-phone service contracting. Sanctions were imposed the next month.

The Bush administration in November 2007 sanctioned his brother Hafiz, a colonel and head of intelligence in Damascus, for Syria’s meddling in Lebanon. In May, the Obama administration modified his sanction to include his alleged role in stifling dissent in Syria.

But to date, the United States hasn’t sanctioned the family patriarch, Mohammad Makhlouf.

The Bush administration also imposed sanctions on Assad’s brother-in-law, Asif Shawkat, in January 2006. Shawkat, who’s married to Assad’s sister Bushra, headed Syrian intelligence at the time, but he fell from grace after the death of Lebanese terrorist mastermind Imad Mugniyah, whom the U.S. sought for killing Navy diver Robert Stethem during the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet.

A car bomb blew Mugniyah to pieces on Feb. 12, 2008, in Damascus. A secret cable dated April 14, 2008, suggested that Assad stripped Shawkat of some of his power in response to the assassination, which proved embarrassing since Syria had denied for years that Mugniyah was in the country.

Theories abound about who killed Mugniyah and why, ranging from Shawkat, whose office was near the bomb site, to Assad’s violent brother Mahir. Known as the family enforcer, Mahir Assad escaped sanction until late April, when the Obama administration targeted him through an executive order.

In a secret cable from Paris, dated Sept. 12, 2008, the U.S. Embassy cites a French security adviser as saying that Mahir Assad, described as “a bit of a wild man and determined to increase his power,” may have killed Suleiman and possibly Mugniyah. The motive was effectively doing away with headaches from people who “knew too much” about the activities of the Assad family.

Another secret cable — from Damascus on June 3, 2009 — paints an unflattering portrait of the Western-educated leader of Syria. The memo was sent as the Obama administration considered ways the U.S. government could engage Assad and take a less hostile tack.

“Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is neither as shrewd nor as long-winded as his father but he, too, prefers to engage diplomatically on a level of abstraction that seems designed to frustrate any direct challenge to Syria’s behavior,” noted the cable, sent by a new charge d’affaires, Maura Connelly. “Bashar’s vanity represents another Achilles heel: the degree to which USG visitors add to his consequence to some degree affects the prospects for a successful meeting.”

The cable suggested that playing to Assad’s “intellectual pretensions is one stratagem for gaining his confidence and acquiescence; it may be time-consuming but could well produce results.”

If U.S. diplomats under Obama sought to butter up Assad, the Bush administration tried a hostile approach designed to keep him diplomatically off balance.

A Dec. 13, 2006, secret cable from Damascus by charge d’affaires William Roebuck suggested that the diplomats try to sully Assad’s international image since he was preoccupied with how the outside world viewed him.

“Actions that cause Bashar to lose balance and increase his insecurity are in our interest because his inexperience and his regime’s extremely small decision-making circle make him prone to diplomatic stumbles that can weaken him domestically and regionally,” the cable said. “While the consequences of his mistakes are hard to predict and the benefits may vary, if we are prepared to move quickly to take advantage of opportunities that may open up, we may directly impact regime behavior where it matters — Bashar and his inner circle.”

Yet, as the documents show, both administrations chose not to sanction much of his inner circle until the Arab Spring spread this year to Syria. The Obama administration and European allies haven’t yet declared Assad an illegitimate leader who must go, as they did with Libya’s Gadhafi.

READ THE CABLES

Cable: To pressure Syria’s Assad go after his ‘money-men’

OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS

Treasury Sanctions Syrian Businessman: CorrptionCurrnts: 2011-08-04

The U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday it imposed sanctions on a Syrian businessman who serves in the country’s parliament. Muhammad Hamsho and his holding company, Hamsho International Group, which has about 20 subsidiaries, provided services …

The Armed Gangs Controversy

I have taken up the “armed gangs controversy” in my last two posts. In the comment section, Syrians have debated whether the opposition has produced militant elements that are killing Syrian soldiers. A number of analysts, such as Majd Eid, who joined in the debate on France 24 yesterday, continue to argue that there is not a violent side to the uprising. They insist that Syrian soldiers are killing fellow soldiers, not opposition elements. This killing is carried out when security personnel refuse orders to shoot at crowds, they insist. So far, no evidence has surfaced to demonstrate that Syrian military have shot their fellow soldiers for refusing to carry out orders. Most evidence supports government statements that armed opposition elements have been shooting security personnel.

This controversy arose in April during the protests in Banyas, when nine soldiers were killed while traveling down the main highway in two transport vehicles outside of the city. Activists claimed that soldiers in Banyas were executed by fellow soldiers for refusing to shoot at demonstrators. This story turned out to be fictional, but was carried by most of the Western Press and never corrected. I wrote about this controversy on April 14 under the title: Western Press Misled – Who Shot the Nine Soldiers in Banyas? Not Syrian Security Forces. The reason I took an interest in this story is because my wife’s cousin, Lt. Col. Yasir Qash`ur, was one of the nine soldiers killed on April 10. We know him well. We spoke with Yasir’s brother-in-law, Colonel `Uday Ahmad, who was sitting in the back seat of the truck in which Yasir and several of the nine soldiers were killed. `Uday told us that two military trucks were ambushed as they crossed a highway bridge by well armed men who were hiding behind the median of the highway and on the tops of buildings at the edge of the road. They raked the two trucks with automatic fire, killing nine. The incident had nothing to do with soldiers refusing orders. His description of what happened so contradicted the reports I was reading in the press that I began to dig around. Later video footage of the shooting surfaced and was shown on Syrian TV. It corroborated Uday’s story. Western press and analysts did not want to recognize that armed elements were becoming active. They preferred to tell a simple story of good people fighting bad people. There is no doubt that the vast majority of the opposition was peaceful and was being met with deadly government force and snipers. One only wonders why that story could not have been told without also covering the reality – that armed elements, whose agenda was not peaceful, were also playing a role.

In the bloody battles at Jisr ash-Shaghour most of the Western Press again repeated opposition claims that some 100 Syrian soldiers were killed not by opposition elements but by their own colleagues. The Western press insisted that Syrian military elements were killed in the city by fellow soldiers for refusing orders to shoot. Government claims that the soldiers were killed by armed elements who ambushed and overwhelmed them, were dismissed. Today, teh video footage that has surfaced is fairly conclusive in corroborating the original government version of events: the soldiers stationed in the town were overrun by armed and organized opposition.  Here is a video of some of the soldiers before they were killed. The first minute or two of this video shows the soldiers after being shot. This is unedited footage of the bodies before they were carried away on trucks.

In the Hama fighting, the video depicting dead bodies being thrown off a bridge into a river has been the subject of controversy. This video made by comparing Google Earth footage of the bridge to the actual video seems fairly conclusive in proving that the footage is new, is from Hama, and does depict opposition elements throwing the bodies of soldiers from the highway bridge into the `Asi River just north of Hama on the highway to Aleppo.

So what is the meaning of the emergence of armed opposition elements?

A prominent anti-government activist speaking on CNN said it best. Here is the CNN report by Arwa Damon and Nada Husseini of Aug. 2, 2011:

One prominent anti-government activist, who asked not to be named because of the dangers that could arise from the release of the information, told CNN the state TV account was correct. The bodies are those of Syrian secret police killed by Syrian fighters from Iraq who have joined the anti-government fight, said the activist, who gets information about the goings-on in Syria from an extensive network of informants.

That same activist stressed that the antagonists are not representative of the protest movement. Violent fringe elements have appeared during the Syrian tumult. One study last month from the International Crisis Group said some anti-government elements have taken up arms. However, that report said, “the vast majority of casualties have been peaceful protesters, and the vast majority of the violence has been perpetrated by the security services.

The activist said the emergence of this video is a double-edged sword for protesters.

On the one hand, the peaceful demonstrators need to become aware of the existence of fringe elements, he said. This would encourage more people to reject both the regime and these types of attacks and maintain the aims of peaceful protest, he said. At the same time, he added, the incident gives credence to the Syrian government’s assertion that it is targeting “armed gangs.” Such violence, he said, could cause the international community to hesitate in continuing its mounting pressure against the Syrian regime.

Most of the supporters of the revolutionary movement have responded to these videos by asking, “What does anyone expect? Are Syrians to simply wait to be killed? Of course violence will be met by violence. It is natural and the only surprise is that it has been so long in coming.”

This is a compelling argument. The Syrian opposition has been slow to arm in its effort to overthrow the Baathist state. The Free Officers Movement is gathering steam. The most recent video statement by the FOM shows that its membership is growing, although it is still only in the earliest formation. The leader declares that they will defend civilians against the “barbaric actions of the regime and their Shabbiha.” Other armed organizations are taking to the streets but none have officially declared their existence and set out political goals. This will undoubtedly happen in the coming months.

From the outset, this has been a war of videos. This video of a wife saying goodbye to her husband, killed in Hama on Aug 2 is heartbreaking. Such videos act as a call to arms.

The regime will battle to the end and still has much fight in it. The military has many advantageous over the fragmented opposition. It is unlikely that the regime will “collapse,” as some activists suggest or just fade away Ceausescu-like. If it is to be defeated, it will be on the battlefield and by force. It is hard to imagine any other ending. Of course, should both Damascus and Aleppo come out to demonstrate in large numbers, the breakdown of order will be hastened, but the military and Baath Party will not give up. Syria’s divisions are too deep. The fear of revenge and ethnic cleansing will galvanize those who have backed the present order for decades.  Had the Syrian leadership been willing to hand over power peacefully or establish some sort of constitutional convention, it would have done so already.

The poverty and loss of dignity for so many Syrians is a crushing part of Syrian reality. Thirty-two percent of Syrians live on two dollars or less a day. That is a scary figure. It will get much worse as the loss of jobs and economic hardships begin to multiply. Syria is filled with people who have little to lose, who have little education, and few prospects of improving their chances for a better and more dignified life. The potential for violence and lawlessness is large. Most worrying is the lack of leadership among opposition forces.

News Round Up follows

Why Damascus, Aleppo are silent for now
The business elite in these Syrian cities have myriad overlapping interests with the political elite
By Sami Moubayed, Special to Gulf News, August 2, 2011

To date, most residents of Syria’s two main cities, Damascus and Aleppo, have tried to look the other way vis-à-vis the uprising that has broken out in every town and city across the country since mid-March. In these two cities, the markets are still open, banks are still in operation, merchants are still trading, entire families are dining at restaurants, young couples are getting married and, in many cases, enjoying the summer in complete denial of what is happening throughout the rest of Syria. So long as Damascus and Aleppo remain quiet, or neutral at best, the Syrian authorities believe the situation will be under control.

A closer look, however, shows that this argument — although applicable four months ago — is now nothing more than wishful thinking. First, it is wrong to compare Damascus to Aleppo because sympathy with the Syrian uprising is high in the Syrian capital, but low and close to non-existent in Aleppo because of the city’s distance, its relative immunity from the economic crisis (thanks to flourishing business relations with Turkey), and the unique relationship the city has had with President Bashar Al Assad, who has paid it plenty of attention since coming to power in 2000. Additionally, Aleppo paid a terrible price for its support of the Muslim Brotherhood uprising of 1982, and sees how the state is retaliating in other cities today, like Hama and Deir Ezzor. It does not want to suffer a similar fate.

It would be wrong to imagine that residents of the old quarters of Damascus — Shagour, Bab Sharki or Bab Srijeh — would be seen on the streets of the Syrian capital, demonstrating against the regime. This is not French Mandate Damascus, after all, where these quarters are filled with swashbuckling quarter bosses like the ones we see in the popular TV series Bab Al Hara. The reason, basically, is that these quarters in the Old City are now empty; the original residents sold their property years ago, transforming their homes into trendy restaurants and boutique hotels. They collectively moved to the suburbs of Damascus, and today, the original inhabitants of the Syrian capital reside in hotspots like Muadamiyeh, Zabadani, Qaboon, Harasta and Duma. It is the Damascenes then who are demonstrating in these districts, in addition of course, to the original inhabitants of these districts. The sameapplies to Aleppo and its suburbs.

Within the new districts of Damascus and Aleppo, the business elite has been staunchly pro-regime although, ironically, it was the business community of both cities that suffered most from socialism of the Baath Party when it first came to power in 1963. That will likely remain the case for now, due to the weight of their clerics (who are allied to the state), along with the political, social and economic interests of their nobility and business community. In many cases, that nobility is “new money” and rose to power and fame only after the Baathists took over in 1963. The have overlapping interests with the political elite and are often allied to them through business partnerships and marriage, giving them no reason to demonstrate against the existing order.

Article continues below

Historically speaking, however, both cities can make or break any political movement — but rarely have they been part of anything that threatens stability and their commercial interests. In 1925, for example, rural Syria erupted in revolt against the French Mandate. Damascus very unwillingly joined the revolt of 1925, and when it did, suffered punishment greater than that of all other Syrian cities combined. It was shelled continuously for 48 hours and entire neighborhoods were set ablaze and looted. And Aleppo was not even part of the revolt of 1925. To be fair, although we make reference to the “Aleppo Revolt” in history books, it was the suburbs of Aleppo that revolted against the French. Aleppo itself remained silent. When the revolt calmed in 1927, it was the business elite of both cities that devised the theory of “honorable cooperation” with the government—diplomacy to extract political change, rather than armed revolt.

In Damascus, the merchants used to moan and groan whenever political parties, or youth movements, called on them to close down their shops for anti-government protests in the 1950s. Simply put, as far as the businessmen were concerned, all that meant was financial losses. That mentality still prevails in the old bazaars of Damascus and in the new posh and trendy corporate culture that has mushroomed around banks, insurance companies, advertising and media firms all over the Syrian capital.

The silence of both cities, however, won’t last for too long, for three reasons.

1) Unemployment: The moment rising unemployment kicks in, young people will take to the streets in both Damascus and Aleppo, regardless of what city elders tell them. Many young people are already jobless since March, and if the stalemate continues, they could start finding themselves penniless as well. Ramadan, no doubt, will be a turning point for these two cities.

2) Lack of community leaders: Back in the 1980s, for example, community leaders like Ahmad Kaftaro (the Grand Mufti) and Bader Al Din Al Shallah (doyen of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce) used their influence to pacify angry citizens in Damascus when they sympathised with the Brotherhood. People respected them, listened to them, and often carried out their without any questions. When Shallah famously asked shopkeepers to break the Damascus strike of 1982, they immediately answered his call. Today there are no community leaders with similar clout and standing in Damascus and Aleppo because the Baathists have not allowed any such independent leaders to emerge.

3) Demographics: Damascus, more so than Aleppo, is a melting pot for all Syrians. It is packed with people from rural Damascus, Daraa, Homs, Hama, Idlib and rural Idlib. It is those people who are likely to demonstrate in Damascus, rather than the Damascenes themselves, and those people, naturally, do not take their orders from the business community of Damascus.

Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Damascus, Syria

Sheila said:

[Moubayed’s] article is on the money. I am originally from Aleppo and come from a big family. I can assure everyone on this blog that Aleppo is boiling under the calm surface. It is only a matter of time before the city erupts. Mark my word.

Look at the pattern in this revolution: it starts with one stupid act by the regime in one of the villages, the village is up in arms, the surrounding villages come to the rescue and then the central city starts demonstrating.

U.S. Boosts Syria Pressure With Sanctions Plan
By Nicole Gaouette and Victoria Pelham – Aug 2, 2011

The U.S. is stepping up the pressure on Syria, ….“Our goal here is to isolate Assad both politically and deny” the regime revenue, Mark Toner, the State Department’s acting spokesman, said yesterday. “We do plan to move forward with additional sanctions under existing authorities, and we’re exploring the scope of those sanctions,” he said.

Ford, who met with Obama two days ago, told senators at his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday that backing the forces of change could give the U.S. a chance to reshape the region.

“We have a real opportunity with change in Syria to see both Iranian influence and Hezbollah influence in the region diminish,” said Ford, a career diplomat who has been serving as ambassador under a December 2010 recess appointment by Obama.

Syria is Iran’s chief ally in the region and both support Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shiite Muslim political group that the U.S. considers a terrorist organization. … Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, Senator Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, and Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, introduced the Syria Sanctions Act of 2011 to target the one-third of the country’s revenue that come from oil and gas exports.

U.S. law bans most trade with Syria. The sanctions bill would extend those restrictions to foreign companies. The measure would require the president to block access to U.S. financial institutions, markets and federal contracts for those who do business with the Syrian energy sector.

Companies that falsely claim not to do business with Syria would be subject to a three-year ban on government contracts. …Sanctions with allies that have greater trade ties with Syria would be more effective, Ford said. He added that “Europeans and Canadians have greater investments in Syria’s energy sector” and that conversations about sanctions with those countries are under way.

“The Syrian government’s latest action will help trigger action, frankly,” Ford said of the recent violence and the international outrage it has generated.

Asking for More

The Syrian activists asked Clinton to have the U.S. do more to rally that kind of international pressure on the Assad regime.

Aoun defends Syrian regime’s crackdown August 2, 2011 Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday defended Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, saying that security forces have the right to suppress “chaos on the streets.”

“It is clear that the intentions of the [Syria] opposition are not good,” he added following his bloc’s weekly meeting.

Syria opposition leader Seif held at Damascus airport

Syrian security agents briefly detained opposition leader Riad Seif at Damascus airport on Monday and prevented him from traveling to Germany to seek treatment for cancer, opposition sources said.

Killing of Libyan rebel commander strengthens resistance to UN condemnation of Syria

By James M. Dorsey

The failure to identify the perpetrators of last week’s mysterious killing of a senior Libyan rebel military commander threatens to undermine fragile unity among Colonel Moammar Qaddafi’s NATO-backed opponents and complicates Western efforts to secure United Nations condemnation of Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters.

The killing highlights the pitfalls of backing a ragtag armed opposition movement, in which former jihadists together with defectors from Mr. Qaddafi’s forces constitute the primary groups with military experience.

It has also – coupled with allegations that NATO military backing of the rebels violates a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the imposition of a no-fly zone in Libya – made countries like India, China, Russia and Brazil weary of endorsing a council resolution being pushed by the United States and the European Union that would condemn Mr. Assad’s brutal efforts to quell demonstrations in his own country.

Critics like China and Russia, concerned about the spillover effect in their own countries of the Arab revolt that has swept the Middle East and North Africa for the past eight months, worry not only that condemnation of Syria could lead to Western efforts to covertly or overtly topple Mr. Assad but that Libya if repeated in any form or fashion could create a legal precedent for intervention across the globe.

Egyptians Turn Against Liberal Protesters
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV

CAIRO—Mobs of ordinary Egyptians joined with soldiers to drive pro-democracy protesters from their encampment in Tahrir Square here Monday, showing how far the uprising’s early heroes have fallen in the eyes of the public.

Egyptian security forces tear down tents of liberal protesters who had camped in Cario’s Tahrir Square to press military rulers for political reforms.

Six months after young, liberal activists helped lead the popular movement that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, the hard core of these protesters was forcibly dispersed by the troops. Some Egyptians lined the street to applaud the army. Others ganged up on the activists as they retreated from the square that has come to symbolize the Arab Spring.

Squeezed between an assertive military and the country’s resurgent Islamist movement, many Internet-savvy, pro-democracy activists are finding it increasingly hard to remain relevant in a post-revolutionary Egypt that is struggling to overcome an economic crisis and restore law and order.

“The liberal and leftist groups that were at the forefront of the revolution have lost touch with the Egyptian people,” says Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center. “These protesters have alienated much of Egypt. For some time they’ve been deceiving themselves by saying that the silent majority is on their side—but all evidence points to the contrary, and Monday’s events confirm that.”

The Last Stand of Bashar al-Assad?

DOHA, Qatar — As Bashar al-Assad’s shock troops storm cities and towns across Syria, leaving a death toll in the triple digits that has only stoked the fires of rebellion even hotter, Barack Obama’s administration is stepping up measures aimed at fatally weakening the Syrian dictator’s regime.

Critics of the U.S. president’s policy, particularly on the right, have long charged his administration with being soft on Assad. But the United States is now unequivocally committed to his ouster, having lost whatever little faith it had in the Syrian leader’s willingness to reform. “He is illegitimate,” a senior administration official says flatly. “We’ve definitely been very clear that we don’t see Assad in Syria’s future.”

…..

Shaikh also advocates putting together an informal “contact group” of concerned countries — as with Libya — with a core group perhaps consisting of the United States, France, Qatar, and Turkey. But the all-important Turks, who share a border with Syria and have hosted thousands of refugees and several opposition meetings, are still hedging their bets. Sunday’s statement by the Turkish Foreign Ministry called on the Syrian government to “end the operations and resort to political methods, dialogue and peaceful initiatives in order to reach a solution” — options that the protest movement explicitly abandoned several weeks ago.

……

But few analysts think words will do much to damage the deeply entrenched Syrian regime, and some, like the Century Foundation’s Michael Hanna, worry that Assad could limp on far longer than anyone expects. Nor would multilateral sanctions, even if they do somehow pass the Security Council, have an immediate effect. “It’s unlikely that, short of massive defections within the security services at an elite level, outside pressure is going to change the calculus of the inner circle of the regime,” says Hanna. Instead of being toppled, he cautions, Assad could become another international pariah, like Saddam Hussein or the Burmese junta.

Washington has made its decision, though nobody can say when Assad will go. “He’s on his way out,” says the senior administration official, stressing: “This is about the Syrian people, not about us. They’re the ones that say that they want someone else, and they should be able to choose the government that they want.”

The New Hama Rules By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, August 2, 2011

…. It worked for a long time in Syria, Iraq, Tunisia, etc., until it didn’t. Today, Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, Hafez’s son, is now repeating his father’s mass murdering tactics to quash the new Syrian uprising, again centered in Hama. But, this time, the Syrian people are answering with their own Hama Rules, which are quite remarkable. They say: “We know that every time we walk out the door to protest, you will gun us down, without mercy. But we are not afraid anymore, and we will not be powerless anymore. Now, you leaders will be afraid of us. Those are our Hama Rules.”

This is the struggle today across the Arab world — the new Hama Rules versus the old Hama Rules — “I will make you afraid” versus “We are not afraid anymore.”

Good for the people. It is hard to exaggerate how much these Arab regimes wasted the lives of an entire Arab generation, with their foolish wars with Israel and each other and their fraudulent ideologies that masked their naked power grabs and predatory behavior. Nothing good was possible with these leaders. The big question today, though, is this: Is progress possible without them?

That is, once these regimes are shucked off, can the different Arab communities come together as citizens and write social contracts for how to live together without iron-fisted dictators — can they write a positive set of Hama Rules based not on anyone fearing anyone else, but rather on mutual respect, protection of minority and women’s rights and consensual government?
….

I think the former foreign minister of Jordan, Marwan Muasher, has the right attitude. “One cannot expect this to be a linear process or to be done overnight,” he said to me. “There were no real political parties, no civil society institutions ready to take over in any of these countries. I do not like to call this the ‘Arab Spring.’ I prefer to call it the ‘Arab Awakening,’ and it is going to play out over the next 10 to 15 years before it settles down. We are going to see all four seasons multiple times. These people are experiencing democracy for the first time. They are going to make mistakes on the political and economic fronts. But I remain optimistic in the long run, because people have stopped feeling powerless.”

New sanctions worry Turkish businessmen

Growing turmoil and violence in Syria have the European Union rolling up its sleeves to play a more active role in solving the problem by imposing asset freezes and travel bans. But economic sanctions by countries including Turkey might leave its business interests in the Arab republic in a tight spot

The prospect of more economic sanctions against increasingly strife-torn Syria have Turkish businessmen worried, leading business figures told the Hürriyet Daily News on Tuesday.

Growing turmoil and violence in Syria have the European Union rolling up its sleeves to play a more active role in solving the problem by imposing asset freezes and travel bans. But economic sanctions by countries including Turkey might leave its business interests in a tight spot.

“Sanctions imposed previously on other countries have not brought many sustainable solutions to problems,” Rona Y?rcal?, the board chairman of the Foreign Economic Relations Board, or DE?K, told the Daily News in a phone interview Tuesday, though he noted that there was not yet much information available about the content of possible sanctions.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague is among the top European figures calling for tougher sanctions against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government. “The sanctions have to come from both Western nations, Arab countries and regional powers like Turkey,” Hague said in an interview Monday, according to the Associated Press. “The sanctions decision could not be made and applied by only Turkey. If the UN decides to apply sanctions, it is a different thing,” Tolga Uçak, the head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s information department told the Daily News on Tuesday. “It is not that easy to unite Arab nations to impose international sanctions against Syria,”

R?zanur Meral, the chairman of Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey, or TUSKON, told the Daily News. “Arab countries would know that a similar sanction might be imposed on their countries in the future.” According to Meral, the imposition of international sanctions against Syria does not seem possible at this time.

It would be “impossible for Turkey to step back from humanitarian help and sending food and medicine” to Syria, Meral said, adding that other trade items might be discussed according to the context of the sanctions. “It would be hard to control the borders for illegal trade,” he added, noting that Turkey shares its longest border with Syria.

Syrian money rushing to Turkey’s safe harbor

SYRIA CRACKDOWN – Good debate on France 24 TV between

• Nadim KHOURY. Director of the Human Rights Watch Beirut office, Senior researcher on Syria and Lebanon (from Beirut);
• Joshua LANDIS. Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma (from Norman, Oklahoma);
• Patrick SEALE. Journalist and author of “The struggle for Arab independence”(from Fayence, France);
• Majd EID. Syrian Activist.

Questions:

• When does a crackdown become a massacre?
• It seems that line has been crossed in the Syrian city of Hama – where rights groups say over 140 people have lost their lives since Sunday.
• so what of diplomacy?

Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said, “There’s no indication whatsoever that the Americans, that we would get involved directly with respect to this.” “the U.S. won’t use force against Syria but it will work in other ways to push for reform.” (2 Aug 2011)

Clinton meets Syrian activists as U.S. calls for more sanctions mount

….In Congress, increasingly incensed lawmakers are demanding that the administration impose additional sanctions on Mr. Assad and his inner circle. The administration has already hit Mr. Assad and a handful of senior Syrian officials with penalties and has said it is looking at more, including targeting the country\’s oil and gas industries.

On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of three senators said they would introduce legislation to ramp up pressure on the regime by penalizing foreign companies that do business in Syria\’s energy sector, which is responsible for about a third of Syrian export revenues.

Syria seeks India’s support against ‘Western propaganda’

Russia against UN sanctions, outside pressure on Syria

Russia has been against UN sanctions against Syria because they would not settle the situation in this country, an official from the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

“We are not against everything; we categorically against all that does not work for a peaceful settlement. If there are unbalanced things like sanctions and pressure, such a set is really bad for attaining less blood and more democracy,” said Sergei Vershinin, head of the Foreign Ministry’s Middle East and North Africa Department.

Vershinin said that Russia has tried to avoid violence in Syria against both protesters and pro-government representatives. He noted that Syrian opposition should not dodge from the dialogue with the authorities about the country’s future.

“Reforms (in Syria) have been matured and they must be sped up,” he noted.

The diplomat stressed that the international community must learn from Libyan experience and not to adopt resolutions which later could be interpreted on a whim.

“(Such resolutions) lead not to the settlement but to the complicated situation on the ground,” the diplomat said, adding that military operation in Libya came into a deadend.

Vershinin also said that the frozen assets of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi abroad could be used only upon the UN Security Council’s permission. These assets should be evenly distributed to the east and the west of the country, the diplomat noted.

Libya Paralyses Security Council on Syria

…The Chinese and the Russians believe, one U.N. diplomat told IPS, that “Western countries are likely to misinterpret any resolution against Syria and then unleash military attacks on Damascus – as they did with Libya.”

Iraqi president urges Assad to reform –  02/08/2011
By Ma’ad Fayad

London, Asharq Al-Awsat- A source close to Adel Abdel Mahdi, a leading figure in the Iraqi Islamic Supreme Council [IISC], which is led by Ammar al-Hakim, and resigned first deputy of the Iraqi president, disclosed details of the meeting that took place between Abdel Mahdi and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last week.

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat by telephone from Baghdad, the source which spoke on the condition of anonymity said: “Abdel Mahdi met with Al-Assad in his capacity as a personal envoy of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. The visit was not an official one at all as Abdel Mahdi holds no official post.”

The source explained: “Abdel Mahdi conveyed a written message from President Talabani to President Al-Assad. In his letter, President Talabani urged Al-Assad to carry out genuine political reforms and stop using security and military methods against the Syrian people. He warned that continuation of the situation as it is will open the door to foreign intervention in Syria and make the situation in the region more critical.”

The source that is close to the leading IISC figure said: “The proposal to send a personal, unofficial envoy [to Syria] was the idea of the Iraqi president who did not want to send an official envoy as was preferred by the US Administration, which considered this move a positive step to ensure that the situation in Syria and the region will not develop further.”…

The source disclosed: “Since May, the US Administration has been trying to persuade some Iraqi officials who have influential relations with the Syrian president to talk to him and reach a formula to stop taking military measures against Syrian demonstrators.”

The source said: “Former US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad conducted shuttle trips to Arbil and Al-Sulaymaniyah to persuade President Talabani to visit Damascus and he discussed this move with close aides to President Talabani who has good relations with Al-Assad and can influence him.”

France rules out military intervention in Syria

PARIS, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) — The French authorities on Tuesday ruled out the possibility of military intervention in Syria, citing that the situation in Syria was different from Libya. “The situation in Libya and Syria are not similar. No option of a military nature is considered,” said Christine Fages, deputy spokeswoman of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during a regular press briefing. Full story

Jerusalem Post: Ban Ki-moon: Assad has ‘lost all sense of humanity’, 2011-08-02

Syrian President Bashar Assad has “lost all humanity,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday as the UN held talks over the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters, AFP reported. “Since the beginning of this situation, I …

“World cannot stop Syria from going through these convulsions” 02 August, 2011

In Syria, ‘son of a whore’ gets tossed like trash

Landis interview with Sonali Kolhatkar on the Uprising show, KPFK Pacifica radio.

New Syrian TV channel Nur al-Sham launches “to carry Islam’s tolerant message”

Within its 1730 gmt newscast, Syrian Satellite Channel reports on the launch of Nur al-Sham Satellite Channel’s test transmission, a new Islamic Syrian channel.

Syrian Television says that the channel will be “a great window into our Arabic culture, which Islam was the light in”. The channel notes that Nur al-Sham “will present Islam’s comprehensive and moderate message.”

The channel then carries a video report in which it says that Nur al-Sham has launched its satellite transmission “to carry Islam’s tolerant message.”

The channel then shows Minister of Information Adnan Mahmud saying: “Nur al-Sham will be concerned with the message of the heavens in its purest image, principals, and highest goals in a framework that brings all Muslims together.”

Syrian Television adds that Nur al-Sham, which chose to launch with the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, will present a series of religious programmes.

The channel then shows Awqaf Minister Muhammad Abd-al-Sattar saying: “The channel is a pulpit for all scholars and a door for all knowledge,” noting that the channel is “for all Muslims all over the world and for all Arabs.”

WSJ [Reg]: Syrian Raids Spur Resistance
2011-08-02 13:42:15.616 GMT

BEIRUT—Thousands of Syrians marched Monday evening in a show of solidarity with two opposition strongholds attacked by the government a day earlier, while security forces renewed their raids on the cities of Hama and Deir el-Zour. A feared scenario—that protests would intensify during the holy month of Ramadan, which began Monday, and that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime would scramble to regain full control of restive cities—appeared to be unfolding. Government security forces raided mosques in several cities Monday evening and used nail bombs to disperse crowds gathering to march in support of Hama and Deir el-Zour, said residents and activists…..

Analysis: Syria army keeps cohesion but risks overstretch, LONDON | Tue Aug 2, 2011
By William Maclean

(Reuters) – The Syrian army, a vital pillar of President Bashar al-Assad’s power, is showing little sign of the serious splits and defections the opposition seeks in its ranks, despite strains caused by his military repression of unrest.

But as tanks spearhead a crackdown in the city of Hama, Assad must wonder whether is most loyal and heavily-armed soldiers are sufficiently numerous to deploy in several places at once if the need arose.

The Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, usually a time of family visits and gift-giving that can produce much larger night-time crowds than normal, could severely test Assad’s armed might if protests escalate and Syria’s crisis grows more bloody.

“We are seeing some defections but nothing near the critical mass that might indicate the beginnings of a serious mutiny by Sunni soldiers,” said Andrew Terrill, Research Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Army War College.

The army command is drawn from Assad’s minority Alawite sect, while majority Sunni Muslims make up the rank and file. Most of the protesters targeted by army action are also Sunnis.

Firas Abi Ali, an analyst at British-based Exclusive Analysis forecasting company, said he rated the cohesion of the Syrian military as “quite high” in terms of possible splits that could trigger a coup d’etat, but sheer numbers were a problem.

SHORTAGE OF LOYAL UNITS

“If they don’t have enough loyal units to take Hama, they don’t have enough loyal units to take on much bigger cities like Homs, Aleppo or Damascus,” he said.

“I don’t think they have enough of these units to crack down in a major way on multiple cities at the same time, at least not without seeing defections and without risking expanding the scope of the protests.”

LA Times [Reg]: SYRIA: Ramadan kicks off with tumult and economic hardship [Video] – latimes.com, 2011-08-02

The holy month of Ramadan, usually a time when streets are bustling with cheery shoppers as they make their purchases throughout the night until the last hours before dawn, has begun on a dreary note in various Syrian towns as shops remain closed …

Here are two reports, copied below: One from Syrian TV and another from al-Jazeera English of what is happening in Hama.

They could not be more different.

The Syrian TV clip shows a montage of video from Hama purporting to show armed elements shooting at military from the streets and rooftops.

The al-Jazeera airs interviews with Hama activists stating that they are being attacked with tanks and have no weapons but rocks to defend themselves. It shows civilians shot and running. It includes pictures of government tanks and of a central mosque with a large hole near a window.

The Syrian TV footage ends with dead but still bleeding Syrian soldiers being thrown over a bridge railing into the `Assi (Orantes) River. When this footage of the dead soldiers surfaced yesterday, the video I first saw claimed that it was taken in Jisr ash-Shaghour about a month ago. Now it is claimed as footage from Hama. I do not know what the truth is, but the sound records opposition elements talking about the bodies as “soldiers – jaysh” and disparaging them.

Syrian TV News about Hama

Al-Jazeera English coverage of Hama (I cannot embed the video but it follow the link to watch)

Syrian forces intensify assault – Middle East – Al Jazeera English

This is a sample of a nightly demonstration in Midan, Damascus 7-31. The Midan is close to the heart of old Damascus and known as the traditional neighborhood of the grain merchants who distributed the wheat, barley and other food stuff of the Hawran in the South. It was an important launching site of revolt against the French in 1925. Many observers see these demonstrations as indicative of growing unrest in the capital itself.

Syrian state TV shows horrible footage on armed men in Hama

DAMASCUS, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) — Syria’s state-run television aired late Monday an amateur video footage, showing armed men in the focal point city of Hama shooting at law-enforcement forces and dumping their bodies in the city’s Orontes River.

The footage showed armed men holding rifles, some of them were masked and dressed in rags, shooting at law-enforcement members in Hama and dumping their bodies in the Orontes River while shouting “God is great.”

In the same context, the official SANA news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying that armed groups have “started an intensive armed attack” on Monday’s eve using live ammunition and Molotov against a number of official headquarters and police stations in the central province of Hama.

The source said the gunmen are carrying guns and roaming the city on motorcycles, adding that army units are still carrying out their missions there in eliminating barricades and barriers set up by those “saboteurs.”

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited Monday a number of wounded army officers and policemen at the Military Tishrin Hospital in Damascus, whom the authorities say were gunned down by “armed gangs.”

Syria said hundreds of policemen and security officers were killed and many others wounded by alleged armed groups it blames for the four-month-old unrest in the country.

Earlier Monday, Lt. Gen. Riyad Hadad, head of the political department in the Syrian army, said Syria is facing the “closing chapter” of the conspiracy.

In an interview published by al-Baath newspaper on Monday, Hadad said the army is ready to make every sacrifice to safeguard the security of the country.

This Arabic announcement from a group in Hama purporting to speak as “Free Syrians” defends the state’s entrance into the city.

???? ???? – ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? –
08/01/2011

????? ???? ?? ????? ????? ??????? ??? ???? ??? ????? ??????? ??????? ????? ????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ?? ????? ??????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ???? ????? ??????? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ??????? ??????? ???? ?? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ???? ??? ????? ??????? ????? ????? ?? ?????? ????? ???? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ??? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ??????? ????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ?? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ????????? ??? ???? ?????? ??? ?????? ????????? ?? ???? ??????? ???? ??? ???? ???????? ????????? ???? ?????? ??? ?????? ??????? ?????? ?? ??????? ????????? ??? ?????? ????? ??????? ??????? ?????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ??????? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ??????? ???????? ??????? ???? ?? ?? ??? ?????? ???????? ??? ?????? ??? ?????? ??????? ??????? ???????? ??? ?? ??? ???? ?? ????? ??????? ??????? ?? ????? ?? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ?????? ?? ??????? ??????? ????????? ??? ????? ????????? ??????? ?? ????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ??? ??? ????? ?????? ???????? ??????? ??????????? ??????? ?????? ???? ?? ??? ?? ????????? ?? ????? ?????? ?? ???? ??????? ??? ??????? ??????? ???????? ??????? ????????? ?? ????? ???? ???? ????? ????? ?????? ??? ???? ??? ??????? ????????? ???? ??? ????? ??? ????? ?? ????? ??????? ??????? ???????? ?? ????? ? ???? ?????? ???????.

?????? ?????? ?????? ????

(Reuters) – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States Monday of living beyond its means “like a parasite” on the global economy and said dollar dominance was a threat to the financial markets.

ChckpntWashingtn: U.S. weighs new sanctions against Syria, 2011-08-01

The Obama administration said Monday that it was studying possible new sanctions and other unilateral measures against Syria, as members of the U.N. Security Council were expected to gather to talk about the renewed crackdown by Damascus. The White …

WSJ [Reg]: Preventing Civil War in Syria, 2011-08-01
BY ELLIOTT ABRAMS

Syria remains rocked by antiregime protests that have endured since March, and the country may be headed for civil war. That’s because unlike in Egypt or Tunisia, sectarian rivalries are central to Syrian politics. That adds an element of danger to the situation—but also points the way toward how dictator Bashar al-Assad may fall, especially if the West takes the proper initiative.

Syria’s population is 74% Sunni Muslim. Yet the Assad regime is Alawite, an offshoot of Shiite Islam—often considered heretical by orthodox Sunnis—that comprises only 10% or 15% of Syrians. The best-armed and best-trained divisions of the Syrian army …

Police commandoes pursue armed gunmen in Syria’s Hama. Russia – 1/8 Tass 18

BEIRUT, August 1 (Itar-Tass) —— The anti-rebel special forces are chasing down armed gunmen, who are terrorizing the civilians in the Syrian city of Hama. The armed rebels against the current Syrian authorities started storming the state agencies and police stations in the city, which is situated 210 kilometers north of Damascus, since early morning, the Syrian Interior Ministry reported on Sunday. The fires broke out in many buildings after the lootings. The gunmen took hostage the civilians and waged the sporadic fire from the house roofs. The security forces “gave a rebuff to armed gangs, which are driving motorcycles,” the ministry said in a statement. Eight police officers were killed.

The Interior Ministry asked the Syrians for help “to find underground shelters of gunmen in order to unarm them and bring to justice.” Armed extremists pose “a major threat to peace in Syria,” the statement runs.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reported that 145 people were killed in various Syrian regions, including 1133 residents in Hama alone. Since the start of riots in the middle of March this is the largest number of casualties for one day in the country. Hama, which had been blocked by the troops for a month, was stormed by the elite forces, which constitute the defence of the current rule, for the past day.

The armored forces are being reinforced around a neighboring industrial center of Homs (165 kilometers north of Damascus), Al Jazeera reported. Local residents are afraid that the ongoing events in Hama may recur in Homs. The special forces entered several settlements in the Damascus suburbs, particularly Al Kiswa, Harasta and Muamadia, where the opposition staged large-scale rallies demanding for President Bashar Assad to be toppled. Over 220 people were detained in Muamadia, Al Jazeera reported.

The Syrian national television reported about the clashes with the rebels in Deir Az Zor, which is an administrative center in the province of the same name in north-eastern Syria. This city on the Euphrates River is populated with the comers from the Bedouin tribes, which joined the anti-governmental actions quite recently.

SYRIAN ARMY SHOWS GROWING SIGNS OF STRAIN
By Jeffrey White – WINEP

Although the Syrian army has shown signs of fraying for some time, the potential for more serious fissures is beginning to emerge. As Ramadan commences, the Syrian government is stepping up efforts to suppress unrest, with special emphasis on the cities of Hama and Dayr al-Zawr. The regime has faced serious challenges in these areas and reportedly killed tens of people there during operations over the weekend and into today. These and other ongoing internal security efforts are placing serious strain on its forces, particularly the army.

REGIME RESPONSE

The government’s response to the demonstrations since March has involved isolating areas of disturbance; arresting protestors, movement leaders, and uninvolved civilians; terrorizing the population with “disappearances” and shootings; conducting raids against centers of resistance; and, when these measures have proven insufficient, carrying out assaults with tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and helicopters. At the core of these tactics has been a willingness to use major violence against largely peaceful and unarmed demonstrators. This weekend’s operations in Hama and Dayr al-Zawr are typical of this pattern.

….
Other reported problems include the formation of a so-called “Free Syrian Army” under a former colonel, the defection of a brigadier general at the Homs military academy, the killing of at least one colonel for refusal to obey orders, and the continuing desertion of junior officers and enlisted men. These reports cannot be confirmed, and the exact scale of desertions is difficult to determine. Yet current trends suggest that the army’s loyalty and cohesion are not just fraying, but beginning to tear….

CONCLUSION

Repression alone is not working for the regime. Damascus does not have a viable political formula for swaying the protestors, much less ending the turmoil. Given the regime’s track record, the opposition no longer believes its promises of a better future. The most likely outcome, then, is escalating conflict with increasing violence.

In particular, the opposition will likely take on an increasingly armed aspect in the face of brutal repression, and as growing numbers of soldiers defect and join its ranks…..Taken together, these prospects augur a much more violent future for Syria and its people.

The opposition keeps on saying that the security forces are exhausted. I imagine they are far from exhausted – or perhaps, even if they are exhausted, they are far from giving up the ghost. They have the power and tools.

Everything depends on how the Sunnis can build leadership and union amongst themselves. Parliament in the 1950s collapsed because the Sunni parties refused to cooperate and all turned to the military and extra-parliamentary politics for advantage. I am not sure they have developed a true sense of “national community” in the ensuing 50 years. It is clear that the Sunnis will no longer be ruled by the minorities and humiliated. But whether they can work together to build a disciplined and better alternative remains to be seen.

Guest Post: BRICS in the UNSC and the Prospects for Syria, August 1, 2011

Underground In Beirut
A Syrian Activist Continues the Fight From Lebanon
By Josh Wood in Boston Review

One night last January, Rami Nakhle bounced toward the Lebanese border on the back of a motorcycle. A gang of smugglers—the kind who usually transport guns, drugs, fuel, and more mundane commodities—had agreed to take him from Homs, Syria, to Beirut, less than one hundred miles away.

To get out of Syria, Rami had promised to pay $1,500—six months’ salary for the average Syrian—cash to be paid on arrival, by a friend. The smugglers ordered him to ditch his small bag by the side of the road and proceed with only the clothes on his back, though this may have been a trick to cheat him out of his belongings. Smugglers can be dangerous people to deal with, but it was a risk worth taking. Rami had just been discovered by the Syrian security services. He had few options but to leave….

Syrian Forces Renew Strike on Restive City of Hama
By NADA BAKRI and ANTHONY SHADID, August 1, 2011

BEIRUT — Syrian security forces bombed the Syrian city of Hama for a second day on Monday in as the government pressed its campaign to crush a four-month old popular uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. On Sunday, at least 70 people were killed when the military and security forces assaulted Hama and other restive cities before dawn, in the broadest and fiercest crackdown yet.
The shelling resumed on Monday in the early hours of the morning as people were returning home from mosques where they performed dawn prayers, according to residents and protesters. At least three people were killed, according to activists.

Obada Arwany, an activist reached by telephone, said that tanks had entered two neighborhoods, Al-Qousour and Al-Hamidiya, and bombed residential buildings there. One man died as his was sleeping in his house from a bomb and another as he was getting in his car from a sniper’s bullet.

“The city is like a ghost town,” Mr. Arwany said. “We were not expecting this at all. Hama is getting massacred.”

One protester was also killed in Deir al-Zour in northwestern Syria, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group that helps organize and document protests.

The simultaneous raids on several cities on Sunday came a day before the holy month of Ramadan began, a time in which Syrian activists have vowed to escalate their uprising with nightly protests. The scale of the assault and the mounting death toll underlined the government’s intention to crush the uprising by force, despite international condemnation and its own tentative and mostly illusory reforms ostensibly aimed at placating protesters’ demands. ….

Since June, Hama has been largely free of security forces, allowing it to assert a measure of independence. In recent weeks, residents have built makeshift barricades, using streetlights, cinder blocks and sandbags to prevent security forces from re-entering. The defenses, however, stood little chance against tanks and armored vehicles, which began their assault from four directions before dawn.

Many in Syria had believed that the government would not dare try to retake Hama, given its bloody history with the government. …

Sobbing, Mr. Arwany said residents shouted “God is great” as they stood in the tanks’ paths. He said that he had seen dead and wounded scattered among the barricades in the streets, the shooting too ferocious for residents to retrieve or rescue them. The gunfire intersected with rallying cries broadcast from loudspeakers in the city’s mosques.

“They know that Hama is not armed,” Mr. Arwany added, “that is why they launched this campaign. “They are cowards. They are coming here to kill us because they know they can.”

The Syrian government offered a very different account of the events, which was contested by everyone reached by phone in the city. It said dozens of gunmen had set up on rooftops and were “shooting intensively to terrorize citizens,” the Syrian state news agency SANA reported. It said insurgent groups had set fire to police stations, vandalized public and private property and set up roadblocks and barricades.

“Army units are removing the barricades and roadblocks set up by the armed groups at the entrance of the city,” the news agency reported.

The version of events echoed the government’s longstanding contention that it faces an armed uprising led by militant Islamists and backed by foreign countries. This time, it said, armed men carried guns and rocket-propelled grenades, though not a single weapon was seen in the streets when a New York Times reporter visited last month.

J. J. Harder, the spokesman for the American Embassy in Damascus, termed the government’s account “nonsense” and called Syrian officials “delusional.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKW9QvJVwtU

Hamedieh Mosque in Hama with a large hole in it made by a large weapon

Paul Salem quoted by Blanford in CSM:

I don’t think either side is near the end of their capacities,” says Paul Salem, the director of the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East Center in Beirut. “So I don’t think there will be any conclusion. Clearly the regime has a lot of fight and staying power. The population and the [general] mood is not at all about to end or throw in any towels. This will be a month that takes us more vigorously toward something resembling civil war.” “The frequency of protests certainly is important [but more important] is which towns decide to join,” says Mr. Salem. “If Aleppo and Damascus decide to join, then it’s all over. If they don’t join, then the regime survives. It doesn’t matter so much if Hama goes from three protests to nine protests, it’s still Hama.”

Syrian tanks launch fresh attack on city of Hama

The BBC’s Jim Muir, in Beirut, say Hama still seems to be largely under the control of its own inhabitants rather than the government.

Tanks and troops which had tried to take control of the city on Sunday, withdrew to the outskirts overnight but now seem to be pushing ahead again, he adds.

Intense shooting also broke out in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour overnight, Rami Abdul-Rahman, the head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said.

Government attempts to crush continuing protests across Syria has brought strong international condemnation.

Russia, in its strongest criticism yet of President Bashar al-Assad, called for an end to “repressions”.

“The use of force against both peaceful civilians and representatives of state structures is unacceptable and should be stopped immediately,” the foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday.

Interior Ministry: 8 Policemen Martyred during Confrontation with Armed Terorist Groups in Hama

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – In a statement on Sunday, the Ministry of Interior said that armed terrorist groups attacked at dawn official and security facilities and police stations in the city of Hama in an attempt to murder and kidnap policemen and vandalize and burn their contents, opening fire randomly around town to terrorize citizens and prevent them to going to work.

The statement said that law-enforcement forces engaged these groups to protect innocent civilians and preserve public and private properties and facilities, deploying in several areas in the city.

During these confrontations, 8 policemen were martyred and a number of police stations in Hama and its countryside were burned along with a number of police motorbikes. A number of gunmen were also killed.

The statement urged citizens to cooperate with security and police forces and provide information about the gunmen, warning against dealing with the armed terrorist groups and harboring them.

The statement stressed that the authorities will work hard to track down the terrorist wherever they are and arrest them and bring them to justice, and that they will continue work to restore security and stability in Hama.

Jerusalem Post: Barak: ‘Assad can hold out for a bit, but won’t last long’, 2011-08-01

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday said the end of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s rule is likely near, Army Radio reported. “He can hold out a few more weeks, just on inertia,” he was quoted as telling members of his Atzmaut Knesset faction, …

Kurdwatch is an excellent site:

It is a well organized and balanced attempt to catalog how the uprising in Syria is affecting Kurds. The most recent updates explain how the new party law will affect Kurdish parties:

The provisions that a party may not be founded on a »regional basis«, that members must come from at least half of all Syrian provinces, and that the party must reflect the »national structure« of Syrian society make the foundation of an explicitly Kurdish-oriented party impossible.

How Kurdish parties stood on the Istanbul and Damascus “National Salvation” opposition meetings:

The other Kurdish parties declined to participate in Damascus because, according to Salih Gedo, member of the politburo of the Kurdish Left Party in Syria, they were not represented on the preparation committee. Nor did any party members take part in the Istanbul conference, though a few independent Kurds in exile did. They left the event shortly after the beginning however, when it was discovered the rights of Kurds would not be considered.

Additionally, on July 16, 2011, Mish?al at-Tammu announced the withdrawal of the Kurdish Future Movement from the »National Rescue Conference«. At-Tammu legitimized this step by the fact that the participants in the Istanbul conference would not have adhered to decisions reached in Damascus. He criticized the fact in the closing statement from Istanbul, the existence and rights of the Kurds in that »part of Kurdistan which has become attached to Syria« were not mentioned.

It also lists the number of Kurds arrested, killed, and disappeared and gives reasons, places and other vital information that provides an overarching picture of teh extent to which Kurds are participating in demonstrations and being .

UN Security Council Will Discuss Syria Today, Britain Says
Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) —

The United Nations Security Council will meet to discuss Syria today, Britain said, after at least 150 people were reported killed yesterday as troops sought to reassert control over anti-government protesters.

The council will meet in New York, a spokeswoman for the U.K. Foreign Office in London said by telephone, declining to be identified in line with government practice. Foreign Secretary William Hague said today securing a resolution condemning the violence will be “difficult work.” China and Russia have been blocking a U.S. and European-backed draft in the 15-member body since late May.

“I would like to see a United Nations Security Council resolution to condemn this violence, to call for the release of political prisoners and to call for legitimate grievances to be responded to,” Hague told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program. “We want to see stronger international pressure all round.”

Syria’s security forces, (AFP), 1 August 2011

DAMASCUS — Here is a breakdown of Syria’s armed forces, after President Bashar al-Assad praised troops for “foiling the enemies”, a day after security forces reportedly killed nearly 140 in a crackdown on protests.

According to the latest edition of the Military Balance, published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the country’s defence budget in 2009 was at $1.87 billion/1.29 billion euros for a gross domestic product of $53.3 billion.

· Troops: The Syrian army consists of 325,000 troops, of which 220,000 are in the army, 5,000 in the navy, 40,000 in the air force and 60,000 in air defences.

Paramilitary forces are estimated at 108,000, of which 8,000 are in the gendarmerie, under the authority of the interior ministry, and 100,000 in the popular militia of the Baath party, which has been in power since 1963.

As regards reservists Syria’s army has 314,000 troops, while there are 4,000 in the navy, 10,000 in the air force and 20,000 in the air defences.

· Structure: The ground army has seven armoured divisions, three mechanised infantry divisions, a special forces division and a Republican Guard, created in 1976 and charged with state security.

The efficiency of the special forces and the Republican Guard is considered to be superior to that of the army in general.

· Equipment: the army is equipped with mainly Russian-made material, and includes 4,950 tanks. It has a large arsenal of missiles, whose command is based in the northern city of Aleppo.

The navy has two frigates. The air force has 555, mainly Soviet-built, fighter planes.

Even if its material is globally considered obsolete since the disappearance of the Soviet Union, its main ally and supplier, Syria’s military is one of the biggest in the Arab world.

Amal Hanano’s lates post on Jadaliyya, “Its not him, it’s them.”

120 dead as tanks sweep into Hama in Syrian uprising’s worst day of violence
by Phil Sands, Aug 1, 2011, the National

DAMASCUS // Syrian security forces killed more than 120 people yesterday in what human rights activists called the bloodiest single day since the current uprising began almost five months ago.

Army operations hit multiple parts of the country simultaneously. Tank-backed infantry units firing shells and heavy machine guns swept into Hama at dawn, heralding the start of a long-anticipated crackdown on a city that had become a model for large-scale peaceful dissent.

Abdul Karim Rehawi, head of the Syrian Human Rights League, an independent civil-liberties group based in Damascus, said: “It’s a day of disaster, there are many dead, many have been seriously wounded and will die, and hundreds have been arrested.

“It seems the authorities have decided to try to finish everything at the start of Ramadan. They have seen cities out of their control and they are moving to crush it.”

For weeks, non-violent demonstrations calling for the toppling of the president, Bashar Al Assad, and the autocratic system of government he heads had routinely involved more than half a million people, prompting some to declare Hama “liberated”.

The prospect of such a major urban centre slipping beyond the authorities’ control appears to have prompted yesterday’s significant military escalation.

More than 90 civilians were killed by security services in Hama, activists said. Residents and medical staff described rooftop security-force snipers shooting at people in the streets with the wounded and dying overwhelming hospital facilities. Electricity, water and communications were cut.

Syrian security forces also conducted deadly offensives yesterday in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, another rebellious city with growing mass protests, and in parts of southern Syria and working-class districts surrounding the capital, Damascus.

The repression in Hama has a huge symbolic resonance. During the 1980s, President Hafez Al Assad, the current leader’s father, despatched elite armoured units against the city in response to a militant Islamist uprising. Entire districts were razed and tens of thousands of people killed, leaving a permanent scar on the psyche of the nation.

In Deir Ezzor city, in the heart of Syria’s Arab tribal region, at least 19 people were killed by security forces yesterday, activists said, with further deaths in Abu Kamal on the Syria-Iraq border and in Harak, a village in the Houran plain, close to the city of Deraa, the original centre of the uprising.

Moadamiya, on the outskirts of Damascus, was placed under a renewed military siege, while residents in Harasta, also on the edge of the capital, said more than 40 protesters were wounded when pro-government forces threw fragmentation bombs into a crowd.

State-run media accused “terrorist groups” of shooting at civilians and attacking security forces in Hama and Deir Ezzor, killing at least two police officers, overrunning security buildings and stealing weapons.

State-run media accused “terrorist groups” of shooting at civilians and attacking security forces in Hama and Deir Ezzor, killing at least two police officers, overrunning security buildings and stealing weapons.

“Scores of gunmen were stationed on the rooftops of the main buildings in the streets of Hama, carrying the latest machine guns and RPGs and shooting intensively to terrorise citizens,” the official news agency, Sana, claimed.

It said security units had exchanged fire with the armed groups and would deal with the situation in suitable ways.

Syrian authorities insist they are fighting an insurrection by Islamist militants, as they were in the 1980s. That claim is rejected by activists, dissident intellectuals, human rights monitors and international organisations, including United Nations agencies, who say the pro-democracy uprising is a largely peaceful call for increased rights.

Jim Muir, BBC News, Beirut

“In over four months of protests, no-one can predict with any confidence what the outcome will be. The uprising won’t go away but has yet to engulf the two biggest cities of Damascus and Aleppo. The protesters face a government that is talking about comprehensive reforms, but hitting back with ferocity. The Americans have not explicitly called for President Assad to go. The international community is not united on this in the way it was on Libya. So there is not going to be any outside intervention.  It is up to the Syrians themselves, and at this stage, nobody can say how it will go.”

Syrian protests pile pressure on the value of the pound
Hussain Abdul-Hussain
Aug 1, 2011

The Syrian economy has been in ruins since mid-March. Tourism has come to a halt and foreign investments have stopped. The situation puts the Syrian currency, the pound, in a precarious position…. As of yesterday reports from Syria had it that the US dollar is worth 67 Syrian pounds on the black market, while the official rate is around 47.5.

Reuters: Germany has requested that the U.N. Security Council meet on Monday to discuss the worsening violence in Syria, a spokesman for the German mission at the United Nations said.

Syria will undermine “new chapter of conspiracy”: president,
2011-08-01

DAMASCUS, July 31 (Xinhua) — Syrian President Bashar Assad said Sunday that he is ultimately confident that Syria will undermine “this new chapter of conspiracy” which he said aims at ” dividing the country as a prelude for dividing the entire region to conflicting states.”

In an interview with Ash-Shaeb magazine to commemorate the 66th anniversary of the Syrian army’s foundation, Assad said “Syria has its own characteristics that are immune to all conspiracies and conspirators.”

“We are now more determined to go on with the process of dignity with confident steps … We will let war-makers and blood traders suffer the bitterness of defeat, disappointment and frustration,” he said.

Assad reasserted that his country is subject to sectarian sedition, but indicated that the Syrian people were aware to what is being intrigued against them and were able to “bury sedition.”

He pledged to go on with the process of an overall reform, noting that Syria will export an example of democracy, freedom and political pluralism.

Assad reiterated that the Syrians would remain “free in our national decision and masters in our international relations.”

Syria has been in unrest since mid March when anti-government protests broke out in the southern province of Daraa and spread to other cities. The Syrian authorities blamed the unrest on “armed groups and foreign conspiracy” and stressed that it would track down gunmen who have intimidated people and damaged public and private properties.

Op-Ed Contributor: To Topple Assad, It Takes a Minority
By BASSMA KODMANI, 2011-08-01

(New York Times) — Paris
AFTER four months of popular demonstrations and ferocious repression, including a bloody crackdown on the central city of Hama on Sunday, the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, still refuses to step down, insisting that he can reform his regime.

What is keeping Mr. Assad in power is the extensive security apparatus that was engineered by his father, Hafez al-Assad, and is dominated by their fellow Alawites, a minority Shiite sect. …But he hasn’t altered the total domination of Syria’s security forces by his Alawite clan. In the last decade, Bashar left his brother Maher al-Assad to organize the security sector with the support of his uncle and cousins, who control the ubiquitous secret police.

Since mid-March, as suppression of the protests became increasingly violent, the army has purged officers and soldiers — including many hitherto loyal Sunni troops — to reduce the chance of a revolt…

The onus falls on the Sunni majority to reassure Alawites and other minorities like Christians, Druse and Shiites — who believe they need the regime’s protection — that they will not be subjected to acts of vengeance. These Sunni religious and political leaders can save Syria from its sectarian demons.

Only Syrians can initiate this delicate process; foreign governments, whether Arab or Western, have limited roles to play. The Syrian psyche is shaped by memories of foreign interference, something the Assad regime did not invent, but has exploited.

In Syria, anyone who calls for outside intervention is likely to be branded a traitor; any Western threat of military action would therefore hurt the opposition more than the regime. Outside powers can play a useful role by declaring they will not use military force. Such a statement would weaken Mr. Assad’s argument that the uprising is the result of foreign meddling and remove a major source of anxiety among Syria’s hesitant majority.

Syrians of all stripes are beginning to understand that everyone is a victim of this regime and that the real conspiracy is that of the Assads themselves. Sunni leaders must act now to prevent the revolt from descending into civil war by assuring minorities that they will not face reprisals in a new Syria. This could bring Alawites into the opposition’s ranks and seal the regime’s demise.

Bassma Kodmani is the executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative.

Patrick Seale is the foremost Syria scholar. He has written the two best books on the rise of the Baath and Hafiz al-Assad. Bashar al-Assad closed his doors to Seale, believing he should find his own chronicler of Syrian politics just as he should tone up and revitalize the lineaments of the regime itself. His was a youthful plan, full of hope and confidence.

Seale worries that the country he has spent his life studying is slipping toward civil war. He does not have faith that the opposition can provide the unity and cohesion necessary to both bring down the Baathist state as well as rebuild it from the ground up. He councils dialogue and a more deliberate and cautious trajectory toward change.

One senses, however, that he is not convinced dialogue will work. No one has explained in greater detail than Seale himself that Hafiz’s key to stability was to fix the regime around family members and 30 or so loyal subordinates, or as I have phrased it: “it takes a village to rule Syria.” Bashar has not departed from his father’s model despite his efforts at modernization. Any real democratic opening would cause this “deep state,” as the Turks refer to the military elite that sustained their country’s Kemalist system, to crumble. Loyalty is its glue. Loyalty enforced with a large dose of force and patronage.

But more than this, Seale describes such disunity among the opposition that it is hard to imagine any faction being able to carry out talks without finding itself discredited and attacked by the remaining factions, which would use the setbacks inevitable in negotiations as the scaffolding for climbing over the negotiating party and pushing it aside. Real dialogue would require unity and a determined opposition leadership that could direct demonstrations even as it negotiated concessions from the regime. Agreeing to “bring down the regime” requires minimal unity. Disagreements can be postponed. But this “unity” is skin deep. It has big sectors of the populace anxious and sitting on the side lines. They know that once the state is destroyed, it may be too late for unity and too late to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Then Syria may be on the road to becoming Iraq or Lebanon.  I have copied only a small segment of Seale’s argument. It is worth reading it all.

Way out of the Syrian crisis
By Patrick Seale

Some observers believe that a dialogue between the regime and the opposition is the safest way forward….

……..The opposition faces a stark choice: either to go all out to bring the regime down, or to cooperate with it in building a new and better Syria. The first course is hazardous: if the Baathist state is torn down, what will replace it? The future is uncharted. The second course requires an act of faith: it means accepting that the regime truly wants to implement radical reforms by means of a national dialogue. Its attempt to launch such a dialogue has so far failed to convince.

The regime has mishandled the protest movement. Slow to grasp the nature of the popular challenge, it has been violent and incompetent in confronting it. The security services, like President Bashar Al Assad himself, seem to have been taken by surprise. By resorting to live fire against the protesters, they displayed indiscipline and arrogant contempt for the lives of ordinary citizens. Ordinary people want respect. This has been one of the motors of the Arab Spring.

Al Assad himself has fumbled. Of his three speeches in the past four months, two were public relations disasters and the third far from the rousing, dramatic appeal to the nation that his supporters had expected and the occasion demanded. Above all, he has failed to put an end to the killings, arbitrary arrests, beatings and torture which have sullied his and the country’s reputation.

Meanwhile, the Baath party — ‘leader of state and society’, according to the notorious article 8 of the Constitution — has been virtually silent, confirming the widespread belief that it has become a hollow shell, concerned only to protect its privileges and its corrupt network of patronage.

No forceful leadership

If the regime has shown itself to be weak, the opposition is weaker still. It wants to challenge the system, but it evidently does not know how to proceed. It is split in a dozen ways between secularists, civil rights activists, democrats — and Islamists; between angry unemployed youths in the street and venerable figures of the opposition, hallowed by years in prison; between the opposition in Syria and the exiles abroad; between those who call for western intervention and those who reject any form of foreign interference…..

A sectarian civil war on the Iraqi or Lebanese model is every Syrian’s nightmare. There must surely be another way out of the crisis. ….

Hama is being subdued before Ramadan. The government felt it could not risk leaving the city lying outside of government control. It could become the birth place of a real “Free Syrian Army” – a sort of Bengazi. Or it could become the incubator of an opposition Syrian government.  Liz Sly reports: Syrian Tanks Storm Protest Epicenter of Hama. Whether the use of increased force will succeed in doing much but infuriate more Syrians is not clear. So far, that has been the outcome.

July 31 (Washington Post) — BEIRUT —Syrian troops launched a major offensive to crush a four-month old rebellion against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad early Sunday, sending tanks into the protest flashpoint of Hama and several other locations in what appeared to be an all-out effort to silence the revolt. Human rights groups reported scores of casualties, with at least 49 people killed in Hama and 20 deaths elsewhere, according to the Local Coordination Committees, a group that monitors and organizes protests. The toll was expected to rise as the crackdown continued. Troops were also reported to have swept into the eastern town of Deir al Zour, another major protest stronghold near the border with Iraq that had been overwhelmed by anti-government protesters in recent weeks.

Obama: Crackdown in Syria Is ‘Horrifying’, 2011-07-31

Washington (AP) — President Barack Obama is stepping up his criticism of Syria’s crackdown on protesters, charging that the Syrian president is “completely incapable and unwilling” to respond to what Obama calls the legitimate grievances of the Syrian people.

One Big Armed Gang in Syria

“An official at the US embassy in Damascus told the BBC World Service that “there is one big armed gang in Syria, and it’s named the Syrian government”…

Speaking to the BBC World Service’s Newshour programme, Harder said: “I think we can safely say it’s full-on warfare by the Syrian government on its own people. This full-on warfare in which the government is engaged in today, I think, amounts to nothing less than a last act of utter desperation. They’re killing their own people, they’re sending their tanks into their own cities. It’s ridiculous. There is one big armed gang in Syria and it’s named the Syrian government. That’s the armed gang that is pillaging its own cities, that’s the armed gang that is striking terror into the hearts of a lot of these people who are out there who just want to peacefully protest…. The government is not exactly a cohesive, coherent unit but rather a group of disparate groups within the government itself,… On one hand you have a purported reform movement.. and then you have warfare, then you have full-on attacks of Hama and Deir Ezzor (in the east), it just doesn’t make any sense.” …”

BBC

“By early evening, activists in Hama told the BBC that the city was quiet, and that the tanks had pulled out to the city’s perimeters after failing to gain control of the centre.”

“But our correspondent says the people of Hama remain defiant, with some still out in streets shouting: “We will not be killed again,” a reference to a massacre in 1982 when tens of thousands were killed.”

Youtube of three rather anxious soldiers in the village of Quriyya outside of Deir ez-Zor. Activists say they have split from the army and try to get them to reveal their faces on film. The soldiers are hesitant to be filmed, supposedly because they fear being identified and hunted down. Activists chant, “the people want the military to carry out a revolution against the regime” and try to get the soldiers to chant this slogan as well.

Brook Anderson, Palestinians in Lebanon voice growing support for Syrian protesters.

“I was against the revolution in the beginning. I thought the Syrian people were comfortable,” said Mohammed Qatantani, a 27-year-old shopkeeper who has taken many trips to Syria over the years, always admiring the good infrastructure, affordable healthcare and rights for Palestinians that he never saw in Lebanon.

“But then I saw the news: the mass graves, the executions and the torture. It looked like Israel had invaded Palestine. Oppression isn’t pretty wherever it happens,” he said. He added that he had been with the Egyptian revolution from day one, because of Mubarak’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza: the repeated closure of the Rafah border crossing, and violent government clampdowns on those who protested. .

It was three weeks into the Syrian uprising – which began March 15 – when Qatantani says he began to change his mind, unable to believe his neighbor, a young man who sold CDs and was engaged to be married, was part of the armed gangs the Syrian government blamed for the unrest.

Mick said:

Is the video posted in your last article fake? It depends on what you mean.

Are there military members that have family ties that overcome the military ties? Yes. So far, the number is at the .01% rate. Not anything one would call a problem four months into a supposed massive social uprising where troops are ordered to blindly shoot into crowds.

Are there members of the Idlib/Jisr Ash Shaghur/Ar Rastan crowd in Turkey, including a few military family members, making videos for propaganda? Yes. This does not equate to a split in the military. Senior military leaders are not about to coup against the regime. When you see military leaders argue, like you have in Turkey, that is a serious problem. A few medium ranking officers from small towns making a video in a foreign country is not a threat to the regime.

Do these forces represent a military force? No. Just juicy video meat for people sitting in a bathtub to talk about.

I see the false claim that the 4th div was involved in every military operation has suddenly dropped from the opposition’s lies. So now it the ‘security forces’ and ‘shabiha’ forces that are to blame.

Would the military still be together if they were either ordered to, or forced to watch, blatant killing of their own civilians? Quite a lot of soldiers have been shot. So many that there is no way the force would still be together if they were all shot by their own troops for not obeying orders to shoot.

Syrian forces arrest top tribal leader, opposition says, Jerusalem Post: 2011-07-31

AMMAN – Syrian forces have arrested Sheikh Nawaf al-Bashir, head of the main Baqqara tribe in rebellious Deir al-Zor province and a prominent figure in the campaign against President Bashar Assad, opposition sources told Reuters on Sunday. Secret …

Armed groups attack law-enforcement members in east Syria: report

DAMASCUS, July 30 (Xinhua) — Armed groups attacked law- enforcement members and a police station in the northeastern city of Deir al-Zour and stole some weapons and ammunitions, the official SANA news agency reported late Saturday.

Armed groups cut off and barricaded some roads in the city to terrorize residents, said SANA, adding the law-enforcement members encountered these groups and exchanged gunfire with them.

It said law-enforcement members are still hunting these groups down and using the right methods in dealing with situation there, adding the residents of Deir al-Zour expressed their worries of the groups’ acts and stressed their refusal of any acts that would harm the country in general and Deir al-Zour in particular.

Meanwhile, the Syria-News, local news website, cited witnesses as saying that the city of Deir al-Zour is witnessing a proliferation of armed men and that the situation is so intense, as the water and electricity were cut off since Friday noon. It said there are large numbers of arrests in the nearby al-Bukmal city as well.

Security forces are conducting a large-scale house raids and arrests especially those whose ages range from 15 to 40, said the report, adding the families there don’t know where the detainees are taken to.

“There is a shortage of food and the families there are helping one another by exchanging what they have of food and water,” The website cited an unnamed journalist in the area as saying.

Activists said Deir al-Zour witnessed a large anti-government protest on Friday, as part of other protests that took to streets across the country, to press demands for the downfall of the leadership.

Local Coordination Committees (LCC), which tracks the protests in Syria, said the Syrian army had bombarded al-Jawza neighborhood, west of Deir al-Zour, with artilleries which left many injuries.

Rights group says 20 protesters killed across Syria – Turkish Weekly

Fighting erupts between military forces, residents in Deir al-Zor; several injured as forces open fire on anti-Assad demonstrators in Deraa.

Saboteurs target oil pipeline in Homs.

AMMAN- Syrian forces shot dead at least 20 civilians in attacks on pro-democracy demonstrations across the country on Friday, the Syrian human rights organization Sawasiah said.

Syrians in their thousands took to the streets nationwide for the 17th consecutive Friday to demand an end to President Bashar al-Assad’s 11-year rule, activists said by telephone, defying an intensifying military crackdown on an uprising for political freedoms.

“The security forces are continuing violent repression against peaceful demonstrations demanding freedom and the downfall of the regime, firing live ammunition at most protests all over Syria on Friday,” Sawasiah said in a statement sent to Reuters.

Sawasiah said it had the names of 20 people killed in the cities of Latakia, Hama, Homs, Deraa, Kiswa, Deir al-Zor and in and around the capital Damascus.

Residents said armed resistance erupted on Friday against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in several neighborhoods of Deir al-Zor after the killing of five protesters, shot dead by Syrian security forces in a new effort to try to crush widening Sunni Muslim unrest against Assad.

Thousands took to streets across the country after Friday prayers to demand the downfall of President Bashar Assad, witnesses and activists said. Several other people were injured during the clashes.

Ivashov: Syria Experiencing Wide Scale Campaign Targeting Its Independent Policy and Support for Resistance, Jul 30, 2011

MOSCOW/BELGRADE, (SANA) – Vice President of the Academy on Geopolitical Affairs Gen. Leonid Ivashov said on Saturday that what is currently taking place in Syria is a wide scale campaign carried out by Israel’s Mossad and western countries – particularly the United States and France – in an attempt to fragment Syria due to its independent policy, support for resistance against Israel and establishing strong relations with Iran.

In an interview with SANA’s correspondent in Moscow, Ivashov said that the west is also targeting Syria because of its position in the Arab world and its unique style of development that can serve as a role model of Arab people, noting that the international financial circles that organized the campaign against Syria don’t want the Syrian model to succeed and continue its independent policy.

He pointed out that the third stage of the U.S. plan to destabilize Syria is taking place, and that this stage consists of carrying out sabotage and assassinations, causing bloodshed, and taking the situation from a political track to a combat track.

Ivashov explained that the second stage consisted of inciting armed confrontations with the army and law-enforcement forces, while the first stage involved amassing funds and weapons, carrying out a strong media misdirection campaign, and organizing armed terrorist groups.

On a relevant note, Ivashov pointed out that the U.S. organized a training course in a neighboring country for Syrian opposition, providing them with instructions and directions to carry out acts of terrorism and sabotage in Syria and exploit the just demands of some Syrians, adding that the Syrian leadership began finding solutions to these demands by issuing a number of legislations and reform laws….

Is the Free Syrian Army real?

It is now being claimed that the video which surfaced yesterday of the seven officers who claim to be the commanders of the Free Syrian Army is not what it seems to be. The video I have posted above claims to demonstrate that different officers are wearing the identical uniform. Presumably, the makers of the videos are dressing up different men in the same Colonel’s uniform so they can pose as high ranking officers.

A second video uploaded to youtube on 5 July 2011 shows the same officer who spoke in yesterday’s video (see the top of my last post). Some have suggested he is speaking from a foreign country. This makes sense because young babies are clearly audible in the background. It would be too dangerous to do this from one’s home. In another video of Shaykh `Ar`our on Wisal TV, Colonel Ahmad Hijazi calls in. He is one of the seven soldiers. He has babies crying in the background, as well. One could not phone in from Syria without the Mukhabarat potentially listing to the phone call. Certainly, one would not risk this with his baby children in the back room. This would suggest that the leaders of the Free Syrian Army are in Turkey, Jordan or Saudi Arabia and not in Syria.

syau writes in the comment section:

Watch out Syrian Arab Army, 7 so called defectors have formed their own army to fight you. The desperation of this ‘revolution’ is hilarious.

Aboud Responds:

@2 Your nervous laugh is understandable. That was a colonel in the video, who probably has under him any number of majors, who also command captains, who also give orders to lieutenants. Care to hazard a guess how many conscripts those lieutenants command?

(Of course, none of the Baathists want to mention Abukamal, and the way the whole garrison there defected two weeks ago)

It takes an enormous amount of guts to defect from the Syrian army. There is no going back, if caught they will be executed on the spot. They will be risking everything to defend their neighborhoods, families and friends, and they won’t even have the benefit of a fake amnesty.

The fact that any soldier or officer at all would think of defecting is remarkable. The fact that so many have in increasing numbers is nothing short of miraculous.

The courage and resilience displayed by the Syrian people has been truly remarkable. It puts to shame those other nations and peoples who gave up or compromised for less of an excuse.

Ya Mara Ghalba

See the video uploaded to youtube on 5 July 2011, which shows the same purported army defector as the one who’s speaking in the video linked to by Joshua. This purported traitor looks so relaxed, here, I’m willing to bet he’s in a far-off foreign country:

Joshua’s video should be presumed by every sensible person to be fictitious and foreign-produced, with none of the seven people in it being residents in Syria in recent years.

Abu Umar said:

It’s clear that these menhebek thugs support the slaughter, jailing and torture of tens of thousands of Syrians. Do you expect those who have been oppressed to be killed by your regime and for them to smile at you? Be careful what you wish for and you will remember the days of Ar’oor fondly.

Souri333 (formerly Souri) said:

Where is this army located?? Is it in Syria or in dreamland?? How many tanks and planes does it have??

Who told you the regime can’t survive if the rebellion spreads to Aleppo and Damascus?? Who told you these two cities are “silent”?? Do you think the rebellion has not spread to Damascus yet??

I stopped taking this blog seriously long ago because it has become too absurd.

Majed97 said:

Assuming those officers are true defectors, does that legitimize this chaos that is destroying the country?! Should we now abandon all peaceful and gradual reform efforts, and instead join those defectors and expand this conflict to a full blown civil war?!

In a country like Syria with deep sectarian and tribal divide, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that a handful of the 500,000 military personnel may have their loyalty lies elsewhere. It happens in every country during conflicts, where some soldiers/officers disobey orders. The question should be asked: how does any government in the world treat defectors? They arrest them and try in a military court. The military establishment is not a democratic institution…

Abu Ghassan writes:

This group of seven is a pathetic political stunt and a clear indication of the confusion that dominates the situation in Syria.
I learned that none of the officers were from the Alawi sect, not that it makes any real difference,and none of them held a position of any significance. Those officers may, and they have the right to be, unhappy with the regime like most Syrians, but their action will reduce them to a toy in the hands of bigger and more sinister players. Any effort to divide or harm the army is a blow to the country’s unity and safety. Those of you who are cheering this theatrical move are in need of a heavy dose of Syrian tea on top of a loaded Falafel Sandwich.

The regime is obviously trying to buy time now, and what was supposed to take place in September is now pushed to the end of the year. the only language this regime understands is pressure but not the type of pressure armed thugs are applying. It is the civil political pressure that will help keep this movement on track. People who kill, destroy and terrorize must be condemned and isolated by the opposition, and the lack of that condemnation and isolation is very harmful to the credibility of the opposition. New propaganda coming from albaath dinosaurs who are starting to feel the heat and want to preserve article-8 and prevent open elections. We will be watching!

Tara Asked:

We discussed Al Buti on SC a day or 2 ago. Is he still giving sermon in Umayad mosque? Some of my relative are/were established Sunni “figures” and I bet they think like Buti (and I have no respect for them) . I do not like the way Muslim figures dress. I want to have a dress revolution too. They all should wear a suit if it was up to me.

Tara said:

I just watched Aljazeera. There were massive demonstrations yesterday. The footages are coming now. Altabaqa joined in. Douma is amazing as ever. Bzourieh in Damascus demonstrating too. Looks very uplifting.

N.Z. said:

Baathist and non-Baathist,

I urge you all to see this interview with Muhammad Aref Kayali, an insider from the onset of the Baathist Syrian Party. A man of substance, a realist. Archive quality. Worth watching.

Ya Mara Ghalba writes:

Joshua likes to report what’s being said in the New York Times and doesn’t like to report what’s being said in Al-Watan. That is, the blog is skewed towards quoting sources that don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to Syria. One result is the illusion that Syrian society hasn’t yet overwhelmingly rejected all anti-regime alternatives — the illusion that the society hasn’t yet proven itself immune to the germs.

Over the past four months, conscious support for the Assad government has increased substantially. Among the educated and more liberal-minded Syrians right now, it is only a tiny minority of dissident cranks who do not consciously and positively support the government. The outsiders who think those dissident cranks are virtuous are ignorant bigots.

Ammar Abdulhamid in the LA Times

“I think the month of Ramadan will indeed be a turning point for the revolution,” said Ammar Abdul-Hamid, a Syrian opposition activist and dissident in the United States. “During Ramadan, every day will likely be a Friday, and Assad’s security forces, army troops and death squads will have tremend..

One dead, 500 arrested in Damascus roundup, Agence France-Presse, Jul 30, 2011

NICOSIA // Security forces shot dead one civilian and arrested more than 500 people in the Qadam district of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.

“Soldiers and a large number of security agents entered Qadam at 3:00 am on Friday (0000 GMT) and cordoned off the area,” said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Britain-based rights group.

“More than 500 people were arrested during the operation, and one young man was killed at a security roadblock,” he added.

Abdel Rahman said the authorities also banned public funerals in the district, and said the young man was quickly buried in the presence of security officials to forestall any demonstrations.

“The army put up barricades at all entrances to the area, and heavily armed members of the security forces carried out searches and made arrests,” he said, adding that they had lists of names of people hostile to the regime.

“Security forces broke down doors when they weren’t opened quickly enough, and then they posted people on the roofs of houses during the four-hour operation, he said.

Minister of Environmental Affairs: Bombing of Oil Pipeline Damages Economy, Harms Public Health and Environment Cham Press, Jul 30, 2011

HOMS, (SANA) – State Minister of Environmental Affairs Kawkab Dayeh on Saturday affirmed that the bombing of the petroleum pipeline by terrorist groups which took place on Friday near Tal Housh dam targets national economy, damages the environment and hams public health and livelihoods.

Deir ez-Zor bombing of oil pipeline claimed by opposition on a Facebook page

Open Letter from a Syrian Arab priest to Alain Juppe, France’s Foreign Minister

LETTRE OUVERTE D’UN PRETRE ARABE DE SYRIE A ALAIN JUPPE, MINISTRE DES AFFAIRES ETRANGERES DE LA FRANCE,

Monsieur le Ministre,
Prêtre arabe de Syrie, je viens d’apprendre à l’instant votre déclaration aux États-Unis, touchant la légitimité de notre Président de la République.
En tant que syrien, je ne puis rester silencieux face à une telle ingérence dans les affaires de mon pays.
Professeur d’Université, vous n’êtes pas censé ignorer que la légitimité d’un Président de République, dépend du consensus de son peuple uniquement, et non de l’arbitraire d’une puissance quelconque.
Ministre des Affaires Étrangères d’un pays comme la France, vous êtes censé savoir que la Syrie est un État Souverain, membre fondateur des Nations-Unies.
Mais, porte-parole grisé de certains maîtres du monde actuel, vous croyez pouvoir décider à volonté du sort des autres pays, dont la Syrie.

….
Pr. Elias Zehlaoui

PERE ELIAS ZEHLAOUI EST LE FONDATEUR ET DIRECTEUR DE LA “CHORALE DE LA JOIE” qui compte 500 choristes et il est très actif dans le domaine du dialogue islamo-chrétien

Women and the Syrian Protests: Chanel 4 BBC

CNN: Human rights group: 7 deaths in Syria violence

“Journalist Alexander Page, who said he was with protesters who were marching from Damascus’ Midan neighborhood to Zahera, reported that he saw three people shot when security forces aimed into the crowd and

fired. Four buses carrying “regime thugs and riot police” had arrived on the scene, and security forces were stopping cars and beating people, Page said.

The wounded were picked up by security forces and taken away in buses, Page said.

He said a man on a motorbike filmed the faces of protesters as he drove past them. They chased and beat him, Page said.”

Opposion seeking to prepare the Syrian youth to rule” – Syrian activist, 29/07/2011

Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat – Syrian academic and political activist Najib Ghadbain, who is also a member of the Syrian Opposition Consultative Council, informed Asharq Al-Awsat that the Syrian opposition has “entered a new phase of operations, within the framework of preparing the Syrian youth for leadership following the collapse of the regime.”

Ghadbain attended the recent meeting of Syrian opposition groups in Istanbul earlier this week, and he stressed that “the objective of the previous meetings that were held in Turkey [e.g Anatalya summit] was merely to bring together Syrian political activists abroad to find a way of supporting the revolution and to allow the Syrian voices to be heard by international public opinion.”

He added “as for the Istanbul meeting, its objective is to bring together a large group of Syrian youth, from inside Syria and abroad, and prepare them [for rule], by enrolling them in intensive training courses focusing on several subjects, including legal issues, international relations, media, as well as defining concepts such as citizenship, minority rights, and others.”

He also stressed that “the Syrian youth activists require such training, for one of the jobs of repressive regimes is to kill the youth’s interests in politics” adding that “it is essential for the Syrian youth to gain these basic skills, particularly as a broad section of this youth will be leaders in the forthcoming stage; therefore it is our duty to prepare the youth in this regard.”

Ghadbain also told Asharq Al-Awsat that “the youth who have undertaking these training courses will be working to share what they learn with their colleagues [who could not attend the summit], particularly as there is a lack of political awareness amongst the Syrian youth in general.” However Ghadbain acknowledged that the Syrian youth had “learnt a lot by organizing and participating in the demonstration [against the Syrian regime].” He added that “the forthcoming stage is extremely sensitive and we must be ready to meet any challenges.”

As for differences of opinion between the Syrian youth on the ground and the Syrian political opposition, Ghadbain said that “there can be no doubt that the Syrian elite, or the so-called more traditional Syrian political opposition, is not capable of leading the street protests. However both sides have recently discovered that they need one another, for the youth need the expertise of the traditional political opposition, whilst the opposition is in need of the youth’s enthusiasm.”

He also revealed that “the Istanbul meeting was held at the request of the youth, who wanted to develop themselves.”

Ghadbain stressed that “the [Syrian] opposition is seeking to show the world’s leaders that there is an alternative to the al-Assad regime that is capable of filling the vacuum in the forthcoming stage.” He added that “as for the rumors of the establishment or formation of an [opposition] national salvation or transitional government, there can be no doubt that we would support this when the time comes.”

The Libyan rebels’ military commander was killed by his comrades Huffington Post

while in custody after he was arrested by the opposition’s leadership on suspicion of treason, witnesses said Friday, in a sign of disarray that posed a major setback for the movement battling Moammar Gadhafi.

The slaying of Abdel-Fattah Younis raised fear and uncertainty in Benghazi, the de facto rebel capital. Thousands marched behind his coffin, wrapped in the rebels’ tricolor flag, to the graveyard for his burial, chanting that he was a martyr “beloved by God.” Troops fired a military salute as the coffin arrived, and angry and grieving supporters fired wildly into the air with automatic weapons.

At the graveside, Younis’ son, Ashraf, broke down, crying and screaming as they lowered the body into the ground and – in a startling and risky display in a city that was the first to shed Gadhafi’s rule nearly six months ago – pleaded hysterically for the return of the Libyan leader to bring stability.

“We want Moammar to come back! We want the green flag back!” he shouted at the crowd, referring to Gadhafi’s national banner.

Younis’ slaying appeared to shake both the rebels’ leadership body, the National Transitional Council, and its Western allies, who have heavily backed the rebels controlling most of eastern Libya.

Fighters from a rebel faction known as the February 17 Martyr’s Brigade came to the operations room and demanded Younis come with them for interrogation…. Younis trusted them and went alone.”… they killed him.”

The February 17 Martyrs Brigade is a group made up of hundreds of civilians who took up arms to join the rebellion. Their fighters participate in the front-line battles with Gadhafi’s forces but also act as a semi-official internal security force for the opposition. Some of its leadership comes from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an Islamic militant group that waged a campaign of violence against Gadhafi’s regime in the 1990s….

France’s Le Monde newspaper took a harsher view, warning that the rebels’ version of events “is hardly reassuring” and gives reason “to doubt the capacity of the council to exercise power.” “This risks reinforcing Tripoli’s hand,” Le Monde wrote.

Turkey’s failure in Syrian crisis

One should always keep this statement in mind: “the Kurds always look upon Turkey with suspicion.” This consequently leads to: “The Turkish involvement in any issue leads to the Kurdish distancing from it.”

Substantiating such a conclusion might require plentiful evidence, but one cannot disregard the fact that Abdullah Ocalan, the Leader of Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey, lived in Turkey for years. This didn’t imply the proximity of Syria to the Kurds, because Damascus was reluctant to grant Syrian citizenship to northeastern Kurdish settlers and would only reconsider the matter in the face of the pressure of the current wave of demonstrations.

A conference hosting the adversaries of Bashar Assad, the Syrian Prime Minister, was held in Turkey some time ago with participants who ran the whole oppositional gamut. A similar meeting was due in Damascus and the two assemblies were supposed to nominate 75 people to the Syrian Transitory Council, similar to the Libyan Transitory National Council. The Damascus meeting was not held and 25 nominees were chosen in Istanbul. But this could not conceal the fragility of and the internal divisions among the Syrian regime’s opposition from sight.

The fact of some of the participants warning against the presence of the Islamist Majority (Akhvan al Moslemin) aside, the Kurdish figures decided to walk out of the meeting since they were against the phrase: the “Arabic” Republic of Syria. It lighted upon other oppositionists too that the cost of a consensus among all opposition groups exceeds their imagination. This discord came to a head when the Kurds hoisted Kurdistan’s flag in the Istanbul summit and in response to protests from others said that you, too, have raised the Turkish flag!

One of the causes of Syria’s Kurds continuing in their cooperation with the other opposition groups can be seen to be Turkey’s policy with regard to Syria’s revolts. From the very outset Turkey’s senior officials expressed their lack of patience with the slowness of the reforms process in Syria and voiced their extreme displeasure of suppressing the opposition. Every time the Syrian Presidency made a speech on the implementation of reforms, voices were heard from Ankara crying out that Bashar Assad is short of time and will have to capitulate to the demands of the opposition within a few days.

It goes without saying that the rigid and robust body of Syria’s politics has not exhibited much flexibility for reforms and softness against the demands of the opposition. Some trace this to internal disputes within the Syrian regime on the execution of reforms and contend that on the expansion of reforms Bashar Assad is facing greater pressure from internal opposition than the streets and public demonstrations.

According to reports the Syrian government is observing the developments in its Kurd-settled regions, especially in Qamishli, very keenly. There hasn’t been much conflict between the police and the military and the public in the Kurd-settled regions. Some negotiations have been made with the Kurdish parties, such as Kurdistan Workers’ Party – the Syrian branch, and the conclusion has been that the military wing of this party to take up security in Kurd-inhabited areas. This was a clear message to Turkey that Damascus, too, has some cards up its sleeves that it can play with inside Turkey.

Following Turkey’s blatant intervention in Syria, Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, two Iraqi Kurdish leaders, vehemently supported Syria and Iraq’s Prime Minister also refused to go along with Turkey’s intervention and even signed an agreement to send 150,000 barrels of oil to diminish Syria’s economic plights and received a group consisting of 150 Syrian businessmen to strengthen the economic ties between the two countries. This comes at a time when only a while back Nouri Almaleki accused Syria of sending saboteurs and weapons into Iraq.

An important factor inside Turkey also deserves mention: the approximately 20 million Alawis who can’t bear to witness their government imposing pressure upon Syria’s Alawis. The continuation of the interventions of America, France, Turkey, and Qatar in Syria’s current issues might cause a rerun of the incidents of the city of Homs, but on a larger scale, a city which witnessed for the first time a religious conflict between the pro- and anti-government people where both sides attacked each other with firearms which claimed the lives of 30 people. This incident induced Syria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs to state that the national unity of his country has been targeted.

Militarily speaking, the entrance of the Syrian army into areas close to Turkey’s border, particularly Jisr al Shughour, is a step further than Syria’s internal incidents. Syria executed the “precipice” policy with regard to Turkey and sent special units of its army to its border with Turkey. Ankara’s calculations for inciting division and split in Syria’s army failed and Ankara gradually cut down on its propaganda assaults upon Syria. For the first time in 17 years Syria’s army entered into regions, which based on agreements with Turkey on Ocalan, were considered arms-free regions.

Based upon what was stated in propagandas and by some Arabic news networks, the Syrian regime deploys the Alawi units of its army to cleanse the border regions and the Fourth division of its Army has been dispatched to the border regions, but the reality is that the Fifteenth Division entered the fray, most of whose commander and soldiers are Sunni Syrians.

As was the case with Libya, not only Turkey, but also France will have to reconsider its policies towards Syria. Sarkozy was the first western Prime Minister to officially recognize the Libyan Transitional National Council and assumed the commandership of the assault against Gaddafi, but France’s Defense and Foreign Secretaries openly say that Gaddafi’s opponents should not expect a military triumph and should yield to a diplomatic solution instead. This solution, the responsibility of whose marketing has been bestowed upon the Representative of the United Nations Secretary General, has proved so shocking to the Gaddafi opposition that they have threatened to charge this international organization with failing to remain impartial in the Libyan crisis.

Daniel Levy, “America’s Attempted Quartet Sophistry,” Foreign Policy, July 22, 2011.

BILAL Y. SAAB AND NICHOLAS BLANFORD, “Seeing Red Along the Blue Line: Five years after the end of the Israel-Hezbollah war, both sides are furiously preparing for another round.” |JULY 29, 2011, FOREIGN POLICY