01/09/2013 - #Syria - Syrian Al Nusra fighters speak to Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera has had rare access to rebel fighters from the Nusra Front.
They have been launching an attack on Al Nyrab military airport near Aleppo.
The U.S. has blacklisted the group, calling it an al Qaeda-linked terrorist organisation.
Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra has the story.
02/10/12
Opposition fighters in Syria have taken over a hospital in the town of al-Qusair in central Homs province.
The fighters claim that the forces of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, had turned the facility into barracks.
Al Jazeera has gained exclusive access to the unit involved in the three-day battle for the hospital turned military base.
Imran Khan reports.
30/09/12
Al-Jazeera English journalists protest after being ordered to re-edit UN report to focus on Qatar emir’s comments on Syria
Al-Jazeera’s editorial independence has been called into question after its director of news stepped in to ensure a speech made by Qatar’s emir to the UN led its English channel’s coverage of the debate on Syrian intervention.
Journalists had produced a package of the UN debate, topped with excerpts of President Obama’s speech, last Tuesday when a last-minute instruction came from Salem Negm, the Qatar-based news director, who ordered the video to be re-edited to lead with the comments from Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.
Despite protests from staff that the emir’s comments – a repetition of previous calls for Arab intervention in Syria – were not the most important aspect of the UN debate, the two-minute video was re-edited and Obama’s speech was relegated to the end of the package.
There are hints at staff dissatisfaction within the film, available for viewing on al-Jazeera’s website and YouTube, which notes that the emir “represents one of the smallest countries in the Arab world … but Qatar has been one of the loudest voices condemning Syria”.
The episode left a bitter taste among staff amid complaints that this was the most heavy-handed editorial intervention at the global broadcaster, which has long described itself as operating independent of its Qatari ownership.
An al-Jazeera spokesman said the emir’s speech was “a significant development” that day and the broadcaster “consequently gave it prominence”.
Obama’s speech had been carried live, the spokesman added, and the emir’s comments were balanced with disagreement from the Egyptian president, Mohammed Morsi.
However, insiders said Morsi’s contribution had to be taken from an interview with another broadcaster, because none of the world leaders speaking at the UN had, or was, intending to take notice of the emir’s comments.
Al-Jazeera English was set up in 2006 by the Arabic broadcaster of the same name and both are owned by the Qatari state. The network, founded in 1996, gained credibility with audiences in the region for its seemingly independent coverage in the post 9/11 period. Its English channel was launched to offer an alternative, non-western-centric worldview.
However, in recent years, Qatar has taken steps to consolidate its control over the channel as the country seeks greater political influence in the Gulf.
In September 2011, Wadah Khanfar, a Palestinian widely seen as independent, suddenly left as director-general after eight years in the post and was replaced by a member of the royal family, Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim al-Thani, a man with no background in journalism.
In his resignation letter, Khanfar said, after noting that the channel had been criticised by Donald Rumsfeld and hailed by Hillary Clinton, that “al-Jazeera is still independent and its integral coverage has not changed”.
He added: “When we launched in 1996, media independence was a contradiction in terms”, but al-Jazeera had managed “to pleasantly surprise” its critics by “exceeding all expectations”.
13/09/12
Syrian rebels face ‘collective punishment’
Town in Idlib province suffers intense bombardment that Free Syrian Army sees as “collective punishment”.
The Free Syrian Army calls it collective punishment - the targeting of people the government thinks are helping the rebels.
Residents of one town in Idlib say this is why they have suffered intense bombing over the past two weeks.
Al Jazeera’s Sue Turton managed to get into Abu Dahuur to see the destruction
01/09/12
Young men take up arms in #Syria’s west
Published on Aug 29, 2012 by
Syrian President Bashar al Assad has sharply criticised foreign powers who have raised the possibility of outside intervention.
He has lost control of large parts in the country’s west where teenage fighters have taken up arms against him.
The young men soldier on, defending their communities against tanks and fighter jets, in spite of a lack of sophisticated weaponry.
Al Jazeera’s Sue Turton reports from Salma in western Syria.
30/08/12
A June 3 photo taken by Austin Tice in Syria shows a 15-year-old boy holding two Molotov cocktails he hoped to employ against government forces. | Austin Tice/MCT
WASHINGTON — Austin Tice, an American freelance journalist covering the civil war in Syria who was last heard from in mid-August, remains unaccounted for and is likely being held by the Syrian government.
Statements in recent days by Czech diplomats, information from Syrian rebel supporters and reports from people inside Syria indicate that the 31-year-old Houston native, who contributed to McClatchy, The Washington Post and CBS News, was detained by Syrian government forces near the Damascus suburb of Daraya, his last known location.
The U.S. State Department says the Syrian government has not responded to inquiries about Tice that were made through official channels and that U.S. diplomats were “working through our Czech protecting power in Syria to get more information on his welfare and whereabouts.” A Syrian official in the United States declined to comment Thursday.
Tice entered Syria in May without a visa – a common practice for journalists attempting to cover the rebel side of the conflict there – and traveled throughout the country with rebel forces, reaching the Damascus area in late July. He remained in that area, basing himself in Daraya, a city of 200,000 southwest of Damascus proper, but had planned to leave Syria to meet friends in Lebanon on Aug. 19 or 20. He last communicated with colleagues on Aug. 13 but did not reveal precisely how he intended to exit Syria.
On Monday, the Czech ambassador to Syria, Eva Filipi, told a Czech television interviewer in Prague that sources had informed her mission that Tice was in detention, though further information had been hard to come by because of an Islamic holiday at the time. The Czechs, who oversee U.S. interests in Damascus because the U.S. closed its embassy there in February, sent a formal diplomatic note about Tice to Syrian counterparts, she said.
“Our sources report that he is alive and that he was detained by government forces on the outskirts of Damascus, where the rebels were fighting government troops,” Filipi said in response to a question about Tice. “Our additional steps were halted by the fact that the report came at the beginning of the final holidays of Ramadan and therefore we had a week off in Syria and some of our contacts were not in Damascus.”
The remarks followed a Czech radio report over the weekend that also said Tice had been detained by the government.
Since then, other information, gathered from a variety of people by the news organizations that publish Tice’s work, has provided support for that version of events.
One reporter who had met Tice previously said that rebels who had been with Tice expressed concern, saying he had left abruptly and not returned. The rebels were worried that he might have been taken captive, according to the reporter, who is not being identified out of security concerns.
Thursday, executives at both McClatchy and The Washington Post renewed their calls for information about Tice and urged his release if he is in Syrian government custody.
“We welcome any news about Austin, after three long weeks without word. He is a widely respected and dedicated journalist,” Anders Gyllenhaal, McClatchy vice president for news, said in a statement. “If he is in fact being held by the Syrian government, we would expect that he is being well cared for and that he will quickly be released.”
“We’re investigating reports that Austin Tice is in custody of Syrian authorities,” Marcus Brauchli, the Post’s executive editor, said in a statement. “If the reports are true, we urge these authorities to release him promptly, unharmed. Journalists should never be detained for doing their work, even – and especially – in difficult circumstances.”
Tice’s parents, Marc and Debra, pleaded for his safe return.
“Austin is our precious son, and we beseech the Syrian government to treat him well and return him safely to us as soon as possible,” they said in a statement.
In recent months, Daraya had become a stronghold for the rebels who are battling to topple the government of President Bashar Assad. Syrian government forces began shelling the area in mid-August and then fought pitched battles with rebels there for several days, before the rebels reportedly abandoned their positions late Aug. 24 and Syrian troops entered the city Aug. 25. Hundreds of people died in the violence, though it was impossible to know how many of those were combatants.
Tice, however, apparently had left the area before the fighting began.
A number of foreigners, including at least one other American besides Tice, are believed to be in Syrian custody, according to people familiar with the matter in Damascus and outside of Syria who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic. It could not be determined if all the unnamed individuals remain in Syrian captivity.
Tice, a law student at Georgetown University and a former Marine infantry officer, was one of the few foreign journalists to report from inside Damascus as fighting raged in Syria’s nascent civil war. Tice’s reporting drew on his own military background to explain fierce battles between regime forces and guerrilla groups. The opposition forces he traveled with weren’t immune to his scrutiny; Tice reported on their own apparent battlefield atrocities in addition to the bloody setbacks they endured from the better-armed Syrian military.
Apart from McClatchy and The Washington Post, Tice also contributed to CBS News, Al Jazeera English, the Agence France-Press news agency and the MCT Photo Service.
Tice was keenly aware of the dangers he faced, he wrote in a posting on his Facebook page, but he implored his friends and family to “please quit telling me to be safe.” He wrote that he drew inspiration from Syrians in the throes of conflict, and that “coming here to Syria is the greatest thing I’ve ever done.”
Email: hallam@mcclatchydc.com Twitter: @hannahallam
30/08/12 - Full translation to follow soon!
Al Jazeera: #Syrian Defected Ambassador Reveals Secrets about the Syrian Regime
The Syrian defected Ambassador in Iraq, Nawaf Al Fares, exposes the Syrian regime by explaining details many have not heard about in an interview on Al Jazeera TV Channel. Al Fares asserted that President Assad is directly responsible for the violence taking place in Syria supported by Iran, Hezbulla and his family. He also spoke about the role of the security forces in this crackdown, and in starting sectarian conflict. The interview includes much more…
29/08/12
Syrian air and ground bombardment has killed at least 27 people in neighbourhoods on the eastern edge of Damascus on Wednesday, in a military campaign to halt rebel hit-and-run attacks against loyalist forces, opposition activists said.
Many more were killed when troops briefly entered several districts after the shelling and air strikes, carrying out summary executions before withdrawing, they said.
Thousands of families fled the area in the largest displacement from the capital since the start of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, activists in the area said.
Al Jazeera is unable to independently verify reports of violence, as the Syrian government has placed strict restrictions on reporting.
[Source: Reuters]
30/07/12
PLEASE CLICK ON LINK TO WATCH COMPLETE VIDEO
Syria state television has broadcast images of soldiers battling what they called “foreign terrorists”.
Amateur videos have also revealed foreign fighters allegedly hoping to wage a religious war in Syria.
The country’s uprising has been played out constantly on the internet website YouTube, but while the brutal images of death remain the same, images of the armed opposition are changing.
Some groups say they are affiliated with al-Qaeda, fly its flags, and say they now have training camps inside the country.
Phil Rees, filmaker and author of ‘Dining with Terrorists’, told Al Jazeera that for Al Qaeda, Syria is “an attractive place to come now.”
“Who is Al Qaeda? Someone coming from Libya who helped overthrow [Muammar] Gaddafi? During Libya, they were considered to be freedom fighters and the British government supported them. Now they travel to Syria where they feel a jihad going on,” he said. “Therefore would you call them Al Qaeda? I don’t think so.”
The Syrian opposition says these allegedly al-Qaeda-linked fighters have nothing to do with the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The FSA does, however, acknowledge the presence of such groups in Syria.
Religious fighters are reported to be coming in from countries such as Iraq and Libya, while money is still pouring into Syria from other countries and international donors to help topple President Bashar al-Assad.
“Many in the FSA would consider their fight to be jihad, as it is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Muslim Brotherhood there believes Islam is the solution just as Al Qaeda does,” said Rees. “I don’t think there is a precise division between who is Al Qaeda and who is not.”
“Remember, [the Syrian uprising] is motivated by the Muslim Brotherhood, the organisation which Al Qaeda was spawned from.”
Some observers have accused al-Qaeda in Iraq of moving into Syria in an attempt to stir up a sectarian war.
“The point is the West thinks there is a major difference between whati t calls a war of national liberation, which it supports, yet when a Muslim is fighting, as in Syria, it would be considered a jihad by the majority of fighters there,” said Rees.
“Exactly whether they believe in the nation state of Syria or whether they believe in a Caliphate or a Muslim Umma’, that is not of great concern now.”
In the Turkish city of Antakya, a community of Syrian exiles personify an uprising that is languishing into uncertainty.
The food is piled high. Steaming pots of seasoned tomatoes and potatoes, yogurt and cucumber, cheese and piles of tortilla-like khubz, dipped in oil. A dozen or so young Syrian men crowd around, chattering excitedly about the day’s events.
These men are foot soldiers in the public relations wing of the Syrian revolution - activists whose self-appointed role is to disseminate information through online platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Skype. They have gravitated from across Syria and the wider Middle East to this small apartment in the city of Antakya. The southern-most major city in Turkey, Antakya lies 24km west of the Syrian border, astride the Orontes River.
Teacher, electrician, lawyer
Ahmed was an Arabic teacher in Aleppo, Amr an electrician in Saudi Arabia. Several are defectors from the Syrian army. Huddled together, they personify an uprising whose promising beginnings have languished into uncertainty.
Their leader, in fact if not in name, is 32-year-old Mohammed Issa, a former lawyer. One night he receives notification that he has been expelled from the Syrian Bar Association as a result of his anti-regime activities.
“This does not bother me,” he says. “In fact, I am proud of it. The Bar in Syria is not a civic organisation. Like everything else, it is co-opted by the regime …. [It is] just a tool to keep lawyers in check.”
Mohammed spends most of his time meeting other Syrians in Antakya, arranging transportation for refugees fleeing the violence and speaking to Western journalists on Skype. Like everyone else in the apartment, he obsessively watches Al Jazeera and YouTube for the latest news from inside Syria.
He is realistic about the opposition’s progress. “Everyone hates Assad,” he says. “But the regime has been in power for 40 years. The Mukhabarat [Syrian intelligence] pervades the society. People did not trust each other. It is difficult to organise. Many of those attempting to organise have not lived in Syria for years. There is a disconnect between those inside and the expatriates.”
The men eagerly respond to questions about their faith. Some of them pray five times a day, clearing away the clutter of laptops, teacups and ashtrays to make space on the floor. Those who do not pray maintain a respectful silence. But they are far from being extremists, and speak disparagingly of the Taliban and Saudi Wahabis.
“Extremism is not the Syrian way,” Mohammed says pointedly.
When prayers are finished, it is right back to joking and horseplay. They have adopted a rambunctious calico kitten whose tail-chasing antics keep the house entertained.
‘If the regime wants you to say something, you will say it’
Few seem eager to return to Syria to fight. They all have friends who have been killed and many have already experienced imprisonment - something they regard as a source of pride.
“I was imprisoned for 36 days,” Mohammed mentions. “I was in prison for 47,” Ahmed replies. Another pipes up: “That’s nothing. I was inside for more than six months.”
Ahmed says that he was arrested following a demonstration at Aleppo University and describes his initial interrogation.
“They wanted to know if I had killed any soldiers, and the names of the revolution leaders. I told them I did not know anything. They beat me.”
He leans in and smiles, relishing the re-telling. “They connected wires to my toes, one on my right foot and one on my left, and put electricity through me.” Suddenly he turns serious. “Then they put the wires …” He hesitates, visibly embarrassed. “You know. Down there. Under my clothes. You understand me?”
A long moment passes.
“I will tell you something. When you are interrogated, if the regime wants you to say something, you will say it.”
‘Muslim, Christian, Kurd - all together’
One of the men who does intend to rejoin the armed fight is electrician Amr. A physically imposing 29-year-old, he likes country music and is delighted to be introduced to Taylor Swift’s YouTube channel.
He is slow to speak, but one morning over breakfast in a nearby cafe Amr tells his story in broken English.
He left Syria in 2004, after the Mukhabarat caught him writing an anti-regime blog. He wrote under a pseudonym and published from an internet cafe, but his precautions were insufficient. He was imprisoned and beaten so severely that he was unable to walk for two months. The experience left him with a crooked nose and an abiding sense of caution.
After his imprisonment he moved to Saudi Arabia. But when the revolution began, Amr returned to Syria and joined a small cell of sappers focused on attacking regime forces with improvised explosive devices.
He was recently elected leader of a band of nearly 120 fighters. Less than half of them have rifles. He says that due to massive inflation, equipping a single fighter with a Kalashnikov and ammunition costs more than $2,000. No logistical system exists to channel supplies from Free Syrian Army (FSA) headquarters to his unit.
“In my band,” he says with unrestrained pride, “Muslim, Christian, Kurd.” He interlocks his massive fingers for emphasis. “All together.”
Amr explains his unit’s fighting philosophy. “Many battalions, they want fight tanks. Make videos in the YouTube of the fighting, make boast. Shoot many bullets, hit little. This way, many free fighters killed, or after, Mukhabarat they catch them. This stupid.”
In Amr’s unit the rules are different. “Nothing in the YouTube. Working only in the dark. Working in secret. One bomb, kill three, four, five enemy. They become scared. They become afraid sleep at night. This good.”
Amr came to Antakya to seek further training but the FSA was unable to offer him any. “Soon, I go back,” he says.
‘We need a military structure with civilian leadership’
Far from their homes and uncertain of the future, these men have banded together and built a tiny community.
Across town, on the other side of the Orontes River, Mahmoud, a spry, wiry man of 52 who is given to quoting Oscar Wilde, is working to build a different kind of community.
While serving in the Syrian army as an air traffic controller, he witnessed the destruction wrought on his hometown of Hama after the suppression of the uprising there in 1982. He later became the leader of a smuggling gang, moving multi-million dollar loads of contraband under the eyes of corrupt regime bureaucrats. Eventually he made his way to France and Switzerland, where he was imprisoned for running guns to the Balkans.
“When I was younger, I was not a very good person,” he says. “I caused a lot of trouble.”
Mahmoud later went to the US, where he gained refugee status and a green card. Until a few months ago he operated a profitable heavy equipment leasing franchise in Atlanta. Then he decided to come to Antakya to participate in the revolution. His resume suits him well here.
Mahmoud expected to join the FSA, but says: “When I got here, I quickly realised, there is no such thing as the FSA …. There is no structure, no way to distribute supplies, no way to coordinate actions. Nobody knows what anyone else is doing.”
Working from a small hotel room, Mahmoud is trying to change that. He obsesses over organisational structure, drawing diagrams and building polished presentations on his laptop.
“We need a military structure with civilian leadership …. We need a Human Resources department. We need Public Relations. We need logistics. We need our own intelligence agency,” he says.
‘All these weapons will do is spread chaos’
Two hours from Antakya by bus sits the refugee camp at Islahya. The camp is now temporary home to an estimated 10,000 refugees, living in row upon crowded row of white canvas tents.
Mahmoud has come here to meet with a group of young men who wish to leave the camp and join the fighters inside Syria.
The Turkish soldiers guarding the perimeter look the other way as our group clambers over a low wall and through a hole in the chain-link fence.
Sitting on the ground on blankets stamped with UNHCR logos, Mahmoud listens to their stories. Some have defected from the army but most are civilians. Mahmoud tells them that he may be able to help them, but that the real shortage right now is not of fighters but of weapons. They listen intently and agree to wait for his instructions.
“We have some weapons coming from Libya, if they are not intercepted at sea,” he later confides in private. But even if they arrive safely, he seems pessimistic about their ultimate effectiveness. “We need better trained fighters. We need competent leadership. Without that, all these weapons will do is spread chaos.”
Mahmoud vetoed distribution to one battalion after a colleague reported that they were radical religious extremists. “He went there, they all had beards, talking about a Caliphate, they wouldn’t even let my guy smoke. No way would I give them weapons. What do you think we want, Syria to turn into Afghanistan? That’s not what anyone is fighting for. That fits right into Assad’s narrative. He wants people to believe that supporting the revolution is somehow like supporting al-Qaeda. It isn’t.”
Unlike many others, Mahmoud does not express frustration at the international community’s perceived lack of involvement in the revolutionary cause. “Look at all of Syria’s neighbours. What the West wants in Syria is stability. With the lack of organisation among us, we cannot guarantee that. We can’t promise that if they help us, it won’t just turn into a civil war. So until we are better organised, how can you blame other countries for not wanting to get involved?”
Back in the hotel, Mahmoud receives a steady stream of calls - a battalion leader in Antakya, a producer in San Diego looking to make a documentary, a Syrian American on his way here with designs of becoming the chief of staff of the inchoate military structure.
Mahmoud says he just came here because he wants to see Syria freed.
“I don’t know if we will succeed,” he says. “But I’m not giving up. I’m not moving back to America. Either I am going to settle again in my hometown, in Hama, with my family around me, or I am going to die trying.”
Post Script: Mahmoud gave up trying to organise the FSA in Turkey and went to Syria to fight.
Austin Tice is a former US Marine infantry captain. Follow him on Twitter: @Austin_Tice
2009
A summary of today’s events in Syria so far, from Al Jazeera’s Syria desk:
- Heavy shelling and fierce battles have raged in several Aleppo neighbourhoods, with Saleheddine the worst hit. Anti-government forces say that the army is lining up tanks to enter the area, and the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an anti-government rights watchdog, says that at least 18 people, including several Syrian army soldiers, have been killed in Aleppo on Saturday. The group said that four others were killed in other parts of Aleppo.
- Fighting has also been reported in Homs, Rastan and Deraa.
- Russia has warned that a “tragedy” is looming in Aleppo, but also says that it is unrealistic to expect the government to stand by and do nothing when armed rebels begin to occupy major cities.
- Russia has also reiterated that it will not be cooperating with a new round of European Union sanctions against Syria, and that it would not consent to inspections of ships bound for Syria that are flying the Russian flag.
- The SOHR has released an updated death toll for the violence since the uprising began in March 2011. “At least 20,028 people, among them 13,978 civilians and rebels, 968 army defectors and 5,082 members of the regime forces have been killed since the start of the revolt on March 15 of last year,” Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the UK-based Observatory, which supports the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, told the AFP news agency.
- Saudi Crown Prince Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz who is also deputy prime minister and defence minister says a five-day Saudi fundraising campaign to support people in Syria has raised more than $72.33 million.
- The Iranian Fars news agency reports that a Syrian economic delegation has toured Iran this week and signed deals regarding the export of electricity from Iran to Syria.
- Syrian State TV said govt forces freed two Italian workers kidnapped by “terrorists”.
- Iraqi Kurdish security forces appear to be stopping soldiers sent from Bagdad from reaching the border that they have been sent to protect.
Watch video here.
Syria’s envoy to Baghdad has defected to the opposition and, according to Iraqi officials, is in Qatar.
Nawaf Fares, the first senior Syrian diplomat to abandon President Bashar al-Assad, has urged other politicians and military figures to follow suit.
News of his whereabouts came from Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari. His defection was first reported by Qatar-based TV channel al-Jazeera.
Syria has responded by formally dismissing Mr Fares from his post.
Meanwhile, government forces have shelled an area of Damascus, activists have reported.
Nawaf Fares
- Head of Sunni Uqaydat tribe, straddling Syria’s eastern border with Iraq
- Served as top Baath Party official in Deir al-Zour province
- Appointed Baghdad ambassador 16 Sept 2008
- First Syrian envoy to Iraq for nearly three decades
- Resigns from Baath Party and as ambassador 11 July 2012
Mortar rounds were said to have been fired into orchards in Kafr Souseh in an apparent offensive against rebels.
One man died and a number of other people were wounded when tanks and armoured vehicles went into a built-up area, reports said.
Independent confirmation is impossible, as journalists’ freedom of movement is heavily restricted.
‘Tribal chief’Mr Fares’s defection comes just a week after a Syrian general from a powerful family close to President Assad also defected.
He confirmed his decision in a statement broadcast both on TV and on Facebook.
With Syrian revolutionary flags behind him, he read out the statement saying he was resigning both as Syria’s ambassador to Iraq and as a member of the ruling Baath Party.
Analysis
The defection of Nawaf Fares is an embarrassing blow to the Syrian regime, and a clear sign of the stress the conflict is generating, but it does not necessarily herald a spate of similar desertions.
The government’s discomfort was reflected in an official statement from the foreign ministry in Damascus, lamely announcing that the ambassador had been “relieved of his duties”.
US and Syrian opposition officials seized on Mr Fares’s resignation as a sign that the regime is crumbling.
But the defection of the deputy oil minister earlier this year did not trigger a cascade of similar moves by officials, as he urged.
As with the case of Maj-Gen Munaf Tlas, who fled the country last week, the ambassador may have had specific reasons for turning.
He is a Sunni tribal leader whose area around Deir al-Zor has been heavily battered by government forces recently, as had Gen Tlas’s mainly Sunni hometown Rastan.
The defections are clearly a sign of the times, but given the gravity of what is happening, it is surprising they have been so few and far between.
“I call on all party members to do the same because the regime has transformed it into a tool to oppress the people and their aspirations to freedom and dignity.
“I announce, from this moment on, that I am siding with the people’s revolution in Syria, my natural place in these difficult circumstances which Syria is going through.”
Syria’s foreign ministry said he had made statements that contradicted the duties of his post and no longer had any relation to the Syrian embassy in Baghdad.
The BBC’s Jim Muir in neighbouring Lebanon says this is a highly damaging defection for President Assad.
Mr Fares, significantly, is also chief of a Sunni tribe straddling Syria’s eastern border with Iraq, our correspondent adds.
That area, around the city of Deir al-Zour, has become a hotbed of support for the rebels and has been heavily bombarded in recent weeks.
Syria has been convulsed by internal conflict since protests against President Assad began early last year. The protests turned into an armed rebellion and thousands of people have been killed.
Last week, senior army officer Brig Gen Manaf Tlas fled Syria via Turkey.
He was a commander of a unit of the elite Republican Guard and as a young man he attended military training with President Assad.
Gen Tlas had been under a form of home arrest since May 2011 because he opposed security measures imposed by the regime, sources said.
‘Clear consequences’In a separate development, Western nations are pressing the UN to threaten Damascus with sanctions as it considers renewing the mandate for its observer mission in Syria which expires on 20 July.
They want a 10-day ultimatum to be part of a Security Council resolution on the future of the UN’s observer mission in the country. A new resolution must be passed before the mission’s mandate ends on Friday next week.
The mission had a 90-day remit to monitor a truce, but fighting has continued largely unabated.
The truce formed part of a six-point peace plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, who has called for “clear consequences” for the Syrian government and rebels if the ceasefire is not observed.
Chapter 7 of UN Charter
- Action in response to threats to peace, breaches of peace and acts of aggression
- Article 41 enables Security Council to decide measures not involving armed force
- Can suspend economic and diplomatic relations as well as rail, sea and other communications
- If Article 41 measures are inadequate, Article 42 enables Security Council to take action by air, sea or land forces for international peace and security
Russia has suggested a 90-day extension. But Western states say a simple rollover of the mission is not enough.
A draft resolution has been circulated threatening Damascus with sanctions within 10 days, if it fails to stop using heavy weapons and pull back its troops from towns and cities.
The UK’s envoy to the UN, Mark Lyall Grant, told reporters that Britain, France, the US and Germany would propose making compliance with the ceasefire mandatory under Chapter 7 of the UN charter.
Last week, more than 100 countries called on the Security Council to invoke Article 41 of Chapter 7, which stops short of military intervention.
Russia has said use of Chapter 7 is a “last resort”. China, which like Russia has vetoed the two previous attempts to impose tougher measures, has said it will support a rollover of the mission.
MOSCOW — For months now, Western policy makers have been racking their brains to figure out what strategic interests have made Russia so intent on supporting the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad — a leader who, facing a popular uprising, seemed to be on his way out anyway.
It is an understandable question, but perhaps the wrong one. Decisions are flowing from President Vladimir V. Putin, whose career has left him overwhelmingly wary both of revolutions and of Western intervention.
This is a man who, during the death throes of the Communist system, personally defended the K.G.B.’s headquarters in Dresden against an angry crowd of Germans. And Mr. Putin’s already suspicious view of street politics only deepened with the “colored revolutions” of the mid-2000s, in which pro-Western protests, some supported by the United States, ousted a series of Moscow-friendly leaders.
Since the recent Arab uprisings began, Russian leaders have viewed them through this lens — as a product not of social change but of interference by the West, intended in part to damage Russia.
Mr. Putin takes little interest in the details of foreign policy, but this notion touches him personally. He memorably blew up in April 2011, when NATO warplanes were attacking Libya against Russia’s protestations, delivering a speech that scoffed at the notion that Western intervention aimed to advance democracy.
“Look at the map of this region, there are monarchies all around,” he said during a visit to Denmark. “What do you think they are — Danish-style democracies? No. There are monarchies everywhere, and this basically corresponds with the mentality of the people, as well as longstanding practice.”
“Libya, by the way, has the largest oil and the fourth-largest gas reserves in Africa,” he added. “This immediately presents the question: Isn’t this the basis for the interests of those now messing around there?”
From the first, Russia’s Middle East experts, most of them Soviet-trained, have been suspicious of the notion that street politics had the power to change governments.
In February 2011, when crowds of more than a million were thronging Tahrir Square, a Russian deputy foreign minister visited Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak. He delivered the soothing message that Egypt’s domestic crisis should be settled through dialogue, and affirmed Russia’s firm stance against foreign intervention in Egypt’s internal affairs. As it turned out, it was Mr. Mubarak’s last meeting with a foreign envoy — he stepped down two days later.
It is impossible to fully disentangle these reactions from what has been going on inside Russia over the last year, as a decade-long contract between Mr. Putin and his citizens began to fray.
Though there is little comparison on the ground between the Arab uprisings and Russia’s unrest — the Russian opposition movement remains small, Moscow-centered and moderate in its tactics — the sudden change has left the government wary of legitimizing any popular dissent. State-controlled news media paint a bleak picture of Arab countries that have seen uprisings, and Russian diplomats have approached new authorities in the Arab world slowly and awkwardly.
Meanwhile, Russian leaders fear that rising Islamism in the Arab world will breathe new life into the armed insurgency in the northern Caucasus, which is mostly Sunni.
In short, Syria has provided Russia with an opportunity to say no — to Western intervention and to the specter of revolution.
The argument has been framed as a matter of principle, making it difficult to dial back. Leonid Medvedko, who covered Syria for Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, said Russia could not publicly call for Mr. Assad to step down, because it would create “a very serious precedent for anyone who doesn’t like their government.”
“I don’t want to allow such ultimatums, because they could then be presented to any country,” said Mr. Medvedko, who is now a regional analyst at the Russian Academy of Sciences. “We cannot allow this precedent to be established. Now they don’t like Assad. Next they may not like someone in Lebanon. We’ve already seen how they didn’t like someone in Libya — we saw the fate of Qaddafi.”
Nevertheless, Russia is backing away from explicit support for Mr. Assad, albeit at a glacial pace. Last week, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said that to accommodate the factions in Syria “it is necessary to have a transitional period, this is obvious.”
Each incremental move is followed by demonstrations that Russia is standing firm: for instance, its refusal, last weekend in Geneva, to approve language suggesting that Mr. Assad could not be part of a transitional government. These tactics serve to draw out the diplomatic process for weeks or months — not such an inconvenience, perhaps, for Western governments that are themselves deeply conflicted about intervening.
As the body count rises, one of Moscow’s real concerns may be the hardening of Arab public opinion against Russia, said a senior Arab diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in accordance with protocol. With the increasing reach of news channels like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya — which regularly run gruesome video of massacres in Syria — Russia’s officials have been forced to accept that “unlike the last four decades, now the Arab street has a voice,” the diplomat said.
“I think they are now waking up to a new reality,” the diplomat said. “They are realizing that their analysis was wrong and they have to take a new approach.”
This realization conflicts with the desire to stand on principle, and to repay the abject humiliation of being ignored on Libya, he said: “The question is, will they make a stand in Syria to the end?”
The answer will hinge on the calculations of Mr. Putin. He may judge that bending to Western pressure would hurt him more than losing Syria. Or, if he accepts the idea that Mr. Assad cannot extend his rule past the end of the year, he may seek to trade Russia’s stand for a concession.
All that would remain would be to sit back and watch in silence as opposition crowds celebrate their victory. Not a simple choice for the man who, two decades ago in Dresden, spent panicky days inside the K.G.B. compound, burning documents that represented years of work. Then — convinced he had been abandoned by the country he served — he walked out to defend himself and his colleagues from the crowd outside.
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