Syrian Freedom

#Syrian Hajj Pilgrims Curse Assad

28/10/12

Enraged Syrian pilgrims on Sunday cursed President Bashar Assad and prayed for his death as they hurled pebbles at pillars representing Satan in the final ritual of the annual hajj pilgrimage.

Rebel flags billowed among vast crowds of Muslim pilgrims who heaved towards the stoning site in the Saudi holy city of Mina amid the chanting of anti-Assad slogans.

“Oh God, may we see Bashar Assad soon hanged or burnt, kicked out or a humiliated prisoner,” one Syrian yelled through a loudhailer as dozens walking behind him shouted: “Amen.”

“May Bashar follow (Moammar) Gadhafi,” they chanted, referring to the Libyan strongman killed last October 20 in his home town of Sirte by rebels who rose up against his regime last year.

“Please tell the whole world about us. We are under siege in Syria, in Homs. They demolished our homes so we fled to Saudi Arabia,” said one old woman, tears welling.

“Tanks were right next to our house. I was alone with my daughter, so we fled.

“I want victory for Syria. I hope to see the free Syrian flag waving in the country and all refugees and all the homeless going back,” she added.

Syrian pilgrims were few at this year’s hajj as the deadly civil war rages between the Assad regime and rebels that a rights group says has so far left more than 35,000 people dead.

Damascus has claimed that Riyadh barred Syrians from attending the hajj, but Saudi officials have repeatedly denied the allegation, claiming to have issued some 10,000 visas to Syrian refugees now in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

Saudi Arabia, along with Qatar and Turkey, has supported the Syrian rebels with funds and arms in their fight against Assad’s forces.

On Friday, the Imam of the Grand Mosque, Sheikh Saleh Mohammed al-Taleb, called on the world to take “practical and urgent” steps to stop the bloodshed in Syria.

“The world should bear responsibility for this prolonged and painful disaster, and responsibility is greater for the Arabs and Muslims who should call on each other to support the oppressed against the oppressor,” he said in his Eid al-Adha sermon.

The official Syrian flag was mostly absent from this year’s hajj, with most Syrians performing the pilgrimage brandishing the rebel standard instead.

Most of the Syrian pilgrims who joined the stoning rituals were either “residents of Saudi Arabia or they had entered the kingdom on visitor visas,” said Omar Noman, a Syrian group leader.

“Every one of us in this group has somehow suffered and had a relative killed or had a house destroyed. This is why we are cursing Bashar,” he said.

“God, they have broken our hearts, destroyed our mosques, and slaughtered our children. Take revenge on them!” another group of Syrians chanted as worshipers from other countries took pictures and expressed their support.

“Most people are praying for our freedom. We hope they mean it,” said Syrian pilgrim Haitham al-Rifaie.

Mohammed al-Masri, who headed another group, said the Syrian worshippers were performing hajj “for the souls of Syria’s martyrs.”

“It’s a way of supporting our brothers in Syria,” he said. “We can’t do much from here. This is why we are performing hajj on their behalf.”

Iran: “Retired” elite soldiers among 48 hostages held by #Syria rebels

This image made from a video released by the Baraa Brigades purports to show Free Syrian Army soldiers guarding a group of Iranians abducted a day earlier in Damascus, Syria.

(Credit: Youtube)

08/08/2012

(CBS News) - The State Department tells CBS News it has no reason to doubt Syrian rebels’ claims that 48 Iranians they are holding hostage are members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard military unit.

Iran has flatly denied the claim that the hostages are military personnel, insisting they are all civilians who were in Syria to visit the Sayyida Zainab shrine, south of Damascus, when they were abducted. The shrine has been frequented by Shiite Muslim pilgrims in the past, including many from Iran.

On Wednesday, however, Iran’s foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted by the Islamic Republic’s government-controlled media as saying, “some retired individuals from the Guards and army” were among those being held.

“After some time in which pilgrims from Iran were not being dispatched to Syria… we took steps to send retired forces from various organizations,” he was quoted as saying by Iran’s state news agency and other state-run media. “Some retired individuals from the Guards and army were dispatched to Syria to make a pilgrimage.”

Salehi continued to reject claims that the hostages were playing an active military role.

A day before admitting the hostages’ links to the elite Iranian military unit, Salehi sent a formal letter to United Nations Secretary-General, to “seek the cooperation and the good offices of Your Excellency for securing the release of these hostages.”

Rebels took the Iranians hostage recently, claiming they are members of the IRGC. In a video published on Sunday, Capt. Abdul Nasser Shumayr of the Free Syrian Army’s al-Bara Brigade said three of the captives had been killed in “fierce shelling” by security forces, and he threatened to execute the rest if the bombardment continued.

He later told al-Jazeera that his brigade had “intelligence information” and “documents” showing that the group belonged to the Revolutionary Guards and had come to Syria to “serve the regime”.

Sending Iranian fighters into the country would change the dynamic of the conflict and provide fertile ground for a proxy war between Iran - a fervent backer of the Assad regime - and the majority-Sunni Muslim nations in the Middle East which have been the rebels’ primary benefactors with weapons shipments and other support.

CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata, who spent last week with rebel fighters in Aleppo province, says the notion of Iranian fighters being inside Syria and doing the regime’s bidding is an absolute obsession among the rebels.

“They’re not only convinced of Iranian involvement, they’re actively pursuing Iranians,” says D’Agata.

Syrian President Bashar Assad meets with senior Iranian envoy Saeed Jalili in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 7, 2012.

(Credit: AP/SANA)

The Obama administration believes Iran is “intensifying” its relationship with Syria, and there is tangible evidence for U.S. leaders to point to.

Assad met a senior Iranian envoy in Damascus on Wednesday and the two men spoke openly of their countries’ “strategic cooperation relationship” and “attempts by some Western countries and their allies to strike at the axis of resistance by targeting Syria and supporting terrorism there.”

The Iranian envoy, Saeed Jalili, told Assad that, “Iran will absolutely not allow the axis of resistance, of which it considers Syria to be a main pillar, to be broken,” according to Syria’s state-run news agency.

Speaking during a state visit to South Africa on Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the U.S. is concerned that the Syrian rebellion is being exploited by those who are “sending in proxies.”

Hariri calls for immediate release of Lebanese kidnapped in #Syria

May 22, 2012 09:50 PMThe Daily Star

BEIRUT: Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri condemned Tuesday the recent kidnapping in Syria of a group of Lebanese men returning from a pilgrimage in Iraq and called for their immediate release.

“We condemn the kidnapping of our Lebanese brothers in Syria, regardless of the party behind the kidnapping, and we call for their immediate release,” Hariri said, according to a statement from his office.

“The kidnappers should know that the Lebanese people are united in this issue and we deal with it as a Lebanese national cause that doesn’t afford any interpretation or bargaining,” Hariri said.

A Lebanese security source said at least 16 Lebanese men returning from a pilgrimage in Iraq were kidnapped by rebels in Allepo, northern Syria. The rebels appear to have abducted the men to exchange them for Syrians imprisoned in Lebanon, the source added.

Upon hearing the news, angry relatives took to the streets of the southern suburb of Beirut where most of the kidnapped live and blocked several roads by burning tires.

The roads soon reopened after Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah called for calm and said contacts were ongoing to secure the release of the abducted men.

Nasrallah’s comments came minutes before Reuters agency, quoting a Syrian opposition member, reported that Syrian forces had launched raids with tanks and other armored vehicles in an area of northern Aleppo province near the place where Lebanese Shiite pilgrims were kidnapped.

Hariri also voiced solidarity with the family and relatives of the abducted men.

“We express our full solidarity with the families of the kidnapped, whom we consider as members of our family,” Hariri said.

The Future Movement leader also contacted Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to discuss the incident.

During the call, “Hariri reiterated his strong condemnation of the abduction, regardless of the party behind it, and expressed his full solidarity with their families, stressing the necessity of exerting all efforts and working together to free them and make sure they return safely to their families and country.”

#Syria Free Syrian Army Abducts 12 Lebanese Shiite Pilgrims in Aleppo

W460

The rebel Free Syrian Army on Tuesday abducted 12 Lebanese young men in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo who were on their way back from a pilgrimage trip to Iran, al-Jadeed television reported.

“Buses belonging to the Badr al-Kobra and Jannat al-Redwan pilgrimage campaigns were ambushed in Aleppo shortly after crossing the Syrian-Turkish border,” al-Jadeed reported.

A woman who was in the convoy told al-Jadeed: “After we crossed the Turkish-Syrian border, we were ambushed by gunmen from the Free Syrian Army in the Azzaz area. They forced the men to dismount the buses and took them to an unknown destination and left us there.”

Al-Jadeed said women headed to a Syrian police station and that policemen reassured them that they have started negotiations with the kidnappers.

“My two brothers-in-law were among about 12 people kidnapped by the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo as they were heading back to Beirut on board a bus after visiting religious sites in Iran,” said one man who refused to give his name.

“The women who were with them were allowed to go free,” he told Agence France Presse.

The man was among family members of those detained and hundreds of supporters who gathered on Tuesday afternoon in the Beirut southern suburb of Bir al-Abed to demand their release.

Meanwhile, protesters blocked roads in the Beirut southern suburbs of al-Kafaat, Bir al-Abed, Shatila and al-Msharrafiyeh in protest at the kidnap

#Turkey warns pilgrims against travel through #Syria

ANKARA - The Turkish government on Wednesday warned citizens returning from the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia not to travel overland through Syria following an attack on a bus carrying returning Turkish pilgrims earlier this week.

Tensions between Turkey and Syria — neighbors and erstwhile allies — have soared over Ankara’s mounting criticism of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s violent crackdown on popular unrest now in its ninth month.

“At present Syria is experiencing difficulties in maintaining public order which is negatively affecting safety on the roads. Therefore, for security reasons it is essential that our citizens returning from the Hajj should travel by air,” the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.

“However, in cases where travel by road is unavoidable, journeys through Syria should be done during daylight hours.”

Turkish Muslim pilgrims’ bus ‘shot at in #Syria’

A bus, part of a convoy carrying Turkish pilgrims, has come under gun attack in central Syria, Turkish media and officials say.

At least two people, one of them a bus driver, were injured in the attack near the flashpoint city of Homs, they say.

The passengers, who had attended the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, later arrived back in Turkey.

Private news agency Dogan showed images of the vehicle with one of its side windows broken.

“We confirm that an attack took place in Syria,” a foreign ministry official told AFP news agency, without giving any further information, but reiterated Turkey’s warning to its citizens not to visit Syria.

Another driver, Erhan Surmeli, said the bus had been carrying 25 butchers back to Turkey from Saudi Arabia following the festival of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice, which starts after the Hajj (pilgrimage).

“We had stopped at a checkpoint,” he told the Associated Press news agency by telephone.

“Syrian soldiers emerged from behind sandbags and cursed [Turkish Prime Minister] Recep Tayyip Erdogan when we told them we were Turks. Then they suddenly opened fire at the bus.”

Tensions have been running high between Syria and Turkey as Ankara has become increasingly vocal in its criticism of President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on anti-government protests in his country.