24/10/12

23/10/12

22/10/12

By: Al Bawaba News

Fighting flared up Monday in Syria with new attempts of the army to remove the rebels from their strongholds, as an Arab diplomat expected there are slim chances of achieving a cease-fire this week.

On Sunday, after talks in Damascus with President Bashar al-Assad, the UN and Arab League envoy and Lakhdar Brahimi called on the belligerents to “unilaterally” cease fire “from today or tomorrow “for the Muslim feast of Eid Al-Adha, which is celebrated from October 26 to 29.

He stressed that it was a “personal initiative” and not a detailed plan of peace to stop the bloodshed that killed 34,000 people, according to an NGO.

On his part, Deputy Secretary General of the Arab League Ahmad bin Hilli said Monday that “unfortunately, the hope of establishing a truce in Syria for the holiday is weak.”

“The signs on the ground and the reaction of the Syrian government (…) do not show a real willingness to respond positively to this initiative,” he said.

Echoing these remarks, the Syrian regime’s troops, backed by tanks, have been trying to retake control on several towns, which fell into the hands of rebels in Idleb, Aleppo (north), in the province of Damascus, Deraa (south ) and Homs (center), said the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR).

Loyalist forces also bombarded with artillery Harasta twon where rebels are holed up near the Syrian capital, and tried to take it by storm, the NGO said in the wake of a new suicide car bomb in Damascus that killed at least 13 people.

In the province of Idleb (northwest), fighting took place near the military base in Wadi Deif, besieged for days by rebels, added the NGO.

This base is located on the eastern outskirts of the strategic town of Maaret al-Noomane, bombed since the dawn by the regime forces. Taken on October 9, this achievement helped the rebels to cut the main road used by the army to send reinforcements to the north.

Elsewhere, a Jordanian soldier was killed during clashes with Islamist militants trying to cross the border with Syria , confirmed Monday the Jordanian Minister of Information. Samih Maaytah said that it was the first death recorded in the ranks of the Jordanian army since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, in March 2011.

Political efforts

During the talks with Mr. Brahimi, Assad reiterated that any political initiative should be based on the “halt of terrorism (..) with the commitment of some countries involved to cease hosting, supporting and arming terrorists in Syria ”

In a related development, the Special Representative of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Bogdanov, was on Monday in Iran to discuss Syria. Tehran and Moscow support the Assad regime and reject any foreign interference in the country.

22/10/12

(Reuters) - Syrian rebels cast doubt on Monday on prospects for a temporary truce aimed at stemming bloodshed in the 19-month-old conflict, saying it was not clear how an informal ceasefire this week could be implemented.

International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who held talks in Damascus on Sunday with President Bashar al-Assad, has proposed Assad’s forces and the rebels hold fire during the three-day Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha which starts on Friday.

His call has won the backing of international powers on both sides of the crisis including Iran and Russia, which have provided support to Assad, and Turkey, which backs the rebels in a conflict that has killed 30,000 people.

But neither Syria’s army nor the rebels have shown signs of easing off as Eid nears. More than 200 people were killed on Sunday in fighting and bombardments including 60 soldiers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

On Monday the British-based group reported army shelling in Deir al-Zor in the east and Deraa in the south, as well as heavy clashes in towns and suburbs around the capital Damascus.

“This truce is just a media bubble. Who is going to implement it and who is going to supervise it?” said Colonel Qassem Saadeddine, a former army officer who defected and is now head of a rebel military council in Homs province.

“We are still committed to any UN decision. But on this truce…what is the mechanism to implement it?” Saadeddine, who is also spokesman of the joint command of the Free Syrian Army inside Syria, told Reuters.

He said rebels had implemented the last ceasefire in Syria - an April 12 deal brokered by former mediator Kofi Annan - but that Assad’s forces had not honored it. Syrian authorities say it was they who implemented and rebels who broke the ceasefire.

Another rebel commander in Damascus, who declined to be named, was more blunt: “The truce will not happen. We will not accept it. It’s not in our interest,” he said, adding that a three-day truce would achieve little anyway.

JORDANIAN SOLDIER KILLED

Syria’s conflict has spilled over into its neighbors in recent weeks. The army has exchanged cross-border fire with Turkey, a Lebanese intelligence chief whose investigations implicated Syrian officials was assassinated on Friday and a Jordanian soldier was killed near the border overnight.

Information Minister Samih Maaytah said the soldier, who died in clashes with Islamist fighters trying to cross into Syria, was the first to die on the Syrian border since the uprising erupted against Assad last year.

Brahimi declined to say how Assad had responded to his ceasefire appeal. After his talks with the president he said the idea had won wide support among rebels and the political opposition, but suggested it was up to individual groups to decide how to implement it.

“Everyone can start this when they want, today or tomorrow for example, for the period of the Eid and beyond,” he told reporters.

Syria has not publicly embraced Brahimi’s proposal and state media quoted Assad as telling him that any initiative must be centered around “halting terrorism and … commitment by the countries involved in supporting, arming and harboring the terrorists in Syria to stop these actions”.

Syrian authorities blame neighboring Turkey in particular for the bloodshed because it has sheltered mainly Sunni Muslim rebels fighting to overthrow Assad, from Syria’s Alawite minority which is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam. Gulf Sunni powers Saudi Arabia and Qatar also support arming the rebels.

“The indications that are now apparent and the government’s reaction…do not show any signs of a real desire to implement this ceasefire,” said Ahmed Ben Hilli, deputy secretary-general of the Arab League.

“We are days away from Eid. We hope the situation changes and the government and opposition respond even a little bit to this door for negotiations,” he said on the sidelines of a conference in Dubai.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Ami-Abdollahian called for both sides to establish a lasting ceasefire, and said the two sides in the conflict were beginning to converge.

“The views of different sides are getting closer to each other and they have reached the conclusion that they should consider a political solution in Syria,” Abdollahian said after talks with his Russian counterpart Mikhail Bogdanov.

His comments might reflect the growing concerns of outside powers at the relentless bloodshed but on the ground both parties to the armed conflict appear committed to a military solution.

The Syrian Observatory said there were heavy clashes in towns around Damascus such as Harasta, Douma and Artouz, and said helicopter gunships fired rockets on a village in the northern province of Idlib.

Rebel fighters also attacked a military base at Wadi al-Deif, close to the town of Maarat al-Numan which they seized earlier this month, cutting the country’s main north-south highway linking Damascus and Aleppo.

(Additional reporting by Zahra Hosseinian, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Amena Bakr in Dubai; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Angus MacSwan

16/10/12

In this image taken from video obtained Friday, Sept. 21, 2012 from the Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a government warplane dropping a bomb on Aleppo, Syria, Wednesday, Sept 19, 2012. AP photo

Syrian regime warplanes unleashed relentless pre-dawn air raids Tuesday on rebel positions around Maaret al-Numan, a strategic northern town insurgents captured last week, a watchdog said.
 
The raids were the “most violent” since the rebels took full control of the town in Idlib province on Wednesday, Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP.
 
Large swathes of Idlib and Aleppo as well as the countryside abutting the Turkish border have fallen into rebel hands in recent months.
 
Maaret al-Numan is strategically located in the northwest on the highway linking Damascus to the embattled city of Aleppo.
 
The warplanes dropped bombs in a bid to break a rebel blockade of the highway, which is preventing army reinforcements from reaching Aleppo, theatre of intense fighting for three months.
 
Rebels responded with anti-aircraft guns.
 
Nearby, in Kafr Nabal, army shelling killed two children aged six and 10, said the Observatory.
 
A citizen journalist in the town said the children were killed by an air strike on their home.
 
“Usually, warplanes overfly Kafr Nabal for a while before the air strikes begin,” but “this time, the fighter jet bombarded the town without warning,” said the journalist who identified himself as Raed Fares.
 
Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are also attempting to put down rebels at Eastern Ghuta, in the countryside outside Damascus.
 
On Tuesday, the army pounded the eastern Damascus district of Jobar, home to strong anti-regime sentiment, the Observatory said.
 
It also shelled the towns of Harasta and Hammuriyeh east of the capital, the watchdog added.
 
Seven rebels were killed in Damascus province, three in fighting in Eastern Ghuta, home to some of the fiercest and best organised rebel groups.
 
Violence on Tuesday killed at least 26 people, according to a preliminary toll, among them 12 civilians, four soldiers and 10 rebel fighters, the Observatory said.
 
The Syrian conflict, which entered its 20th month on Monday, started as peaceful pro-reform protests in the wake of the Arab Spring, but transformed into an armed insurgency when demonstrations were brutally crushed.
 
The conflict has so far killed more than 33,000 people, among them at least 2,300 children, says the Observatory.

15/10/12

UN envoy to Syria urges temporary ceasefire

Shuttling between neighbours Iran and Iraq as Syria fighting rages on, Lakhdar Brahimi welcomes “ideas from all sides”.

The UN-Arab League envoy has called for a ceasefire in Syria during the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, as the revolt against the Syrian government enters its 20th month with a death toll of more than 33,000.

Lakhdar Brahim made his call on Monday as he shuttled between Syria’s neighbours, which have been divided by the conflict.

He was in Iraq after holding talks in Iran, closest ally of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president.

Brahimi is weighing seeking authorisation for a peacekeeping force if a political deal can be struck, Ahmed Ramadan, an official of the opposition Syrian National Council, told AFP news agency as the exiled opposition bloc met in Doha, Qatar.

Iranian officials put forward proposals for a political transition during their meetings with Brahimi but they were for one supervised by Assad, Hossein Amir Abdolahian, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, said on Monday, something that is likely to be unacceptable to the Syrian opposition.

Brahimi said he welcomed ideas from all sides.

“We hope all these ideas gather into a project to put an end to the Syrian people’s nightmare,” he said.

The Eid al-Adha holiday later this month marks the climax of the annual Muslim pilgrimage which is an obligation for the faithful who can afford it once in a lifetime.

In another diplomatic development, Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, whose government is a traditional ally of Syria, was in Luxembourg on Sunday for talks with his European Union counterparts.

“We discussed Syria really in all its dimensions with Mr Lavrov last night,” William Hague, British foreign secretary, said on Monday. “I can’t say that we made any progress.”

Russia and China have repeatedly blocked action at the UN Security Council against the Assad government.

The EU imposed a new package of unilateral sanctions on Monday, its 19th since the conflict erupted in March last year.

European politicians say the measures target Syrian personalities linked to violence against protesters and entities involved in supplying equipment used for repression by the Assad government.

Fighting in Aleppo

Inside Syria, at least 16 soldiers were killed in fighting around two checkpoints near the commercial capital of Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the US-based opposition network, said on Monday.

Near one checkpoint, troops killed the driver of a vehicle which was carrying three tonnes of explosives that he intended to detonate, a security source told AFP.

Aleppo has been the theatre of intense conflict for the past three months, including in the city’s UNESCO-listed historic heart, with damage to both the ancient covered market, or souk, and the landmark 13th Century Umayyad Mosque.

Assad ordered the formation of a panel to oversee the mosque’s restoration, the state SANA news agency said.

A day after troops recaptured the complex in heavy fighting with rebels, spent cartridges and broken glass still littered the ground, an AFP correspondent reported.

Fire had destroyed some of the antique carpets and wooden furnishings that used to adorn the place of worship and charred one of its intricately sculpted colonnades.

In the town of Albu Kamal on the Iraqi border, shelling by the army of rebel positions killed three children aged six, seven and 12. They were among at least 48 people killed nationwide, the SOHR said.

Separately, over the weekend, rebel fighters pushed Syrian troops from the strategic town of Maarat al-Numan, in the northern Idlib province, forcing them to retreat to two military barracks on its outskirts.

Rebel commanders called the victory “a major breakthrough”, though fierce fighting continued in the greater Idlib province as government troops launched a counter-attack in a bid to regain territory lost recently in the northern battlegrounds.

Against this backdrop, a Turkish disaster agency said on Monday that the number of Syrians fleeing the conflict in their homeland and seeking refuge in Turkey now exceeded 100,000.

The AFAD agency said in a statement that there were now 100,363 Syrians at more than a dozen camps in Turkish provinces along the border.

Turkey had previously said that it would be able to handle no more than 100,000 refugees and had called for safe zones to protect people on Syrian soil.

Turkish officials have said, however, that the countrywill not close its doors to refugees if the number exceeds the threshold.

15/10/12

By Faisal Baatout

DOHA — UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is considering proposing the deployment of peacekeepers to Syria if a deal on a transition is reached, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council said on Monday.

One of Brahimi’s ideas “is considering the deployment of peacekeeping forces which would accompany any political proposal,” the head of the SNC’s media office Ahmed Ramadan told AFP in Doha as the exiled opposition group began a meeting in the Qatari capital.

“But this issue is still being discussed,” he added.

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani told reporters that any such force must be “well-armed.”

“Any mission that is not well-armed will not fulfil its aim. For this, it must have enough members and equipment to carry out its duty,” he said.

Qatar’s emir Sheikh Hamad called last month for Arab military intervention in Syria because of the failure of the UN Security Council and other international bodies to end the conflict.

“What’s important is ending bloodshed,” said the Qatari premier, “whether it’s an Arab or UN mission.”

He also demanded a “courageous decision from Syrian authorities to stop the bloodshed and respond to the demands of the Syrian people.”

A UN observer mission deployed to oversee an abortive peace plan brokered by Brahimi’s predecessor as envoy, Kofi Annan, in April was withdrawn in August.

Brahimi was in Iraq on Monday on the latest leg of a regional tour that has also taken him to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran.

While in Istanbul at the weekend, he met SNC representatives, Ramadan said.

The SNC’s 35-member general secretariat was meeting in Doha to “discuss the situation on the ground, political developments and the problem of refugees,” he said.

The two-day meeting will “discuss the establishment of mechanisms to administer the areas which have been liberated” by the rebels, he added.

A senior member of the bloc, Louay al-Safi, said that other issues such as “restructuring the SNC and expanding it to include other political activists and civil society representatives will also be discussed.”

Another meeting will be held on October 22 in Qatar which will bring together other factions and independent opposition figures for talks.

The SNC has postponed until early November a meeting which was set to take place this week to admit other opposition groups into its ranks.

Next month’s meeting will also elect a successor to current SNC leader Abdel Basset Saydaa, a Kurd appointed in June.

SNC sources have said the delay reflects divisions over broadening the support base of the bloc, which is committed to the armed struggle against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and has said it will not admit factions that oppose it.

Now in its 20th month, the conflict has left more than 33,000 people dead, mainly civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

13/10/12

13/10/12

Turkey’s government threatened to respond to any further attacks by Syrian forces, after shelling across the frontier last week killed five Turkish citizens.

“Turkey will retaliate if Syria violates its border again,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said at a news conference today in Istanbul. “We will do what’s necessary. We hope Syria won’t repeat its previous violation of the border.”

Turkey yesterday deployed tanks and missile-defense systems on hilltops overlooking Syria, the state-run Anatolia news agency said, hours after Turkish jet fighters were scrambled to confront a Syrian helicopter that came close to the border. Turkey has threatened to target Syrian forces if they pose a security risk, following the downing of a Turkish fighter jet by Syria in June.

Turkey’s ties with Syria, once an ally, dramatically deteriorated over Turkish backing for Syrian rebels fighting forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey fired artillery in response to Syrian shelling that killed the five people in the Turkish border town of Akcakale on Oct. 3.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, of which Turkey is a member, on Oct. 9 called the attack on Akcakale “a flagrant breach of international law,” and assured the Turkish government of the alliance’s military support if it’s attacked.

Davutoglu spoke after holding talks with Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations and Arab League special envoy to Syria, and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in Istanbul. He didn’t comment on the discussions.

Rebels Advance

Rebel forces in Syria today captured the village of Azmarin in the province of Idlib, near the Turkish border, Anatolia reported. Syrian forces were also attacking the rebel-held village of Derkush in Idlib with tanks and ground forces, the state-run Turkish news agency said.

Turkey shelters 99,500 refugees in camps along the border, and another 14,000 Syrians are waiting to cross into the country, according to Turkey’s Foreign Ministry.

Syrian security forces killed 42 civilians today, the U.K.- based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in an e-mailed statement. At least 33 soldiers also died in fighting across the country, it said. Rebels lost three fighters when they attacked a military convoy in Idlib province, the Observatory said on its Facebook page.

Syrian forces “eliminated a large number of terrorists” in fighting in the northwestern commercial hub of Aleppo, the government-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported. The army also fought rebels who “cut off roads” in Idlib, killing and injuring some of them, the news service said.

Syrian rebels in Aleppo shot down a government MIG jet, the rebels’ Free Syrian Army said on its Facebook page. Footage was posted by rebels showing the wreckage of the aircraft on flames and armed men surrounding it and shouting God is great.

The Observatory for Human Rights in Syria confirmed the rebels’ claim and said the jet had bombed the town of Khan al- Asal in the suburbs of Aleppo.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sibel Akbay in Istanbul at sakbay@bloomberg.net

13/10/12

A boy lies on the hard tile floor of an overwhelmed hospital in Aleppo, Syria, his right leg heavily bandaged below the knee after surgeons have performed an emergency amputation.

His eyes, full of fear and pain, are fixed on the man taking his photograph, while surrounding him are discarded surgical instruments, other medical staff and desperately wounded civilians - and his severed right foot.

The unidentified boy was among scores of civilians treated today by overstretched staff at the blood-soaked Dar al Shifa Hospital, a seven-storey building that was itself extensively damaged by shelling two months ago.

Doctors and volunteers treat a Syrian boy wounded by Syrian Army shelling at Dar al-Shifa hospital in Aleppo

Flatbed truck turned ambulance: The boy, with his seriously injured father lying next to him, about to be driven back through the war-torn streets of Aleppo to what remains of their home

A Syrian volunteer carries a child wounded by Syrian Army shelling at Dar al-Shifa hospital in Aleppo

The wounded boy lost part of his leg in a Syrian Army artillery shelling, and he was brought to doctors in the back of a flatbed truck with his badly injured father.

After being treated, the boy and his father - still covered in their own blood - were taken back in the same truck to the remains of their home and an uncertain future.

Witnesses say that places such as bread lines, hospitals and schools - where women, children and the elderly take refuge - are daily targets for Syrian Army snipers and artillery shelling. 

Experts and observes say about 90 per cent of the wounded and the dead in Aleppo are civilians.

Nurses and doctors treat men, wounded by the Syrian Army shelling

A wounded woman is treated by doctors at Dar al-Shifa hospital in Aleppo

Syrian rebels claim to have completely cut off the highway linking Damascus with the city, preventing government troops from mounting anything more serious than artillery salvos and sniper attacks.

Rebels battled to hold onto Syria’s main northeastern highway on Friday as government forces fought insurgents on several fronts across the country.

The rebels captured an air defense base east of Syria’s biggest city, Aleppo, and government forces unleashed air strikes and artillery bombardments on the western city of Homs, activists said.

On the Turkish-Syrian border, Turkey scrambled two fighter jets after a Syrian military helicopter bombed the Syrian border town of Azmarin.

The incident was the latest sign that tension between Ankara and Damascus is surging at a time when the 19-month-old conflict is deepening with no sign of a diplomatic breakthrough and growing concerns that it could spread across the Middle East.

The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a death toll for Thursday of more than 260 people, including civilians and combatants on both sides, in violence in the capital and the north, west and east of the country.

It said 92 soldiers had been killed on Thursday, one of the highest daily tolls on the government side since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad broke out in March 2011.

Buildings in Homs damaged by what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad

The official SANA news agency also reported fighting nationwide and said dozens of rebels, which it called ‘mercenary terrorists’, had been killed.

The reports could not be independently verified but they indicate an intensifying conflict, with the daily body counts of the past several weeks far exceeding previous months.

The British-based Observatory, which has a network of monitors in Syria, said fighting was taking place at a military barracks close to Maarat al-Nuaman, a town on the highway from Homs to Aleppo in the northwest.

Aleppo, Syria’s commercial hub, has been contested since July and the rebel capture of Maarat al-Nuaman this week cut the main route for Assad’s military to resupply and reinforce it.

Opposition sources said rebels on Thursday halted an armored army column at Khan Sheikhoun which had been sent from Hama to retake Maarat al-Nuaman, 70 km (40 miles) south of Aleppo.

They also reported artillery barrages along the highway between Khan Sheikhoun and Maarat in the past 72 hours.

SANA said government forces were trying to clear Aleppo’s Karm al-Jabal area of rebels on Friday.

More than 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which started out as a popular uprising against four decades of Assad family rule and domination by their Alawite sect and then spiraled into civil war.

Fighting has also spilled over its borders into Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, stoking fears that the war could drag in its neighbors.

Since Syrian bombardments hit Turkish villages last week, Ankara and Damascus have squared off militarily and rhetorically, with Turkey moving troops up to the border and threatening to retaliate if there is further cross-border bloodshed.

Two Turkish fighter planes scrambled on Friday after a Syrian military helicopter bombed the Syrian border town of Azmarin, where there has been intense fighting between rebels and government forces this week.

A Syrian rebel fighter stands guard in torrential rain at the entrance to the old city in Aleppo during fighting with Syrian government forces

Turkey infuriated Syria on Wednesday when it forced a passenger plane flying from Russia to Syria to land in Ankara.

The Turkish authorities said it was carrying Russian-made munitions for the Syrian army, a charge denied by Damascus and Moscow.

Turkey allows rebels sanctuary on its soil and has led calls, along with Western powers and Gulf Arab states, for Assad to step down.

The Syrian president counts on the support of Russia and Iran.

Despite the bluster, most analysts believe that neither Syria nor Turkey want matters to get out of hand.

The United States and European powers have also shown no desire to intervene militarily, despite much hand-wringing over the bloodshed.

Assad’s forces also intensified air strikes and artillery barrages against Homs on Friday, a day after they took heavy losses trying to overrun the rebel-held Khalidiya district, opposition activists said.

‘There are 50 bodies of soldiers and shabbiha (militia) on the streets in Khalidiya and regime troops cannot retrieve them,” said Ahmad Tarkawi, a local opposition leader.

‘The situation remains tough. The regime is now using a multiple rings tactic to surround Homs.’

Syrian rebels took partial control of an air defence battalion on the highway connecting Aleppo to Raqa province and near the Kweris military airport

Homs, 140 km (90 miles) north of Damascus, was the focus of world attention in February when a government siege pulverized rebel-held districts and killed hundreds of fighters and civilians.

It is also a gateway to the mountains overlooking the Mediterranean, heartland of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.

Video footage showed a six-storey building in Khalidiya flattened by an airstrike.

Shelling and aerial bombardments were also hitting Sunni Muslim towns near Homs to prevent rebels in the countryside from joining the battle for Homs, opposition activist Abu Yazan said.

Meanwhile, the refugee crisis grew ever more acute, with the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR saying that between 2,000 and 3,000 people were fleeing across borders every day from Syria.

The total number of refugees now stood at more than 340,000, Melissa Fleming, a UNHCR spokeswoman, said in Geneva.

‘And now into the winter months, more and more of these people are going to be living in camp situations. So more and more of these people are going to be spending the winter in tents,’ she said

12/10/12

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud received at his palace in Jeddah today the United Nations-Arab League Joint Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Al-Ibrahimi

Jeddah: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud received at his palace in Jeddah today the United Nations-Arab League Joint Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Al-Ibrahimi and the accompanying delegation.
During the audience, current situations in Syria and ways of ending all kinds of violence, bloodshed, terrifying of innocents and human rights abuses in Syria were reviewed.
The audience was attended by Prince Miqren bin Abdulaziz, Adviser to and Special Envoy of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, and Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, Deputy Foreign Minister.

12/10/12

The details of the Turkish grounding of a Syrian passenger plane earlier this week remain murky, but that hasn’t stopped Turkey and Syria from trading accusations.

By Arthur Bright | Christian Science Monitor – 54 mins ago

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will make an impromptu visit to fellow NATO member Turkey in an effort to tamp down rising tensions between Ankara and Damascus following Turkey’s grounding of a Syrian passenger plane alleged to be loaded with ammunition for the Assad regime.

Mr. Westerwelle, who is currently in China, will meet his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, in Istanbul tomorrow to discuss the “escalating” situation between the neighbors, reports Agence France-Presse.

“The Syria situation has escalated. That fills us with the greatest concern,” he said. “It is important that no one pours oil on the fire. We are counting on moderation and de-escalation.” Westerwelle said his visit was intended as a “sign of solidarity” with a NATO ally and condemned recent shelling of Turkey, calling it “unacceptable.” “It is important that no one succumb to provocation and that we continue working on a new democratic start in Syria,” he said.

Westerwelle also said that he wants “to hear for myself what was behind the forced landing of the aircraft and the confiscation of goods from the plane in Turkey.”

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday that the airliner, forced down two days ago by Turkish jets as it flew from Moscow to Damascus, was loaded with “equipment and ammunitions” for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – a charge that Syria and Russia deny, reports the Associated Press.

“Equipment and ammunitions that were being sent from a Russian agency … to the Syrian Defense Ministry,” were confiscated from the jetliner, Erdogan told reporters in Ankara. “Their examination is continuing and the necessary (action) will follow.” …

“As you know, defense industry equipment or weapons, ammunitions … cannot be carried on passenger planes,” Erdogan said. “It is against international rules for such things to pass through our air space.”

But Syria’s foreign ministry accused Mr. Erdogan of “lies,” the BBC reports. “The plane’s cargo was documented in detail on the bill of lading and the plane did not carry any illegal material or any weapons,” the ministry said. It also challenged him to prove his claims by “show[ing] the equipment and ammunition at least to his people.”

Russia’s state arms dealer says it had no connection to the flight. “We have no information available about the contents or ownership of any cargo,” Rosoboronexport spokesperson Vyacheslav Davidenko told RIA Novosti. “All cargo transport operations by us involving military equipment are always made in accordance with international agreements and Russian law.”

As Turkey, Syria, and Russia jockey over the grounding of the airliner, Turkey continues to build up its forces along the Syrian border. The Australian Associated Press reports that Turkey is transferring 60 more tanks to positions in the south, bringing its total in the region up to 250. It also is stationing an additional 15 jet fighters in the area.

Yesterday was the Assad regime’s worst day of military losses in terms of personnel yesterday. Ninety-two soldiers were killed, according to tallies from the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and reported by AFP. In addition, 61 rebels and 81 civilians died yesterday.

The organization adds that another 14 were killed in a rebel attack in Daraa today.

12/10/12

Members of the Free Syrian Army are seen at a front line in al-Mid area in Aleppo city in northern Syria October 11, 2012. REUTERS/Zain Karam (SYRIA - Tags: CIVIL UNREST POLITICS)

12/10/12

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Thursday no arms were being smuggled across his country’s 600-kilometre (375-mile) border into conflict-torn Syria.

“We stress that no weapons go to Syria via Iraq,” he told reporters in Prague.

“We have placed the army on our border to prevent the delivery of weapons to Syria,” Maliki added, calling on countries supplying arms to Syria to “look for positive solutions” instead.

“All weapons supplied are used against the Syrian people, and this is bad for the entire region,” he said.

Last week, Iraq stopped and searched a Syria-bound Iranian cargo plane for weapons but allowed it to continue as no prohibited items were found.

And on September 21, Baghdad denied permission for a North Korean aircraft to cross its airspace on its way to Syria over suspicions it would carry arms and advisers there.

The United States has pushed Baghdad to deliver on pledges to stop flights by Iran over its territory, which are feared to be carrying arms to the Syrian regime.

Turkey said Thursday it had seized “objectionable” and “illegal cargo” from a Syrian plane which it intercepted en route from Moscow to Damascus on Wednesday.

Maliki said the only solution to the conflict in Syria was a peaceful one, calling on “groups of the Syrian nation to sit and find a solution.” His comments came following talks with Czech officials focused on a potential deal for Baghdad to buy 28 Czech-made subsonic jet fighters.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 32,000 people including babies, children and women have died since the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad erupted in March 2011.

11/10/12

In Syria’s cities and towns, entire blocks of apartment buildings have been shattered, their top floors reduced to pancaked slabs of concrete. Centuries-old markets have been gutted by flames and gunfire in places like Aleppo and Homs — an irreplaceable chunk of history wiped out in a few hours of battle. And then there are the many factories, oil pipelines, schools, hospitals, mosques and churches that have been systematically destroyed in nearly 19 months of violence.           

Aside from the tragedy of the many lives lost in Syria’s civil war — activists estimate the death toll has now passed 32,000 killed — there is the staggering damage to the country’s infrastructure, economy and cultural treasures.            

Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi said last week that the economic losses from the ongoing conflict have cost the country about $34 billion, with the figure rising daily, while the opposition estimates the loss at about $100 billion.               

Experts say the real figure cannot be measured with any accuracy, given the continuing nature of the raging violence and the difficulties involved with getting independent observers into the country to assess the damage.            

Although there are some pockets of Syria that have been relatively shielded from the conflict, the destruction in most of the country’s major cities is staggering. Experts warn that whenever the civil war ends, it will take a monumental international effort, and perhaps a generation of Syrians, to rebuild what has been broken.           

“In terms of infrastructure, major parts of Syria have effectively been bombed back to Ottoman times,” said Ammar Abdul-Hamid, a Syrian activist and a Washington-based fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.                      
The London-based Syrian Network for Human Rights, which compiles statistics from the conflict, said in a Sept. 28 report that 589,000 buildings — including residential homes, schools, mosques, churches and hospitals — have been destroyed, with thousands more severely damaged.               

The group said it used specialized civil engineers to come up with its damage estimate and put the cost of reconstructing residential properties and other buildings at about $40 billion.