The Destruction Of The Syrian Air Force

June 18, 2013

The Syrian Air Force has suffered major losses in the last year, as the aircraft and helicopters were unleashed on rebels (and civilian supporters) and took a beating. Of the 370 usable fixed wing war planes the Syrian Air Force had two years, about half are now out of action because of combat losses or wear and tear. Nearly two-thirds of the 360 helicopters are gone, for the same reasons.

Part of the problem was that few Syrian air force leaders (and pilots) were prepared for this kind of war (low level bombing and lots of helicopter flights under fire). Desperate time remand desperate measures and in the last few months even the MiG-29 fighters have been seen dropping bombs. These are the most modern aircraft Syria has and their pilots were trained to fight Israeli jets, not bomb civilians. But a village or city neighborhood is hard to miss, even for a rookie.

A more costly problem is the lack of flying time in the last decade. Syria could never afford, even with Iranian subsidies, to let their combat pilots fly enough to be really good at it. For the last year, the only flying has been for combat missions. MiG-29 pilots were taught about bombing, if they had no experience in that, on the ground and practiced the weapons release procedure while the aircraft were sitting on the ground. The first actual bomb drop was for real, not practice. This lack of flight time led to operational losses, especially when it came to landing damaged (by enemy action or equipment failure) aircraft. This often led to aircraft loss rather than bringing home a repairable aircraft. A shortage of spare parts often made repairs impossible and has become a major factor in aircraft becoming inoperable after heavy use (which wears out some components).

The Syrian Air Force also suffers from an overabundance of older, well-worn and poorly maintained aircraft. The best example is their use of the MiG-21. This is a 1950s design and most of the few remaining current users are phasing them out. But because Syria is so poor, their 150 MiG-21s are still the most abundant aircraft in their air force. But only about half of these MiG-21s are flyable. There are also a hundred 1960s era MiG-23s, ten MiG-25s and 40 MiG-29s. There are also 20 Su-24 and 60 Su-22 ground attack aircraft. The 60 operational L-39 jet trainers were also able to carry some weapons (typical with trainers like this) and were used to attack rebels. There is also a large force of helicopters, the most common being over 240 Mi-8s (including some of the more modern Mi-17 model). There are 120 attack helicopters, half of them Mi-24s (a gunship variant of the Mi-8 and contemporary of the American AH-1) the rest are elderly French Gazelle scout helicopters and Polish Mi-2s. These are mostly used as aerial taxis as they only carry a few weapons and can’t handle much damage.

It wasn’t until about a year ago that the rebels (using army deserters and information collected via the Internet or Islamic radical fighters with experience in Iraq) developed effective anti-aircraft techniques. The most common and successful one was to place multiple machine-guns, including at least one heavy (12.7-23mm) machine-gun along the route used by helicopters or jets coming in for landing or low level attack. These machine-guns were fired in a coordinated manner and were very effective. This tactic is called “flak trap,” and dates back to World War II (or earlier). This tactic works if you can use surprise, and one or more concealed, preferably truck mounted, heavy machine-guns.

Syrian Air Force losses have been heavy, with some 400 aircrew dead, captured or missing. Nearly a hundred fixed wing and over a hundred helicopters have been lost. About half of these aircraft were captured or destroyed on the ground as rebels attacked, and often captured, air bases. The jets (and a few transports) were hit while landing and taking off and this threat often led to airbases being abandoned, with aircraft incapable (because of damage or lack of spare parts) of flying out being destroyed or just left behind. The rebels have about a dozen flyable helicopters and some helicopter pilots have defected but there is not really a rebel “air force” just yet.

All Syrian aircraft are showing their age, except for the MiG-29s, which are relatively new. Lack of money has meant few flying hours for air force pilots and not enough money to keep all aircraft flyable even before the revolution began two years ago. Fuel and spare parts are even more expensive now (because of sanctions) and the air force has a hard time dealing with the payroll and the expense of running (and defending) its bases.

The Syrian Air Force has a dismal record, although their primary opponent for over half a century has been Israel. The Assad family has occasionally used the air force against the Syrian people, and seemed reluctant at first to unleash hundreds of combat aircraft on civilians. But a year ago that changed and an air attack was considered successful whether it hit armed rebels or the unarmed civilians that supported him. Several air force defectors reported that pilots were often instructed to go after bakeries (bread is a key element of the Syrian diet) and apartment buildings, in order to maximize the suffering among civilians.

The air force is rapidly disappearing because of combat and operational (accidents and poor maintenance) losses. At this point the government has nothing to lose and simply regards the remaining aircraft as similar to diminishing ammo supplies. Use it or lose it to advancing rebels.

Source: strategypage.com

Hezbollah in the fight in Syria to win, backed by Iran

Beirut, June 6, 2013 by Mona Alami

At the very end of a small street in the Shiite suburbs of Beirut, Abou Ali, a Hezbollah fighter, talks of why he is fighting fellow Muslims in Syria.

The Syrians who have rebelled against President Bashar Assad are “Takfiris,” he said, Sunni Muslims backed by Persian Gulf state emirs who view Shiite Muslims like himself as apostates, or “impure.”

“The presence of the latter group in Syria is not surprising. Gulf states have always back stabbed the ‘Resistance,’ ” or Hezbollah, said Ali, who fought for weeks to oust rebels from their stronghold of Qusair.

Thousands of Hezbollah’s fighters from Lebanon have streamed into Syria to help Assad take a stronghold for the rebels in Qusair this week and the seizure may turn the two-year conflict in his favor.

While the West debates whether to intervene on the side of the rebels, and pushes for peace talks this month in Geneva, Hezbollah and its patron Iran have gone all in to keep Syria in the hands of an anti-American dictator.

Iran is a Shiite Muslim theocracy and the Assad regime is headed by Alawites, who are a Shiite offshoot. But it is not the centuries-old divide in the Muslim world that prompted Iran to unleash the Shiites of Hezbollah, a force also known as the Party of God that Iran has trained and armed for years, according to the U.S. State Department.

“The Assad regime has always supported the Party of God — Iran’s proxy in Lebanon — during the various Lebanese wars against Israel,” says Nadim Shehadeh from Chatham House, a London think tank. “In addition, Syria has long been a conduit for Iranian weapons transfers to Hezbollah.

“The party is a regiment of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and is acting in that capacity in Syria,” Shehadeh said of Iran’s military.

Hezbollah is a U.S.-designated terrorist group based in southern Lebanon that is accused of orchestrating numerous attacks against Israelis and Americans, including the suicide bombing of a barracks in Beirut in 1983 that killed 299 U.S. and French marines. It has fought two wars against Israel and has thousands of missiles aimed at the country.

Iran is also virulently anti-Israel and is enriching uranium to the point where Israel believes it will soon be capable of making an atomic bomb.

President Obama’s policy has been to provide humanitarian aid but not lethal aid to the rebels, and impose economic sanctions on Iran to pressure it to end its nuclear program. Critics say Obama misunderstands the Syrian conflict as an internal conflict, rather than the bid for regional supremacy by Iran and anti-American terrorists that it is.

“Anyone who believes that a conflagration throughout the Middle East will have no implications for the United States is ignoring history,” said Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

Pletka, in testimony before Congress on Wednesday, said a victory for Iran in Syria would imperil U.S allies such as Saudi Arabia and Israel and make the risk of a major war involving U.S. troops more likely.

At least 80,000 people have died in Syria since a peaceful protest movement that began in March 2011 turned into an armed rebellion after a massive regime crackdown. Ali, a Hezbollah fighter in his late 30s, said he is willing to die in Syria too.

“My children and my family will be taken care of if I am martyred,” Ali said. “Everyone who is sent to fight in Syria has received a ‘Taklif Sharii,’” or a religious command that means he will go to heaven if killed.

Ali said Assad would not have taken Qusair without Hezbollah. The town is on a major route that the rebels used to resupply their fighters, and now the rebels must find another supply line. Qusair also connects the capital of Damascus to the Mediterranean coast, the heartland of the Alawite people.

“The Syrian army only played a secondary role in Qusair, deploying after each area was completely cleaned and secured by Hezbollah fighters,” he said.

Regime forces relied on heavy air-strikes from Syrian war planes to clear the way for their advance on Qusair. The Free Syrian Army, a collection of rebel fighters, tried to hang onto the town by creating a network of tunnels and booby trapping entire blocks.

“Some of the rebels IEDs, as well as the tunnels they built had the markings of Hamas,” said Beirut-based journalist Nicholas Blanford, author of Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah’s Thirty-year Struggle Against Israel.

Hamas had long been an ally of Hezbollah, but it split with the group over its attacks on fellow Sunni Muslims aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, as is Hamas, Blanford said. It was Hezbollah who helped build the Hamas tunnel network in Gaza, so they know how the structures are deployed.

“Tunnels usually have a basic structure, it is easy for specialists to understand how they work and they are helping us destroying them by booby trapping access and exit points,” Ali said.

He said Hezbollah fighters foiled the booby traps by blowing up walls to enter homes rather than going through windows or doors, which are the spots that are generally where explosive devices are planted. Hezbollah reservists are well-trained, Ali said.

“These forces are now using the training in street fighting they received in Iran, which was done in mock cities specifically built for this purpose,” Ali said.

In the next few months, Ali and other Hezbollah fighters might be shaping the outcome of the Syrian conflict by setting the balance of the pendulum one way or the other in places such as Aleppo, Damascus or border areas.

Qusair is just the start, he said. Ali said Hezbollah forces are being deployed in cities and rural areas where the rebels are strong to crush them. They will face not just Syrians, but well-trained fighters tied to al-Qaeda who have flooded into the fight from other countries.

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on Sunnis this week to devote their lives, money and expertise to overthrowing Assad. Blanford said thousands of Hezbollah fighters are deployed around Syria to tip the balance for Assad.

“Aleppo will be Hezbollah’s next big battle,” Blanford said.

Source: USA Today

Syria builds paramilitary force aided by Iran, NGO says - #Syria

President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has put together a new paramilitary force of men and women, some trained by key ally Iran, to fight what is now becoming a guerrilla war, a watchdog said Monday.

The force, dubbed the National Defense Army, gathers together existing popular committees of pro-regime civilian fighters under a new, better-trained and armed hierarchy, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The popular committees were originally formed to protect pro-regime neighborhoods from rebels.

“The [regular] army is not trained to fight a guerrilla war, so the regime has resorted to creating the National Defense Army,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Most of the new fighters are members or supporters of the ruling Baath party, said Abdel Rahman. “They include men and women, and members of all the sects.”

The new force is not connected to the pro-regime shabiha militia, which the army and security forces have deployed ever since the outbreak of an anti-regime revolt to help it suppress dissent across the country.

Members of the paramilitary force, like the popular committees before, will focus on fighting in their own neighborhoods.

On Friday, Moscow’s Russia Today reported on its website that the new National Defense Army was being set up to “defend districts against gunmen.”

“The Syrian authorities are set to create … a National Defense Army, parallel to regime forces, so that the [regular] army is freed up for combat,” the website reported citing an unnamed official.

Abdel Rahman, whose Observatory relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground, said Iran was involved in building the paramilitary force.

“The paramilitary force includes an elite fighting force trained by Iran,” Abdel Rahman told AFP.

“Iran has provided training to the paramilitary force’s commando fighters.”

Iran, Damascus’ key regional ally, staunchly backs Assad and in September 2012 said its elite Quds Force, which is tasked with carrying out operations outside the Islamic republic, was giving Damascus “counsel and advice.”

On the ground, an activist said the new force was already active in the central province of Homs.

“The number of regime fighters in the province has swelled in recent days, as the National Defense Army has started to come into action,” anti-regime activist Hadi al-Abdullah told AFP via the Internet from the rebel-held town of Qusayr.

01/21/2013

Source: afp.com

US military completes planning for #Syria

U.S. military completes planning for Syria

U.S. military completes planning for Syria

By Barbara Starr

The U.S. military has completed its own planning for how American troops would conduct a variety of operations against Syria, or to assist neighboring countries in the event action was ordered, officials tell CNN.

In recent weeks, the Pentagon has finalized its assessment of what types of units would be needed, how many troops, and even the cost of certain potential operations, officials tell CNN.

The planning comes as the U.S. has become increasingly concerned that the violence in Syria is verging on civil war. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the recent series of bombings have heightened the worry.

Dempsey said it reminded him of the escalating violence during the Iraq war.

The violence “gives us all pause that have been in Iraq and seen how these issues become sectarian and then they become civil wars and then they become very difficult to resolve,” Dempsey told CNN in an exclusive interview on Thursday.

A senior U.S. official said the developments have been a matter of discussion in the Obama administration.

“There is a sense that if the sectarian violence in Syria grows, it could be worse than what we saw in Iraq,” the official said.

The military planning includes a scenario for a no-fly zone as well as protecting chemical and biological sites. Officials say all the scenarios would be difficult to enact and involve large numbers of U.S. troops and extended operations.

The planning, officials insist, is being done protectively and there have been no orders for any action from the White House.

The U.S. Navy is maintaining a presence of three surface combatants and a submarine in the eastern Mediterranean to conduct electronic surveillance and reconnaissance on the Syrian regime, a senior Pentagon official said. The official emphasized that the U.S. routinely maintains this type of naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean, but acknowledged the current focus is on Syria.

The United States, Britain and France have all been discussing contingency scenarios, potential training and sharing of intelligence about what is happening in Syria with neighboring countries including Jordan, Turkey and Israel. But it is Jordan, so far, that is most seeking the help because of its relatively small military and potential need for outside help if unrest in southern Syria were to impact Jordan’s security.

U.S. special forces are training and advising Jordanian troops on a range of specific military tasks they might need to undertake if unrest in Syria spills over into Jordan or poses a threat to that country, three Defense Department officials told CNN. The officials declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the training. Jordanian officials also are refusing to publicly confirm details, but a senior Middle Eastern government official also confirmed details to CNN.

The U.S. has been training in Jordan using mainly special operations forces under a program called Joint Combined Exchange Training, which sends troops overseas to train foreign soldiers and units in specific missions. Jordan’s major security concern is that if the Syrian regime were to suddenly collapse, then it would face unrest on its northern border, as well as the possibility of large refugee flows, weapons smuggling into Jordan, and potential disarray in Syria’s chemical and biological weapons complex. Jordan also is considering how and where to potentially set up humanitarian assistance bases inside its borders, another matter the U.S. is advising it on.

The Jordanians do not believe regime of Bashir al-Assad would attack them. But they have made it clear to the United States they want the training so they are ready to move quickly if any scenario develops that could destabilize their country, which is already reeling politically from a collapsing economy. While there’s no formal agreement, one of the U.S. officials said the U.S. would come to the defense and support of Jordan in the event any of the Syria scenarios pose a challenge.

While there is no current scenario for putting U.S. troops on the ground in Jordan or Syria, the U.S. could wind up providing air support to move Jordanian troops to the border. In addition, American forces could provide a wide range of intelligence and surveillance capabilities to Jordan so they would have up-to-date information on what is happening on the Syrian side of their border region. In one of the most extreme scenarios, a small unit of Jordanian troops could move into Syria to protect a chemical or biological weapons site.

U.S. satellites are monitoring the chemical and biological weapons sites around the clock, and so far “there is no reason to believe they are not secure,” one of the U.S. officials said.

The U.S. believes the facilities are guarded by some of the most elite Alawite troops loyal to al-Assad. But the official noted that the opposition forces appear to be gaining strength in some areas, and that the United States, Jordan and the allies are concerned that as the amount of al-Assad controlled territory shrinks, some of those critical facilities could be open to attacks, pilfering or efforts by terrorist groups to buy material.

“This is getting a fair amount of attention,” another U.S. official told CNN. Also discussed with Jordanian forces was the possible need for U.S. chemical and biological weapons detecting equipment, the official said.

The overall assessment by the U.S. is that in the event some action had to be taken to secure Syrian chemical, biological or weapons facilities, troops from some country would have to enter Syria in a matter of hours.

This latest training is said to be separate from the recent multinational “Eager Lion 2012” training exercise that took place in Jordan.

During that exercise, U.S. and Jordanian troops also practiced many of the same scenarios, but the JCET training is much more focused, according to the officials.

Source: CNN

#Syria Iran, Hezbollah significantly increase aid to Syria’s Assad

06/04/12

Iran and Hezbollah have significantly stepped up support for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, Western intelligence reports have revealed.

The reports say that Iranian officers and Hezbollah militants have supplied arms to Syrian troops and trained them, to aid Assad in his months-long effort to crack down on anti-regime protests in the country. They also show that Hezbollah fighters were killed in clashes with rebel forces.

Israeli defense officials told Haaretz this week that the potential fall of the Assad regime prompted Iran and Hezbollah to increase their involvement in the Syrian crisis. According to the officials, even though the Iranians believe Assad will survive the uprising, they are still preparing for a scenario whereby he is toppled, in order to maximize their influence on a post-Assad Syria.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, backed by Military Intelligence information, said that Assad is past the point of no return and that his regime, which is enjoying less and less domestic and international legitimacy, is likely to implode. Barak did not specify a time frame. In late 2011, he incorrectly predicted that Assad’s fall would occur “within weeks.”

Analysts in Israel and the rest of the world were unimpressed with Assad’s declaration of victory in the flashpoint city of Homs earlier this week. Many say that Syria is sliding further into anarchy, and that it may meet the criteria of a “failed state” even before the regime collapses. Israeli officials are also skeptical about former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s recent efforts to put an end to the protracted crisis.

Recent data reveal that more than 10,000 people have been killed in clashes since the unrest began early last year. Some 20 percent of those killed were believed to be Assad loyalists; more than 80 percent were thought to belong to the opposition. The number of armed rebels is estimated at more than 10,000, but they suffer from chronic shortage of supply and interruptions in international support.
Iranian assistance to Syria, which has been ongoing for years and is dubbed “the shadow army” by Israel, consists of extensive arms shipments, which include rockets, mortars and anti-aircraft missiles that could be used against a potential air strike campaign by international forces, as well as riot dispersal means. The so-called shadow army was coordinated by Imad Mughniyeh and Mohammed Suleiman, who were killed in two separate incidents in 2008. Syria and Hezbollah claim the two were assassinated by Israel.

Iranian and Hezbollah assistance to Assad also includes the training of Syrian troops in urban warfare, as well as drone operations. Western intelligence reports reveal that Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials frequently make top-secret visits to Syria to advise the regime on how to deal with the rebels. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has beefed up the deployment of its troops along the Lebanon-Syria border, in an attempt to prevent arms spillover from Lebanon to Sunni opposition groups. Unlike Hamas, which ended its presence in Syria almost overnight after the crisis began, Hezbollah still maintains close ties with the Syrian regime and uses bases and ammunition reservoirs on Syrian territory.

The reports have also found traces of global jihad activity in Syria, mostly Al-Qaida and its ideological subsidiaries. The members of these organizations are mainly Sunni radicals, who arrived in Syria after U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq in December last year. It is likely that these groups are behind the recent spate of car bomb attacks in Damascus and its vicinity.

Source: haaretz.com

Canada slams UNESCO for keeping #Syria on rights committee

Canadian Ambassador to UNESCO Jean-Pierre Blackburn had walked out of an executive board meeting while Syria’s representative was speaking, a spokesman said.
Photograph by: Reuters , Reuters

OTTAWA — Canada criticized UNESCO Thursday after members of the UN cultural agency’s executive board refused to kick Syria off a committee charged with investigating human-rights abuses.

Canada was one of 14 countries that had asked for Syria’s membership on UNESCO’s committee on conventions and recommendations to be revoked by sending a letter to the head of the executive board in December.

Syria was initially named to the committee in November. The appointment was made with unanimous consent from members of the executive board, including the United States and France, despite President Bashar Assad’s ongoing crackdown on demonstrators.

“Today, UNESCO had an opportunity to correct that wrong,” said a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, Joseph Lavoie. “Instead, it failed to call out Assad and his backers for what they are: a regime that slaughters innocent Syrians.”

Members of UNESCO’s executive board voted 35-8 to condemn the crackdown on civilians in Syria, but the motion did not include any reference to the country being removed from the committee on conventions and recommendations.

Canada was unable to vote as it only has observer status on the executive board. However, last week, Canadian Ambassador to UNESCO Jean-Pierre Blackburn had walked out of an executive board meeting while Syria’s representative was speaking, Lavoie said.

“While Canada was not involved in the original decision to name Syria to the Committee on Conventions and Recommendations at UNESCO, we nonetheless found it deeply disturbing given the Assad regime’s continual and repeated violation of human rights,” he added.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of Geneva-based advocacy group UN Watch, believed the international community squandered an important opportunity to send the Assad regime a message because many UNESCO members were worried that censuring Syria would set a precedent.

“Politics simply trumped human rights, with too many UNESCO diplomats fearing that if Syria were removed for its violations, many of them would be next,” he said in an email.

Meanwhile, a dispute between Saudi Arabia and Russia spilled into Ottawa on Thursday.

Russian diplomats in Moscow and Damascus have accused Saudi Arabia of supporting terrorism by providing arms and training to rebels in Syria.

In response, the Saudi Embassy in Ottawa sent out a news release condemning the statements and countering that Russian support for Assad’s regime might expose Russia to “moral, legal and criminal responsibility.”

“History alone will respond to such accusations of arming terrorists,” the release adds, “and will undoubtedly testify to who are the terrorists and who are behind them.”

lberthiaume(at)postmedia.com

Twitter.com/leeberthiaume

Source: canada.com

Sources: Arab nations arming Syrian opposition #Syria

By the CNN Wire Staff
February 24, 2012 — Updated 0305 GMT (1105 HKT)

(CNN) — The outlook for the underequipped members of the Syrian opposition appeared to brighten Thursday on the eve of a Friends of Syria meeting in Tunisia.

Diplomatic sources told CNN that a number of Arab nations are supplying arms to the Syrian opposition. The sources wouldn’t identify which countries.

In London, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton predicted the opposition will find willing sources to supply them with munitions to counter the Syrian government onslaught blamed for thousands of deaths since last March.

“There will be increasingly capable opposition forces,” she said Thursday. “They will find somewhere, somehow the means to defend themselves, as well as begin offensive measures and the pressure will build on Russia and China. World opinion is not going to stand idly by.”

Russia and China both vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have condemned the Syrian government for attacking its people.

Also Thursday, U.S. officials told CNN they are considering providing the opposition with nonlethal aid — such as secure radio communications and training.

That is a step beyond what the Obama administration was saying Tuesday, when it was still clinging to the hope that political solutions would end the bloodshed. “We don’t believe that it makes sense to contribute now to the further militarization of Syria, what we don’t want to see is the spiral of violence increase,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. “That said, if we can’t get Assad to yield to the pressure that we are all bringing to bear, we may have to consider additional measures.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has recently suggested that, beyond humanitarian aid and diplomatic solutions, “we need to think about contingencies as well.”

Both the U.S. military and intelligence community have expressed concern about providing arms to an opposition whose composition is unclear.

The 70-plus countries and international organizations gathering Friday in Tunis are expected to unveil a plan for delivering emergency aid to the Syrian people and issue a stern warning to President Bashar al-Assad. They want him to agree to an immediate cease-fire and provide access to humanitarian groups to deliver the aid or face a yet-to-be mentioned response from the world community.

A draft of the document, shared with CNN, calls on “the Syrian government to implement an immediate cease-fire and to allow free and unimpeded access by the United Nations and humanitarian agencies to carry out a full assessment of needs in Homs and other areas.”

Diplomats cautioned the draft was subject to change.

What’s more, the communiqué will recognize the opposition Syrian National Council, members of which will be at the session, as a credible representative of the Syrian people.

The United States insists it will not provide weapons to the Syrian opposition, and will leave it to others who have expressed an interest in doing so. Nobody told Washington they armed the Libyans and officials said they expect the same nod-wink in Syria.

Neither Russia, which is a Soviet-era ally and arms dealer to Syria, nor China is participating.

Preparations for the Tunis meeting coincided with the release Thursday of a U.N. report that identifies Syrian commanders and high-ranking officials who may be responsible for “widespread, systematic and gross human rights violations” and apparent crimes against humanity.

The violations have been conducted with the “apparent knowledge and consent” of the country’s “highest levels,” the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic says.

Thousands have died in Syria since mid-March of 2011, when the government launched a crackdown against protesters.

At least 101 deaths were reported Thursday, including 14 children and a soldier killed when he refused to open fire on people, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said. Seventeen unidentified corpses were found in a military prison in the Zawiya Mountain area of Idlib province, the group said. Residents told the LCC they believe it’s likely most of these unidentified bodies were of soldiers who had defected.

Opposition forces reported more shelling of Homs, the 20th consecutive day of attacks on the besieged city at the center of resistance.

On Thursday, the United Nations announced the appointment of former Secretary-General Kofi Annan as joint special envoy of the United Nations and Arab League on the Syrian crisis.

Annan will be tackling an environment described by the U.N. commission report as one in which most of the citizenry is “in a state of disarray.”

“The government has manifestly failed in its responsibility to protect the population,” the report says. “Anti-government armed groups have also committed abuses, although not comparable in scale and organization with those carried out by the state.”

Meanwhile, Britain and France demanded Syrian President Bashar al-Assad cease attacks against Homs so three journalists can receive medical care, even as reports emerged Thursday of renewed shelling in the flashpoint city.

The journalists were in Homs to document attacks by al-Assad’s forces when they were wounded in shelling, which also killed American reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

Al-Assad has denied targeting civilians, saying his forces are after “terrorists” and foreign fighters bent on destabilizing Syria.

Evidence that civilians are being killed by government forces has been documented by citizen journalists who post their work on social media websites and YouTube. The opposition reports the death toll exceeds 9,000.

CNN and other media outlets often cannot independently verify opposition or government reports because the Syrian regime has severely limited access to the country by foreign journalists.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry denied Syria was responsible for the deaths on Wednesday of two journalists “who infiltrated its territory on their own,” according to a banner on Syrian state TV.

The British Foreign Office summoned Sami Khiyami, the Syrian ambassador to the United Kingdom, and Political Director Sir Geoffrey Adams said Syria was expected to facilitate the return of the bodies of the two journalists and to provide medical treatment to British photographer Paul Conroy.

Conroy and French reporter Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro were wounded in the shelling in the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr.

Bouvier said in a YouTube video that she needed immediate medical treatment.

“My leg is broken, the length of my femur. I need to be operated on as quickly as possible, the doctors have treated me as best as they can except they cannot perform any surgical operations, so I need as quickly as possible, during a cease-fire, a car with medical equipment or at least in good condition to take me to Lebanon to be treated as quickly as possible,” she said.

Dr. Mohammed Al-Mohammed, who has been treating the wounded journalists in Baba Amr, said Bouvier was in critical condition and Conroy had been moved to a “safe house,” which the physician said was a misnomer. “The problem is that we don’t have a safe place, anywhere secure, in Baba Amr,” Al-Mohammed told CNN Thursday in an telephone interview.

He bemoaned the lack of medical supplies. “We just have the basics,” he said. “I have to admit, all very primitive.”

CNN’s Elise Labott, Hamdi Alkhshali, Brian Walker, Arwa Damon, Hala Gorani, Tom Watkins and Joe Sterling contributed to this report.

Source: CNN

Inside Homs with the Free Syrian Army #Syria

An FSA captain says the Assad military  is relying on ‘hired thugs’ [Reuters]

08/02/12

A figure stepped out of the darkness and the first thing I noticed was the outline of a gun. My civilian hosts walking next to me didn’t flinch, so I presumed this was the Free Syria Army (FSA).

Brief greetings were soon over and we clamoured through the fog, stomping across muddy laneways and rows of trees, crouching to keep low.


 The military campaign in Homs continues

“This is now Syria,” someone whispered. We had crossed.

It took two more days to get into Homs, moving from one safe house to the next, sometimes with unarmed activists, sometimes with the Free Syrian Army.

At times, we saw government army checkpoints just ahead and ducked off the road in our beaten-up car. Although the FSA told me they control this part of the countryside outside Homs, it was clear that the frontlines between the government and these renegade troops were constantly changing and fluid.

I can’t go into specifics about how we got in, but with the uprising areas of Homs completely surrounded by President Bashar al-Assad’s troops, going through them is the only option. Mostly, you just hope to avoid any checkpoints.

As a woman, I was told no one would speak to me directly if we were stopped - presuming I was my driver’s wife. This proved to be true as we were stopped several times for a terrifying few moments.

Inside Homs

As we entered Bab Amr, the restive heart of the uprising in Homs, I was shocked to find so few FSA troops on the ground.

We were waved through by them at the first checkpoint: four soldiers with AK-47s seemed to be holding the frontline. 

Over the next couple of days, I saw some more, at various small checkpoints - a ragged blue tarpaulin sheltering men here and there, often half-dressed in camouflaged army fatigues and some in civilian clothing.

They seemed woefully under-equipped.


Some in Syria have begun to refer to their country as a ‘war zone’

They were also not keen to be filmed.

The next day I was invited to a high-profile meeting at their headquarters. After I went around the room asking each man individually, especially those dressed in starched suits and woollen trench coats, Captain Mohammed Atef Idris was elected to speak on camera.

I asked one commander off camera what the FSA wanted if they do overthrow the Assad government, in terms of a power structure in Syria.

“Justice,” was his one-word answer.

If the international community’s fear that a change of power is being controlled by a group with strong self-interests is true, this room of men were not qualifying that.

Captain Idris told me he had only defected a few weeks before.

He had been studying at military college.

The government’s army are having to rely on hired thugs, he said, mainly people hired to shoot at anti-Assad areas.

Many more troops are ready to defect, he believes, but are waiting for the right time.

I was also taken to a small square where defectors were being “trained”.

It seemed obvious they were there to be filmed by the press, both me and the activist citizen journalists themselves. 


Torture inside Homs

A tiny band of around 12 young men in fatigues were being told to line up and march.

They looked frightened.

Having defected recently with nothing but their AK-47s, they obviously knew if the opposition don’t win this fight, they will be in a very dangerous situation.

I wasn’t allowed to interview them.

Only one of the men did not have a military uniform - a recruit.

I was told recruits are making up some of the FSA but not a large proportion at the moment. Besides, the FSA has too few guns to hand around so they rely on defectors bringing their own weapons.

Outside the field hospital, a defected policeman was trying to keep the road clear of traffic, waving at cars as they passed by in a surreal moment of societal normalcy.

Locals spilled out of their houses and leaned through windows to watch.

The Syrian government has accused the FSA of killing civilians, but in Bab Amr, I did not see any of the usual caution you learn to pick up on in the field when with rebel groups in civilian areas.

Men, women and children often came out to speak with them, full of questions about the fighting.

Civilian and FSA

Civilians were desperate to show me everything, often grabbing my arm and taking me to see their houses, sniper positions, evidence of shelling, and bandaged wounds.

As the conflict turns into guerrilla warfare, the line between civilian and FSA is to some extent unclear.

Activists and their cameramen mingle freely with the defected soldiers, knowing many of their commanders and men on outposts by name.

But the sheer number of civilians to FSA is clear. 

This is a residential area, a large, poor gathering of three or four-storey concrete houses made up of tiny apartments packed with families.


Syria’s citizen journalists cover violence in media  blackout

I asked an activist why they are still there and have not fled to other parts of the city, or fled the country.

“Where are they going to go?” asked one. “If they don’t have relatives with a house in another part of town, they have to stay.”

Being trapped, residents of Bab Amr and anti-Assad areas like it, also face shortages of almost every basic necessity.

The eerie darkness of the streets at night is testament to the shortages of electricity inside houses.

A generator constantly hummed in the activists’ apartment that we stayed in, but few in the area are so lucky.

One shopkeeper did not want to be filmed, but his tiny corner store was open despite being badly pockmarked by snipers. He had a few soggy cardboard boxes of cabbage and lettuce on the street in front.

“People are starving here, we have not got anything,” said one man who stopped next to us on the street.

Some drivers have taken up the perilous task of bringing food into the area. A vehicle would arrive outside the activists’ office with local shawarma wraps once a day.

The same driver was tasked with transporting me out of the city.

He tried to reassure me that there would be no pro-Assad forces on our way out of the country, saying: ”This area all Free Army!”

He was wrong.

With the lights of Lebanon in our sights as we trundled along tiny country lanes, a rocket flew out from behind a row of trees.

It bounced across the road 50 metres in front of us.

We turned off the car lights and slowly, carefully moved on, mercifully ignored.

As we crossed the border, the ring of gunfire in the distance behind me was still audible, as pockets of FSA clashed with Assad’s forces.

In this war, both sides are weak, but who the winner will be is still unclear.

Either way, it is ordinary civilians who are losing.

Source: aljazeera.com

Arab League extends #Syria mission 1 more month (more murder)

By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, Associated Press – 1 minute ago 

CAIRO (AP) — Arab League officials say the 22-member organization’s observers mission in Syria has been extended for an extra month.

Sunday’s decision has been made by Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media, say the number of observers will be increased and they will receive training by the U.N.

Source: google.com