Syrian Freedom

#Syria Tunisia and Libya delay recognizing Syrian opposition

Tunisia and Libya will both hold off on recognizing a new Syrian opposition body until they know more about its make-up, Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki said on Thursday.

The Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces was set up on November 11 under Western and Gulf Arab pressure, to unite diverse opposition voices.

Britain, France, Turkey and Gulf Arab countries have all recognized the coalition as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people. Washington has pledged to work with the coalition, but stopped short of fully recognizing it.

“We and Libya are in agreement that we will wait before recognizing. We need to have a real idea about the representation on this body,” Marzouki told reporters at a news conference during a visit by Libyan leader Mohammed Magarief.

Separately, Marzouki said he would visit the Gaza Strip after a ceasefire between Israel and the Islamist militant group Hamas held firm on Thursday with scenes of joy among the ruins in Gaza over what Palestinians hailed as a victory.

“I congratulate Ismail Haniyeh (the Hamas prime minister) on the victory in Gaza,” Marzouki said. “And I have told him I want to visit Gaza soon and open a Tunisian school there.”

“Tunisia and Libya agree that there should be an Arab summit to support Palestine.”

Swiss hold $1 billion Arab Spring ‘dictator’ funds

16/10/12

GENEVA (AP) — A Swiss official says the government has blocked almost 1 billion Swiss francs ($1.07 billion) linked to rulers in four Arab Spring nations.

M. Valentin Zellweger, who as head of the Swiss foreign ministry’s international law department also oversees its task force for “potentate funds,” says the assets seized since early 2011 are tied to rulers in #Syria, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.

He told reporters Tuesday that the Swiss government is working with Tunisia and Egypt to return their nations’ money, including 700 million francs ($755 million) stashed away by former President Hosni Mubarak and his aides.

The Swiss government says it has previously returned about 1.7 billion francs ($1.83 billion) in so-called dictator assets to Peru, the Philippines, Nigeria, Angola, Kazakhstan, Mexico and other countries in recent years.

Accusations mount of Hezbollah fighting in #Syria

15/10/12

If hard evidence emerges of the Shiite militant

group’s involvement, it would increase tensions in

Lebanon where armed partisans on opposite sides

live in close proximity.

By Nicholas Blanford | Christian Science Monitor

A member of the Free Syrian Army inspects damaged houses in Bustan al Basha in Aleppo city in northern Syria October 12, 2012. REUTERS/Zain Karam (SYRIA - Tags: CIVIL UNREST POLITICS)

Beside the arrow-straight road between the northern Lebanon town of Qaa and the border with Syria stands a small, bland mosque decorated with the yellow flags of the militant Shiite group Hezbollah.

The mosque is the lone Hezbollah bastion amid a flat agricultural landscape populated mainly by Sunni Lebanese and used as a safe haven by Lebanese and Syrian members of the Free Syrian Army. But parked discreetly – and incongruously – in the shade of a tree beside the mosque is an ambulance waiting to transport wounded Hezbollah fighters returning from fighting against the FSA over the border, says Syrian fighter Hussein, a former irrigation engineer who today heads a small unit of the FSA’s Jusiyah Martyrs’ Brigade, named after the nearby Syrian border village.

Accusations of Hezbollah involvement in Syria have strengthened in recent weeks amid reports of fighters killed in combat being returned to Lebanon for quiet burial. Hezbollah, along with its patron Iran, are key allies of the Assad regime, together forming an “axis of resistance” to confront Israel and Western ambitions for the Middle East that spans the region.

RELATED – Hezbollah 101: Who is the militant group, and what does it want?

If hard confirmation arises that Hezbollah is playing a role in Syria it will increase tensions in Lebanon, which is already attempting to distance itself as much as possible from the reverberations of the bloody conflict roiling its larger neighbor. The Lebanese government – which is dominated by allies of Hezbollah – formally follows a policy of disassociation from the Syria crisis, although it has merely averted its eyes as Syrian rebel fighters turn parts of the territory along the border into a de facto safe haven from the fighting.

GROWING EVIDENCE

In response to intensifying speculation over Hezbollah’s alleged activities in Syria, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the party’s leader, said last week that the Assad regime had not asked him for military assistance.

He acknowledged, however, that the were more than two dozen villages and farms located just inside Syria, north of the border with Lebanon, that are home to around 30,000 Lebanese, many of whom are Shiites and members of Hezbollah. Mr. Nasrallah said that they had been coming under threat from “armed groups” and had chosen to defend themselves.

“Some of them decided to flee the area, but most of them stayed in their towns and started to arm themselves,” he said. “The residents of these towns took the decision to stay and defend themselves against armed groups and did not engage in battle between the regime and the opposition,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech.

Nearly two weeks ago, Hezbollah held a prominent funeral for Ali Nassif, a senior commander who died “while performing his jihadi duties”, a standard phrase used by the group when announcing deaths of fighters in circumstances other than direct combat with Israel, such as training accidents. The Jusiyah Martyrs’ Brigade militants claim that Nassif was killed in the border village of Rableh and was deliberately targeted for assassination.

“We waited for him to emerge from a school which they use as a command post. When we saw a black Grand Cherokee with tinted windows leave the school, we guessed it was him and hit it with an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade],” says Hussein.

Sunni and Shiite Islam: Do you know the difference? Take our quiz.

He and other members of the Jusiyah Martyrs’ Brigade interviewed over a 24-hour period while resting in Masharih al-Qaa claim that their most formidable foes across the border in Syria are not Syrian Army soldiers, but battle-hardened veteran Hezbollah fighters. They say the Hezbollah men are helping the Assad regime regain control of a cluster of villages and towns in the vicinity of the Syrian town of Qusayr, five miles north of the border.

“The regime’s soldiers are cowards against us. But we fear the Hezbollah men,” says Hussein.

He added that he had encountered some Hezbollah fighters on the road beside the border in Jusiyah and had approached them with bottles of water, pretending to be a supportive civilian.

“None of them were under 35 years old. They were very professional and tough fighters. You can tell they are superior fighters from the way they move in battle and how they fight,” he says.

SELF-DEFENSE

Accusations of Hezbollah involvement in Syria have been aired by opponents of the Assad regime since protests erupted in March last year. Many of the early accounts were less than convincing. Similarly, YouTube videos purporting to show Hezbollah fighters in Syria were inconclusive and often posted by people politically opposed to the party.

But in recent months there have been persistent reports of Hezbollah assisting the Assad regime with combat advice and passing on the group’s formidable guerrilla skills to the pro-regime Shabiha militia, with the goal of turning them into an effective paramilitary force.

Hezbollah views the conflict in Syria as a confrontation with strategic consequences for the region. The collapse of the Assad regime and its replacement with a Sunni-dominated regime moderate in its foreign policy and more closely aligned with Turkey and Saudi Arabia would tear out the geo-strategic heart of the “axis of resistance.”

“Hezbollah has no choice but to be there,” says a prominent member of a Shiite clan in the Bekaa Valley who is close to Hezbollah. “The opposition has fighters from Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia helping them, so why shouldn’t the Assad regime receive the help of Hezbollah?”

Furthermore, Hezbollah is not the only Lebanese entity accused of partisan involvement in Syria. Several hundred Lebanese Sunnis have volunteered for the Free Syrian Army, joining other Arab nationals drawn to the conflict, according to Lebanese supporters of the Syrian opposition. Others provide shelter for the FSA in north Lebanon, allowing militants to rest, regroup, and plan. There have been several media reports – the latest in yesterday’s edition of the British newspaper The Guardian – that Okab Saqr, a Lebanese parliamentarian allied to former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri, is in Turkey organizing the transfer of Saudi-funded arms to the Syrian opposition. A Washington-based analyst who recently visited the Turkish border area with Syria said that Saqr’s name “is all over the place.”

Nowhere is the divergence between Hezbollah support for the Assad regime and Lebanese Sunni backing for the Syrian opposition more starkly illustrated than in the northern Bekaa Valley. The western flank of the valley is a Hezbollah stronghold and allows access for fighters to the Shiite-populated villages just over the border in Syria.

The eastern flank, including Masharih al-Qaa, contains a sizeable Sunni population – some of whom are FSA volunteers and almost all of whom are sympathetic to the Syrian opposition. That has created an unusual situation: Just north of the border, Hezbollah fighters and Syrian troops battle Lebanese and Syrian FSA militants, while just south of the frontier, the two foes eye each other warily, but peacefully, from their respective corners of the northern Bekaa.

Even the lone Hezbollah mosque, despite being surrounded by hostile FSA elements, has been left untouched. Similarly, Hezbollah has made no effort to engage the FSA in Masharih al-Qaa.

“If Hezbollah decided to come after us here, it would start a civil war,” says Ismael, a Lebanese resident of Masharih al-Qaa who serves with the Jusiyah Martyrs’ Brigade. “And nobody wants that.”

#Syrian officials work covertly against regime

30/08/12

GENEVA: Dissident Syrian diplomats and civil servants are covertly working from the inside to help opposition forces, a diplomat who recently defected from the regime told U.N. rights officials Thursday.

Danny al-Baaj, who went public with his opposition to the regime on Aug. 10, told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva that he had been part of a group of diplomats working against the regime from the inside.

They had set up a network of contacts supporting the opposition, “regardless of where they stand,” he said.

And while only seven Syrian diplomats had publicly defected so far, other officials, diplomats and civil servants, were covertly supporting the opposition in different ways, he said.

He gave few further details, saying he needed to ensure the safety of the people involved.

He said it was thanks to sympathetic officials that his parents had been able to leave Syria. The officials had turned a blind eye even though the authorities were searching for them, he added.

Once his family was safe, Baaj said, he felt free to speak out publicly.

The Swiss authorities have granted him and his family a permit to stay in the county.

Baaj, who defected earlier this month, said that when he arrived at the Syrian diplomatic mission to the U.N. in Geneva in August 2010, he believed in Assad and the government reforms that he had promised.

It was not long however, before his views changed. “It was clear to me that there was no serious intention by the government to do anything,” he said.

They had no intention either of stopping the killings and atrocities on the ground or of meeting the calls for reform, he added.

Baaj said he first made contact with members of the opposition in the autumn of 2011. He had been part of the Syrian Democratic Platform, an opposition group, from the beginning.

He acknowledged that Syria’s future depended on other countries and expressed hope that a vote on the issue at the next session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in September would produce a consensus.

However, he refused to back unilateral international intervention in the conflict, although he said that if the Security Council agreed on action, that would be a different matter.

“As a diplomat, I do believe that the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Syria should be preserved,” he said.

He played down fears about sectarian violence and the danger of chaos if the Assad regime fell.

“The youth in Syria are not sectarian, the youth in Syria know what they want, as it happened in Tunisia, as it happened in Egypt, as it happened in Libya,” he said, referring to countries where recent uprisings have forced regime change.

“The moment the regime falls there will be no violence, there will be no chaos,” he said.

#Syria, Umair Khan poem!

I am the courage of Syria, the orphan of Gaza.
I am the ruins of Iraq, the violation of Afghanistan.
I am the bombarded of Pakistan.
I am the beauity of kashmir.
I am the rebel of Libya, the trying to make a living of Tunisia.
I am the hope of Egypt.
I am the determination of Yemen.
I am the freedom of Palestine.
I am the hunger stricken child of Somalia.
I am the suffering of each and every single corner of the world.
Hope is what I am, and this post is a reminder to remember them in your prayers..

Panetta says #Syria’s Assad is hastening own demise

30/07/2012

By Robert Burns / The Associated Press

TUNIS, Tunisia — Syrian President Bashar Assad’s use of helicopter gunships to counter a civil uprising will prove to be “a nail in Assad’s coffin,” U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Sunday at the outset of a five-day Middle East tour.

While giving no indication that the Obama administration is contemplating military intervention, Mr. Panetta said it is increasingly clear that the Syrian crisis is deepening and that Mr. Assad is hastening his own demise.

“His regime is coming to an end,” Mr. Panetta told reporters.

Mr. Panetta said he would use his meetings in Tunisia, Egypt, Israel and Jordan to reinforce an international consensus that Mr. Assad must step down and allow a peaceful transition to a democratic form of government.

Mr. Panetta said he also will continue consultations on efforts to ensure that Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons do not fall into the wrong hands.

Mr. Panetta will be in Israel just days after U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, who has cast the Obama administration as too soft on Iran and insufficiently supportive of the Jewish state.

Mr. Panetta said he believes Israeli leaders still support an international campaign of economic, political and diplomatic pressure on Iran to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“My view is that they have not made any decisions with regards to” attacking Iran, he said.

While in Israel, Mr. Panetta planned to visit an air defense battery that uses technology developed in part with U.S. support to shoot down rockets.

He called the air defense system, Iron Dome, an example of expanded U.S.-Israeli cooperation.

“We have achieved a level of defense cooperation that is unprecedented in our history,” he said. “And my goal is to deepen that relationship even further.”

This is Mr. Panetta’s first visit to Tunis as defense secretary. The country was the launching pad for the wave of revolt that swept through the Arab world in 2011.

Five possible scenarios for #Syria, and their impact on Iraq

April 06, 2012 02:08 AMBy Safa A. HusseinThe Daily Star

Iraqis celebrated the Arab Spring that changed the regimes of Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen. But they are divided about the protests and uprisings in Bahrain and Syria. On the surface, it seems that this is merely a reflection of the sectarian divide in Iraqi society and politics, or of external influence on Iraq’s politicians, be it from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey or wherever.

But there are more important factors that are shaping Iraq’s position on the Syrian crisis. In view of increasing popular discontent in Syria, its divided opposition, the loyalty of the bulk of the security forces, and the divided international community, the Syrian trajectory remains highly unpredictable. We can identify a variety of possible scenarios, some with implications that present substantial risks to Iraqi national security.

The first scenario is an Assad regime without President Bashar Assad. Like what happened in Tunisia and Egypt, the regime saves itself by sacrificing the leader or leaders. This scenario is possible but not highly probable, given rising tensions between the Sunni majority and the Alawite minority that dominates the regime.

In a second scenario, the regime attempts to manage the protests by force as was the case in Iran after the 2009 elections. Yet there are hardly any similarities between the two political systems, their popular support, and their security apparatuses. The Syrian regime has tried the security approach since the beginning of the protests, without success. Given the past year’s developments, one might expect the violence to become bloodier and more prolonged. Yet the international community would not tolerate such bloodshed, nor would such a regime fit into the post-Arab Spring Middle East. Thus this scenario would metamorphose eventually to one of the scenarios below.

A third scenario assumes military intervention like the NATO operation in Libya. But Syria is not Libya. Syria has a population density more than 30 times greater, leverage over Hezbollah in Lebanon, and far stronger military forces. Hence military intervention would require a far more advanced operation than was the case in Libya and would risk high civilian casualties.

In addition, should intervention take place, Iran and its allies would undertake potentially destabilizing action inside and outside Syria reminiscent of the cycle of violence in Iraq in the wake of the United States invasion. Intervention would also be welcomed by Al-Qaeda in the hope that it would in turn incite popular uprisings that would open the way for the jihadists eventually to take power.

In scenario No. 4, the United States., NATO and other allies create humanitarian corridors or designate safe havens guarded by the Free Syrian Army, or both, to provide relief to the Syrian population and dissident groups. The Turkish prime minister has suggested creating buffer zones for similar purposes.

The problem is that the FSA is not capable of confronting coordinated attacks by the loyal Syrian army. If NATO sends peacekeeping troops, they can either be held hostage by the Syrian army or would eventually have to engage them in battle. International forces were sent to Bosnia during the mid-1990s, but this did not prevent the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and eventually developed into a much larger military intervention.

The fifth scenario is arming the opposition, as Saudi Arabia and Qatar have suggested. Though this may be the easiest course of action, it could cause regional spillover into Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan, and fracture Syria along sectarian lines. A divided Syria would become an arena for an Iranian-Saudi struggle (reflecting Shiite-Sunni tensions). Syria would slide to the edge of civil war as Iraq did in the period between 2004 and 2007. But with no decisive third-party forces in the country as was the case in Iraq, escalation to full-scale civil war similar to Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s seems very probable. The main side effect of such a scenario is that the majority of the rebels would become increasingly radical, allowing Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups to gain a foothold in Syria. This in turn would determine the shape of post-Assad Syria.

The United States, Saudi Arabia and other countries are weighing whether they can weaken Iran geopolitically by weakening Syria – via military intervention, arming the rebels, or creating secure zones. The consequences of such policies would be disastrous for Syria’s neighbors and specifically for Iraq.

The most significant regional jihadist presence lies across the Syrian border in Iraq. Syria supported these insurgents from 2003 to 2007. The consolidation of Iraqi government power has greatly weakened but not eliminated them. If extremists dominate the post-Assad government, or if Syria becomes a failed state, then the risk of a jihadist revival in this area threatening the stability of Iraq would be very real.

That is why Iraq hopes to find a solution in which reforms lead to peaceful transformation of the regime in Syria without a security vacuum or prolonged violence. The current effort by Kofi Annan, the U.N.-Arab League envoy on the crisis, could be the basis of such a solution. It would save thousands of Syrian lives during the transformation process and save more lives of Syrians, Iraqis and others in the aftermath.

Safa A. Hussein is a former deputy member of the dissolved Iraqi Governing Council. He served as a brigadier general in the Iraqi Air Force. Currently he serves in the Iraqi National Security Council. This commentary first appeared bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.

With no int’l consensus, Turkey and allies run out of options on how to stop #Syria’s Assad

By Associated Press, Published: March 21

ISTANBUL — Turkey stands at the forefront of calls for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad, but there are an awful lot of red lines that it won’t cross to realize that goal.

Like its Western allies, Turkey says it won’t arm outgunned Syrian rebels, and has no plans to set up a buffer zone in neighboring Syria where civilians and army defectors can shelter and regroup.

The result? A stalemate in which diplomacy and ritual condemnations pale alongside the uninterrupted killing, and fears of wider, regional chaos preclude bolder action on the ground.

Sometimes, it seems that the only actor with a clear aim, and an idea of how to get there, is a Syrian regime intent on survival through the suppression of all dissent.

That leaves countries like Turkey, which staked credibility on a misguided belief that it could persuade Assad to reform, casting around for ways to pressure the regime even though nobody knows what might replace it if it ever falls.

A so-called “Friends of Syria” meeting of nations that seek Assad’s downfall, planned for April 1 in Istanbul, runs the risk of yielding just another bout of handwringing over the government crackdown in Syria. The United Nations says more than 8,000 people have been killed in the yearlong uprising, but international horror over the shelling of the city of Homs has already started to fade.

Analysts suggested Assad, though weakened, still holds the initiative, partly because Russia and China have shielded Syria from U.N. action. It is a protracted script, unlike the ones that swiftly ousted Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and led to the death of Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi.

“Bashar Assad is acting with impunity because he knows that what has happened to Gadhafi is not likely to happen to him,” said Prof. Mustafa Kibaroglu, chair of the international relations department at Okan University in Istanbul.

Of the Istanbul meeting, he said: “This is not going to be the last, possibly, and there will be soulsearching, maybe with the addition of new countries.”

A similar conference in February in Tunisia ended with nothing other than the threat of increasing isolation and sanctions to compel compliance from Assad, a strategy that has so far failed.

Turkey, NATO’s biggest Muslim member, emerged as a regional power in the past decade, backed by a growing economy, emerging democratic credentials and historical and cultural links to neighbors. It pursued pragmatic links with authoritarian leaders, but shifted to a pro-democracy position as uprisings swept the Middle East and North Africa.

The crackdown in Syria is acutely uncomfortable for Turkey, which does not want to be seen as a bystander to atrocities on its doorstep. At the same time, it is wary of scenarios such as a “buffer zone” inside Syria that could plunge its troops into battles with Syrian forces, drag in other countries and undo its image as a regional mediator.

Turkey hasn’t ruled out a buffer zone, but it does not intend to embark alone on such a risky venture. Turkey is intent on seeking international consensus on Syria, but that consensus simply does not exist.

“We are working to solve this problem through an intense diplomatic traffic and by working on every possibility,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Monday at a joint news conference with his visiting Moroccan counterpart.

“God willing, there won’t be any further pain and grave incidents. But Turkey is determined to consider every kind of measure in connection with its border security, and so that our Syrian brothers do not go through any further pain,” Davutoglu said.

He cited an array of meetings during which Syria will be discussed, including the Istanbul meeting and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s trip to Iran later this month. Iran is a staunch ally of Syria, and its sharp divergence with Turkey over the conflict in Syria has highlighted the potential for rivalry between the regional powers.

Turkey is also deeply reluctant to try to tip the military balance with arms supplies to rebels, a step that could ignite a broader, sectarian-based conflict in an unstable region, and even trigger tit-for-tat Syrian support for Turkey’s Kurdish rebels.

Many Mideast actors, and outside powers such as Europe and the United States, worry that the Syrian opposition is not a cohesive force, and fear a full-blown disintegration in the country. Even the status quo between old enemies Israel and Syria is a reasonably stable arrangement that has lasted decades.

Turkey, which shares a 566-mile (911-kilometer) frontier with Syria, nearly went to war with its neighbor over Syrian support for Turkish Kurd rebels in the 1990s. The relationship improved dramatically over the past decade.

Unlike many countries, Turkey has not recalled its ambassador, signaling its willingness to retain a basic line of communication to the government there.

“Turkey wants the Syrian regime, which oppresses its own people and goes after its people with tanks and artillery, to go,” said Huseyin Celik, spokesman for Turkey’s ruling party. “At the moment, there is no decision on forming a buffer zone. As to the subject of the embassy, there is no question officially, diplomatically for now, for the ambassador to be withdrawn.”

Kamer Kasim, an analyst at the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organization, said the meeting in Istanbul was unlikely to produce “something new” in the near term, if Syria maintains its hardline stance as expected. The weight of diplomatic pressure thus far, he said, was simply not enough to push Assad onto the defensive.

“It seems to me that these actions are not enough to get rid of the Syrian regime,” Kasim said. “The Syrian regime does not intend to compromise in any way.”

Another commentator, Semih Idiz, wrote in Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News that Turkey had painted itself into a corner on Syria because it wrongly anticipated that the uprising would not last so long and Assad would be toppled sooner.

“The bottom line is that al-Assad — albeit in the most appallingly inhuman way — has thus far outfoxed Erdogan and Davutoglu, and it seems he will be around for much longer than Ankara expected or is prepared for,” Idiz wrote.

Guest post from Rana Kabbani #Syria

by William Hague on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 4:46am ·

It is just over a year since our Syrian people – men, women and children, young and old – burst into revolution against the world’s most macabre regime. The fuse was lit by the arrest of 11-year old boys who had written on the wall of their run-down school in Dar’aa ‘Down with the regime,’ as they had seen the Tunisian and Egyptian people do in their televised revolutions. Mukhabarat men stormed the school – tipped off by their mole there – and took the children away. They beat them savagely and ripped out their tender nails. When their anguished fathers came to try to retrieve them, they were told by an Assad cousin in command there that the boys had been killed. He had happy news, though, he said: he would round up their mothers at once and his Allawite guards would rape them, to make them pregnant with far better sons!

Syrians had been humiliated, abused and mass murdered by the Assads for 42 years, but this proved a galvanising moment. They came out onto streets made ugly by this family mafia belonging to a sectarian hardcore of a tiny minority, armed with nothing but their dignity and natural desire for justice. They defied Russian-made bullets that Assad rained down on them; Iranian missiles; Hizballah snipers; as well as his own ruthlessly sectarian killing-machine, which murdered them in cold blood by the hundreds, then the thousands, then the tens of thousands. Their fields were burnt; their patient farm animals shot; their houses looted and shelled; their mosque minarets and church spires desecrated and destroyed. All basic services were cut off — water, electricity, gas — in outrageous communal punishment. Syrians found themselves besieged and starved in towns across their generous beautiful country. One image that is seared into my mind forever is this: two young men who sought to smuggle in a little baby formula and three tins of sardines to hungry Dar’aa, were shot in the head by Assad Shabbiha, who then photographed themselves on stolen iPhones, laughing and pointing at the blown-out brains splashed across their boots.

The psychopathic eye-doctor imposed by force on the Syrian people by the Stalinist junta of his father 12 years earlier, thought nothing of gouging out the eyes of protestors. National hospitals became torture centres, where doctors of his ilk drilled holes into people’s flesh and chained them to beds so that security thugs could interrogate them with pokers and pliers. Girls as young as 9 were brought to prisons to be gang-raped, so as to better persuade their tied-up brothers or fathers – by the hundreds of thousands – not to rebel. Assadist torturers had nurses on standby to remove internal organs for sale on the black market. This was the nature of the beast — a corrupt Assad police state, that had bled our country dry for 42 years, and conspired to make a dynamic, capable people impoverished, even as its own members became obscenely rich, with their fortunes sent abroad. Our own United Kingdom is peaceful home to Assad’s war criminal uncle Rifa’at — mastermind of the infamous Hama genocide of 1982, that wiped out 20,000 Syrians in a month, and disappeared 17,000 others.

For the better part of a year, we were told, and glibly, by Western democracies that Assad was a reformer — perhaps because he wore suits and ties, and did not look scarily Arab like Saddam or Qadhafi. Turkey talked a lot but quickly caved in to his terrorist blackmail — though it did take in floods of refugees, who ended up in snow-covered tents across the border, traumatised and destitute. Russia intensified arms sales to Assad. China stood by him. Israel preferred him in power, while Arab states did nothing meaningful to prise him out of it. And so we became the loneliest people on earth.

Though it is easy to be bitter at having been so utterly abandoned to Assad’s slaughter by the international community, we the Syrian people have far better things to do than to hark on such a grave moral and political failure of will. We have a horrifying police state to dismantle — alone. Millions around the world tune in on a daily basis to the Assad snuff movie of castrated children, disfigured women, destroyed neighbourhoods, and mass graves. Our eleven thousand dead, sixty thousand disappeared, two hundred thousand arrested, and many more made refugees both internally and externally, add up to one thing, and one thing alone:

Syria will be free. Syria will be free. Syria will be free!

Rana Kabbani was born in Damascus in 1958 to a political family of democrats on her mother’s side, and artists and poets on her father’s side. She was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge. She is a writer and broadcaster, and a regular contributor to The Guardian and the BBC.

Foreign Secretary William Hague: “Last week marked the first anniversary of the uprisings in Syria. I’m grateful to Syrian writer Rana Kabbani who has written a harrowing account of her perspective on events in Syria. I don’t agree with everything that she says: for example the UK is at the forefront of diplomatic efforts to stop the bloodshed in Syria and to hold this criminal regime to account for its actions. But it is important people hear the voice and opinions of Syrian people, and I would welcome your views on what she has to say.”

The Local Coordination Committees in #Syria to be Awarded for its Role in Reporting the Truth

With support from Google, Reporters Without Borders will award the Netizen Prize on Monday to the Local Coordination Committees in Syria (LCC) for its role in the Arab Spring and its use of Internet tools in spreading news of Syria around the world.

Last year the prize was award to members of the Tunisian independent collective blog “Nawaat.” This year, nominees for the prize include Leonardo Sakamoto from Brazil, residents of the village of Wukan in China, Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad, Grigory Melkonyants and the Russian Golos Team, Paulus Le Van Son from Vietnam, and the Media Team of the LCC. Reporters Without Borders is bestowing the prize on the LCC in honor of the activists who risk everything to document events in Syria.

Accepting the prize on behalf of the LCC is Ms. Oula Al-Barazi (“Jasmine”), who coordinates the activities of the LCC Media Office. Ms. Al-Barazi delivered a speech on behalf of the LCC’s Media Team, and thanked members of the committees in all cities, the translation team, and all Syrian activists on the ground who risk their lives to document and disseminate information to the world.

The Local Coordination Committees in Syria, for its part, thanks the amazing sponsoring organizations for this prize. We also thank Ms. Oula Al-Barazi, the coordinator of the Media Team, as well as all its members; the members of the Translation Team; the LCC members inside Syria and abroad; and all Syrian activists who are working to achieve their freedom and dignity

#Syria vote labelled a ‘sham’

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma vote (Reuters)

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 5:55a.m.

By Zeina Karam and Bassem Mroue

Syria’s authoritarian regime held a referendum on a new constitution Sunday, a gesture by embattled President Bashar Assad to placate those seeking his ouster. But the opposition deemed it an empty gesture and the West immediately dismissed the vote as a “sham”.

Even as some cast ballots for what the government has tried to portray as reform, the military kept up shelling of the opposition stronghold of Homs, which has been under attack for more than three weeks after rebels took control of some neighbourhoods there. Activists and residents report that hundreds have been killed in Homs in the past few weeks, including two Western journalists.

The Red Cross spokesman said the humanitarian group had been unable to enter the besieged Homs neighbourhood of Baba Amr since Friday, describing the humanitarian needs there as “very urgent”.

Activist groups said at least 29 people were killed on Sunday, mostly in Homs. At least 89 were reported killed on Saturday alone, one day before the referendum. Activists estimate close to 7,500 people have been killed in the 11 months since the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown on dissent began.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Sunday’s vote “a cynical ploy”.

“It’s a phony referendum, and it is going to be used by Assad to justify what he’s doing to other Syrian citizens,” she said in an interview with CBS News in Rabat, Morocco.

Speaking to reporters in Rabat, Clinton called on Syrians in business and the military who still support Assad to turn against him.

“The longer you support the regime’s campaign of violence against your brothers and sisters, the more it will stain your honour,” she said. “If you refuse, however, to prop up the regime or take part in attacks … your countrymen and women will hail you as heroes.”

Other countries also lambasted the vote.

“The referendum in Syria is nothing more than a farce,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said. “Sham votes cannot be a contribution to a resolution of the crisis. Assad must finally end the violence and clear the way for a political transition.”

US, European and Arab officials met Friday at a major international conference on the Syrian crisis in Tunisia, trying to forge a unified strategy to push Assad from power. They began planning a civilian peacekeeping mission to deploy after the regime falls.

“It is time for that regime to move on,” President Barack Obama said Friday of Assad’s rule.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported intense clashes between troops and army defectors in the villages of Dael and Hirak in the province of Daraa, where the uprising started. The group also said explosions were heard in the village of Khirbet Ghazaleh and Naima as well as the provincial capital, Daraa.

The Observatory and other activist groups reported violence in several areas including Idlib, Homs and the eastern province of Deir el-Zour.

The two main umbrella opposition groups, the Syrian National Council and the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria, have called for a boycott. Other groups have called for a general strike.

“I am boycotting the vote,” Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso told The Associated Press by phone. He added that previous “reforms” have made little difference. Assad’s government revoked the country’s official state of emergency in April, but the crackdown on dissent has only intensified.

The referendum on the new constitution allows at least in theory for opening the country’s political system. It would create a multiparty system in Syria, which has been ruled by the Baath party since it took power in a coup in 1963. Assad’s father, Hafez, took power in another coup in 1970.

It also imposes a limit of two seven-year terms on the president, though Syrian legal expert Omran Zoubi said Assad’s time in office so far wouldn’t count. That means he could serve two more terms after his current one ends 2014, keeping him in office until 2028.

Such changes would be unthinkable a year ago, but since Assad’s security forces have killed thousands in their effort to end the uprising, most opposition groups say they’ll accept nothing short of his ouster.

In the capital Damascus, a regime stronghold where many in the business class and religious minorities support Assad, the Information Ministry took foreign reporters to visit polling stations. Many said they were eager to vote.

“This is a good constitution. It calls for party pluralism and the president can only hold the post for two terms. These did not exist in the past,” said civil servant Mohammed Diab, 40, who waited with four others to vote in the posh Abu Rummaneh neighborhood.

Jaafar Naami, 28, who works for a private insurance company, said: “I am here to say yes for the new constitution. This is not the time to say no. People should unite.”

The state news agency SANA said Assad and his wife, Asma, voted at the capital’s state broadcasting headquarters.

Fewer voters turned out in the areas of Rukneddine and Barzeh, where anti-government protesters have recently demonstrated.

In Barzeh, about 20 percent of shops were closed, apparently in compliance with the calls for a strike. Turnout was very low at a polling station in the area, with individuals trickling in to vote every few minutes.

One man said he had come to vote at a centre away from the district’s centre, where he said there was “pressure not to vote … intimidation and calls for public disobedience”. He did not give his name for fear of reprisal.

In Rukneddine, turnout in the morning was low, but picked up in the afternoon. Still, people cast ballots as they arrived with no need to stand in line.

A Syrian-American voter who only gave her first name, Diana, said after voting yes: “My friends attacked me for voting. They said, ‘Don’t you see people are dying?’ But for me, voting is my right. The president is on the right track. When someone hits you, you have to hit back.” She added: “Syria is under attack.”

Another woman refused to talk to the AP because it is an American agency. She attacked Obama over his call Friday for Assad’s regime to “move on”.

“Tell Obama I hope he dies, like he is killing Syrian people,” she said.

One woman emerged from the station and said she voted “no” without elaborating, and walked away quickly.

Posters around the capital Damascus urged people to cast ballots. “Don’t turn your back on voting,” one said.

Another - showing the red, black and white Syrian flag - touted the new constitution. “Syria’s constitution: Freedom of belief,” it said, referring to clauses protecting religious minorities.

Turnout is expected to be minimal in opposition strongholds such as Homs, the northwestern province Idlib and the southern region of Daraa where armed rebels frequently clash with security forces.

A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Hicham Hassan, said the group’s local chapter had not been able to reach the embattled Homs neighbourhood of Baba Amr since Friday, when it evacuated 27 people.

“Needs are very urgent,” he said. “It is absolutely crucial that we are able to enter in order to evacuate people and to bring in vital assistance.”

The repercussions of the Syrian conflict are rapidly spilling over borders. More than 80,000 Syrian refugees have sought refuge in neighbouring Jordan, officials there have said.

Turkey and Lebanon also are harbouring many Syrian refugees.

AP

#Syria: Britain and West should arm rebels, say Arabs

BRITAIN and its Western allies came under intense pressure last night to drop their opposition to military intervention in the crisis in Syria, as Saudi Arabia called directly for the arming of the opposition.

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (R) greets Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (L), United Arab Emirates’ Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan (2nd L) and British Foreign Minister William Hague, in Tunis Photo: (AFP)

By Richard Spencer, Tunis

7:50PM GMT 24 Feb 2012

Foreign ministers of more than 60 nations met in Tunis to thrash out the next steps in applying pressure on the Assad regime, with William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, and his French counterpart Alain Juppe leading the way in calling for more economic sanctions.

Mr Juppe announced that the European Union will freeze the assets of Syria’s central bank at a meeting on Monday. Britain also pushed greater humanitarian access, and said the United Nations should set up relief stations on the Syrian borders prior to the emergency provision of aid.

But Saudi Arabia left the first Friends of Syria conference halfway through the afternoon demanding that it go further. The foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said he supported supplying weapons.

“I think it’s an excellent idea,” he said. “They have to protect themselves.”

Qatar and Tunisia called for an Arab force to be sent in to help end the killings and open humanitarian corridors in Syria, while the hosts said Mr Assad should be granted immunity to persuade him to stand down.

The forthright Arab approach was backed by the Syrian National Council, the opposition umbrella group newly strengthened by a draft communique in which it was recognised as “a legitimate representative of Syrians seeking peaceful democratic change”. Its leader, Burhan Ghalioun, said the conference “did not meet the aspirations of the Syrian people”.

The conference was called after the veto by Russia and China of a United Nations resolution calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step aside.

The Western allies, led by the United States, Britain and France, want to stick to their long-term plan of uniting the Syrian opposition and using diplomatic and economic pressure to force Mr Assad to step down before trying more drastic methods.

Western diplomats say that military intervention, even the supply of more light and medium arms to the Free Syrian Army, will see the conflict worsen and possibly descend into a chaotic civil war, while accepting that the provision of arms, perhaps by their Gulf allies, might be an option later.

Bassma Kodmani, a member of the SNC executive, claimed that some Western countries had already begun sending military support in the form of communications, body armour and night-vision goggles.

However Mr Hague said: “There may well be people who say that, and it reflects the intense frustration that we all feel,” he said.

Red Cross evacuates Bab Amr wounded #Syria

Aid group in talks to reach further casualties after ambulances move 27 women and children from besieged Homs district.

Watch video here.

Syrian Red Cross workers have moved 27 people from a neighbourhood in the besieged city of Homs and are in negotiations with the government to reach all casualties, a spokesman for the group has said.

Ambulances from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent drove into the suburb of Bab Amr, an opposition stronghold which has been under heavy shelling and gunfire, after negotiations earlier on Friday, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The news came as a major conference was held in Tunisia pushing for aid access.

“The convoy did arrive in Bab Amr, earlier this afternoon, so far they have evacuated seven injured persons, and 20 women and children,” Hicham Hassan, a Red Cross spokesman, told Al Jazeera on Friday.

The injured were taken to a privately owned local hospital, the Red Cross said.

No men, however, chose to be allowed to leave, fearing arrest and torture if they left, Al Jazeera’s James Bays reported from Beirut.

“There have previously been allegations that people have been taken from those hospitals and taken to prisons, and that people have even been tortured, we’ve been told, in the hospitals,” Bays said.

The Red Cross is continuing to negotiate for more access to all the wounded in the city, and injured Western journalists trapped inside have refused to leave until they are assured they will not receive preferential treatment over locals.

Hassan said the situation in the area was getting worse by the hour.

“This for us remains the first step, we want to evacuate all persons who are injured, as long as it takes,” said Hassan.

Journalists remain in Homs

Two injured foreign journalists and the bodies of two others who died in a shelling attack on a media centre were not among those taken out of Bab Amr, according to Hassan.

Syria’s foreign ministry accused “armed groups” of refusing to hand them over, but an opposition activist in the area said the journalists had refused to leave, the Associated Press reported.

A friend of French reporter Edith Bouvier who has been in direct contact with the journalist told Al Jazeera that she and British photographer Paul Conroy had refused to leave until they were guaranteed diplomatic or Red Cross escort. They also said they would not go until a humanitarian corridor had been opened for all Syrians in the city.

Bouvier and Conroy suffered leg wounds in the same shelling in which two other journalists, US reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, were killed.

Bouvier needs surgery for a broken leg, though her situation is not yet life-threatening, her friend said. Conroy reportedly has less-severe leg injuries. Two other journalists who were present during the shelling but uninjured have also remained in Homs.

The activist said the surviving journalists were unwilling to release Colvin and Ochlik’s bodies to Syrian authorities.

A spokesperson for the Red Cross told the AFP news agency that negotiations in their case were under way.

“Negotiations continue with the Syrian authorities and the opposition in an attempt to evacuate all persons, without exception, who are in need of urgent help,” said Saleh Dabbakeh.

The evacuation was the first time rescuers had entered Bab Amr in 21 days of siege. If a ceasefire results, the flow of people attempting to flee will likely increase, possibly raising tensions in Lebanon, whose border lies just 30km to the west.

There, politicians are deeply divided over Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which has long asserted itself in Lebanese affairs.

“If there is a pause in the fighting … then it’s likely I think that more people will come across the border, and I think there is going to be a problem, it’s not only a humanitarian problem,” Bays said. “The Lebanese government does not even want to call these people refugees.”

The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC) activist network reported the deaths of rat least 50 of people on Friday as footage of street protests emerged from Homs, Qamishili, Aleppo, Idlib, Deraa and the suburbs of Damascus.

The LCC said most of the deaths occurred in the central city of Hama.

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.

Clinton: #Syria opposition credible

By Elise Labott and Adam Levine

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the opposition Syrian National Council is emerging as an alternative to the Bashar al-Assad regime and that the consensus opinion among Arab League and other nations is that the group is a credible representative. Diplomats tell CNN that the opinion will be reflected in the communique to be issued from the Friends of Syria conference on Friday in Tunisia.

The Obama administration has been conflicted about the opposition. Just last week, top intelligence and military officials spoke of how undefined the opposition is. But it seems the U.S. is moving towards supporting the opposition even with concerns about who they are comprised of.

The Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee in testimony that the opposition is “fractured” and “localized.” Clapper said the Syrian National Council doe not have command over the opposition groups noting that another entity, the Free Syrian Army, is not connected.

“There is not a national movement, even though there is a - a title of - the Syrian National Council, but a lot of that is from external, exiles and the like. But there is not a unitary connected opposition force. It’s very local. It’s on a community by community basis,” Clapper said. “In fact in some communities, the opposition is actually providing municipal services as though it’s running the community and - and trying to defend itself against attacks from the Syrian regime controlled military.”

General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that the group was not clearly defined.

“I would challenge anyone to clearly identify for me the opposition movement in Syria at this point,” Dempsey said.

Clapper, in the hearing last week, even warned the opposition has been infiltrated by Al Qaeda elements, maybe without the opposition knowing about it.

“Another disturbing phenomenon that we’ve seen recently apparently is the presence of extremists who have infiltrated the opposition groups. The opposition groups in many cases may not be aware they are there,” Clapper said.