Syrian Freedom

#Syria refugee tally tops 1.5 million, UN says

More than 1.5 million Syrians have fled their conflict-ravaged homeland, the UN’s refugee agency said Friday, warning that the real figure could be even higher as the tally only reflected those who register with aid groups.

Dan McNorton, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters that close to 250,000 Syrians were being registered each month.

“Refugees tell us the increased fighting and changing of control of towns and villages, in particular in conflict areas, results in more and more civilians deciding to leave,” McNorton said.

“Over the past four months we have seen a rapid deterioration when compared to the previous 20 months of this conflict,” he added.

McNorton underlined that the actual number of refugees was likely to be even higher than 1.5 million.

“This is due to concerns that some Syrians have regarding registration,” he said, explaining that rumors circulating among exiles about the supposed security risks of signing up for refugee status put some people off.

He said aid agencies were working to encourage waivers to register in order to be able to receive official help, even as UNHCR struggles to keep up with the rising numbers and needs.

“The increasingly widening gap between the needs and resources available is a growing challenge,” he said.

“UNHCR continues to respond to the emergency needs of those in desperate need inside Syria and neighboring countries,” he added.

Syrians have surged out of their country since March 2011, when a crackdown on protests against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad heralded the start of an armed rebellion.

Numbers ballooned as the conflict morphed into an increasingly sectarian civil war, and the total topped a million in March this year.

Most have fled to neighboring Jordan, where close to 474,000 have been registered by UNHCR or are waiting registration, and to Lebanon, with over 470,000.

Some 347,000 are in Turkey, over 147,000 in Iraq and close to 67,000 in Egypt, according to UNHCR’s latest data.

In addition to the refugees, the United Nations has said that more than 4.25 million Syrians are displaced within their homeland.

That means that, all told, over a quarter of Syria’s pre-war population of 22.5 million have been forced to quit their homes since the conflict began.

The death toll has surpassed 90,000, according to the UN.

AFP - 05/17/2013

25 Jan 2013: U.N. urges #Syria’s neighbors to keep open borders to exodus

(Reuters) - The United Nations on Friday urged Syria’s neighbors to keep open their borders to civilians fleeing the intensifying conflict and said that the refugee exodus into Jordan was “absolutely dramatic”.

More than 30,000 Syrians have arrived in Jordan’s main Zaatri camp this year, including 4,400 on Thursday and another 2,000 overnight, it said. Most were fleeing fighting in the southern area of Deraa, food and fuel shortages and high prices.

Turkey has said that camps are filling up as soon as they are built and officials in Jordan said this week it would keep its borders open but wanted other countries to help it boost its ability to cope with the influx.

“It is just absolutely dramatic the inflow of people that continues into Jordan,” Melissa Fleming, chief spokeswoman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a news briefing in Geneva.

Jordan now hosts more than 206,000 Syrians who have registered as refugees or await processing, while the government says that more than 300,000 Syrians are actually in the country.

A further 30,000 Syrians could be preparing to head to Jordan, according to the UNHCR’s latest assessment.

Across the region, 678,540 Syrian refugees had registered or were being processed as of Tuesday, according to UNHCR figures for Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and North Africa.

“It is fast approaching 700,000,” spokeswoman Sybella Wilkes told Reuters. “It is a challenge on every border the number of people that are arriving and crossing borders every day.”

Fleming said the UNHCR commended the Jordanian, Lebanese and Turkish governments for keeping their borders open and urged them to continue to do so.

Refugees report fighting in Deraa and its suburbs but the UNHCR was not in a position to assess military activities, she said. Water and electricity are only available for intermittent periods in parts of southern Syria.

Some 25,000 to 40,000 Syrians are reported to be massed in northern Syria along Turkey’s border, awaiting entry into the country which has 15 refugee camps and is building a further five, Fleming said.

“They are building camps as fast as they can and they are letting people in as soon as the camps are ready,” she said.

What began as a mostly peaceful movement against President Bashar al-Assad has killed more than 60,000 people in 22 months, devastated the economy and left 2.5 million people inside the country hungry, according to the U.N.

Ted Chaiban, UNICEF director of emergency programs who was in Syria last week, said food, basic medicines and drinkable water were getting harder to find, while families were living 20 to a room with minimal shelter and clothing in cold weather.

Iraq blocks Syrias request to fetch combat helicopters from Russia

08/12/12

A Syrian army helicopter flies over the northern city of Aleppo in October. Iraq has shut its airspace to four Syrian flights scheduled to pick up attack helicopters that had been repaired in Russia, the Iraqi Prime Minister’s spokesman said Tuesday. (Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/GettyImages)

by Michael Grabell, Dafna Linzer and Jeff Larson
ProPublica

Iraq has shut its airspace to four Syrian flights scheduled to pick up attack helicopters that had been repaired in Russia, the spokesman to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said Tuesday. Syria hasfailed several times since June to retrieve the refurbished helicopters from Russia, and the regime of Bashar al-Assad appears to be growing more desperate as fighting intensifies.

Iraq’s denial of the flights appears to be a diplomatic breakthrough for the U.S. Although Baghdad has said it won’t allow arms shipments to Syria and has recently begun to inspect some planes flying from Iran, White House and State Department officials have been pressuring Iraq to act much more aggressively to choke off military aid.

Two U.S. diplomatic officials who are closely monitoring Iraq-Syria relations expressed relief when told that Baghdad said it had denied Syria’s overflight request for the helicopters.

But one of the officials emphasized caution, noting that flights continue over Iraqi airspace from Iran to Syria. Iraq has maintained that the flights carry humanitarian goods but the United States suspects they contain matériel. “The abuse of Iraq’s airspace continues to be a concern,” the official said. “We urge Iraq either to require flights enroute to Syria over its territory to land for inspection or deny overflight requests for these aircraft.”

ProPublica reported on the Syrian fly-over requests last week, noting that the cargo plane expected to pick up the helicopters did not land or take off at the scheduled times at a military airfield near Moscow. The reason was unknown at the time.

Ali al-Mousawi, the prime minister’s media adviser, told ProPublica on Tuesday that Syria’s requests had been denied by the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority.

“We will not authorize any overflight until we make sure that it does not contain any military equipment in line with the Iraqi government’s policy which firmly rejects allowing transporting any military shipments via our airspace from or to Syria,” he wrote in an email.

Syria has tried various ways to retrieve its attack helicopters from Russia.

In June, a cargo ship carrying helicopters from the Russian port of Kaliningrad to Syria was turned back after the ship’s insurer withdrew coverage in response to sanctions. A second attempt by sea a month later also failed.

The new plan, according to flight records obtained by ProPublica, was to fly an Ilyushin IL-76 cargo plane in late November and early December from Damascus to Ramenskoye Airport outside Moscow, also known as Zhukovsky Airport. The records described the cargo as an “old helicopter after overhaullling” (sic) and identified the model as an Mi-25 — a heavy combat helicopter that has been filmed in online videos appearing to fire at rebels.

The documents included four proposed flights, the last of which was scheduled for Nov. 6. Each of the planned flights was to land at Ramenskoye Airport at 2:00 p.m. local time and departing three hours later. None of the four flights arrived, according to a photographer ProPublica hired to observe air traffic at Ramenskoye.

Some of the flight records were posted by hackers associated with the online collective Anonymous. Many of those documents, as well as others, were obtained separately by ProPublica, which reported last week that Syria appears to have flown 240 tons of bank notes from Moscow this summer.

One of the U.S. diplomatic officials said Iraq’s decision to block the flights — and to acknowledge doing so publicly — risks angering Moscow. Failure to deliver the helicopters, this official said, could mean a delay in payment for the Russians. Russia has long been Syria’s main supplier of arms.

Officials at the Russian Foreign Ministry and its lead arms exporter Rosoboronexport did not return phone calls from ProPublica. The 150 Aircraft Repair Plant, which is listed as the charterer of the flights, declined to answer questions.

Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev told reporters last week that Russia was obliged to fulfill its existing contracts even in the teeth of international pressure.

Until last year, Iraqi airspace had been largely controlled by the U.S. Air Force. But American officials have gradually turned over control to the Iraqis and now have little involvement in day-to-day operations, according to U.S. aviation advisers working with the Iraqis.

The New York Times reported Sunday on the struggle of American officials to stop arms shipments from Iran. According to the Times, Iraq’s foreign minister promised Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in September that Iraq would inspect the flights from Iran. But since then, the newspaper said, it has only inspected two planes, including one that was returning from Syria.

President Obama, speaking at the National War College, said, “We will continue to support the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people — engaging with the opposition, providing them with humanitarian aid and working for a transition to a Syria that’s free of the Assad regime.”

#Syrian Opposition’s Best Frontline Fighters Are About To Be Declared Terrorists By The US

06/12/12

Michael Kelley

The U.S. State Department is planning to designate the al-Nusra Front — a highly effective jihadist Syrian rebel group — as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, Elise Labott and Tim Lister of CNN report.

The goal of the U.S. is to isolate extremist groups while promoting the newly recognized Syrian National Coalition so that post-Assad Syria doesn’t turn into a free-for-all.

But challenges remain since U.S.-made weapons have gone to hardline jihadists who have turned out to be the opposition’s most organized and best fighters in the 21-month civil war.

Al-Nusra – which makes up about 9 percent of the rebel forces – is committed to rejecting “any foreign project, alliances or councils” and establishing an Islamic state under Shariah law.

David Enders of McClatchy reports that the group includes Syrians who say they fought with al-Qaeda against the U.S. in Iraq as well as Iraqis who serve as the group’s leaders.

Members are known for devastating complex attacks in Damascus and Aleppo, frequently involving suicide bombers, and FSA officers have hailed the jihadists’ success in battle.

From McClatchy:

Not only does the group still conduct suicide bombings that have killed hundreds, but they’ve proved to be critical to the rebels’ military advance. In battle after battle across the country, Nusra and similar groups do the heaviest frontline fighting. Groups who call themselves the Free Syrian Army [FSA] and report to military councils led by defected Syrian army officers move into the captured territory afterward.

At least four bases have fallen to rebel forces in the last month, and Rebel commander Ali Jadlan told CNN that al-Nusra fighters were not only involved in the sieges but also responsible for the most dangerous area – the road to Aleppo.

Several dozen FSA in Damascus announced they that they had joined al-Nusra because of their fighting prowess. But others are very wary of the group and their Islamic ambitions, especially in the “liberated” northern areas where secular and jihadist rebel groups remove the safety on their guns as they pass each other’s military bases.

“The next war after Bashar al-Assad falls will be between us and the Islamists,” a leading rebel fighter told The Telegraph.

Why the red line on #Syria’s chemical weapons matters

06/12/12

An undated photo provided by the Syrian state news agency shows heavy artillery firing at a military exercise. (SANA — Associated Press)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stressed that, should Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his desperation deploy some of his chemical weapons stockpile against his own people, he will cross “a red line for the United States.” She warned, “suffice to say we are certainly planning to take action.”

Some observers have belittled the chemical weapons red line, arguing that it’s silly for the United States to distinguish so assiduously between which military tool Assad happens to use in a campaign that has killed, and often targeted, thousands of civilians. “Blowing your people up with high explosives is allowable,” Dominic Tierney wrote at TheAtlantic.com, “as is shooting them, or torturing them. But woe betide the Syrian regime if it even thinks about using chemical weapons!” Isn’t this hypocritical? Worse, does it risk unintentionally encouraging Assad’s use of conventional weapons?” An article at Foreign Policy notes that drawing the chemical weapons “red line” might “implicitly signal that [the U.S.] would not intervene otherwise, potentially emboldening the Assad regime.”

So why go to all the trouble of drawing a red line around chemical weapons? Why make such a big deal over them when Assad is already killing so many Syrians without them? I can’t tell you what’s happening inside Clinton’s brain, or behind closed doors at the White House or State Department, but there is a long-established international norm against chemical weapons. And that norm has value well beyond this one conflict in this one country.

It would certainly be nice if we lived in a world where conventional weapons were never used or at least never used against civilians, and that’s a goal worth aspiring to. But we live in a world where we still have to manage the conflicts we can’t prevent. As long as war is a facet of human existence, it’s worth upholding the norm that states do not use chemical weapons in those wars.

Chemical weapons were not always so taboo. The norm against their use was first established by the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which came at the enormous cost of World War I. That treaty and the norm it enforced didn’t prevent chemical weapons from being used during World War II, but it did perhaps contribute to their absence from European fronts and to Japan’s decision to use them more sparingly than they likely would have otherwise. World War II was still awful, but it was considerably less awful than if chemical weapons had been used as widely as they were in the previous world war.

Syria’s violence is likewise still terrible even without chemical weapons, but it is less terrible than it would almost certainly be if the state felt it could freely deploy its vast chemical weapons. And, as long as there are conflicts involving states that possess or have access to chemical weapons, those conflicts will be less deadly if the chemical weapons remain locked up.

The U.S. record in enforcing the norm against chemical weapons is not perfect. During the brutal Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, in which the United States sometimes backed Saddam Hussein’s effort against a mutual Iranian enemy, Iraq’s use of chemical weapons was at times overlooked. The history of what exactly the United States knew about Saddam’s chemical attacks as they happened and why it chose to respond (or, more accurately, not respond) as it did is still shrouded in some mystery. But an investigation by Joost Hiltermann of Human Rights Watch concluded that the United States may have played down the reports, or at least avoided calling attention to them. Though Saddam of course fell many years later, he suffered relatively little at the time for his decision to use chemical weapons.

According to a Foreign Affairs review of Hiltermann’s book on the Iraqi gas attacks, “the fallout of these developments has been an enhanced readiness among states to stock and prepare to use weapons of mass destruction [and] an Iran set on never again being without such weapons.” Whether or not that’s an accurate characterization of countries’ motivation in amassing chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, it highlights the potentially wide-reaching and long-term risks of even a single incident of chemical weapons usage. That risk alone underscores the importance of the international norm against chemical weapons, and informs why the United States is so insistent on upholding it.

U.S. Leaning On Iraq Over Iran’s Arms Shipments to #Syria

03/12/12

Written by Jack Kenny

In a Middle East triangle more dangerous than the romantic affairs of Generals Petraeus and Allen, the United States is leaning on Iraq to stop the shipment of arms from Iran to Syria, while the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is battling to hold power against rebel forces that have the diplomatic backing of the United States and other western nations.

The United States is pressuring the Iraq government led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to forbid the use of Iraq’s air space for Iran-to-Syria flights unless Iran agrees to have the planes land in Iraq for inspection to ensure no weapons are being sent to the Damascus government. U.S. officials are concerned that the Baghdad regime is not cooperating in that effort, the New York Times reported. “The abuse of Iraqi airspace by Iran continues to be a concern,” said an unnamed American official, as quoted by the Times. “We urge Iraq to be diligent and consistent in fulfilling its international obligations and commitments, either by continuing to require flights over Iraqi territory en route to Syria from Iran to land for inspection or by denying overflight requests for Iranian aircraft going to Syria.” A spokesman for al-Maliki, however, denied Iraq is ignoring the U.S. requests.

“We wouldn’t be able to convince them, even if we searched all the airplanes, because they have prejudged the situation,” Ali al-Musawi told the Times. “Our policy is that we will not allow the transfer of arms to Syria.” On the other hand, Hadi al-Amiri, Iraq’s minister of transportation, struck a more defiant tone when denying reports that Iraq had been colluding with Iran and tipping off the Iranians about when the supposedly random inspections would occur.

“This is untrue,” Amiri said. “We are an independent country and our stance is clear. We will search whichever plane we want, whenever we want. We will not take orders.”

There have also been reports that on at least one occasion, an Iranian pilot simply ignored a request to land for inspection. Iraq has no air force with which to enforce the inspection requirement or to deny Iran the use of its Iraqi air space. Iraqi officials confirmed that they have inspected only two Iranian planes since making a commitment to the inspections policy in September, and none since October 27, when they inspected a plane on its return flight from Damascus, something al-Musawi said was an error. But officials in Baghdad also cite both Iran’s claims that it is carrying only humanitarian aid to Syria and the expense of carrying out the inspections.

“We can’t search every plane because there are so many heading to Syria,”said Nasir Bender, the head of civil aviation in Iraq. “It would be a big waste of money. Each plane we take down we must refill with fuel.” The search thus far has turned up only “medical supplies and clothing,” he said.

But U.S. officials believe Iran has been a key supplier of arms to the Assad regime, which is Tehran’s most loyal Arab ally and a conduit for Iranian support of the militant Islamist group Hezbollah in Lebanon. And the predominantly Shiite government in Baghdad, where many officials have friendly ties with Iran, may be worried that Assad’s fall from power would encourage Sunni and Kurdish forces in Iraq, where they could pose a threat to the Maliki regime.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials are quietly expressing concerns over intelligence reports of activity at chemical weapons sites in Syria. “It’s in some ways similar to what they’ve done before,” an American official told the Times on condition of anonymity. “But they’re doing some things that suggest they intend to use the weapons. It’s not just moving stuff around. These are different kind of activities.”

That, together with reports of Iran’s arm shipments to Syria, may increase calls in Washington for the shipment of U.S. arms to the Syrian rebels, something the Obama administration has thus far resisted. Washington appears to have little influence on the Baghdad government it brought into power and the classified documents that Bradley Manning is accused of transmitting to Wikileaks reportedly show the Iraqi government in recent years has been no less ruthless in the use of torture than was the Saddam Hussein regime that was ousted nearly a decade ago by a U.S.-led invasion. The American public may have little appetite for anything suggesting another effort in regime change or humanitarian intervention based on reports of “weapons of mass destruction” in the Middle East.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate who is reportedly under consideration for Secretary of State in Obama’s next term, has suggested that if Iraq doesn’toffer more cooperation in the effort to stop the transport of Iranian arms to Syria, “maybe we should make some of our assistance or some of our support contingent on some kind of appropriate response.”

As Texas Congressman and former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has often said, when we aren’t trying to bomb countries into submission, we are usually bribing them to do our will. And sometimes we do both.

^{Photo of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki: AP Images}

Nouri al-Maliki : “Iraq is not able to search all Syria-bound Iranian planes” - #Syria

Iraq’s prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has said his country would not be able to search all Syria-bound Iranian planes that use its airspace.

But speaking to reporters in Baghdad on Saturday, al-Maliki pledged that Iraq was committed to preventing weapons being set to Syria.

“Our constitution says Iraq is not a passage for such activities,” he said.

US officials have voiced concerns that Iraq has become a route for shipments of Iranian military supplies that could help the regime of President Bashar Assad in its fight against rebels.

The accusation has been denied by Iraq.

In October, Iraq forced two Iranian Syria-bound planes to land for inspection in Baghdad, but nothing was found.

The Syrian crisis began in March 2011 with pro-democracy protests and, according to anti-government activists, more than 40,000 people have been killed.

Tribes of #Syria and Iraq drawn into uprising

15/11/12

By Lauren Williams The Daily Star

Smoke rises from Deir Ezzor, where tribal confederations with extensions into Iraq are becoming involved in the Syrian uprising.

RAMADI, Iraq: When a young boy was raped by a member of rival tribe last month in the city of Ramadi, in Iraq’s vast Sunni heartland of Anbar province, tribal authorities were called on to settle the situation. Fourteen regional tribal sheikhs convened an emergency judicial session and delivered a swift, unanimous verdict.

The perpetrator was sentenced to immediate execution at the hands of his father, to avert any further retributive violence.

The story, as described by a leading sheikh in Ramadi, whose 500,000-member tribe stretches from the Syrian cities of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor to Iraq’s Anbar and Mosul, might appear to have little to do with events in neighboring Syria.

But it illustrates the precedence of tribal authority in the vast “Jazira” steppe spanning the territory lying between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It partially explains how the tribes came to side with the uprising against the rule of Bashar Assad, against a backdrop of long-standing economic neglect, and the pressure to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances.

“The court handed the father the gun and put 14 bullets in the AK47, representing each of the tribes, and said ‘go and kill your son.’ It was carried out immediately and there was no further vengeance,” said the sheikh, who asked that his tribe not be identified.

Iraqi police and security authorities did not intervene, he added.

“This sentence was carried out according to our constitution which has worked here for generation after generation. The system works.”

Seated in a plush velour lounge in the reception room of his vast compound, adorned by photographs of himself with various politicians and tribal leaders, the sheikh says that while many of the tribes initially resisted taking up arms against the government, the stepping up of military actions against their populations demanded a response.

“Our tribe is on both sides of the border; we have our relatives on both sides. There is no difference between us, so it was only natural.”

“If one of my tribe gets killed, we will kill him, so what happens when there are 200 people being killed daily? It can’t be tolerated.”

The Jazira region is host to a complex network of well over 150 tribal groups of differing sizes. Some of the largest groups with a presence spanning Iraq and Syria are the Baggara, whose members number some 1.2 million people, mostly in Deir Ezzor and Aleppo, the Eqaidat, numbering some 1.5 million, and the Al-Bushaaban, whose numbers are close to one million.

Maintaining control across their populations, and with strategic and historic familial and financial links to ruling elites in Gulf states, the tribes present an important and often overlooked source of power and mobilization in a war often seen as a battle between the Syrian army and insurgents in the country’s West.

The tribes in Syria have maintained a delicate and carefully managed relationship with the Baath Party under President Bashar Assad and his late father, Hafez Assad.

During the 1980s and 1990s the regime felt threatened by the tribes, accusing them of being close to Saddam Hussein and the Muslim Brotherhood, according to one former regime insider who said the impact was felt in the massive economic disparities between the eastern region and the rest of Syria.

In an effort to manage that threat under Assad, tribal leaders were given seats in parliament to balance a combination of both political and tribal authority over kin.

But amid security fears of overly decentralized control of the region at the expense of empowered tribal communities, the plan largely failed and the region suffered ongoing neglect.

Despite being Syria’s breadbasket and home to its biggest oil reserves, the population in the country’s east has remained among its poorest. The slow pace of land and wealth redistribution, along with poor water management amid a severe drought, fuelled hostility toward the government.

A 2005 UNDP survey found that extreme poverty levels in the northeast were more than quadruple that of the coastal regions.

“The government’s policies worsened that situation and failed to provide the necessary help [to the people there],” Hassan Hassan, an Abu Dhabi-based columnist and expert on the tribes in Arabia, told The Daily Star.

“The people in the east often relied on traveling to the Gulf for work and practically gave up on the regime.”

“They tried to dismantle the social fabric of the East but failed,” said the sheikh in Ramadi.

“When Iran started to extend its influence in the 1980s, the Baathist policies in Syria changed and we started to see even greater discrimination.”

The sheikh said he had relied on support from tribal connections in the Gulf, where there is a shared concern with blocking Iranian influence in the region.

Working in coordination with rebel Free Syrian Army operatives, the sheikh said he had urged members of his tribe in Iraq to join their Syrian brothers and has personally facilitated the transfer of money, weapons and “thousands” of men in to Syria.

Aware of the threat of extremists and terrorists infiltrating Iraq and destabilizing the country once again, the sheikh said tribal leaders meet twice a month to discuss the security situation and the importance of inter-tribal coordination.

He said there was a quasi-consensus among the tribes to support the rebels through arms and men.

A rebel military commander, speaking from Deir Ezzor via Skype, said close coordination was in effect.

“So that if there is any problem between the groups, the tribal authorities are consulted to resolve the dispute,” he said.

A Syrian refugee in the Iraqi border town of Al-Qaim, Mounir Khalat, noted how eastern tribal areas had suffered a similar fate as the rest of the country.

Khalat, an agricultural worker and a member of the Baggara tribe from Deir Ezzor, said “the demonstrations started peacefully, but when the regime started killing people, we had to take revenge.

He related how his cousin, a 28-year-old father of four, was shot and killed by a government sniper. “The tribal leaders supported the uprising. If someone gets killed, there must be retribution, even if it is 4,000 people.”

Hassan, the columnist, said that tribal authority, and consensus, had been less than absolute.

“Many young people joined the uprising despite their tribal leaders,” he said. “So friction occurred because of the different views.”

What the tribal leaders seek to gain in these uncertain times is unclear.

For now, most are simply trying to consolidate their power and political base, whether or not the Assad regime falls.

“There are definitely opportunities” if the regime falls, said one prominent tribal Sheikh from rival tribe in Ramadi, who has links to Gulf investors and a large number of investment projects in the area.

“In general, there is no [single] objective for tribes,” said Hassan. “But activists in those areas will reject a central government that sidelines them, as the Baathist governments did before. They are organizing themselves to ensure a place in future Syria.”

Another FSA commander from Deir Ezzor, however, indicated how the tribes and the uprising have yet to see a perfect fit.

“The support of tribes is minimal; they don’t supply weapons and ammunition, only some food and medical supplies,” he said.

“We don’t deal with the leaders of tribes because most of them were pro-regime and now they want to ride the wave of the revolution, and we don’t want to repeat the same old scenario.”

#Syria trying to export its crisis to Jordan, Lebanon

Jordan’s announcement that it has foiled an al Qaeda plot to bomb the capital highlights the threat to Washington’s ally from Islamist fighters hardened by conflict in neighbouring Syria, and the danger of Damascus trying to export its crisis.

The kingdom is no stranger to turmoil. For decades it has navigated the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on its western border and more recently bloodshed in Iraq to the east, which spilled over to Jordan with hotel bombings in Amman seven years ago.

But the Syrian civil war could pose the gravest threat yet to Jordan’s pro-Western King Abdullah, whether or not rebel fighters succeed in toppling President Bashar al-Assad after 42 years of Assad family rule.

The overthrow of Assad by Sunni Muslim rebels could embolden hardline Sunni Islamists in Jordan, while a weakened but still fighting Assad may try to deflect pressure by spreading the conflict to his neighbours, Jordanian politicians say.

Mahmoud Kharabsheh, a prominent politician with an intelligence background, says Syria’s role in letting al Qaeda fighters head to Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion has reinforced fears that Damascus could try the same in Jordan.

“The Syrian regime will not leave a stone unturned to destabilise the kingdom. The Syrian regime is determined to export its crisis to neighbouring countries to … destabilise our security,” said Kharabsheh, a member of the outgoing Jordanian parliament.

At the height of the bloodshed in Iraq, Damascus emptied its prisons of many radical Islamists and let them cross the border to fight the Western forces. This allowed Assad’s secular government to get rid of domestic Islamist opponents, at least temporarily, and indirectly pin down forces of its U.S. enemies.

Those radicals have returned home to fight Assad, and have been joined by fellow Islamists from Jordan.

Kharabsheh said the Syrian government might again try to use its ideological opposite, al Qaeda, as it struggles for survival. “They are two imminent dangers and their interests could easily coincide to destabilise Jordan,” he said.

Scores of Syrians had been arrested in recent months after gathering information and acting as agents provocateurs in Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp, which houses tens of thousands of Syrians who have fled their country, he added.

Then on Oct. 21, Jordan state TV said intelligence services had foiled the plot by an al Qaeda-linked cell to bomb shopping centres and assassinate Western diplomats in Amman, using weapons and explosives smuggled from Syria..

Although some expressed scepticism about the threat posed by 11 al Qaeda suspects who were arrested – including teenagers and young students – there is little dispute that the Syrian conflict has galvanised Jordan’s jihadists.

HISTORY OF ENMITY

Despite urging Assad to step down, Jordan has tried to accommodate the Syrian authorities, fearing any overt intervention would revive tensions with Damascus. That hostility reached a peak in 1981 when Syria was accused of being behind a failed assassination attempt on Jordan’s prime minister and Amman harboured the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

Since the latest conflict broke out, Jordan has shown restraint in dealing with Syrian gun and mortar fire across its borders, with Amman trying to insulate itself from the military fallout, according to diplomats and politicians.

This contrasts with Turkey, whose forces have repeatedly fired on Syria since five of its civilians were killed early this month by shells and mortars from across the border.

But the combination of turmoil across Jordan’s northern border and growing demands for reform inside the Hashemite monarchy, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world, have left Amman particularly vulnerable.

One Western government official visiting the region last week compared Amman with Beirut, where a car bomb killed a prominent anti-Assad intelligence chief earlier this month and plunged the Lebanese into political crisis.

“I worry more about Jordan than Lebanon,” he said. “Lebanon has been through this before and has the coping mechanisms.”

ISLAMIST SLEEPER CELLS?

Jordanian analysts say Islamist groups are gaining ground among Syrian rebels, creating a new generation of battle- hardened jihadists like the “Arab Afghans” mujahideen who went toAfghanistan to fight Soviet troops in the 1980s and returned home to wage jihad against their pro-U.S. governments.

Political analyst Sami Zubaidi said jihadists who believe in waging holy war were sheltering among ultra-orthodox Salafi Islamists who support non-violent action. “There are sleeper cells in the jihadist Salafi groups in Jordan which did not find an arena inside Jordan and went to Syria,” he said.

“A lot of these jihadists go to Syria and get armed and develop their skills as though it was a training course before they return to Jordan armed to hit Jordanian targets,” he added.

Growing deprivation in impoverished areas such as the Jordanian city of Zarqa creates recruiting grounds for jihadists heading to Syria. Zarqa is the hometown of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, once head of al Qaeda in Iraq who is blamed for the 2005 Amman hotel bombings which killed more than 50 people.

Only this month, two Jordanian Salafists were killed in Syria’s southern city of Deraa, just across the Jordanian border, while battling Syrian troops. They were among at least 250 jihadists who are estimated to have crossed into Syria.

The longer that conflict in Syria continues, the more fighters may be drawn to the battlefield.

But for many in Jordan’s security establishment, the biggest threat comes from the mayhem that would result from the toppling of the Assad regime.

“This is what scares me; if the regime falls in Syria and radical Islamist groups become influential there, it will be easier for these extremist groups to work here in Jordan and destabilise the country,” said Hazem al-Awran, a former parliamentarian.

Reuters

Iraq searching for weapons on Iranian planes heading to #Syria

28/10/12

Iraqi authorities have for a second time this month ordered an Iranian cargo plane heading to Syria to land for inspection in Baghdad to ensure it is not carrying weapons, an Iraqi official said on Sunday.

The move may be aimed at easing U.S. concerns that Iraq has become a route for shipments of Iranian military supplies that might help Syrian President Bashar Assad battle rebel forces in his country’s civil war.

The head of the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority, Nassir Bandar, said that the inspection took place Saturday because officials were concerned the plane might be carrying arms. The inspectors allowed the plane to continue its journey after they determined there were no weapons onboard, he said.

“Our experts found that the plane was carrying only medical supplies and foodstuffs. So the flight was allowed to proceed,” Bandar said.

Bandar said Iraqi authorities would continue searching planes suspecting of hauling arms to Syria. Iraqi officials have repeatedly said they would not allow their country or airspace to be a corridor for arms shipments to either Syrian government forces or rebels.

Iraq ordered another Iranian cargo plane to land for inspection on Oct. 2. No weapons were found in that search either.

Last month, Iraq banned a North Korea plane from using its airspace over suspicions it was carrying weapons to Syria.

American officials have expressed concern that Iranian planes may be ferrying weapons over Iraq, and they have pressed Baghdad to take stronger action to ensure that no transfers occur.

Also in Iraq, police said three people were killed and eight other wounded when two bombs exploded near a market southeast of Baghdad.

Police officials say the simultaneous attacks Sunday morning took place in Madain, about 20 kilometers (14 miles) southeast of Baghdad, as shoppers started to arrive.

Medics in a nearby hospital confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Violence has ebbed in Iraq, but insurgent attacks are still frequent. Sunday’s blasts followed a string of attacks that killed 40 people in the Iraqi capital a day earlier. Saturday was the deadliest day in nearly six weeks

Iraqi Sects Join Battle in #Syria on Both Sides

28/10/12

BAGHDAD — Militant Sunnis from Iraq have been going to Syria to fight against President Bashar al-Assad for months. Now Iraqi Shiites are joining the battle in increasing numbers, but on the government’s side, transplanting Iraq’s explosive sectarian conflict to a civil war that is increasingly fueled by religious rivalry.

Some Iraqi Shiites are traveling to Tehran first, where the Iranian government, Syria’s chief regional ally, is flying them to Damascus, Syria’s capital. Others take tour buses from the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq, on the pretext of making a pilgrimage to an important Shiite shrine in Damascus that for months has been protected by armed Iraqis. While the buses do carry pilgrims, Iraqi Shiite leaders say, they are also ferrying weapons, supplies and fighters to aid the Syrian government.

“Dozens of Iraqis are joining us, and our brigade is growing day by day,” Ahmad al-Hassani, a 25-year-old Iraqi fighter, said by telephone from Damascus. He said that he arrived there two months ago, taking a flight from Tehran.

The Iraqi Shiites are joining forces with Shiite fighters from Lebanon and Iran, driving Syria ever closer to becoming a regional sectarian battlefield.

Lebanon, which has 100,000 Syrian refugees, was pushed to the brink this month when a Sunni intelligence chief was assassinated in a bombing. Many Lebanese blamed the Syrian government and its allies for the attack. Jordan, sheltering more than 180,000 refugees, has struggled to contain the violence on its border, which claimed the life of a Jordanian soldier in a firefight with extremists last week. Turkey, with more than 100,000 refugees, has traded artillery fire with Syria since Syrian shelling killed five civilians near the border early this month.

Now Iraq, still haunted by its own sectarian carnage, has become increasingly entangled in the Syrian war. And Iran, which, like Iraq, is majority-Shiite, appears to be playing a critical role in mobilizing Iraqis.

According to interviews with Shiite leaders here, the Iraqi volunteers are receiving weapons and supplies from the Syrian and Iranian governments, and Iran has organized travel for Iraqis willing to fight in Syria on the government’s side.

Iran has also pressed the Iraqis to organize committees to recruit young fighters. Such committees have recently been formed in Iraq’s Shiite heartland in the south and in Diyala Province, a mixed province north of Baghdad.

Many Iraqi Shiites increasingly see the Syrian war — which pits the Sunni majority against a government dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam — as a battle for the future of Shiite faith. This sectarian cast has been heightened by the influx of Sunni extremists aligned with Al Qaeda, who have joined the fight against the Syrian government much as they did in the last decade against the Shiite-led Iraqi government.

“Syria is now open to all fighters, and Al Qaeda is playing on the chords of sectarianism, which will spur reactions from the Shiites, as happened in Iraq,” said Ihsan al-Shammari, an analyst and professor at Baghdad University’s College of Political Science. “My biggest fear from the Syrian crisis is the repercussions for Iraq, where the ashes of sectarian violence still exist.”

One young Iraqi, Ali Hatem, who was planning to travel to Tehran, then to Damascus, said he saw the call to fight for Mr. Assad as part of a “divine duty.”

Abu Mohamed, an official in Babil Province with the Sadrist Trend, a political party aligned with the populist Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, said he recently received an invitation from the Sadrists’ leadership to a meeting in Najaf to discuss a pilgrimage to the shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, a holy Shiite site in Damascus.

“We knew that this is not the real purpose because the situation is not suitable for such a visit,” he said. “When we went to Najaf, they told us it’s a call for fighting in Syria against the Salafis,” ultraconservative Sunni Muslims.

A senior Sadrist official and former member of Parliament, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that convoys of buses from Najaf, ostensibly for pilgrims, were carrying weapons and fighters to Damascus.

Iran, which has been accused of sending weapons and fighters to Syria, may have employed the same ruse. After the Syrian rebels detained 48 Iranians in Damascus in August, the Iranian government said they were pilgrims, and expressed outrage that they had been kidnapped by the rebels. According to American intelligence officials, at least

Religious warriors, however, do not always make such distinctions. In Diyala Province, still a hotbed of Iraq’s Sunni insurgency, Shiite leaders say they are seeking volunteers for a “combat regiment” to defend the Zeinab shrine against “the holders of extremist Salafi ideology backed by gulf states,” according to Abu Ali al-Moussawi, the head of a recruitment committee. He said that 70 men from Diyala had recently left to join the fight in Syria.

Abu Sajad, who moved to Damascus in 2008 and joined the fight after the rebellion began, said he and other Iraqi fighters were indeed fighting to protect the shrine. A former fighter in Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Iraq, he said he was given weapons and supplies by the Syrian government.

But as the fight evolved, and Iraqis began to be killed and kidnapped, it reminded him too much of the Iraq he left, and so he recently returned to his home in Basra.

“I can tell that things are going to be crazy in Syria,” he said. “It’s a sectarian war, and it’s even worse than the one we had here, which was between the militias and the political parties. In Syria, all of the people are involved. You can feel the hatred between the Sunnis and the Alawites. They will do anything to get rid of each other.”

Iraqi Shiites did not initially take sides in Syria. Many Shiites here despise Mr. Assad for his affiliation with the Baath Party, the party of Saddam Hussein, and the support he gave foreign Sunni fighters during the Iraq war.

But as the uprising became an armed rebellion that began to attract Sunni extremists, many Shiites came to see the war in existential terms. Devout Shiites in Iraq often describe the Syrian conflict as the beginning of the fulfillment of a Shiite prophecy that presages the end of time by predicting that an army, headed by a devil-like figure named Sufyani, will rise in Syria and then conquer Iraq’s Shiites.

It was the bombing of an important shrine in Samarra in 2006 that escalated Iraq’s sectarian civil war, and many Iraqis see the events in Syria as replicating their own recent bloody history, but with even greater potential consequences.

Hassan al-Rubaie, a Shiite cleric from Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province, said, “The destruction of the shrine of Sayyida Zeinab in Syria will mean the start of sectarian civil war in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.”

15/10/12

UN envoy to Syria urges temporary ceasefire

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

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr reports from Maarat al-Numan in Idlib province where fierce fighting continues

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

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

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

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

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

Brahimi said he welcomed ideas from all sides.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fighting in Aleppo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brahimi denies asking for peacekeepers in #Syria

15/10/12

UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi denied having asked for peacekeeping forces in Syria, after talks with Iraqi officials in Baghdad on Monday.

“You’ve read that I have asked for peacekeeping,” Brahimi told reporters at a joint news conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. “I haven’t.”

“I don’t know where this news came [from]. It certainly did not come from me.”

Earlier, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council said on Monday that Brahimi was considering proposing the deployment of peacekeepers to Syria if a deal on a transition was reached.

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

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

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

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

-AFP

Brahimi to visit Iraq over #Syria crisis

14/10/12
FILE - (L-R) German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (R) talks with International peace envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi on October 13, 2012 at the Hilton Hotel in Istanbul. (AFP PHOTO/BULENT KILIC)

TEHRAN: International peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi will visit key Syrian ally Iran on Sunday a day before heading for Iraq, the state television channel’s website reported on Saturday.

The United Nations and Arab League peace envoy is currently on a regional tour aimed at finding a solution to the conflict in Syria after Damascus rejected a UN call to implement a unilateral ceasefire.

“During his visit, Lakhdar Brahimi will meet Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi to discuss the situation in Syria,” the channel quoted a foreign ministry statement as saying.

Iran, the main backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, seeks a political solution to the conflict and supports the envoy’s mediation efforts.

In Baghdad on Monday, Brahimi will meet Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki over the 19-month uprising, Maliki’s spokesman said on Saturday.

“Iraq has said many times that it supports the efforts of Lakhdar Brahimi to find a solution, and we will work to make this mission successful to end the human tragedy of the Syrian people,” Ali Mussawi said.

He said he had no further details on the veteran troubleshooter’s schedule while in Iraq.

Brahimi first visited the Middle East in mid-September and met Assad in Damascus but earned no promise of concessions from him.

Brahimi visited Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and was in Turkey on Saturday.

In an interview with AFP on Tuesday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Brahimi would return soon to Damascus to try again to meet Assad.

Ban suggested Brahimi could go to the Syrian capital next week if his meetings in the region this week were productive.

No Arms Being Smuggled into #Syria via Iraq: Maliki

12/10/12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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