Onrust in Syri� #7 - Waar Assad de duivel is die we kennen

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Syriers: Kaddafi is weg, nu jij Bashar!
Duizenden antiregeringsdemonstranten zijn vandaag in heel Syri� de straat opgegaan om te protesteren tegen president Bashar Assad. Ze scandeerden 'Kaddafi is vertrokken, nu is het jouw beurt Bashar!'.

In Homs openden veiligheidstroepen zonder waarschuwing het vuur en doodden ten minste ��n persoon, aldus ooggetuigen. Inwoners van Homs en verscheidene andere steden zijn woedend vanwege de uitlatingen die Assad gisteren in een televisie-interview deed en riepen dat zijn regime het volgende is dat valt, na dat van Muammar Kaddafi in Libi�. De oppositie heeft het vertrouwen in Assad verloren en noemde zijn beloftes mosterd na de maaltijd. Ze is van mening dat de hervormingsvoorstellen te weinig om het lijf hebben.

Assad beloofde zondag hervormingen, waaronder parlementsverkiezingen in februari, maar bleef erbij dat de onrust wordt veroorzaakt door gewapende bendes en islamitische militanten en niet door ware hervormingsactivisten. Assad zei dat hij zich geen zorgen maakte over de veiligheidssituatie in het land en waarschuwde tegen een buitenlandse militaire interventie zoals in Libi�.

In Hama schoten gewapende aanhangers van Assad zondag twee mensen dood, aldus activisten van het Syrische Observatorium voor de Mensenrechten en van de Lokale Co�rdinatiecomit�s.

Dodental
Het dodental als gevolg van het brute optreden van leger en politie in Syri� is gestegen naar 2200. Dit heeft de Hoge Commissaris van de VN voor de Mensenrechten, Navi Pillay, vandaag gezegd. Eerder werd een dodental van 2000 genoemd.

Sinds enkele maanden is het erg onrustig in Syri�. Demonstranten in vele steden die het aftreden van president Bashar al-Assad en democratie eisen, worden keihard aangepakt door leger en politie. Assad regeert sinds zijn aantreden in 2000 feitelijk als dictator van het Arabische land

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Weer geweld tegen betogers Syri�
Update: maandag 29 aug 2011, 02:08

Het Syrische regime lijkt niet onder de indruk van de oproep van de Arabische Liga om een einde te maken aan het geweld tegen betogers. Troepen zijn Khan Sheikhoun binnengevallen en volgens inwoners van de stad is er opnieuw op demonstranten geschoten.

In de stad, die op de weg naar Turkije ligt, zouden zeker twee doden gevallen zijn. Ook waren er veel arrestaties.

Ook in de hoofdstad Damascus was het onrustig. Syrische troepen schoten met machinegeweren op een groep militairen die de kant had gekozen van betogers. Het regime heeft steeds ontkend dat er militairen overlopen.

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Op maandag 5 september 2011 18:43 schreef abdalfawaz het volgende:
Dit is dus gevaarlijk. Syri� begint meer en meer van de radar te verdwijnen hier in de media. Laten we niet op een Iran-scenario hopen.

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Op maandag 5 september 2011 20:08 schreef zuiderbuur het volgende:
In "De Morgen" stond dit weekend trouwens opnieuw een stuk over Syri� door de arabist Martin Jansen. Hij maakte de vergelijking met Libi�, en stelt dat er grote verschillen zijn, waardoor het in Syri� wel zo'n vaart niet zal lopen.
Syri� kent geen plaats die als bolwerk van het verzet kan dienen, zoals Benghazi, de oppositie is te veel verdeeld, bij het leger wordt er enkel op laag niveau gedeserteerd, en het zou ook voor de westerse grootmachten tot een te instabiele situatie leiden als Syri�, het Midden-Oosten in het klein, van regime verandert. Een mogelijke burgeroorlog in Libanon zou volgens hem een gevolg kunnen zijn.

Wie weet, ik herinner me ook nog dat men zei dat in Libi� het autoritaire regime de teugels in handen zou kunnen houden, en dat het niet zoals in Tunesi� zou gaan.

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Op dinsdag 6 september 2011 08:11 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Die Jansen is een of andere obscure man in Damascus die daar Arabisch heeft gestudeerd en al enkele jaren op internet met name opiniestukken instuurt over moslims dit, moslims dat.

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Op dinsdag 6 september 2011 10:09 schreef abdalfawaz het volgende:

[..]

Ik moet je nageven dat je hier de spijker op z'n kop slaat! Die man moet je niet al te serieus nemen.

(ken hem persoonlijk goed)

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Op dinsdag 6 september 2011 13:52 schreef De_Nuance het volgende:
Wat is dat toch met die Arabisten die Jansen heten?

SPOILER

Om spoilers te kunnen lezen moet je zijn ingelogd. Je moet je daarvoor eerst gratis Registreren. Ook kun je spoilers niet lezen als je een ban hebt.

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Op dinsdag 6 september 2011 13:16 schreef zuiderbuur het volgende:

[..]

Zijn opiniestukken staan geregeld in de Vlaamse krant "De Morgen", en soms zijn die eerder al verschenen in een Nederlandse krant.
Ik heb niet veel info over hem? Heeft hij boeken geschreven of zo? Waarom komt hij relatief vaak aan het woord?
Heeft hij een reden om het regime te steunen? (Hier een stuk van hem getiteld "Behoud Syrisch regime heeft louter voordelen")

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Syrian soldiers executed for refusing to target activists

Protesters claim deaths happened at Damascus barracks as analysts report increasing number of troop defections

Eight soldiers were executed in the Syrian capital Damascus on Friday for refusing to fire on protesters, activists have claimed.

The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCCs), which monitor demonstrations in the country, said the soldiers were killed in the Kesweh area of the capital after a dispute at their barracks. Six people were injured, some of them critically, when security forces fired on demonstrators, the LCCs said.

Analysts say the number of soldiers defecting from the Syrian army seems to be increasing, but this poses little threat to President Bashar al-Assad's regime because there is no sign of senior figures deserting or heavy weaponry being lost. Army attacks on mosques in Hama and Deir Ezzor seem to have been the catalyst for some of the desertions.

Elsewhere, two civilians were killed in the central city of Homs and Idlib province near the Turkish border as security forces fired on protesters across the country when demonstrations followed Friday prayers.

Murhaf Jouejati, a Syria expert at the National Defense University in Washington DC, said the protests in Homs seemed "far larger than usual" and the pro-Assad militiamen, known as Shabiha or "ghosts", had descended on the town in large numbers.

Most foreign journalists are banned from Syria and it is impossible to properly verify what is happening in the country.

Security forces were reported to have broken up a demonstration in another part of Damascus using pump-action shotguns and teargas, and a new video emerged purporting to show a mass grave in the capital.

Protesters have been increasingly calling for international protection from the Assad regime's crackdown as the death toll tops 2,200.

The uprising began six months ago with modest calls for reform and an insistence that there be no foreign intervention such as the Nato operation that helped topple the government of Libya. But now protesters have called for observation missions and human rights monitors to help deter attacks on civilians.

The calls are a sign of the growing frustration – and desperation – by a remarkably resilient movement that has nonetheless failed to bring down Assad, who still has the iron loyalty of the armed forces, which is key to his power.

Widespread international condemnation and sanctions have done little to stop the crackdown. The regime has all but sealed off the country to foreigners, saying the unrest is being driven by terrorists and thugs who want to destroy Syria.

The media blackout makes it difficult to independently confirm reports, but amateur video and other witness accounts have become vital lines of information.

On Friday, videos showed crowds in flashpoint areas, including Damascus, Homs and Idlib, calling for Assad's execution and hoisting signs that read: "Bashar: Game Over!"

Security forces broke up most gatherings by firing bullets and teargas or chasing protesters with batons, activists said.

Several people were killed, but the death toll was not immediately clear.

On Thursday, a leading human rights group said Syrian security forces "forcibly removed" patients from a hospital and prevented doctors from reaching the wounded during a military siege in Homs this week.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch cited testimony from witnesses, including doctors. "Snatching wounded people from the operating room is inhumane and illegal," said Sarah Leah Whitson, its Middle East director.

"Cutting people off from essential medical care causes grave suffering and perhaps irreparable harm."

Wednesday's military operation in Homs killed at least 20 people. It was among the most severe crackdowns on an urban centre during the uprising.

A doctor at the al-Barr hospital told Human Rights Watch that security forces seized some of the wounded from the hospital.

"When we tried to help the wounded, the security forces pushed us back, saying these were criminals and rapists," he said. "They were beating the wounded as they moved them out of the hospital."

There have been other reports of security forces targeting hospitals and rounding up the wounded in Syria and in Bahrain, where there have been widespread protests by the Shi'ite majority against the long-ruling Sunni monarchy.

Doctors and nurses who treated protesters during rallies in Bahrain were rounded up in a crackdown that resulted in the arrests of hundreds of activists.

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Op dinsdag 6 september 2011 13:52 schreef De_Nuance het volgende:
Wat is dat toch met die Arabisten die Jansen heten?

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Turkey blamed after defector is returned to Syria

Lieutenant Colonel Hussein al-Harmoush was first senior military officer to defect during anti-Assad uprising

The first senior military officer to defect during the Syrian uprising has been arrested by regime forces after disappearing from Turkey and was set to appear on state television on Thursday night, prompting opposition activists to claim he had been betrayed by his hosts as part of a deal.

Lieutenant Colonel Hussein al-Harmoush, who defected in June with senior members of an army unit responsible for a crackdown in the town of Jisr al-Shighour, went missing from a refugee camp in southern Turkey two weeks ago.

He had been received by Turkish officials as one of thousands who had fled the crackdown and a series of security sweeps that followed. He had called several times for other Syrian forces to follow his lead.

The Syrian Arab news agency said Harmoush's "confession" was scheduled to be broadcast on Thursday night.

Wissam Tarif from the human rights organisation Avaaz said he had been told that Turkish officials had traded Harmoush for nine members of the PKK Kurdish militant group, which Turkey has proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

"We have heard from the Kurds that there has been a deal done," he said. "The Turks have been extremely interested in finding ways to clearly define the Kurdish role inside the [Syrian opposition] transitional council."

A spokesman for the Turkish government said that he had no information about Harmoush. When asked on Thursday in Cairo about the missing officer, Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, did not respond.

Turkey has been a crucial base for the Syrian opposition, which on Thursday announced the formation of a 140-member transitional council, in an effort to provide a unified voice and eventually an alternative to four decades of strongman rule in Syria.

After six months of uprising, which has been met by a relentless crackdown by Syrian state forces, other regional states are also trying to take a stake in nascent opposition political groupings. Both Qatar and Iran have offered to hold summits, along with France, which is calling for President Bashar al-Assad to leave office.

The Syrian regime consistently casts the uprising as a series of running battles between security forces and terrorist groups of Islamists, which it claims are being backed by neighbouring states, among them Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Tarif said there was no evidence that either funds or weapons were flowing into Syria.

He said security forces were facing sustained armed resistance in the city of Homs only, with most other parts of the restive country under military control.

"Assad made a mistake in 2001 when he gave out weapons to people as part of a Golan Heights [protection] force," he said. "It's these weapons that are being used now and a lot of them appear to have made their way to Homs. It is the one place that people are shooting back."

Meanwhile, the former attorney general of Hama, Adnan Mohammed al-Bakkour, appeared on Thursday on a video released on the internet, in which he rebuffed regime claims that he had been forced to make an earlier video resigning from his post and denouncing the ongoing crackdown.

In the short film Bakkour reaffirmed his earlier insistence that he had defected to the opposition – the most senior non-military official to do so during the uprising.

International groups believe more than 2,600 people have been killed in the crackdowns. Between 400 and 600 members of the security forces have also been killed, although observers believe that large numbers of them have been defectors killed by loyalist units.

Gunfire resounded through part of the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Thursday where the local co-ordinating committees, which act as an umbrella group for the opposition, say up to five were killed.

The attacks come as a Red Crescent medic whose ambulance came under attack last week in Homs died at the American University Hospital in Beirut. Hakam Dorak al-Seba'i was injured when the ambulance he was driving in Homs was shot at on 7 September.

Security has been intense in Damascus – the political heart of the Alawite clan, which is led by the Assad family – and demonstrations have not achieved the same size or reach there.

Several Syrian families were reported to have been forced to make declarations that "armed gangs" had killed their sons during recent fighting