Crisis in Syri� #9 Bloedbad?

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From the first ripples of discontent that stirred in Syria almost a year ago to a government crackdown that has claimed more than 5,000 lives, this interactive timeline charts a conflict that grows more brutal by the day

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'Venezuela levert olie aan Syri�, ondanks sancties'

In de haven van Banias, Syri�, wordt deze week een lading diesel vanuit Venezuela verwacht. De regering van Hugo Ch�vez negeert met deze actie de sancties die Westerse landen het regime van president Assad oplegden.

De levering van diesel per schip komt van twee 'handelsbronnen', blijkt uit vrachtgegevens. De olietanker werd het laatst gezien bij de kust van Cyprus, sinds gisteren kan het schip niet meer gelokaliseerd worden, waarschijnlijk omdat het satellietsysteem is uitgeschakeld.

Het staatsoliebedrijf PDVSA vervoert de brandstof met het vrachtschip Negra Hipolita, dat ook in november al een lading olie naar Syri� bracht. De diesel dient als brandstof voor tanks of voor verwarming. Sinds het Westen Syri� een olie-embargo oplegden kampt het land met brandstoftekort. De vracht met diesel zou een waarde van 38 miljoen euro kunnen hebben, mocht de tanker maximaal beladen zijn.

De Venezolaanse president Ch�vez is een bondgenoot van Syri�. 'Het geweld tegen Syri� blijft doorgaan', zei Ch�vez vorige maand. 'Het is dezelfde formule als het Westen gebruikte tegen Libi� - geweld injecteren, terrorisme van buitenaf injecteren en later de VN laten ingrijpen'.

De VS en Europa eisen dat de Syrische president Assad aftreedt. Rusland en China hebben deze maand tegen een VN-resolutie gestemd, die Assad gebiedt af te treden.

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But there are even wider-spread reports of protests in Damascus, in the Al Hajar al Aswad district, the Yalda district, and several other areas across the capital.

I'll repeat what I said yesterday - the common saying thrown about by reporters and Syrian experts was that when there were large protests in Damascus and Aleppo the regime would fall. It's now time to put those words to the test, as Damascus is now seeing growing, sustained, and daily protests.

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Op vrijdag 17 februari 2012 22:06 schreef zuiderbuur het volgende:
Binnenkort is Qatar geen voorzitter meer van de Arabische Liga, en gaat dat naar Irak... weet iemand in welke mate dit de invloed van Qatar zal kunnen verminderen op het conflict in Syri�?

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Syrian government blocks live video streaming site Bambuser

Bambuser chief executive says Syrian activists are working around attempted blackout to continue to post videos

The Syrian government has blocked a premiere live stream website a day after one of its users broadcast images of a bombing believed to have been carried out by President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Bambuser – a mobile live stream service based in Sweden – has been in close contact with activists on the ground in Syria for over eight months. The dissidents use the service to broadcast streaming video of conditions in their country in real time. With foreign media blocked, online citizen journalism has become a crucial medium for telling stories from within Syria's borders. Bambuser's executive chairman, Hans Eriksson, says approximately 90-95% of the live video coming out of Syria is streamed through Bambuser.

"The prime purpose of it is to get pictures out of the country, and show the world what's going on, both in terms of the violence but also of the determination of the citizens," Eriksson told the Guardian.

On Thursday, a number of those citizens informed Eriksson and his colleagues that Bambuser was no longer accessible. While the site has been blocked by the Assad regime before in a limited capacity, Eriksson says this time the government has attempted to eliminate access nationwide.

"From yesterday morning we heard that you couldn't access Bambuser.com and you couldn't use the Bambuser mobile application to stream live video," Eriksson said. Syrian activists have managed to work around the attempted blackout and videos are still emerging, Eriksson noted.

The blackout came after a Syrian citizen using Bambuser streamed video of the aftermath of a pipeline bombing in the besieged city of Homs. Archived footage from the scene shows a massive cloud of smoke billowing over the neighborhood of Baba Amr while gun shots and shelling can be heard in the background. Activists claimed the government was responsible for the bombing. The live stream was picked up by several international news organizations including al-Jazeera, CNN, the BBC and Sky News, who referred back to Bambuser.com.

"We can only assume that some people from the Syrian government were watching those pictures as well," Eriksson said. He believes the blackout was a concerted effort on the part of the regime to stifle any similar broadcasts. "We're just assuming that's the rationale behind it and we would be very much surprised if someone else had taken an action and blocked Bambuser."

It's not the first time an authoritarian regime has imposed a nationwide blackout on the site. Shortly before his ouster last year, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak blocked Bambuser. Bahrain, meanwhile, has been preventing access to the site for at least seven months.

According to Eriksson, "between 50 and 200" Syrian activists use Bambuser on a given day. He says the individuals Bambuser works with in Syria are highly organized and well aware of the potential risks they face. Last week a Syrian broadcaster filming from a rooftop was shot at. While he escaped unharmed, his partner was hit in the leg, Eriksson said.

"They're taking risks, but they know what risks they are taking," he said. "When it gets on every TV channel in the world, it means a lot to these guys down there being shot at, being arrested, being tortured, being killed."

Eriksson stresses that Bambuser is not in the live streaming business to make a profit, but are operating in the interest of free speech. "We've been watching live video now for 11 days in a row from Homs. Pretty much 10, 12 hours a day and it's basically constant gunfire and shelling," he said. "As a human being you understand that this is a situation that is not acceptable."

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‘China steunt plan Assad voor referendum en verkiezingen’

China schaart zich achter het plan van de Syrische president Assad om nog deze maand een referendum uit te schrijven over een nieuwe grondwet. Ook roepen de Chinezen alle partijen in Syri� op een einde te maken aan het geweld in het land.

De Chinese onderminister van Buitenlandse Zaken Zhai Jun was vanochtend in de Syrische hoofdstad Damascus en had daar een ontmoeting met Assad. Hij sprak de hoop uit dat het door de president aangekondigde referendum op 26 februari doorgang vindt en dat na dat referendum ook snel de beloofde parlementsverkiezingen worden georganiseerd. De Chinese diplomaat riep het regime en de oppositie om al het geweld in Syri� te be�indigen. “Het Chinese voorbeeld laat zien dat een land niet zonder stabiliteit kan”, aldus Jun.

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China is naast Rusland het belangrijkste land dat tegen buitenlandse bemoeienis met de situatie in Syri� pleit. Beide landen spraken eerder deze maand hun veto uit over een resolutie in de VN-Veiligheidsraad die Assad opriep om af te treden. Het Westen en de Syrische oppositie deden het door Assad aangekondigde referendum deze week af als “lachwekkend” en eisen zijn onmiddellijke vertrek. Assad zelf herhaalde vanochtend zijn al vaak gehoorde bewering dat Syri� slachtoffer is van een complot dat het land wil verdelen.

Tienduizenden demonstranten op de been in Damascus

Terwijl de Chinese onderminister en Assad een ontmoeting hadden, waren elders in Damascus tienduizenden betogers op de been voor de begrafenis van drie jongeren die gisteren bij een demonstratie in de stad zijn doodgeschoten door veiligheidstroepen. De onrust in Syri� lijkt steeds meer door te dringen tot hoofdstad Damascus, het belangrijkste bolwerk van het regime van Assad. Bij de begrafenissen vandaag werden leuzen gehoord als “Wij offeren ons bloed en onze ziel voor de martelaren”.

Activisten hebben de inwoners van Damascus vanochtend op Facebook opgeroepen om morgen massaal de straat op te gaan. “Het bloed van de martelaren roept op tot ongehoorzaamheid”, aldus de activisten.

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Op zaterdag 18 februari 2012 18:30 schreef Nober het volgende:
Misschien wil je dit zien?

[TV-TIP] Vranckx: Aan het front in Homs (Canvas, 20:05)

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Computer spyware is newest weapon in Syrian conflict

(CNN) -- In Syria's cyberwar, the regime's supporters have deployed a new weapon against opposition activists -- computer viruses that spy on them, according to an IT specialist from a Syrian opposition group and a former international aid worker whose computer was infected.

A U.S.-based antivirus software maker, which analyzed one of the viruses at CNN's request, said that it was recently written for a specific cyberespionage campaign and that it passes information it robs from computers to a server at a government-owned telecommunications company in Syria.

Supporters of dictator Bashar al-Assad first steal the identities of opposition activists, then impersonate them in online chats, said software engineer Dlshad Othman. They gain the trust of other users, pass out Trojan horse viruses and encourage people to open them.

Once on the victim's computer, the malware sends information out to third parties.

Othman is an IT security "go-to-guy" for opposition activists. He resides outside of Syria for his own safety.

Since December, he has heard from dozens of opposition members who say their computers were infected. Two of them recently passed actual viruses to Othman and a colleague with whom he works. They checked them out.

"We have two malwares -- first one is really complex," Othman said via Skype chat. "It can hide itself more."

The U.S. analysis of one of the viruses -- the simpler one -- would appear to corroborate the time of its launch around the start of the year.

The virus has two parts, said Vikram Thakur, principal security response manager at Symantec Corporation, known to consumers for its Norton antivirus software. He said one of them points to December 6 and the other to January 16.

Thakur has dubbed the simpler virus "backdoor.breut."

It was the more complex virus that the former aid worker unwittingly downloaded during a chat. Since she travels to Syria, she has requested that CNN not name her for security reasons and instead refer to her as "Susan."

To get a picture of the humanitarian needs on the ground in Syria, "Susan" contacted opposition members via the Internet. In January, she received a call via Skype from someone she believed was a regime opponent.

It was an imposter and a regime supporter, she claims.

"They called me actually and pretended that it's him -- this activist that I didn't know, because I'd been talking to him only two times and only in writing."

Days later, other opposition members told Susan and Othman that the activist she thought she had spoken with was in detention. Activists accuse government forces of coercing him to reveal his user name and identity and of then going online to impersonate him.

Othman says additional activists, who say they were detained and released, tell of being forced to turn over their passwords to Syrian authorities.

CNN cannot independently confirm the accusations, because the Syrian government strictly limits international media coverage within its borders.

Calls for Syrian government comment to a spokeswoman for al-Assad on Friday were not answered or did not go through. Friday is the weekly special day of prayer in the Muslim world.

The man chatting with Susan via Skype passed her a file. She recalled what he said to her to coax her to open it: "This makes sure that when you're talking to me, it's really me talking to you and not somebody else."

She clicked on the file. "It actually didn't do anything," she said in a baffled tone. "I didn't notice any change at all."

No graphics launched; no pop-up opened to announce to the user that the virus was being downloaded. The link appeared to be dead or defected, said Othman.

The second virus, backdoor.breut, which was e-mailed to him by an activist inside Syria for analysis, launched the same way. "Download, open, then nothing," Othman said.

It contains a fake Facebook logo and was passed off in a chat room as a Facebook security update, he said.

At CNN's request, Othman forwarded that virus to an IT security expert in California for an independent analysis.

Othman removed the more complex malware on Susan's computer but made an image of the infected hard drive beforehand. At more than 250 GB, it would have to be sent on an external hard drive by regular post -- snail mail -- for any independent scrutiny.

The U.S. expert confirmed the invisible nature of the backdoor.breut Trojan horse download.

"Nothing would actually show up," said Thakur. "The only thing that the Trojan actually does -- it copies itself into one of the temporary locations, but that would not be visible to the regular user."

The malware launches when the user reboots the computer.

The Syrian cyberactivist and the California IT security manager pointed out that the lack of fanfare during download helps to conceal the viruses from their victims.

"Most of them will say 'it's a damaged file,' and they will forget about it," Othman said.

Susan did just that.

She was not aware she had been hacked until she lost her Facebook and e-mail accounts a few days after clicking on the file.

"I didn't click on any kind of new link or something, so they must have known about the password," she said, referring to the loss of her Facebook account.

She handed over her laptop to Othman and his colleague, who told her that the Trojan horse had logged her key strokes, taken screen shots, rummaged through her folders. It hid the IP address it sent its information to, Othman said.

Othman found a screen shot the Trojan horse took of Susan's online banking home page. He told her to change all her passwords, Susan said.

"You don't want your money to be stolen by some of the Syrian security guys," she quipped.

The other virus -- backdoor.breut -- sends the information it pillages from infected computers to the IP address: 216.6.0.28 and does not hide this.

"We checked the IP address that our engineer referenced and can confirm that it belongs to the STE (Syrian Telecommunications Establishment)," a Symantec representative wrote to CNN. The STE is the government telecommunications company.

This does not necessarily mean that someone at STE is doing the hacking, Thakur stresses.

"Whether it's a home user behind that or it's actually a company or an organization, which has been allocated that IP address, we just have no insight from where we sit."

But the Syrian government has access to all activity through that server "absolutely without any doubt," Thakur said. Anyone not wanting the government to see what they are up to would not use that server.

Skilled Syrian opposition activists avoid government telecom servers when online.

The simple virus, backdoor.breut, acts like a bull in a china shop, Symantec's Thakur said.

"It did not look like it was written by any sophisticated hacker," he said after examining it. "It was just kind of put together -- slapstick functionality."

Simple malware is readily available for download on underground forums in the Internet. Hackers can repurpose it and hand it out. Othman believed the second software to be such an off-the-shelf product because of its amateurish construction, but the California expert disagrees.

"It's not something that somebody just went out there, copied code from an Internet website and just pasted it in. It was definitely coded for its current purpose."

The name "backdoor.breut" derives from the virus' behavior.

"We sort of took the word 'brute' just because of what it was actually doing and kind of changed a couple of characters to b-r-e-u-t," Thakur said.

"Brute -- meaning that it is using brute force -- it's just going in smash-and-grab -- I'm going to try to get anything that I can and get the hell out of there."

Backdoor.breut attempts to give the hacker remote control of the victim's computer, according to the analysis. It steals passwords and system information, downloads new programs, guides internal processes, logs keystrokes and takes shots with the webcam.

It also turns off antivirus notification, but that does not completely conceal it from detection. "Some of the good software can detect it in the same day," Thakur said.

The nature of its use may make backdoor.breut and other new Syrian malware hard to defend against. Antivirus makers need to know the virus to be able to assign it a signature and make the file detectible to block the download, according to Thakur.

The more widely a new virus spreads around the world, the more likely it is to land on an antivirus maker's radar. The smaller the region the virus is located in, the less likely virus vigilantes are to notice and combat it.

"Looking at this Trojan and the telemetry that we've gathered the last five or six days since we did the analysis, this is not targeting people across the complete globe. So, it could be days before some antiviruses actually create signatures for the file," Thakur said.

More complex antivirus software can detect malware that does not yet have a signature, because of how it behaves after infecting the computer, Thakur said. If the antivirus does not have this 'behavior' component, it may not defend against a new virus "for a substantial amount of time."

On a Facebook page named "Cyber Arabs," Othman warns activists of the danger of downloading the virus and reminds users to keep their antivirus software updated.

Download.com, CNET's software download website, offers antivirus software, some of which includes a "behavior" component and is free of charge.

But that is still no guarantee for not contracting a new Syrian cyberbug, "Susan" reminds.

"It was up-to-date," she said. "The problem is that they sent me a ... file, and I was totally stupid -- like, it's an EXE file -- and I opened it."

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Merits and limitations of negotiations

Negotiations are a very useful tool in resolving certain types of issues
in conflicts and should not be neglected or rejected when they
are appropriate.
In some situations where no fundamental issues are at stake,
and therefore a compromise is acceptable, negotiations can be an
important means to settle a conflict. A labor strike for higher wages
is a good example of the appropriate role of negotiations in a conflict:
a negotiated settlement may provide an increase somewhere between
the sums originally proposed by each of the contending sides. Labor
conflicts with legal trade unions are, however, quite different than
the conflicts in which the continued existence of a cruel dictatorship
or the establishment of political freedom are at stake.
When the issues at stake are fundamental, affecting religious
principles, issues of human freedom, or the whole future development
of the society, negotiations do not provide a way of reaching a
mutually satisfactory solution. On some basic issues there should
be no compromise. Only a shift in power relations in favor of the
democrats can adequately safeguard the basic issues at stake. Such
a shift will occur through struggle, not negotiations. This is not to
say that negotiations ought never to be used. The point here is that
negotiations are not a realistic way to remove a strong dictatorship
in the absence of a powerful democratic opposition.
Negotiations, of course, may not be an option at all. Firmly
entrenched dictators who feel secure in their position may refuse to
negotiate with their democratic opponents. Or, when negotiations
have been initiated, the democratic negotiators may disappear and
never be heard from again.

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'Syrische economie in zwaar weer door buitenlandse sancties'

De economie van Syri� heeft veel te lijden van de sancties die het buitenland heeft opgelegd aan het regime van president Bashar al-Assad. Door het embargo op de export van olie en andere producten uit Syri� naar het buitenland daalt de voorraad buitenlandse deviezen van de centrale bank van het Arabische land in een rap tempo.

Dat heeft de vooraanstaande Syrische ondernemer Faisal al-Qudsi gezegd in een vandaag gepubliceerd interview met de BBC. Qudsi leidt een in Londen gevestigde investeringsbank. Hij heeft veel belangen in het bedrijfsleven in Syri�.

Volgens Qudsi is de voorraad buitenlandse deviezen van Syri� sinds de invoering van de sancties meer dan gehalveerd. Qudsi stelt dat niet alleen de Syrische export fors is afgenomen, maar dat ook het toerisme volledig is ingestort.

'Iran heeft geld gestuurd, maar dat is niet genoeg', zegt de zakenman, een zoon van oud-president Nazem al-Qudsi.
Qudsi denkt dat de militaire actie van het regime tegen de oppositie nog hooguit 6 maanden kan doorgaan.

Vermoeid leger
'Het leger begint moe te worden. De militairen moeten gaan praten of in ieder geval stoppen met moorden. Zodra dat gebeurt, zullen miljoen mensen de straat opgaan.'

Qudsi zegt dat het Syrische staatsapparaat langzaam desintegreert en in bolwerken van de oppositie als Homs, Idlib en Deraa nauwelijks meer functioneert. 'Er zijn daar geen rechtbanken en de politie is niet ge�nteresseerd in het bestrijden van de misdaad. Dat is heel slecht voor de regering.'

Qudsi denkt niet Assad vrijwillig opstapt. Hij voorspelt dat de president tot het einde zal vechten.

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Mr Qudsi is a very well-placed source, heavily involved in Syria's economic liberalisation and from a family with a long political tradition, so when he says the business community is deserting the regime, that is significant, our correspondent says.

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Op zondag 19 februari 2012 12:02 schreef Baghdaddy het volgende:

[..]

Zitten nog vast, lijkt me (heb er verder niks over gehoord).

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Syrian security forces increase pressure on Damascus protesters

Police spread through Syrian capital to prevent further protests against Bashar al-Assad in wake of demonstrator's funeral

Police and militia patrols have fanned out in Damascus to prevent a repeat of protests against President Bashar al-Assad that threaten his grip on the Syrian capital, opposition activists said.

On Saturday, thousands of Syrians demonstrated in the heart of the capital in one of the biggest anti-government rallies there since the nationwide uprising almost a year ago. On Sunday, the body of Samer al-Khatib, a young protester who was killed when security forces opened fire on the protest, was buried in the city's Mezze district.

Security forces maintained a heavy presence to prevent the funeral turning into an anti-Assad protest, according to opposition activists contacted by Reuters.

Fifteen pick-up trucks carrying security police and armed pro-Assad militiamen, known as shabiha, surrounded the funeral as Khatib was buried quietly, they said.

Police and militia vehicles patrolled Mezze while secret police agents spread out on foot, stopping men at random and checking their identification cards, they said.

"Walking in Mezze now carries the risk of arrest. The area is quiet and even the popular food shops in Sheikh Saad are empty," one activist, Moaz al-Shami, said, referring to a main street.

Saturday's shooting by security forces took place as a Chinese envoy, the deputy foreign minister Zhai Jun, met Assad and appealed to all sides to end the violence. Zhai also expressed Beijing's support for Assad's plan to hold a referendum and multi-party elections within four months – a move the west and some in Syria's fragmented opposition movement have dismissed as a sham.

China has emerged as a leading player in multiple international efforts to end the bloodshed in Syria and remains one of Assad's main supporters. Xinhua news agency said: "China believes, as many others do, there is still hope the Syria crisis can be resolved through peaceful dialogue between the opposition and the government, contrary to some western countries' argument that time is running out for talks in Syria."

Western countries were "driven less by their self-proclaimed 'lofty goal' of liberalising the Syrian people than by geopolitical considerations," Xinhua said.

Britain's foreign minister, William Hague, told the BBC that he feared: "Syria is going to slide into a civil war and that our powers to do something about it are very constrained because, as everyone has seen, we have not been able to pass a resolution at the UN security council because of Russian and Chinese opposition."

Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), Syria's opposition network, said security forces killed 14 people in Damascus and other parts of the country on Saturday, including five in the opposition stronghold of Homs. None of the figures could be verified independently.

Government forces bombarded Homs again on Sunday. The western city, strategically situated on the road between Damascus and the commercial hub Aleppo, has been under siege for more than two weeks and a humanitarian crisis is unfolding as food and medical supplies to treat the wounded are running short.

Jordan said it had set up the first refugee camp in the country for Syrians since the uprising began, in preparation for what many fear may be a mass exodus of Syrians fleeing violence in their homeland.

Sami Halaseh, of Jordan's public works ministry, said the area, about 12 miles south of the border, is expected to be ready in two weeks. The camp will be monitored by a round-the-clock police guard.

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Aanklager en rechter doodgeschoten tijdens oproer in Syri�

Een aanklager en een rechter zijn vandaag doodgeschoten in een hinderlaag in de noordwestelijke Syrische provincie Idlib. Ook hun chauffeur kwam volgens het Syrische staatspersbureau SANA bij de aanval om het leven.

Een dag eerder werd een lid van de gemeenteraad van de noordelijke stad Aleppo doodgeschoten. Idlib is een lappendeken van gebieden die ofwel in handen van regeringstroepen of in handen van gedeserteerde militairen zijn. Aleppo geldt als een bolwerk van regeringsaanhangers. De toenemende bereidheid van sommige delen van de oppositie om geweld te gebruiken leidt tot groeiende vrees voor een burgeroorlog in Syri�.

Het Syrische Observatorium voor de Mensenrechten maakte vandaag melding van veertien doden in heel Syri�, de helft daarvan door toedoen van regeringstroepen. De Verenigde Naties meldden in januari dat sinds de opstand tegen president Bashar Assad half maart begon in 2011 meer dan 5400 mensen zijn gedood. Een oppositiegroep, de Lokale Co�rdinatiecomit�s, zegt dat er al meer dan 7300 doden zijn gevallen.

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Syria: calls to arm the opposition - live updates

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8.36am: (all times GMT) Welcome to Middle East Live. Senior US politicians have called for the arming of opponents of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. But America's top general, Martin Dempsey, has called for caution over both Syria and Iran.

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Conflicting accounts have emerged of the killing of two judicial officials in Idlib, the LA Times reports. Authorities said "an armed terrorist group" in Idlib city opened fire on a car carrying a judge, Mohammed Ziyadeh, and a prosecutor, Nidal Ghazal. Also killed was the driver, said the official Syrian Arab News Agency. An opposition activist reached in Idlib contradicted the official version and said Syrian security forces killed the pair because they were cooperating with antigovernment rebels active in the northwestern region, close to the border with Turkey.

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Rode Kruis onderhandelt in conflict Syri� om staakt-het-vuren

Het Internationaal Comit� van het Rode Kruis onderhandelt met de Syrische autoriteiten en gewapende opstandelingen om een tijdelijk staakt-het-vuren af te kondigen. Dit is de enige manier voor de organisatie om medische hulp te kunnen leveren aan mensen die getroffen zijn door het aanhoudende geweld in het land.

Het zou gaan om een staakt-het-vuren van twee uur in gebieden zoals Homs, melden diplomatieke bronnen rond het Rode Kruis aan persbureau Reuters. Volgens Rode Kruis-woordvoerder Carla Haddad onderzoekt de hulporganisatie samen met de Syrische afdeling van de Rode-Halve-Maan verschillende manieren om medische hulp richting Syrische slachtoffers te kunnen sturen. Het tijdelijk neerleggen van wapens door beide partijen is daar een optie van, aldus Haddad.

Het regime van de Syrische president Bashar al-Assad stuurde vandaag opnieuw tanks en andere versterkingen naar het bovengenoemde Homs. Volgens activisten is dit een teken dat Assad zich opmaakt voor een hernieuwd offensief om de stad te ontdoen van opstandige elementen. Zij vrezen “brute beschietingen die geen onderscheid maken tussen militaire of burgerdoelen”.

Het zou goed mogelijk zijn dat Damascus voor het referendum over een nieuwe grondwet aanstaande zondag de opstandelingenbolwerken in het land het zwijgen wil opleggen, schrijft persbureau AP.

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Syrian troops fire on Damascus protesters

Syrian forces open fire with live ammunition on demonstrators in Damascus overnight as unrest spreads in the capital

Syrian forces opened fire with live ammunition on demonstrators in Damascus overnight, wounding at least four people, according to activists, as unrest continued to spread in the capital.

Demonstrations and clashes with security forces have rocked Damascus in the past week, undermining President Bashar al-Assad's claims that the 11-month uprising has been the work of saboteurs and limited mainly to the provinces.

International diplomacy has shown little sign of finding a solution, as western powers and the Arab League prepared a meeting of "Friends of Syria" on Friday to pressure Assad to step down, while Russia and China backed his reform plans, derided by Syria's opposition.

"There were hundreds of demonstrators at the main square of Hajar al-Aswad, and suddenly buses of security police and shabbiha [pro-Assad militia] turned up and started firing into the crowd," activist Abu Abdallah said on Tuesday.

He said the four wounded were taken to be treated in people's homes.

Footage posted on YouTube, purportedly taken before the shooting, showed a crowd marching in the neighbourhood of Hajar al-Aswad carrying placards in support of the besieged city of Homs and singing "Eyes are shedding tears for the martyrs among Syria's youth".

Elsewhere, an activists' group in Kfar Tkharim near the Turkish border said rebels had killed five soldiers and captured two during an ambush of a government column.

Opposition activists said five people had been killed in government shelling of Homs's Baba Amro district on Monday, adding to a reported death toll of several hundred since the military operation began there on 3 February.

And activists in the western city of Hama said troops, police and militias had set up dozens of roadblocks, cutting neighbourhoods off from each other.

The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, the only international organisation deploying aid workers in Syria, said it was in talks with the authorities and opposition fighters for a ceasefire to bring life-saving aid to civilians.

Diplomatic sources said it was seeking a two-hour ceasefire in besieged areas including Homs. Residents there say they are running out of food, water and medicine after weeks of bombardment by Assad's forces.

Western and Arab countries who are seeking Assad's removal are preparing an explicit gesture of support for his opponents.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said the Friends of Syria group, meeting in Tunisia, would "demonstrate that Assad's regime is increasingly isolated and that the brave Syrian people need our support and solidarity".

But Assad, who has received support from Russia, China and Iran, is forging ahead with plans to hold a referendum on Sunday on a new constitution, which the opposition dismisses as a stunt to cling to power.

"We'll send a clear message to Russia, China and others who are still unsure about how to handle the increasing violence but are up until now unfortunately making the wrong choices," Clinton said in Mexico at a meeting of the G20 countries.

Germany said the European Union would probably impose more sanctions against Syria in the coming week. Western sanctions have so far had little impact without support from Russia and China for measures at the UN security council.

Assad met a senior Russian politician in Damascus on Monday, who reiterated Moscow's support for his self-styled reform programme and spoke out against any foreign intervention. China has accused western countries of stirring up civil war.

Nevertheless, the Arab League, which has suspended Syria and called for Assad to step down, said there were signs Russia and China could temper their support for him.

"There are indications coming from China and to some extent from Russia that there may be a change in position," the Arab League secretary-general, Nabil Elaraby, told a news conference in Cairo.

Russia and China vetoed a draft UN security council resolution this month that would have backed an Arab plan calling for Assad to step down. The two countries also voted against a non-binding resolution in the general assembly last week that backed the Arab plan.

Russia's ambassador to the UN said Moscow would soon offer proposals on humanitarian relief for Syria in the security council, but gave few details.

"It seems to me that it would be possible now to take concrete steps aimed at resolving humanitarian issues, relying on the fact that very recently, a few days ago, Damascus allowed the International Red Cross to deliver humanitarian aid to certain regions that ended up in the conflict zone," Vitaly Churkin told state-run Rossiya-24 television in an interview.

"It can be expected that in the coming days, Russia will put forward certain proposals on that account in the security council."

Assad's government says it is battling a foreign-backed insurgency by terrorists, and that it is committed to meeting real demand for democracy with the referendum on a new constitution, leading to multi-party elections within 90 days.

The west and Syrian opposition figures have dismissed the plan as a joke, saying it is impossible to have a valid election amid the continuing repression.

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Al Jazeera: Syria Live Blog

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1 hour 57 min ago - Dubai

Hani al-Malazi, a former presenter for a major news programme of Syria's official TV channel, has told Al Jazeera why he decided to quit working with the government-run organisation.

Speaking to Al Jazeera over the telephone from Dubai, he said that he made the decision last August, "because the Syrian regime had faced the people’s political and social demands with tanks and security forces gunfire”.

The government could have resolved the crisis before, but that reforms had become impossible to make “under repression and killing exercised, and is duly exercised now, against the Syrian people”.

"I have not encountered any change. But when you are forced to face gunfire, or probably more, while you are not allowed to cite in any way the wrongdoing committed by someone opening fire, be it an army officer, or a security element. You should distance yourself from being deceptive, or keeping dumb silent."

Asma al-Assad: The Desert Rose door Mr Scarce

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(CBC) A profile of Asma al-Assad, wife of bloodthirsty Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was once called The Desert Rose.

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Op woensdag 22 februari 2012 21:51 schreef rakotto het volgende:
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