Crisis in Syrië #10 Bloedbad!

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Op zondag 4 maart 2012 19:30 schreef ChristianLebaneseFront het volgende:
Voor de Arabisch sprekende onder ons:

Syria News 31-1-2012 - Fight on Al Jazeera live TV..Dont F--k with the Assad Supporters.

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• People fleeing the Syrian army's crackdown in Homs have been giving horrific first hand accounts of the violence. More than 1,000 Syrians fled to neighbouring Lebanon.

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3.16pm: The BBC's Paul Wood has return to Syria despite the dangers facing journalists reporting from the country.

In his latest dispatch, from near Homs, he details horrific accounts of those fleeing Baba Amr.

. One man told me that any man detained at a checkpoint is killed.

"They took our husbands, they took them at the checkpoint, they will slaughter them like sheep," one woman said.

Everyone shares the same fears that their husbands are not coming back. For now, they are on their own, with nothing.

It is absolutely freezing. The children here are spending a night in a house with no heat and no electricity and, more than that, they are wondering what on earth has happened to their fathers.

This family says that they witnessed a massacre. On Friday, they say, troops took 36 men and boys from one district and killed them all.

"My son's throat was cut," a woman told me. "He was 12."

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Amerikaanse senator John McCain roept op tot luchtaanvallen op Syrië

De Amerikaanse senator en voormalige presidentskandidaat John McCain roept vandaag op tot luchtaanvallen op Syrië. Doelwit moeten volgens hem luchtmachtbases van de Syrische president Bashar al-Assad worden. Op die manier wil McCain de bevolking van Syrië beschermen tegen het geweld van Assad.

De Verenigde Staten moeten deze internationale luchtoperatie gaan leiden, vindt de voormalige Vietnamveteraan. McCain is de eerste Amerikaanse politicus die zich uitspreekt voor militair ingrijpen in Syrië. McCain zei eerder vandaag in de Amerikaanse Senaat:

. Het uiteindelijke doel van de luchtaanvallen moet zijn veilige zones voor burgers in Syrië te creëren en te verdedigen, in het bijzonder in het noorden, waar de oppositie zich dan kan organiseren en zijn politieke en militaire activiteiten tegen Assad kan plannen

Eerder al riep McCain op de Syrische oppositie te bewapenen. Volgens McCain zijn de misdaden die het Syrische regime begaat vergelijkbaar met die van kolonel Kadhafi in Libië. Daar leidden luchtaanvallen van de NAVO uiteindelijk tot de val van het bewind.
McCain wil dat Saoedi-Arabië en Turkije rol spelen bij luchtaanvallen

De regering-Obama blijft voorlopig nog zoeken naar een politiek oplossing. Zij kan ook niet anders, omdat Rusland en China tegen internationaal ingrijpen in Syrië zijn.

Beide landen blokkeerden een maand geleden zelfs een resolutie in de VN-veiligheidsraad die de Syrische president Assad veroordeelde.

McCain is zich bewust van de tegenwerking door Rusland en China, maar stelde vandaag dat de Verenigde Staten Arabische sleutelpartners als Saoedi-Arabië zou moeten winnen voor het plan. De NAVO en in het bijzonder Turkije zouden in de plannen van McCain een nadrukkelijk rol moeten spelen.

Ondertussen sloot Canada vandaag, net als eerder onder meer de VS, Groot-Brittannië en Frankrijk zijn ambassade in de Syrische hoofdstad Damascus. De Nederlandse ambassade in Damascus is nog wel open. In een verklaring van de Canadese regering staat:

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Op maandag 5 maart 2012 21:48 schreef Eyjafjallajoekull het volgende:
Ja en bovendien zou het veel beter zijn als het vanuit de Arabische Liga komt. Als de VS zo'n missie gaat leiden gaat dat zeker veel kritiek opleveren.

Lekker bericht op nu.nl trouwens...

http://www.nu.nl/buitenla(...)iekenhuis-syrie.html

Oh, en mocht je de video willen posten, doe dat dan wel ff onder een lading spoilers aub, maar lijkt me beter als zulke video's helemaal niet gepost worden hier.

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Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory. - Sun Tzu

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• Although the Syrian government has retaken Homs, it is losing the second city of Aleppo and the broader North, according to Syrian watcher Joshua Landis. He also reports that opposition militias are being formed with growing frequency.

A contact from Aleppo told him:

. The fact that neighbourhoods, such as Azaz, Hreitan and Anadan have fallen out of government control is significant because cars can no longer travel, even in daylight, to Turkey from Aleppo. The entire boarder area is becoming unsafe. This is much worse than Baba Amr or Khaldiye falling out of government control from the point of view of security because Turkey is the base for the Free Syrian Army, arms exports into Syria, and most opposition groups ...

Even the middle and upper classes that live in the city centrs are beginning to panic and look for a way out of the country. Plane flights to Lebanon from Aleppo are booked for the next month. The exodus has begun.

This is the first real breakdown of Aleppo control.

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TR325's business partner has an old classmate friend who was the lead
surgeon on Erdogan's most recent operation. He said that Erdogan has colon
cancer, but they haven't seen the second biopsy results yet to see if it's
metastasized. In the last operation, they cut out 20 cm of Erdogan's colon
(I just looked up that the average colon is about 1.5m long.) That's a
really significant operation. Erdogan is not going to be able to travel
for a while, and he's going to have to carry around with him a colonoscopy
bag for at least 2-3 months. The prognosis is not looking good, though.
The surgeon said they were estimating 2 years for him.

This is very likely going to cause major splits within the AKP. Gul
doesn't have much support. Davutoglu is paranoid that everyone else is
trying to undermine him (there's a definite competition between him and
TR325.) When I asked who Erdgogan trusts, two names were mentioned - Ali
Babacan (Deputy PM) and Taner Yildiz (energy minister.) Both sources were
asking how the US is likely to react to this situation. Would they try to
back the military like the old days? CHP is still very much divided. Both
seemed to think the military won't be able to take advantage of the
situation.

On Syria - the conversation centered on how far Turkey is actually going
to go. TR325 explained that the Turkish plan is centered on civil war in
Syria. Officially, it's Turkey providing the main training,a rms and
support to FSA. Unofficially, US and TUrkey are doing this together in
deploying SOF for this mission. Notice all the talk in the press now
about civil war breaking out in Syria. This is the narrative Turkey and US
want to build. I pointed out that creating the conditions for civil war -
actual neighborhood to neighborhood fighting - is still pretty difficult
considering that the Alawite forces are still holding together, but he
seemed to think that this can escalate within 2 months time. He also said
without saying that they're working on making that happen. He acknowledges
it'll be messy and it will take a lot of blood and time for a Sunni power
to emerge in syria, but that this is the Turkish obligation.

The Turkish plan to preempt the instability that would result from civil
war conditions is to implement the buffer zone 5-40km into Syrian
territory and set up refugee camps. I asked what levers Iran and Syria
have to get Turkey to back off in relation to PKK. He said
(half-jokingly) that Karilan is Turkey's man (ie. turkey can actually
negotiate with him.) But he said PKK third-in-command (still need to get
this guy's name) answers to Syria and Iran. Turkey knows this very well
and he says Syria and Iran are already making moves to threaten attacks
via this faction.

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http://wikileaks.org/gifi(...)her-s-concerns-.html
From: "Kamran Bokhari"
To: "Alpha List"
Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2011 8:33:27 PM
Subject: [alpha] INSIGHT - SYRIA - Bashar's Mother's Concerns

Source is a Reuters correspondent of Syrian-Jordanian heritage who
recently got kicked out of Syria.

Bashar's mother - the matriarch of the family (along the lines of her
mother-in-law) - is disappointed in Bashar and Maher for the mess that
they have created. She has been saying things like had your father been
alive things would have never come to such a point. She is very concerned
that her boys will meet the same fate as al-Qaddhafi and his sons and is
pressing Bashar and Maher to seriously look into an exit strategy before
the rapidly closing window of opportunity completely shuts itself.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 12:03 schreef Billy-jazz het volgende:

[..]

Bekleed die moeder dan een positie in het regime?

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Maar wat ze over de vader van Bashar Assad zegt is toch onzin aangezien hij net zo bruut te werk ging.

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Belangrijke vluchtweg uit Homs gebombardeerd

Het Syrische leger heeft vanochtend een brug gebombardeerd in de provincie Homs die door duizenden burgers is gebruikt als vluchtweg naar buurland Libanon. Dat meldt het Syrische Observatorium voor de Mensenrechten.

Het gaat om een brug over de Orontes-rivier, gelegen in de buurt van de stad Qousseir, vlakbij de grens tussen Syrië en Libanon. Volgens een woordvoerder van het Observatorium hebben de afgelopen dagen ruim 1500 vluchtelingen het land ontvlucht via deze brug. Voornamelijk voor gewonden is het de belangrijkste vluchtweg, benadrukt de woordvoerder.

In totaal zouden ruim duizend Syriërs hebben de grens met het noorden van Libanon overgestoken op de vlucht voor het geweld in hun thuisland. Dat meldde een woordvoerder van de VN-Vluchtelingenorganisatie (UNHCR) gisteren. Door de hevige beschietingen van de laatste dagen zijn voornamelijk vrouwen en kinderen op de vlucht geslagen, waarvan een groot deel gebruik maakte van de betreffende brug.

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Stratfor Leaks

2011-12-07 00:49:18

A few points I wanted to highlight from meetings today --

I spent most of the afternoon at the Pentagon with the USAF strategic
studies group - guys who spend their time trying to understand and explain
to the USAF chief the big picture in areas where they're operating in. It
was just myself and four other guys at the Lieutenant Colonel level,
including one French and one British representative who are liaising with
the US currently out of DC.

They wanted to grill me on the strategic picture on Syria, so after that I
got to grill them on the military picture. There is still a very low level
of understanding of what is actually at stake in Syria, what's the
strategic interest there, the Turkish role, the Iranian role, etc. After a
couple hours of talking, they said without saying that SOF teams
(presumably from US, UK, France, Jordan, Turkey) are already on the ground
focused on recce missions and training opposition forces. One Air Force
intel guy (US) said very carefully that there isn't much of a Free Syrian
Army to train right now anyway, but all the operations being done now are
being done out of 'prudence.' The way it was put to me was, 'look at this
way - the level of information known on Syrian OrBat this month is the
best it's been since 2001.' They have been told to prepare contingencies
and be ready to act within 2-3 months, but they still stress that this is
all being done as contingency planning, not as a move toward escalation.

I kept pressing on the question of what these SOF teams would be working
toward, and whether this would lead to an eventual air camapign to give a
Syrian rebel group cover. They pretty quickly distanced themselves from
that idea, saying that the idea 'hypothetically' is to commit guerrilla
attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite
forces, elicit collapse from within. There wouldn't be a need for air
cover, and they wouldn't expect these Syrian rebels to be marching in
columns anyway.

They emphasized how the air campaign in Syria makes Libya look like a
piece of cake. Syrian air defenses are a lot more robust and are much
denser, esp around Damascus and on the borders with Israel, Turkey. THey
are most worried about mobile air defenses, particularly the SA-17s that
they've been getting recently. It's still a doable mission, it's just not
an easy one.

The main base they would use is Cyprus, hands down. Brits and FRench would
fly out of there. They kept stressing how much is stored at Cyprus and how
much recce comes out of there. The group was split on whether Turkey would
be involved, but said Turkey would be pretty critical to the mission to
base stuff out of there. EVen if Turkey had a poltiical problem with
Cyprus, they said there is no way the Brits and the FRench wouldn't use
Cyprus as their main air force base. Air Force Intel guy seems pretty
convinced that the Turks won't participate (he seemed pretty pissed at
them.)

There still seems to be a lot of confusion over what a military
intervention involving an air campaign would be designed to achieve. It
isn't clear cut for them geographically like in Libya, and you can't just
create an NFZ over Homs, Hama region. This would entail a countrywide SEAD
campaign lasting the duration of the war. They dont believe air
intervention would happen unless there was enough media attention on a
massacre, like the Ghadafi move against Benghazi. They think the US would
have a high tolerance for killings as long as it doesn't reach that very
public stage. Theyre also questiioning the skills of the Syrian forces
that are operating the country's air defenses currently and how
signfiicant the Iranian presence is there. Air Force Intel guy is most
obsessed with the challenge of taking out Syria's ballistic missile
capabilities and chem weapons. With Israel rgiht there and the regime
facing an existential crisis, he sees that as a major complication to any
military intervention.

The post 2011 SOFA with Iraq is still being negotiated. These guys were
hoping that during Biden's visit that he would announce a deal with
Maliki, but no such luck. They are gambling ont he idea that the Iraqis
remember the iran-iraq war and that maliki is not going to want to face
the threat of Iranian jets entering Iraqi air space. THey say that most
US fighter jets are already out of Iraq and transferred to Kuwait. They
explained that's the beauty of the air force, the base in Kuwait is just a
hop, skip and jump away from their bases in Europe, ie. very easy to
rapidly build up when they need to. They don't seem concerned about the
US ability to restructure its forces to send a message to Iran. They gave
the example of the USS Enterprise that was supposed to be out of
commission already and got extended another couple years to send to the
gulf. WHen the US withdraws, we'll have at least 2 carriers in the gulf
out of centcom and one carrier in the Med out of EuCom. I asked if the
build-up in Kuwait and the carrier deployments are going to be enough to
send a message to Iran that the US isn't going anywhere. They responded
that Iran will get the message if they read the Centcom Web Site. STarting
Jan. 1 expect them to be publishing all over the place where the US is
building up.

Another concern they have about an operation in Syria is whether Iran
could impede operations out of Balad air force base in Iraq.

The French representative was of hte opinion that Syria won't be a
libya-type situation in that France would be gung-ho about going in. Not
in an election year. The UK rep also emphasized UK reluctance but said
that the renegotiation of the EU treaty undermines the UK role and that UK
would be looking for ways to reassert itself on the continent ( i dont
really think a syria campaign is the way to do that.) UK guy mentioned as
an aside that the air force base commander at Cyprus got switched out from
a maintenance guy to a guy that flew Raptors, ie someone that understands
what it means to start dropping bombs. He joked that it was probably a
coincidence.

Prior to that, I had a meeting with an incoming Kuwaiti diplomat (will be
coded as KU301.) His father was high up in the regime, always by the
CP's/PM's side. The diplo himself still seems to be getting his feet wet
in DC (the new team just arrived less than 2 weeks ago,) but he made
pretty clear that Kuwait was opening the door to allowing US to build up
forces as needed. THey already have a significant presence there, and a
lot of them will be on 90-day rotations. He also said that the SOFA that
the US signs with Baghdad at the last minute will be worded in such a way
that even allowing one trainer in the country can be construed to mean
what the US wants in terms of keeping forces in Iraq. Overall, I didnt get
the impression from him that Kuwait is freaked out about the US leaving.
Everyhting is just getting rearranged. The Kuwaitis used to be much
better at managing their relations with Iran, but ever since that spy ring
story came out a year ago, it's been bad. He doesn't think Iran has
significant covert capabililiteis in the GCC states, though they are
trying. Iranian activity is mostly propaganda focused. He said that while
KSA and Bahrain they can deal with it as needed and black out the media,
Kuwait is a lot more open and thus provides Iran with more oppotunity to
shape perceptions (he used to work in inforamtion unit in Kuwait.) He says
there is a sig number of kuwaitis that listen to Iranian media like Al
Alam especially.

On the Kuwaiti political scene - the government is having a harder time
dealing with a more emboldened opposition, but the opposition is still
extremely divided, esp among the Islamists. The MPs now all have to go
back to their tribes to rally support for the elections to take place in
Feb. Oftentimes an MP in Kuwait city will find out that he has lost
support back home with the tribe, and so a lot of moeny is handed out.The
govt is hoping that witha clean slate they can quiet the opposition down.
A good way of managing the opposition he said is to refer cases to the
courts, where they can linger forever. good way for the govt to buy time.
He doesnt believe the Arab League will take significant action against
Syria - no one is interested in military intervention. they just say it to
threaten it.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 15:16 schreef waht het volgende:
Special Forces.

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Air Force Intel guy is most
obsessed with the challenge of taking out Syria's ballistic missile
capabilities and chem weapons. With Israel rgiht there and the regime
facing an existential crisis, he sees that as a major complication to any
military intervention.