Crisis in Syri� #10 Bloedbad!

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Syrisch leger opent aanval op Daraa

Syrische regeringstroepen hebben de aanval geopend op de zuidelijke stad Daraa, waar de opstand tegen het regime van Bashar Assad een jaar geleden begon. Daarbij is een nog onbekend aantal doden en gewonden gevallen.

Dit meldt een woordvoerder van het Vrije Syrische Leger vanuit Jordani�.

Volgens het in Londen gevestigde Observatorium voor de Mensenrechten zijn bij het offensief tegen Daraa al dertien burgers om het leven gekomen.

Het regeringsleger lijkt de smaak te pakken te hebben nu het eerder deze week de noordelijke stad Idlib op de opstandelingen heeft heroverd. Idlib was een van de bolwerken van het Vrije Syrische Leger. Na een maandenlange campagne tegen de opstandelingen in de centraal gelegen stad Homs wist het Syrische leger die stad op 1 maart te heroveren.

Rebellen claimen gijzeling generaal
De Syrische rebellen zeggen een generaal van het regeringsleger gevangen te hebben genomen. Ze eisen dat het regime gevangenen vrijlaat, anders wordt generaal Naim Jalil Oda gedood. Dat heeft de tweede man van het Vrije Syrische Leger vandaag gezegd.

Oda zou zijn overmeesterd in de plaats Douma, een voorstad van de hoofdstad Damascus. Het bericht kan niet worden gecontroleerd.

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Marno de Boer is militair historicus.

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Toekomstscenario Syri�: een bloedige, door-etterende strijd'

De Syrische president Assad heeft te weinig steun om het hele land onder controle te houden en het verzet is niet genoeg getraind om te winnen. Zo ettert het conflict door, vindt Marno de Boer.

Nu het rebellenbolwerk Baba Amr in Homs is gevallen en het Syrische leger Idlib is binnengetrokken, lijkt de Syrische opstand haar momentum verloren te hebben.

Verscheidene analisten wijzen Assad reeds als winnaar aan. Het verloop van zijn militaire campagne wijst er echter op dat hij waarschijnlijk niet de orde in het hele land kan herstellen. Het toekomstperspectief is daarom een bloedige, voortsudderende strijd waarin geen van beide partijen de beslissende slag kan uitdelen.
Assad beschikt over een aantal steunpilaren. De Shabiha-militie en de veiligheidstroepen van de geheime dienst zijn innig met het regime verbonden. Ze zijn net als Assad hoofdzakelijk uit de Alawietenminderheid afkomstig.

Assads broer
In de strijd tegen de voornamelijk soennitische opstandelingen hebben ze inmiddels zoveel bloed aan hun handen dat ze geen weg terug zien.
Ook op de Gardedivisie en Vierde Gepantserde Divisie kan het regime rekenen. Deze bestaan ook vooral uit Alawieten en staan onder persoonlijk bevel van Assads broer Maher. De rest van het leger bestaat hoofdzakelijk uit soennieten en is dus minder loyaal.

De compositie van het veiligheidsapparaat bepaalt Assads aanpak. De hoofdstad Damascus moet kost wat kost onder controle blijven. Dit lukt redelijk door de Gardedivisie permanent naast de Shabiha en veiligheidstroepen in te zetten. Hier heeft het regime dan ook nog geen artilleriebeschietingen hoeven te gebruiken.

In de andere steden van het land zijn bijna alleen veiligheidstroepen en Shabiha actief. Zij proberen met terreur het verzet te breken, maar verliezen toch regelmatig de controle over dorpen en wijken. Het leger staat hoofdzakelijk buiten de bebouwde kom opgesteld en beschiet van daaruit onrustige buurten. Dat het vooral die taak heeft, komt doordat het regime de soennitische soldaten niet vertrouwt en alleen met executies de discipline kan bewaren.

Stadsoorlog
Begeleidende veiligheidstroepen controleren of de manschappen wel schieten en of ze niet proberen te deserteren. Dit kan echter alleen gebeuren als ze overzichtelijk in een open veld staan. In een chaotische stadsoorlog, waar kleine eenheden van gebouw tot gebouw vechten, zouden teveel militairen de benen nemen.

Daar komt nog bij dat veel legereenheden waarschijnlijk ongemotiveerd zijn, waardoor ze matig zouden presteren in intensieve en stressvolle gevechten tegen stadsguerrilla's.

Extreem traag
De enige eenheid die overblijft om buiten Damascus effectieve grondoperaties uit te voeren, is de Vierde Divisie. Dit verklaart waarom het regime de verzetshaarden stad voor stad aanpakt. Het verklaart ook waarom de eenheid pas na een maand voorbereidende beschietingen de wijk Baba Amr in Homs introk. Dit is extreem traag voor een elitedivisie die slechts matig getrainde guerrilla's met lichte wapens tegenover zich heeft. Het regime kan echter geen risico nemen met wat in feite haar enige troefkaart is.

Het lijkt onwaarschijnlijk dat deze ene divisie, die bovendien ook met uitputtingsverschijnselen te maken gaat krijgen, heel Syri� kan pacificeren. Veelzeggend is dat als het gewone leger, de Shabiha en veiligheidstroepen het gedrie�n moeten opknappen ze een stad niet onder controle kunnen houden. Dit gebeurt in Homs, Idlib, Deraa, Hama, Aleppo en in talloze kleinere plaatsen.

Martelingen
De opstand is namelijk nog lang niet be�indigd. De val van Baba Amr was een tegenslag, maar het verzet heeft een brede achterban van soennieten die zo'n driekwart van de bevolking uitmaken. Hoe gemotiveerd zij zijn, valt af te lezen aan het feit dat ze ondanks de sluipschutters en martelingen al meer dan een jaar dagelijks massaal de straat opgaan, zelfs nu weer in Homs.

Saoedi-Arabi� en Qatar beginnen hen nu ook van wapens te voorzien. Zij zien hun kans schoon om rivaal Iran dwars te zitten door diens bondgenoot Syri�, tevens doorvoerhaven van wapens naar Hezbollah, instabiel te houden. De Golfstaten beseffen dat zolang er beelden van de gruweldaden van Assad opduiken, de internationale gemeenschap de leveringen stilzwijgend zal toestaan.

Geen beslissing
Dit wil niet zeggen dat het verzet wint. De Shabiha en de veiligheidstroepen vechten met de moed der wanhoop. De opstandelingen moeten ook nog veel vorderingen maken in training, co�rdinatie en bewapening voordat ze de Gardedivisie of de Vierde Divisie kunnen verslaan.

Het meest waarschijnlijke toekomstscenario is dan ook een door-etterend conflict waarin geen van beide partijen een beslissing kan forceren. Intussen zal het dodental blijven stijgen en komen bevolkingsgroepen nog meer tegenover elkaar te staan.

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Syria: Assad's emails, the aftermath - live updates

12.36pm: The Syrian government is furious about the leak of the Assad emails and appears to have tried to block the Guardian in Syria, according Rime Allaf, associate fellow Syria and specialist at the foreign policy thinktank Chatham House.

"I think the regime is annoyed to no end by this," she said speaking via Skype from Vienna.

Allaf, who was monitoring Syrian TV channels after the emails were published, described a government spokesman "excitedly" dismissing the emails as a foreign media conspiracy. "They didn't expect this," she said.

. Immediately [after the emails were published] state TV was showing how easy it is to fake emails. They are very very annoyed by this and they want to immediately instill the notion of doubt in the mind's of their followers.

Allaf's contacts in Syria claimed the Guardian was being blocked in the country. But activists have translated versions of the emails online, she said.

"There is a wish by many Syrians in the opposition that other Syrians read about this," she said.

[audio]

The emails confirm what many Syrians feel about the Assads, she said.

. Nobody thought that they would be agonising about all the Syrians that have been killed [but] it is the banality of these emails which is most striking. It is not really the amount that is being spent, but it is the fact that while people are being shelled, and under siege and dying, they are exchanging what they think are funny links and ordering things on the internet.

For most Syrians the luxury life style of the Assad will not be news, Allaf said.

What is not normal is that this should happen when the brutality of the Syrian regime was at full strength. Syrian friends have had no heart to joke, nobody is in the mood to shop. These [the Assads] are people who live as if nothing else is happening.

. What we have read so far confirms a perception we have had about them [the Assads] that they are completely detached and uncaring about what happens to the country. It shows that these are people who never ever had any intention of being serious about any kind of reform.

Asked about the veracity of the emails, Allaf said:

. They emails are too flippant and short to be a big hoax. I do think they are genuine. They fit an image that we have formed about the regime over the past year.

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Assad emails: father-in-law gave advice from UK during crackdown

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Dr Fawas Akhras, who is the father of Assad's wife, Asma, used a private email channel to the Syrian leader to offer advice on how the regime should spin its suppression of the uprising, including how best to rebut graphic video footage appearing to show the torture of children by Syrian forces.

The 66-year-old west London-based consultant has until now been regarded as a modernising influence on his son-in-law. He is co-chair of the British Syrian Society, which has said it is "saddened and appalled at the violence and loss of life in Syria", where more than 8,000 people are believed to have been killed since the uprising against Assad's rule began a year ago. But a collection of several thousand messages to and from the Assads' private email accounts obtained by the Guardian appears to show that as the violence escalated in recent months, Akhras offered the Syrian president detailed political and media handling advice as well as moral support in dozens of emails direct to his personal inbox.

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The revelation that Akhras has taken such an active role helping the Syrian regime will create embarrassment for a number of establishment figures with links to him. Fellow directors of the British Syrian Society include Sir Andrew Green, former UK ambassador to Syria, and Sir Gavyn Arthur, former lord mayor of London, while Lord (Charles) Powell, Margaret Thatcher's former chief of staff, is a trustee of the Syria Heritage Foundation, a British charity which was set up by Akhras.

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Syria: Songs of Defiance

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He says: "I was walking through Homs and sniper fire started and I was the only one in the crowd that actually flinched. And a father with his kids was standing by the door and they were sort of laughing at me and pointing, saying 'why don't you fall on the floor while you are at it?' It's amazing how Syrians, who never heard gunfire because they lived in a very peaceful country, have gotten used so quickly to living in a state of war, how to respond to it. They've very quickly become a mobilised revolutionary society, whereas before they had no experience of doing this.

"Despite all this violence and attacks every night there are demonstrations. People come out in defiance. It has become something that they have to do ... like they have freedom for just that moment of time. And people will say that they feel depressed if they don't go out. There's a phenomenon: late at night, people will yell 'Allahu Akbar'. Mostly it has become a statement of defiance: 'We're still here.'

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‘Doden bij explosies rond overheidsgebouwen Damascus’

Bij twee explosies in de Syrische hoofdstad Damascus zouden vanochtend een aantal doden zijn gevallen. Dat heeft het Syrische staatspersbureau SANA vanochtend gemeld. Onder de doden zouden enkele burgers en leden van de veiligheidstroepen zijn.

Volgens de staatstelevisie vond een van de twee “terroristische explosies” plaats bij een gebouw van de douane. De andere explosie zou gehoord zijn in de wijk al-Wasala. Uit eerste onderzoek zou zijn gebleken dat de explosies veroorzaakt zijn door autobommen.

In Damascus, dat relatief rustig is gebleven gedurende de nu precies een jaar durende volksopstand tegen het regime van president Bashar al-Assad, vonden ook in december en januari al grote explosies plaats. Bij die explosies, die het regime ook als terroristische aanslagen betitelden, vielen enkele tientallen doden.

Wie er precies verantwoordelijk zijn voor de explosies of aanslagen in Damascus en andere Syrische steden is onduidelijk. Het regime heeft terreurnetwerk Al-Qaeda geregeld van geweld in het land beschuldigd en wil zo de indruk wekken dat de Syrische oppositie samenwerkt met terroristen. De oppositie heeft altijd ontkend aan te slagen te plegen en vermoedt dat het regime de hand heeft in de explosies.

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http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/russia-mar-18-2012-1107

Sun, 18 Mar 2012, 08:07 GMT+3 - Russia

Russia's foreign minister urged Syria to support UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's peacemaking efforts "without delay" in comments published on Saturday, adopting an unusually firm tone with the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Russia disagrees with many of the decisions Assad's government has made in a year of bloodshed, Sergei Lavrov told state television in an interview, according to a transcript posted on the Foreign Ministry website.

Lavrov's comments did not signal a shift in Russia's stance, but suggested Moscow wants the world to know it is motivated by the urgent need to end the violence in Syria rather than by the desire to prop up a longtime ally.

Russia, with China, on Feb. 4 vetoed a Western-Arab draft UN Security Council resolution that would have condemned the government for violence the United Nations says has killed more than 8,000 civilians and backed a call for Assad to step aside.

Russia has vocally supported a mission by Annan, who met with Assad last weekend as part of a push for a ceasefire, the deployment of monitors and political dialogue between the government and opposition.

"We believe the Syrian government should quickly, without delay, support (Annan's) approaches," Lavrov said. "We will expect the same from the armed and political opposition." [Reuters]

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Syria: reports of heavy firefight in western Damascus

Free Syrian Army rebels and forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad clashing in Mezze district, say residents

Heavy fighting has broken out between Free Syrian Army rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in a main district of Damascus that is home to several security installations, according to witnesses.

The sound of heavy machinegun fire and rocket-propelled grenades echoed through the heavily guarded Mezze district in the pre-dawn hours of Monday, residents said. There was no immediate word on casualties but residents said by telephone the fighting was intense.

"There is fighting near Hamada supermarket and the sound of explosions there and elsewhere in the neighbourhood. Security police have blocked several side streets and the street lighting has been cut off," a resident of the area said.

The fighting in the capital came after a car bomb ripped through a residential area of Syria's second city, Aleppo, on Sunday, and as activists reported heavy clashes across the country between state forces and rebels fighting to overthrow Assad.

As hundreds gathered on Sunday in Damascus to mourn victims of car bombings the previous day, activists said security forces beat and arrested people at a march of more than 200 when protesters began shouting "the people want to topple the regime".

Among those arrested and beaten was Mohammed Sayyed Rassas, a leader of the National Co-ordinating Body for Democratic Change (NCB), an opposition group whose members have visited China and Russia in attempts to promote dialogue between Assad and the opposition.

Most opposition groups have rejected the NCB over its insistence on non-violence and its stance against foreign intervention.

Security forces also arrested Farzand Omar, a doctor and politician from the party Building the Syria State, when he arrived at the Damascus airport from his hometown of Aleppo.

World powers have been unable to stop more than a year of bloodshed in Syria. Recent army gains against rebel positions have shown no sign of quelling the violence and no negotiated settlement is in sight.

The United Nations says more than 8,000 people have been killed and humanitarian conditions are grim. The government says about 2,000 members of security forces have been killed.

In Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub, the state news agency Sana said terrorists were behind the car bomb that killed two people and wounded 30 others when it exploded in a central area close to a state security office and a church.

The explosion came a day after twin blasts on Saturday killed 27 people in Damascus and wounded nearly 100 others.

The semi-official news channel al-Ikhbariya said security forces had been tipped off about the bomb in Aleppo and had been moving residents out of the area when it went off. It said the car had been filled with 200kg of explosives.

Pictures on the Sana website showed building fronts blasted open and aid workers standing near piles of shattered masonry and bomb craters, while Syria TV showed a street corner splattered in blood.

"The explosion came suddenly and the only thing I thought to do was fall to the ground," a girl told Syria TV, her hands and face covered in shards of glass. "Nothing remained. All the building fronts collapsed. God curse them."

No group claimed responsibility for the Aleppo attack and an activist from the opposition's local Revolutionary Council said the government was behind it.

Reports from Syria are difficult to verify as the government restricts foreign journalists' access.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 19 people, including four children, were killed in rocket attacks and by gunfire during army raids and fighting with rebels across the country on Sunday.

Fighting subsided overnight in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on the Euphrates river after army tanks shelled a Free Syrian Army hideout there in the morning, killing at least six rebels.

The insurgents retaliated by attacking roadblocks and security compounds in various districts of the city, residents and opposition activists said.

"The Free Syrian Army responded fiercely. Around 200 rebels took to the streets and hit army patrols stationed at roundabouts and schools and government buildings that have been turned into shabbiha [pro-Assad militiamen] headquarters," said Wael Ghaith, an opposition activist.

"The army has all but pulled out from the main thoroughfares by night."

A statement by rebels said they had killed Major Ayham al-Hamad, a key operative in Airforce Intelligence, a secret police division that has been spearheading the crackdown on the revolt in the city.

In Raqqa, another poor Sunni Muslim tribal city on the Euphrates, troops and military intelligence agents deployed and army snipers took to rooftops after security forces shot dead at least 20 people in the last three days, opposition activists said.

Most of the casualties were protesters killed when a large crowd tried to bring down a big statue of Assad's father in the middle of the city, they said, adding that sporadic demonstrations continued in Raqqa on Sunday and that fighting was reported between army defectors and loyalist troops.

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Syria: leaked documents reveal Bashar al-Assad's role in crushing protests

Documents leaked by Syrian defector show that Assad personally signs off security crackdown plans

Leaks of what appear to be official Syrian documents reveal how the country's president, Bashar al-Assad, personally signs off plans drawn up by his government's crisis management centre, prioritising a security crackdown to prevent demonstrations against his regime spreading to Damascus.

Hundreds of pages of confidential papers shown to al-Jazeera TV by a defector describe daily meetings of the heads of all Syria's security and intelligence agencies, who review events and issue orders that are then approved by the president.

Amid reports of fighting in the Mezzeh area of Damascus – the heaviest in the capital since the uprising began a year ago – al-Jazeera said on Monday that the documents were smuggled out of Syria by Abdel-Majid Barakat, head of information for the crisis management unit, who is now hiding in Turkey with opposition activists.

Emails published by the Guardian last week, which were also obtained from Syrian opposition sources, showed the gilded lifestyle of Assad and his wife Asma, apparently insulated from the bloodshed and violence raging across the country.

The emails included details of iTunes purchases, flirtatious exchanges with a female aide, and advice on PR and media policy.

The latest documents appear to shed more direct light on the regime's strategy against the uprising, including the deployment of thousands of militia known as "shabiha" and members of the Ba'ath party in operations designed to cut off Damascus, Aleppo, Idlib and other large cities from their surrounding regions.

In the capital, the documents show, the main squares are the responsibility of different branches of Syria's large security apparatus, including the notorious air force intelligence directorate, which has been repeatedly accused of brutality and torture by Syrian opposition supporters and foreign human rights watchdogs.

On Fridays, the day of the biggest anti-regime protests since the uprising began, the plan is to isolate the capital by using 35 checkpoints to control movement. Roads into Damascus from nearby towns are also routinely closed. One thousand security personnel are deployed in the central Ummayad mosque alone.

Al-Jazeera said the papers made clear that Assad was personally involved in approving measures to crush the unrest. The president's signature was visible on one document authorising prison sentences for illegal demonstrations.

In one leaked document marked confidential, the government warned the foreign minister about countries trying to persuade Syrian diplomats to defect.

Al-Jazeera said: "Every evening at 7pm Damascus time, there is a meeting of all the intelligence and security chiefs looking back at what happened across the country during the day, making their plans, making their orders for the next day. These plans go to the office of the president the next morning and he himself signs all the orders, gives the final go ahead."

Al-Jazeera described Barakat as an opposition "mole" inside the HQ directing the crackdown, who realised last month that he had been compromised and fled the country with 1,400 documents, which the TV station believes are genuine.

"My mission was to transfer the information to the opposition internally and abroad," Barakat said in an interview with the Qatar-based satellite channel, which is considered profoundly hostile by the Assad regime.

"Anyone who reads these reports will be shocked, will realise that Syria is living a real crisis: killings, criminality and suppression of protesters. However security chiefs paint [a] beautiful picture in their reports. They ignore many substantial facts on the ground simply to boost the president's morale," he said.

The Syrian government made no comment on the documents, which came to light amid witness reports of fighting in Damascus in which state TV said three "terrorists" and a member of the security forces had been killed.

Heavy machine-gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades echoed throughout the night from the western suburb of Mezzeh, one of the most heavily guarded areas of the capital.

The Revolution Leadership Council of Damascus also reported 35 people had been injured by gunfire in the Barzeh area.

Russian media meanwhile reported that Russian anti-terrorism forces had arrived in the Syrian port of Tartous. Experts sent by the UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan also arrived in Syria to discuss ceasefire and monitoring plans.

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Op maandag 19 maart 2012 20:30 schreef LXIV het volgende:
Nu lees ik op een Duitse site dat de doden in Homs voornamelijk christenen zijn, vermoord door de rebellen. En dat Al-Qa�da in Syri� olie op het vuur gooit met autobomaanslagen.

Net als in Lybi� weet ik niet of het zo verstandig is om die rebellen maar blind te steunen. Vaak zitten er moslimextremisten achter. Assad is helemaal niet zo'n slechte president, hij kan de boel er tenminste onder houden.

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Op maandag 19 maart 2012 20:34 schreef LXIV het volgende:

[..]

Ik denk niet dat het zo simpel is. Het is helemaal niet in het belang van Assad of Ghadaffi om iets te laten escalleren tot een burgeroorlog, dus waarom zouden ze dat doen?

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Verder heb ik mijn sterke twijfels bij de doelstellingen van de 'rebellen'. Zie Egypte.

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Russian Anti-Terror Troops Arrive in Syria

A Russian military unit has arrived in Syria, according to Russian news reports, a development that a United Nations Security Council source told ABC News was "a bomb" certain to have serious repercussions.

Russia, one of President Bashar al-Assad's strongest allies despite international condemnation of the government's violent crackdown on the country's uprising, has repeatedly blocked the United Nations Security Council's attempts to halt the violence, accusing the U.S. and its allies of trying to start another war.

Now the Russian Black Sea fleet's Iman tanker has arrived in the Syrian port of Tartus on the Mediterranean Sea with an anti-terror squad from the Russian Marines aboard according to the Interfax news agency. The Assad government has insisted it is fighting a terrorist insurgency.

The Iman replaced another Russian ship "which had been sent to Syria for demonstrating (sic) the Russian presence in the turbulent region and possible evaluation of Russian citizens," the Black Sea Fleet told Interfax.

RIA Novosti, a news outlet with strong ties to the Kremlin, trumpeted the news in a banner headline that appeared only on its Arabic language website. The Russian embassy to the US and to the UN had no comment, saying they have "no particular information on" the arrival of a Russian anti-terrorism squad to Syria.

Moscow has long enjoyed a cozy relationship with the Assad regime, to which it sells billions of dollars of weapons. In return Russia has maintained a Navy base at Tartus, which gives it access to the Mediterranean.

Last week Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia had no plans to send troops to Syria.

"As for the question whether I consider it necessary to confront the United States in Syria and ensure our military presence there… in order to take part in military actions -- no. I believe this would be against Russia's national interests," Lavrov told lawmakers, according to RIA Novosti.

Russia's Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov denied reports that Russian special forces were operating inside Syria. He did say, however, that there are Russian military and technical advisors in the country.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said the U.S. government had not heard of the reports of Russian troops in Syria and declined to comment.