Crisis in Syri� #16 Aanhoudend geweld en meer slachtoffers

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Syrian rebels killed 14 soldiers in an attack on an army post in Daraa province on Friday, a watchdog said, a day after the army suffered 92 losses, the highest daily total of the 19-month conflict.
Six rebels were also killed in Friday's attack on the army checkpoint at Khirba in the southern province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that fighting also raged in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo.

The Britain-based watchdog said Thursday had marked one of the deadliest days of fighting since an anti-regime revolt erupted in March last year, with at least 240 people killed across the country, including the 92 soldiers, 67 rebel fighters and 81 civilians.

Of the soldiers killed on Thursday, 36 died in fighting in Idlib province, where much of the fiercest clashes have taken place over the past three months.

Regime war planes Friday attacked two buildings in the Idlib town of Maaret al-Numan, where intense fighting has raged since rebels overran it on Tuesday after a fierce 48-hour gunbattle, the Observatory said.

An AFP reporter said that the rebels, by gaining control of a stretch of highway near Maaret al-Numan, were on Thursday able to cut off the route linking Damascus to Aleppo, choking the flow of troops to battlefields in the north.

In Aleppo province, rebels attacked a large air defence battalion on the highway connecting Aleppo to Raqa province, further to the east, near to the Kweris military airport, according to the Observatory.

"The rebels attacked the air force battalion after midnight and the clashes went on until dawn, but the rebels definitely did not gain control of the post," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP by phone.

Rebels suffered a number of casualties, but immediate figures were not available.

Military airports have been a key target for the rebels as the army has increasingly deployed war planes and helicopter gunships to launch devastating strikes.

In Aleppo city, regime forces pounded the districts of Haidariyeh in the northeast and Sukari and Fardoss in the southwest at dawn, as fierce fighting broke out in Sakhur, Suleiman al-Halabi and Sheikh Khodr in the northeast.

More than 32,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, according to the Observatory, which compiles its data from a network of activists, medics and lawyers on the ground.

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Battle For Syria: View from the Frontline! (English subtitles)

De burgeroorlog in Syri� is al maanden het middelpunt van de internationale diplomatie. Isra�l zweet peentjes, Iran dreigt met totale intifada als het Westen ingrijpt, de NAVO etaleert haar diplomatieke onmacht en Superjan geeft dode Syrische jongetjes een naam. Ondertussen trekt Jan Eikelboom avond aan avond in Nieuwsuur op met de houtje-touwtje brigades van de opstandelingen. Tijd voor een nieuw perspectief: de Russische media. Die zijn nogal pro-Assad. Vanwege Roesiese handelsbelangen in straaljagers, duikboten, vuurwapens en gas. En omdat de enige Ruskische marinebasis in het mediterrane gebied in Syri� zit. Dus als Russische journo's embedded gaan, gaan ze met het leger van hun goede vriend President Assad mee. En dan hoor je ineens getuigen spreken over buitenlandse strijders die in Syri� de sharia willen invoeren, blijken er Afghaanse, Pakistaanse en Libische huurlingen rond te lopen in Aleppo en heeft een Franse Arts Zonder Grenzen het over rebellen met Franse paspoorten. De opstand in Syri� is geen vrijheidsstrijd, de opstand in Syri� is een Jihad. Althans, volgens de Russen dan h�. De Syrische rappers waar de NOS concerten van bezoekt, zeggen natuurlijk precies het tegenovergestelde. Maar linksom of rechtsom: met Lente heeft het in iedere geval weer geen fuck te maken. Update: BBC doet ook nog een hartverscheurende duit in het zakje.

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Op vrijdag 12 oktober 2012 12:36 schreef Piktussendedeur het volgende:
Heeft iemand ook deze Russische docu gezien?

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Bron: http://www.geenstijl.nl/m(...)he_repo_over_sy.html

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British Troops Join US Forces on the Jordan-Syria Border

According to ANSA, the Italian News Agency, “several hundred British soldiers and military advisors are in Jordan to monitor the Syria situation, Western diplomatic sources said on Thursday.”One hundred US troops are already stationed on the Syria-Jordan border.

Sources do not indicate the nature of these US and British troops, as to whether they are regular or special forces. The New York Times confirms the presence of 150 British troops,

“The Times of London reported on an undisclosed number of British troops. The troops have been in Jordan since participating in joint military maneuvers in the past months. They remained on concerns over Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, Jordanian military sources said, adding that French troops might also be in place. ANSA, the Italian News Agency, October 11, 2012)

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Murat Karayilan: Hoping for a Kurdish Spring

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On many fronts in the Middle East major geopolitical and military changes are taking place.

Syria is more or less out of control, and a potential conflict with Turkey is now looming. In Iraq, the fighting continues, and the regime in Iran is facing sanctions and possible Israeli military action.

One group of people straddling the upheaval are the Kurds. You find them in all these countries and they have long fought to create their own country.

So, could geopolitical changes taking place in the Middle East give them a chance to finally reach their goal?

There are an estimated 40 million of them seeking recognition as Kurdish people, but it is not a coordinated effort under one command. One of the most important Kurdish groups is the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is based in northern Iraq. In Iran there is the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) and in Syria there is the Democratic Union Party (PYD).

After seeing reports that the PKK has recently become more involved in attacks in Turkey and after hearing that Kurdish fighters have been seen in battles going on in Syria, we decided to seek out the PKK leader to discuss what he and his fellow Kurds are doing now.

But finding the man leading the PKK in Iraq is not easy. Constantly under threat from Turkish jet fighters dropping bombs on PKK targets, the commander, Murat Karayilan and his team, are constantly on the move, hiding. After driving to an agreed upon meeting point in northern Iraq, however, we met his people who escorted us to a lush area where we finally met him and invited him to talk to Al Jazeera.

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Op vrijdag 12 oktober 2012 12:36 schreef Piktussendedeur het volgende:
Heeft iemand ook deze Russische docu gezien?

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Bron: http://www.geenstijl.nl/m(...)he_repo_over_sy.html

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Syria using Russian cluster bombs, says human rights group

Watchdog claims video evidence shows government forces dropped Soviet-era cluster bombs in bid to halt rebel advances

Syrian government forces have used Russian-made cluster bombs on populated areas in their effort to push back rebel advances along the country's main north-south highway, according to Human Rights Watch.

The watchdog on Sunday pointed to videos put up on the internet showing bomblets from cluster munitions in Idlib, Homs, Aleppo and Latakia provinces and outside Damascus. It said interviews with witnesses backed up the video evidence and there were clear signs the weapons had been dropped from aircraft.

The allegations came as President Bashar al-Assad's government was struggling to stop opposition forces consolidating their hold on Idlib province, on the Turkish border. The rebels were reported to have surrounded an army garrison of several hundred men at Urum al-Sughra, between the contested city of Aleppo, the country's commercial and industrial centre, and the frontier.

"Rebels attacked an armoured column sent from Aleppo to rescue the 46th Regiment at Urum al-Sughra and stopped it in its tracks," Firas Fuleifel, an opposition activist told Reuters by phone from Idlib. He said a Syrian air force jet was shot down while trying to provide air support to the column.

Sunday's Human Rights Watch report said there were Soviet-era markings on the cluster bombs used over the past few days but it was unclear when they had been delivered to Syria. Russia continued to be Syria's main arms suppliers after the demise of the Soviet Union.

More than 100 countries have signed a treaty banning the use of cluster bombs on the grounds that they are indiscriminate weapons and unexploded bomblets scattered across a wide area in the wake of an attack pose an unacceptable threat to civilians. Neither Syria nor Russia has signed the 2010 treaty. Nor have China and the US.

"Syria's disregard for its civilian population is all too evident in its air campaign, which now apparently includes dropping these deadly cluster bombs into populated areas," said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch. "Cluster bombs have been comprehensively banned by most nations, and Syria should immediately stop all use of these indiscriminate weapons that continue to kill and maim for years."

Turkey closed its airspace to Syrian airliners on Saturday, four days after it claimed to have found weaponry on a Syrian Air Airbus flying to Damascus from Moscow, which Turkish warplanes forced to land on suspicion of gun-running. The Russian government insisted the plane had been carrying legal radar components in its hold, but Turkey said the consignment included missile parts. The Russian newspaper Kommersant said the consignment had been sent by a company in the Russian city of Tula, which manufactures missiles and radar equipment.

Following the Airbus incident on 10 October, Syria accused Turkey of "piracy" and banned Turkish overflights on Saturday. Turkey had stopped using Syrian airspace some months previously and its foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said on Sunday: "The Syrian announcement has no value for us."

The Airbus incident was a low point in the Turkish-Russian relationship, which has been severely strained by the conflict in Syria. The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, lambasted the UN security council at a conference in Istanbul for its failure to intervene in the Syrian conflict, in what was regarded as thinly-veiled criticism of Russia and China, which have vetoed any direct pressure on Assad's regime.

"The UNS security council has not intervened in the human tragedy that has been going on in Syria for 20 months," he said. "There's an attitude that encourages, gives the green light to, Assad to kill tens or hundreds of people every day," he said.

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Heat-Seeking Missiles in Syria: The SA-7 in Action with Rebels

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Throughout this year, as fighting intensified in Syria and antigovernment fighters grew in numbers and in strength, it had seemed inevitable that they would acquire heat-seeking shoulder-fired missiles and turn them against the Syrian military aircraft.

This blog had documented the part-by-part appearance in rebel hands of one old heat-seeking system, known as the SA-7. Since midsummer there have been occasional sightings of full systems but none, as far as we know, showing the system in actual use.

Two videos recently posted on YouTube suggest that what had been expected is now occurring.

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Op woensdag 17 oktober 2012 19:52 schreef T_Bag het volgende:
Spectaculaire beelden: Syrische rebellen schieten helikopter uit de lucht

Syrian rebels shoot down helicopter

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Op woensdag 17 oktober 2012 19:52 schreef T_Bag het volgende:
Spectaculaire beelden: Syrische rebellen schieten helikopter uit de lucht

Syrian rebels shoot down helicopter

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Op woensdag 17 oktober 2012 22:47 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

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Die was al in het vorige topic gepost

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Op donderdag 18 oktober 2012 00:21 schreef Frikandelbroodje het volgende:

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Is van vandaag hoor. In Maarat al-Numan in de provincie Idlib, noord Syri�. Het is inmiddels niet echt iets bijzonders meer de afgelopen week heeft de FSA meerdere helikopters en straaljagers neergehaald. Opvallend is wel dat deze helikopter gewoon wordt neergehaald door machinegeweervuur, zijn die piloten echt zo incompetent?

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Op donderdag 18 oktober 2012 00:27 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

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Wat een gelul datzelfde filmpje heb ik weken terug gezien.

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Op donderdag 18 oktober 2012 00:34 schreef Frikandelbroodje het volgende:

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Als dat filmpje niet van vandaag was had ik dat wel eerder gelezen. Bron, link?

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Op donderdag 18 oktober 2012 00:37 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

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Het komt bekend voor, nja mooi fimpje in ieder geval

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Op donderdag 18 oktober 2012 00:44 schreef Frikandelbroodje het volgende:

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Jij bedoeld denk ik die helikopter in Damascus van 2 maanden terug. Die video staat ernaast in t-Bags link. de video lijkt er wel op, maar is in dichtbebouwd gebied en valt niet in ��n keer in stukken. Vrij duidelijk dus.

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Op donderdag 18 oktober 2012 18:36 schreef Perrin het volgende:

قصف بالقنابل الثقيلة على معرة حرمة 18 10 2012

'Syri� bombardeert wijken met vaten TNT'

معرة النعمان_18-10-2012_مجزرة حقيقية 10عائلات اين الاسلام؟

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Op vrijdag 19 oktober 2012 01:44 schreef deleriouz het volgende:

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De nasleep van dit bombardement (LET OP: ZEER SCHOKKENDE BEELDEN)

معرة النعمان_18-10-2012_مجزرة حقيقية 10عائلات اين الاسلام؟

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Among the Snipers of Aleppo

IN the Syrian city of Aleppo, there are neighborhoods that are almost entirely abandoned; blocks of buildings with their facades blown off, apartments open to the street; and other buildings, intact but empty, their curtains billowing out the windows. Broken water pipes have turned roads into debris-clogged rivers. And tribes of cats stalk around like predators; every now and then you pass one lying dead on the ground, its body torn apart by sniper fire.

The snipers, both rebel and regime, are everywhere. The MIG jets are always overhead, and shelling continues day and night. You cannot escape the smell of dead bodies, and it feels as if it is only a matter of time before you are hit, too.

This is life on the ground for the remaining residents of Aleppo. With only this in mind, it is easy to argue that the West should intervene — arm the rebels, help them overthrow the vicious rule of the Assads, and try to create something good from the chaos. After all, the rebels are outgunned, outsupplied and outfinanced. They are battling a force that is aligned with Iran and Hezbollah, and one that commits daily atrocities.

And yet, all things considered, I can’t argue for intervention in Aleppo, or in the wider Syrian conflict.

For a few days in September, I was embedded with the Ahrar al-Sham, or Free Men, rebel faction in the city. These men are fierce and battle-hardened. They sit chatting or sleeping while shells fall all around, and seem nonchalant while lobbing homemade bombs into government compounds. Some taunt the enemy. Others seem almost excited to fire their guns — for them the conflict is jihad, a badge of honor. We sat with one rebel marksman as he followed government soldiers through his scope and laughed as he shot at them. “My throat is full of victims,” he said.

But every couple of streets in Aleppo is under the watch of a different brigade, and while they sometimes work together, they are just as often at odds. I have seen one brigade lay down covering fire to allow another group to retrieve the dead body of one of its fighters, only to see the same two factions scream at each other later in the day and refuse to cooperate in a battle that did not benefit them both. I have met some members of the Free Syria Army who prefer to enter Aleppo illegally rather than go through the gate held by the Northern Storm Brigade, a strict Islamist group under the umbrella of the F.S.A. “They’re not our guys,” one explained.

In addition to great mistrust, there is a general lack of leadership. The opposition coalition in exile, the National Syrian Council, debates from Istanbul but gets no respect from the fighters on the ground. Last month, the leader of the F.S.A., Riad al-Assad, announced that he was moving his headquarters to Syria in an attempt to unify the different battalions under his watch, but rumors abound that he remains in Turkey. Other leaders who have tried to command respect are defectors from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, and they are not often trusted.

Many of the rebels are fighting for a noble cause, and have no motive beyond protecting their homes and families. But it is hard to pick them apart from those who seek to take advantage of the chaos to transform Syria into a Shariah-based fundamentalist state. In Aleppo, I heard Salafi jihadists talk of slaying the minority Alawites, and call for both the immediate support of America, and its immediate demise. These extremist groups are getting weapons from Saudi Arabia and Qatar already; they are not groups that the West would choose to arm. Compared with them, it is not clear that Mr. Assad is the bigger foe.

It would be an error for the United States and the European Union to supply arms to the rebels or intervene on the ground. No one would be happier to see America mired in the country than Iran, which sees a chaotic Syria as the next best thing to an allied Syria.

The most the West can do is impose a no-fly zone under the auspices of NATO to ground the government’s air force. This would level the playing field, giving the rebels space to try to form a more unified leadership near the Turkish border, while preventing the slaughter of civilians and the destruction of more cities like Aleppo. Since the rebels took over an air defense base near the city last week, this seems to be an ever more feasible option. But it won’t be easy: no-fly zones are hugely expensive, and Syria is no Libya; its air defense system is far more sophisticated.

And even with a no-fly zone, it’s hard to see a way out of this quagmire. Turkey has been in discussions with the rebels and the government about the possibility of beginning a peace process, but it seems unlikely at this point that the rebels will stop until they have taken Damascus.

So for all the horrors on the ground, it seems almost impossible that the United States and Europe can do much to help while the future is so blurred and so bleak. As President Bill Clinton once said, “Where our values and our interests are at stake, and where we can make a difference, we must act.”

Despite what I have witnessed, I am not convinced we can in Syria.

New York Times

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Op vrijdag 19 oktober 2012 13:19 schreef Aloulou het volgende:
Saudie Arabie ziet niet voor niets liever het Syrische leger het overnemen om vervolgens de orde te handhaven en af te dwingen.

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Op vrijdag 19 oktober 2012 13:33 schreef UpsideDown het volgende:
Saudi-Arabi� steunt toch openlijk de rebellen met wapens e.d.? Volgens mij zien zij juist liever de soennieten aan de macht komen dan dat de Ba'ath-partij (alawieten) aan de macht blijft. SA is tevens een aardsvijand van Iran die Assad steunt.

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Defected woman general trains Syria's rebels

Zubaida al-Meeki was the first woman officer to quit President Bashar al-Assad's forces to join the Free Syrian Army.

In a revolution that has become associated with masculine bravado and gunfights in the streets, Zubaida al-Meeki stands out.

A former Syrian army general, she became the first woman officer to publicly announce her defection from President Bashar al-Assad's army after seeing what she describes as "crimes and atrocities committed by the regime".

An Alawite originally from the Occupied Golan Heights, bordering Israel, al-Meeki used to work in the army's recruitment division in Bibila, a town south of Damascus that was mostly seized by rebels in August after heavy fighting with regime forces.

Al-Meeki says she had planned to defect and join the Free Syrian Army (FSA) since October last year but was unable to do so because of constant surveillance imposed on army officers by the regime.

"When they suspected that I may defect, they stormed our house [and] broke the front door," she told Al Jazeera. "Then early in 2012, they fired my brother from his government job in the health administration in the city of Quneitra."

But after the FSA took control of major parts of Bibila, al-Meeki approached a checkpoint manned by opposition forces and told them she wanted to join the fight against Assad's regime.

"When she first approached us, we were surprised and suspicious. Here you have an Alawite woman telling you 'I would like to fight on your side'," Khaled, a co-ordinator with the FSA's Jond Allah battalion - which operates in Bibila and nearby towns - told Al Jazeera. "We made enquiries about her to make sure she is trustworthy. We found out she was."

While being suspicious because she belongs to the same religious sect as Assad, Khaled learnt from his research on al-Meeki that most Alawites who were displaced from the Golan Heights were considered second-class Alawites in Syria.

"For the regime, not all Alawites are the same. Those from Qurdaha [the Assad family hometown] are treated differently from those from Latakia, Tartus or the suburbs of cities. Those from the Golan Heights are treated the worst," he says.

Source of inspiration

Al-Meeki believed in the uprising from its first day in March last year, she says, contending that sectarianism is used to distract people from the reality of a popular uprising.

"The revolution gave dignity to the Syrian people and gave minorities a sense of belonging to one country. All of the sects in Syria have suffered so much under this regime," she says.

"When the regime shells towns, the shells do not discriminate between a sect and the other."

After she defected from the military, al-Meeki stayed behind for two months to help out members of the Jond Allah - or Soldiers of Allah - battalion before fleeing to Turkey. She trained 40 to 50 volunteers who had just joined the battalion to fight Assad's regime.

"I spent most of the time in a military camp training people who possessed no military background. I trained them on how to load guns and use weapons, among other military techniques," she said.

Ahmad, a fighter in the battalion, said the presence of al-Meeki in the group was helpful amid the lack of high-level military expertise. She was a source of inspiration for the fighters, he said.

"While al-Meeki did not participate in the fighting itself, she was very close to the frontline. Her courageousness and dedication to the group were very positive for the morale of the soldiers. Most high-level generals who defect usually flee right away. She didn't."

Al-Meeki, who studied at a military college, acknowledged that it is unusual for females to train males in Syria. She says that there were hundreds of females in the country's military but they mostly had administrative positions with little pay or benefits.

Fighting for 'freedom'

Among the opposition, videos have emerged of women holding guns, claiming to be fighting with the FSA, but activists say these videos are merely a show of a support.

"Videos of women battalions or women fighters are sometimes meant to embarrass men who are sitting on their bums and not participating in the struggle," Omar, an activist in Homs, says.

But al-Meeki's case is different.

"She slept in the military camp and wore her military uniform everyday. The fighters respected her and obeyed her orders," Abo Adnan, a Syrian filmmaker who travelled to the south of Damascus to film clashes between government forces and the FSA, says.
In-depth coverage of escalating violence across Syria

"This was very unusual to see," he laughs. "I came to the town thinking the Jond Allah battalion is some al-Qaeda inspired group of fighters.

"But they were not. They treated al-Meeki like an older sister. They are normal people. They laugh and joke. Some pray, some don't. Some smoke, some don't. Some even drink."

Abo Adnan's upcoming film "The Southern Heartlines" will feature footage of al-Meeki training the fighters.

Raghda, a 25- year-old activist in the southern city of Deraa, says she cannot wait for her family and for the rest of Syria to see the film.

"We need to shake people, to show them that women can participate in the armed struggle that emerged in Syria. While I'm only a civilian activist, I'm still stigmatised as a loose woman because I travel a lot from one place to the other to deliver food and medicine."

"Yes, Bashar al-Assad is giving me a hard time, but so are my parents and the whole neighbourhood," she says, laughing.

Al-Meeki, however, says her family is proud of her and of what she has done.

"They watched my defection video on TV channels and they were very happy about it," al-Meeki says.

"I told them to say they disown me after I announced my defection. I was very scared that they would be subjected to threats and harassment. But they categorically refused to do that.

" 'You are free and Syria, God willing, is also free,' my parents told me."

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Rebel Troops Take Two Christian and One Kurdish Neighborhood Thursday Morning (Oct 25, 2012)
Thursday, October 25th, 2012

Reports from friends inside suggest that Aleppo is falling to rebel troops. Both major Christian areas – al-Syriaan al-Jadide and al-Syriaan al-Qadime have fallen. The regime’s largest Mukhabarat station is in the second area. FSA sharpshooters have gone to the tops of all buildings in these areas with no government opposition. The major Kurdish neighborhood – Ashrafiya – gave no resistance. The government had been counting on the Kurds to hold back the FSA fighters. If opposition troops can hold these neighborhoods in the center of town, it is bad news for the government. Regime seems to have cut it loose. (Correction at 3:oo SET – Syrian Army tanks appeared on al-Faisal street, the main thoroughfare of Aleppo that runs along al-Syiriyaan al-Jadide, causing the rebels to make a “tactical” retreat back into the Ashrafiyya neighborhood. This is what I am being told by Aleppine friends who are on the phone with relatives inside both these areas. They put sharpshooters on top of their buildings. One said the family’s Filipino maid fainted due to the loud shooting earlier in the day. People are terrified that the regime may try to strike with airplanes. For now (7:00 Eastern S. Time), an eerie silence has settled over the city. Where will the government try to hold the line?

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Op donderdag 25 oktober 2012 23:07 schreef Slayage het volgende:
patstelling in aleppo voorbij???

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http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/?p=16548

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http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)69b0b5794584b1c13fb3

17:32 BST A rebel fighter's account of events in Aleppo

A Free Syrian Army fighter in Sulaiman al-Halabi district of Aleppo, who gave his name as Abu Yousif, has been describing today's events in the city. He was speaking to our colleague Mona Mahmood via Skype.

He confirmed that the Kurdish district was taken over by the FSA under a deal with the Kurdish PKK party.

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Op vrijdag 26 oktober 2012 10:37 schreef Chooselife het volgende:
Wie legt mij uit waarom de omvangrijke persbureaus het in London gevestigde eenmansbedrijf "Syrische Observatorium voor Mensenrechten" blijven citeren.

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De aanvallers zijn lid van het Islamitisch al-Nusra Front, dat eerder al had gezegd zich niet aan het staakt-het-vuren te zullen houden dat de regering en de belangrijkste oppositiegroep, het Vrije Syrische Leger (FSA), overeen waren gekomen.

Demonstranten
In verschillende steden zijn ook betogers de straat op gegaan om te demonstreren tegen het regime van president Bashar al-Assad.

In onder meer Damascus en Aleppo gingen mensen na het ochtendgebed de straat op. Zeker drie betogers raakten gewond toen de politie de demonstranten wilde verspreiden.

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Op vrijdag 26 oktober 2012 10:37 schreef Chooselife het volgende:
Wie legt mij uit waarom de omvangrijke persbureaus het in London gevestigde eenmansbedrijf "Syrische Observatorium voor Mensenrechten" blijven citeren.

Die partij lijkt me geen betrouwbare voorstelling van zaken geven. Dat feit is zelfs door een kleuter vast te stellen.

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Op vrijdag 26 oktober 2012 10:43 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Omdat Assad het onmogelijk maakt om journalisten hun werk te laten doen.

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Op vrijdag 26 oktober 2012 16:13 schreef JaJammerJan het volgende:

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Wat doet hij dan? Welk bewijs?
Volgens mij zijn die VN waarnemers ook niet van het werk afgehouden, dus waarom wel journalisten?

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'Leger Syri� heeft opdracht elke journalist te vermoorden'

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Volgens Liberation heeft de Libanese geheime dienst gesprekken tussen Syrische officieren opgevangen. Hieruit blijkt dat er rechtstreeks bevel werd gegeven om dit centrum te beschieten. Als hier journalisten bij zouden omkomen, zouden de Syri�rs moeten zeggen dat ze tijdens een vuurgevecht met terroristische groeperingen waren overleden.

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Vlak voor ze overleed, had Colvin voor meerdere internationale media, waaronder de BBC en CNN, getuigd van de gebeurtenissen in Homs en de troepen van president Bashar al-Assad beschuldigd van moord.

Jean Pierre Perrin, een journalist van Liberation die de afgelopen week ook in Homs was, beweert dat het Syrische leger dit centrum bewust heeft aangevallen. 'Een paar dagen geleden werden we gewaarschuwd, en zeiden ze dat we de stad moesten verlaten. 'Als ze je vinden, maken ze je af', vertelden ze.

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Meerdere doden en gewonden door autobom Damascus

AMSTERDAM - In het zuiden van de Syrische stad Damascus is vrijdagmiddag een autobom tot ontploffing gekomen. Hierbij zijn meerdere doden en gewonden gevallen.

Dat meldt persbureau Reuters op Twitter.

Later meer nieuws.

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Fears of new front as Syria rebels clash with Kurds

BEIRUT — Syrian rebels clashed with Kurdish militia in the northern city of Aleppo, leaving 30 dead and around 200 captured, a watchdog said on Saturday, sparking fears of a new front in an already fractured country.

The fighting between armed rebels and members of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), erupted on Friday in the majority Kurdish neighbourhood of Ashrafiyeh, it said.
"There were 30 people -- Arabs and Kurds -- killed in the fighting, including 22 combatants from both sides," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement, adding that Ashrafiyeh was still under PYD militia control.

Some 200 people were captured, all but 20 of them by the rebels, the Observatory said.

Residents said some 200 rebels had moved in to the area on Thursday, announcing they had come to spend the Muslim holidays of Eid al-Adha, starting the next day, in the neighbourhood.

Before they moved in, the Kurdish area of Aleppo had been relatively free of the violence that has plagued the city since fighting between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and armed rebels broke out there on July 20.
Some 15 percent of Syria's population of 23 million are Kurds. The minority has largely remained neutral during the country's civil war, which has sown divisions among its patchwork of ethnic and religious groups.

Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Britain-based Observatory, said if Kurdish militias were to join the fighting, the results could be devastating.
"There are 100,000 Kurds in Aleppo province ready to fight if need be," he said. "If Arab-Kurdish fighting really kicks off, then you can forget about the revolt and Assad stays."
Friday's fighting was the fiercest clash between Kurds and rebels since the March 2011 start of Syria's conflict.

Strategically important, Ashrafiyeh sits in Aleppo's heights and on a route between the city's north and centre.
Over the summer, the army withdrew from majority Kurdish areas, including Ashrafiyeh and several towns on the Turkish border, leaving Kurds with some degree of autonomy.
Rebel fighters are only allowed to enter these areas unarmed and in civilian clothing.

A PYD statement published after the fighting blamed both Assad's regime and the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) for violence against Kurds.
"We have chosen to remain neutral, and we will not take sides in a war that will only bring suffering and destruction to our country," the statement said.
For two days before Friday's clash, the army shelled Ashrafiyeh, the PYD said. On Friday, the FSA stormed a road that cuts through Ashrafiyeh and the nearby Sheikh Maksud district, it added.

"They started to shoot at crowds gathered at the (militia) checkpoints," it said. "They were protesting, calling on the armed groups to leave residential areas."
A rebel group described Friday's violence as the result of a misunderstanding and blamed it on Assad's regime.
"Our Kurdish brothers are comrades in our nation," the Free Syrians Brigade said in a statement. "The problem... was the result of a misunderstanding that was created by a regime plot."

Massud Akko, a prominent Kurdish activist and journalist from Syria, said he feared Assad would use Friday's violence to stir up conflict between the rebels and Kurdish militia.
"While I am opposed to the Free Syrian Army's entry into safe areas, Assad's regime is looking for ways to create conflict among Syrians," he said.
The conflict, which has pitted the regime against rebel fighters since a revolt against Assad morphed into an armed insurgency, has left at least 35,000 people dead, according to the Observatory.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by the West, took up arms in the Kurdish-majority southeast of Turkey in 1984.

http://www.google.com/hos(...)40977de861396ba9.8c1

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Before they moved in, the Kurdish area of Aleppo had been relatively free of the violence

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Op zondag 28 oktober 2012 02:35 schreef me_gusta het volgende:
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1914 GMT: Syria. EA Correspondent Wladimir van Wilgenburg reports:

The FSA has released a statement about clashes against Yezidi Kurdsin Aleppo province, admitting that clashes do not benefit the FSA. In the statement, the FSA promises to launch an investigation and vowed to punish those involved in attacking Yezidis in rural (Kurdish)areas of Aleppo, again focusing on territorial integrity, but also on 'building Syria for all' ethnic groups, religious groups, and sects.

The statement even goes so far as to call the attacks against the Kurdish groups "criminal acts.''

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. Gisteravond vielen bij een aanslag op een sji�tisch heiligdom in een voorstad van Damascus dertien doden

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Syria's rebels fear foreign jihadis in their midst

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Not everyone in the unit was happy with the wedding. "It's you scratch my back, I scratch yours," said one young rebel, Abu Saif. "He's a Salafi, there is no doubt about that," he added, referring to the ultra-fundamentalist school of Qur'anic thinking. "And he doesn't represent what we believe."

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His restless hosts were not so sure. Bound by social customs that offer wayfarers shelter and hospitality, this rebel unit seemed to sense that trouble is brewing between them and the growing band of global jihadis. Many rebel groups the Guardian spoke to this week said a showdown was looming with the new arrivals.

"I give it six months," said one rebel officer at a checkpoint in the old market place in the central Aleppo suburb of Midan on Thursday. "Maybe a year," said another. "I was in Iraq fighting the Americans and I saw how they changed once they sensed they had power."

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Op donderdag 1 november 2012 13:50 schreef paddy het volgende:
Willen die rebellen wel vrede?