Crisis in Syrië #16 Aanhoudend geweld en meer slachtoffers

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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 Syrië 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 Syriërs 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 sjiïtisch 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?