Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Disputing a Car Bomb in Damascus

2045 GMT: Syria. Despite all the violence, there are still protests, and those protests offer a united front against the Syrian government. It is the protests that first drew the fire of the regime, and it was the protests that first gave credence to the slogan "the people want the execution of the President," and it was the protests that first gave the Free Syrian Army legitimacy in the first place. Because of the violence, protests are smaller and less frequent - but even after more than 22,000 deaths, they are never far away.

The LCC posts a video claiming to show a night protest in Harasta, a suburb of Damascus where bombs and shells have fallen for days (map):

2015 GMT: Afghanistan. Yet another "Green on Blue" attack, where Afghanistan forces fire on NATO soldiers:

Click to read more ...

Bahrain Interview: The Life and Death of 16-Year-Old Hussam AlHaddad

His cousin thought he had a bright future ahead of him. His entire family thought so. He knew it.

That future is now gone. Instead Hussam AlHaddad is in a graveyard in Muharraq, leaving everyone to wonder how a life so precious could be lost.

Shock is perhaps the first word that one hears when speaking to Hussam's family about his death. What's gripped them is a profound sense of helplessness at how quickly fate turned on him --- on Friday, 17 August, his body was carried onto an ambulance in Muharraq, after he was hit by shotgun pellets and then allegedly kicked and beaten up on the street by more than half a dozen men.

According to authorities, Hussam was a masked "rioter", involved in a "terror act" which put the lives and safety of Bahraini security forces at risk by throwing Molotov bombs at them. His cousin, Hussein AlHaddad, differs.

Click to read more ...

Syria Snapshot: The Defecting Senior Officers in Jordan's Camps (Halaby/Gavlak)

A UN-Run Refugee Camp in JordanIn an isolated stretch of Jordanian desert, a heavily guarded, secret compound houses 1,200 senior police and army officers who defected from nearby Syria.

The men live in trailers with fans but no air conditioning, surrounded by barbed wire, and they pass their days browsing the Internet and watching TV for news of Syria's civil war, longing to join the fight --- but they are largely unable to leave.

Click to read more ...

Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Bloodletting in Damascus Intensifies

An Assad helicopter shot out of the skies over Damascus

See also U.S. Audio Feature: James Miller Talks US Arms Sales with Monocle 24
Monday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Will a Few Thousand Deaths Change Anything?

---

2115 GMT: Syria. Claimed footage of the Free Syrian Army shortly after they captured a missile facility:

The opening statement, from a unit of the FSA in the Damascus suburb of "Eastern Ghouta", says a group stormed a rocket maintenance and modification base in the area of Iftrees, finding rockets in a ready-to-launch state and clamed some had been modified to carry unconventional warheads.

According to the statement, "It is not unlikely for the regime to resort to using rockets with unconventional warheads such as chemical, biological or other warheads. The Higher Military Council calls upon Arab nations and the international community to rapidly intervene militarily to save the lives of Syrians before this regime takes revenge with a new level of crime that would have catastrophic consequences on the entire region."

However, Brown Moses, analysing this video from the base, questions the unconventional warfare claim: "What we can see in this video are SA-5 surface to air missiles....It also seems very unlikely these missiles would actually be any use to the FSA without the correct equipment and training, as well as enough time to move them to a safe location before the Syrian Army responded."

Click to read more ...

U.S. Audio Feature: James Miller Talks US Arms Sales with Monocle 24

http://goo.gl/XsVBo EA's James Miller speaks with Monocle 24 about US arms sales. This past year, the United States drastically increased arms sales last year. While the US is often the number 2 or 3 seller of global arms, in the last year the US accounted for 79% of global arms sales, with the majority of those arms being sold to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies...

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (28 August): The Propaganda Display at the Summit

The car in which an Iranian nuclear scientist was killed is displayed atop a platform at the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Conference Center (Photo: Barbara Slavin)

See also The Latest from Iran (27 August): Meanwhile, Away from the Non-Aligned Summit....

---

2035 GMT: Sedition Watch. Yadollah Javani, the head of the Political Bureau of the Revolutionary Guards, has declared that former President Mohammad Khatami was the head of the 2009 "sedition" and pronounced that the system will not allow him 2 run for office again.

1900 GMT: Tough Talk of the Day. General Massoud Jazayeri, the deputy head of armed forces, has said the Islamic Republic will hit back at the blocking of Iran's assets by the US:

If it takes 50 years, we will take back the frozen assets in the US even if by force.

The blocking of the assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran is economic terrorism and financial theft in which, unfortunately, the US is adroit like in other forms of terrorism and physical elimination of human beings.

They should be sure that we will seize back our assets from the Great Satan. It will not take long before the tables are turned to Iran's interests and the evil regime of the US will have to give many times more than Iran's frozen assets back [to the Islamic Republic] and the American people should take note of this issue.

Click to read more ...

EA on the Road: Summer Break in the US South

I'm off to Georgia in the American South on a 10-day break, seeing family and enjoying baseball and stock-car racing. While I'm away, James Miller and John Horne will be keeping watch at EA.

I will be checking in each morning --- early afternoon in Britain, Europe, and the Middle East and Iran --- but Live Coverage will be limited at times. So I thank readers in advance for bringing in latest news and ideas through our Comments section. To ensure your comment shows up immediately, be sure to sign up with the Disqus system.

Best wishes to all and I'll see you from the Heart of Dixie.

Israel-Palestine 1st-Hand: Former Soldiers Break Silence About Treatment of Palestinian Children

Israeli border guard kicks a Palestinian child, July 2012

---

On your first arrest mission, you’re sure it’s a big deal, and it’s actually bullshit. You enter the Abu Sneina (Hebron) neighborhood and pick up three children. After that whole briefing, you’re there with your bulletproof vest and helmet and stuck with that ridiculous mission of separating women and children. It’s all taken so seriously and then what you end up with is a bunch of kids, you blindfold and shackle them and drive them to the police station at Givat Ha’avot. That’s it, it goes on for months and you eventually stop thinking there are any terrorists out there, you stop believing there’s an enemy, it’s always some children or adolescents or some doctor we took out. You never know their names, you never talk with them, they always cry, shit in their pants.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (27 August): Meanwhile, Away from the Non-Aligned Summit....

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi addressed the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement on Sunday

---

1941 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Saudi Front). There had been signs this month of an Iranian-Saudi accommodation, with President Ahmadinejad going to Riyadh for the extraordinary meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and a Saudi delegation coming to Tehran for the Non-Aligned Movement's summit.

This, however, does not appear to be part of the rapprochement --- former Minister of Culture Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi has reportedly said the Saudi king drinks wine, hates Shiites, and propagates filthy Wahhabism.

1915 GMT: Economy Watch. Fakhrollah Molaei, Deputy Minister of Industry, has stated that the Iranian economy is suffering a serious lack of liquidity, with 68% of Iran's production units lacking the required capital to operate effectively. A weak domestic market, disagreements between trading partners, and shortages of raw resources or machinery were secondary problems identified by Molaei as being significant.

Click to read more ...

Syria Snap Analysis: The Escalation of Death --- What Comes Next?

An edition of Al Jazeera English's Inside Story asks, "Is Syria in a State of Civil War?"

---

Perhaps the most pressing question on everyone's mind is what the world will do about the deepening crisis. While there are new initiatives being launched by Turkey, Iran, and some of Syria's other neighbours, there is no idea what these will be or whether they will have any chance of success. The reaction of the West, particularly the US, has been described as "deafening silence" by many. Even worse, the escalation of the amount of deaths and the level of brutality used by the Assad regime seems to correspond to statements made by US President Barack Obama suggesting that the only trigger for US intervention would be the use or endangerment of Syria's chemical weapons supplies. It is even being argued by some that this statement gave the Assad military the green light to use any means necessary of beating back the insurgency to ensure that those stockpiles were never threatened enough to make Washington nervous.

Click to read more ...