Iran Live Coverage: Worrying About Syria

See also Saturday's Iran Live Coverage: Keeping an Eye on Human Rights

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1609 GMT: Election Watch. Another sign that reformists will participate in June's Presidential election....

Hojatoleslam Rasoul Montajabnia, the deputy of the Etemad-e Melli Party of detained opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi, has suggested that --- to see more participation in the election --- former Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hashemi Rafsanjani must be involved without necessarily becoming candidates.

Montajabnia said, "With their active presence in the election environment, the intellectuals and the critics of the country’s officials and rulers will become interested in participating in the election."

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Israel, Palestine (and Beyond) Live Coverage: US Restarting Negotiations?

US Secretary of State John Kerry with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

See also Syria Live Coverage: Regime Rejects UN Human Rights Enquiry
Saturday's Lebanon (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Prime Minister Resigns --- What Next?

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1731 GMT: Mali. Clashes between the army and Islamists killed seven people Sunday, including a soldier and two civilians, after the insurgents infiltrated northern Mali's largest city, Gao.

The army carried out what it called a "clean-up" operation after Islamists opened fire on an army camp overnight.

The city was now "calm" again, an "African military source" said, adding that the army, "backed by French and African troops, had the situation under control".

1725 GMT: Egypt. President Morsi has prompted speculaton and concern, following outside the Muslim Brotherhood's Cairo headquarters on Friday, with remarks on his Facebook page: "If I am forced to do what is required to protect this nation, then I will do it. And I fear that I might be on the verge of doing it."

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Syria 1st-Hand: Life in Islamist-Controlled Raqqa (Abouzeid)

Mass demonstration in Raqqa last Friday

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Raqqa City was once dubbed the “hotel of the revolution” because it became home to hundreds of thousands of people displaced from fighting elsewhere who sought refuge in a place considered firmly in the grip of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Earlier this month, however, the city in north central Syria, which was late to the anti-government revolt, became known for something else: It is the first and only provincial capital that Assad’s regime has completely lost — with the rebels taking control of it within the span of a week.

The regime will likely lose the entire province within days. There are only three remaining regime outposts in this vast eastern tribal area that extends all the way to the Turkish border: there’s Division 17 a few kilometers outside the city; the military airport at Tabqa about 40-to-50 kilometers away, and Brigade 93 in Ain Issa, some 70 kilometers away. All three positions are under heavy rebel attack and government counter-attack.

But here in Raqqa city, some 100 kilometers from the Turkish border crossing of Tal Abyad, the scars of war are faint. Warplanes still rumble in the air, mainly to aid the men besieged in Division 17, but, despite reports from earlier in the month, airstrikes and artillery shelling in the city are now rare.

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Syria Debate: Does the "Free Syrian Army" Exist? (Lund and Debeuf)

General Salim Idriss, head of the insurgent Supreme Military Council, addresses Syrian expatriates, 24 February 2013

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One of the themes in our daily coverage of Syria is the state of the insurgency, from the ideology and organisation of different factions to the supply of weapons to the efforts to declare an umbrella leadership such as the "Free Syrian Army".

Last week, Aron Lund brought these issues into stark relief with a post on Syria Comment questioning if one could even speak of an FSA. Days later, Koert Debeuf replied on the website with a vigorous defence of a leading group directing the

EA's James Miller comments:

Lund made some important points in his initial article. To criticise it by saying that it was an oversimplification would be unfair. After all, nothing is more complex than the "Free Syrian Army", and Lund has produced an impressively concise summary.

Debeuf, however, makes a more important point. The "Free Syrian Army" has never had any meaning more than it does todayinsurgency.

The opening and closing sections of the Lund and Debeuf articles....

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Syria Live Coverage: Fighting in Aleppo and near Damascus

Today's funeral of cleric Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Bouti, killed in a suicide bombing on Thursday

See also Syria Audio Analysis: The Damascus Mosque Bombing and What's Next --- Scott Lucas with Monocle 24
Lebanon (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Prime Minister Resigns --- What Next?
Friday's Syria Live Coverage: Damascus Suicide Bomb Kills 42, Including Top Cleric

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2005 GMT: Insurgent Advance. Claimed footage of the "liberated" town of Saham in Daraa Province near the Golan Heights today:

2005 GMT: Shots Fired on Israeli Troops. The Israeli military has announced that shots were fired at an Israeli patrol jeep in the Golan Heights on Saturday evening.

The vehicle was damaged but there were no injuries.

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Lebanon (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Prime Minister Resigns --- What Next?

See also Syria Live Coverage: Fighting in Aleppo and near Damascus
Friday's Israel, Palestine (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Obama Concludes Trip with Netanyahu Meeting

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Najib Mikati1825 GMT: Turkey and Palestine. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced that he may travel to Gaza and the West Bank in April.

The statement follows Friday's reconciliation between Ankara and West Jerusalem, with Israel’s apology for the killing of nine Turkish citizens on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in May 2010.

“I may eventually visit Gaza and the West Bank in April. This visit would take place in the context of a general effort to contribute to the resolution process [of the Palestinian issue],” Erdoğan told reporters.

1755 GMT: Bahrain. Security forces have fired tear gas to prevent protesters from reaching the house of Nabeel Rajab, the imprisoned head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.

Riot police clashed with hundreds of people marching for Rajab, sentenced to two years in prison on charges of backing “illegal” protests.

Authorities also set up roadblocks to keep cars from reaching the house.

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Iran Live Coverage: Keeping an Eye on Human Rights

See also Iran Feature: Criticising President Ahmadinejad...with 11th-Century Poetry
Friday's Iran Live Coverage: Supreme Leader Strikes a Defiant Pose

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2000 GMT: Threat of the Day. Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of Parliament's National Security Commission, has repeated the Supreme Leader's warning that Israeli cities will be destroyed if West Jerusalem attacks Iran: “Although the Zionist lobbies are exerting great influence on the US administration, the (Israeli) regime will have no power of its own in the absence of the US support."

Ayatollah Khamenei used a New Year's address on Thursday to warn that Haifa and Tel Aviv would be "annihilated" following any Israeli military action against the Islamic Republic.

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Syria Audio Analysis: The Damascus Mosque Bombing and What's Next --- Scott Lucas with Monocle 24

I spoke with Monocle 24's The Briefing yesterday about the suicide bombing inside a Damascus mosque, which killed 49 people --- including the leading pro-regime Sunni cleric Mohammed Said Ramadan al-Bouti.

Listen to interview, from 6:48 mark, on The Briefing's homepage or in separate pop-out window.

We assess the attack: Was al-Bouti the target? Who is responsible? Is this a "sectarian" assault, as at the start of the Iraq civil war in 2006?

And then there are the ramifications and next steps --- can the Assad regime use the bombing to rally support against a menacing, immoral opposition? Can the opposition ensure that this incident does not halt the momentum of growing international support for it?

Iran Feature: Criticising President Ahmadinejad...with 11th-Century Poetry

Poet Nasir KhusrawTabnak, close to Presidential candidate and former IRGC chief commander Mohsen Rezaei, tries a different line of attack against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this morning --- it uses the writing of the 11th-century Persian poet Nasir Khusraw to warn the President that he will receive his comeuppance.

The site writes about the rising tide of criticism of Ahmadinejad, including from his former supporters. It then invokes the poem, a kind of Shi'a karma, in which Jesus sees a dead man and pronounces: "He said that whoever kills will be cruelly killed in turn."

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Israel, Palestine (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Obama Concludes Trip with Netanyahu Meeting

President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu at the grave of Theodor Herzl at Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem (Photo: Getty)

See also EA Video Analysis: Iraq, 10 Years Later --- 5 Points About the "Intelligence" Factor
Israel Video and Analysis: President Obama's Speech in Jerusalem
Syria Live Coverage: Damascus Suicide Bomb Kills 42, Including Top Cleric
Thursday's Israel, Palestine (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Obama Visits West Bank

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2002 GMT: Lebanon. The statement of Prime Minister Najib Mikati as he resigned, citing divisions on key issues and calling for the formation of a national unity government: "I announce the resignation of the government, hoping that this will open the way for the major political blocs to take responsibility and come together to bring Lebanon out of the unknown."

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