Syria Live Coverage: "Assad Forces Using Scud Missiles"

State TV footage from today's bomb in Qatana, which reportedly killed 16 people (see 1015 GMT)

See also Syria Analysis: Was There a "Massacre" in Aqrab on Tuesday?
Egypt (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Stumbling Towards a Referendum
Wednesday's Syria Live Coverage: Uncertainty Over the Mass Killing in Aqrab

---

1556 GMT: The Local Coordination Committees claim that 81 people have been killed today, including 41 in Damascus and its suburbs.

1512 GMT: The Foreign Ministry has denied claims that the regime is using Scud missiles.

The Ministry claims the allegation is a conspiracy by "Turkey and its partners", with the aim of distorting Syria's image and position in the international community. It said that it is well-known that Scud missiles are strategic long-range missiles and are not used when facing "armed terrorist gangs".

However, AFP, citing a defected First Lieutenant, reinforces the claim that Scuds were fired on Monday.

First Lieutenant Aaraba Idriss said he is still in contact with officers and members of his former Battalion 57, part of Brigade 155. He said they had fired five Scud missiles from their location in Nasiriyeh on the highway between Damascus and the central Syrian city of Homs.

Idriss, who now heads the Hassan Battalion of the insurgent Free Syrian Army, said "the missiles were fired northwest at 10:45 (0845 GMT), 12:30, 13:50, 15:15 and 17:10" and may have struck in Aleppo Province or Idlib Province.

Idriss said the "Golan-1" missiles were either Russian-made or Russian-modified" and have a range of up to 300 kilometres (186 miles).

AFP writes that a soldier, who defected on Tuesday morning, corroborated the report.

Click to read more ...

Syria Analysis: Was There a "Massacre" in Aqrab on Tuesday?

Boy Injured in Aqrab on Tuesday>There may have been a massacre in Aqrab. There may not have been. For now, we have rumours that were never sourced or qualified, assumptions that were made, and a story which --- on the basis of today's coverage --- could slip into being ignored.

Click to read more ...

Iran Snap Analysis: Speculating about the Next President

Supreme Leader & Ali Larijani"The most important vote in Iran’s presidential election is that of Ayatollah Khamenei" --- And the Supreme Leader and his office, weighing all the political possibilities and pitfalls, do not cast that vote until late in the jousting for the Presidency and the ballot in June. As analyst Essikhan Sadeghi Boroujerdi summarises, echoing one of our top EA correspondents, "Everything on presidential election is pretty much speculation, rumour, and hearsay till March."

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (12 December): A 78-Year-Old Academic is Imprisoned for Writing the Supreme Leader

See also Iran Propaganda 101: What's Missing from This Story About Detained Journalists?
The Latest from Iran (11 December): "We Have Confused the US"

---

Mohammad Maleki1822 GMT: Economy Watch. Reuters posted an incisive overview of the 40% rise in the stock market in the past four months.

Paradoxically, the market has benefited from other areas of weakness in the economy. Companies in certain exports sector are benefiting, as a sharp currency devaluation has made their goods much cheaper on the international market, provided they are not hindered by restrictions on Iran's financial transactions.

One example is the chemical sector, with Sina Chemical Industries up 145% since October and Abadan Petrochemical up 18% in that time.

The surge in demand for shares has also been fed by high inflation, the devalued currency, and a lack of alternatives for local investors to place their cash. The international sanctions have cut much of Iran's access to the global financial system, making difficult for wealthy Iranians to send their money overseas.

Click to read more ...

Syria Live Coverage: Uncertainty Over the Mass Killing in Aqrab

1946 GMT: Syrian Media, SANA, now reports that three different explosions resulted in "martyring of a number of people and the injuring of others" at the Interior Ministry in Damascus. SANA does not say whether any officials have been injured, though rumors are flying, rumors which State TV has already denied. They have posted several pictures, two of which we post here (click for full size):

Click to read more ...

Egypt (and Beyond) Live Coverage: People Divide in Protests

A wall at the Presidential Palace, constructed by the military and decorated by the protesters that it blocked

See also Bahrain Analysis: 5-Point Guide to Crown Prince's "Return to Dialogue"
Syria Live Coverage: Uncertainty Over the Mass Killing in Aqrab
Tuesday's Egypt (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Protests and the Opposition's Next Move

---

1759 GMT: Egypt. Blogger Alber Saber has been sentenced to three years in prison for blasphemy and contempt of religion.

Saber, an atheist from a Coptic Christian family, was arrested in September after neighbours accused him of posting links to the US film "The Innocence of Muslims" denigrating the Prophet Mohammad. He can appeal against the ruling if he pays $167 bail.

Saber was initially accused of circulating links to the 14-minute YouTube trailer for the Innocence of Muslims. He denied promoting the video, but later faced charges over statements critical of Islam and Christianity which police investigators allegedly found online and on his computer at his home.

Click to read more ...

Bahrain Analysis: 5-Point Guide to Crown Prince's "Return to Dialogue" (Gengler)

Crown Prince Salman's speech at the Manama Dialogue last Friday

---

How fitting it would be if Bahrain's uprising were finally resolved in the same manner in which it originally was not resolved --- with a political deal brokered by the Crown Prince --- an appropriately absurd result to highlight even more starkly how far the turmoil, bloodshed, and political posturing of the previous two years accomplished *literally* nothing.

Click to read more ...

Syria 1st-Hand: A Letter from Aleppo on Deprivation, Islamists, the Opposition...and Hope (Walls)

It is for this child, it is for Hamza’s memory, for the Qashoush, for nearly 50,000 fifty thousand Syrians, young and old, who were murdered in such cold blood by the Assad gangs --- accompanied with the fanfare barked by ugly and cruel herds of mindless loyalists --- it is for the victims, for Syria, and above all it is for humanity that Syrians can’t lose hope. We can’t afford to lose it, even knowing that this regime might and can easily resort to mass murder weapons in its arsenal.... To the scared child I say, sweet child, they have been bombarding us for forty two years. Little by little, they destroyed our heritage of civility. But my sweet child, we will get that back. Granted, we may lose some of our innocence, but from you dear child, we will learn it again....

Click to read more ...

Iran Propaganda 101: What's Missing from This Story About Detained Journalists?

On Tuesday, Iran State outlet Press TV noticed a story by the Committee to Protect Journalists about a record-setting 232 reporters in prison as of 1 December 2012. Or, rather, they noticed part of it, "Turkey is World’s Worst Jailer of Journalists": 

Turkey has been named as the world’s worst jailer of the press by imprisoning at least 49 journalists on terror-related charges, press freedom watchdog says....

The International Press Institute (IPI) and the Turkish Journalists Association (TGC), however, say Turkey has 71 jailed journalists. 

So what's missing from the story? Well, if Press TV had made the defiant leap from #1 to #2, it might have noticed something closer to home.

Click to read more ...

Syria Live Coverage: So, Are "Al Qa'eda Terrorists" Winning the Civil War?

Insurgents celebrate the capture of the major military base near Shiekh Suleiman, west of Aleppo

See Also Syria Feature: Questions About the "Boy Beheads Two Regime Officers" Video
Yesterday's Syria Live Coverage: "A Political Process to End the Crisis is Still Possible"
Today's Separate Egypt (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Protests and the Opposition's Next Move

---

2032 GMT: Another video reportedly shows an eyewitness account from Aqrab:

Zilal translates the video into this basic narrative:

The man says that elements of regime forces did this. [The boy says "Jish," which means army, and the man clarifies that he means "Shabiha", which has become a catch-all term for pro-Assad armed forces]. Also the second injured boy is saying that "shabiha" were responsible. The man says that there are still 300 people in the hands of shabiha and that probably the shabiha will kill them to accuse the FSA of the crime.

And the child replies that these 300 people have already all been killed.

At the end of the video the man says that these two children, another little girl, and a woman are all under his protection and under the protection of FSA and he calls for the Red Cross to come in order to treat them and take their version of the events. Then he says the date and location (Houla, 11 December 2012).

Storyful's Felim McMahon sends me another eyewitness report, written in Arabic. Another source sends us this narrative, which we believe is just a translation:

The Free Syrian Army surrounding a building belonging to the shabiha in Aqrab village, in which the regime forces had taken women and children captive. They intended on using the civilians as human shields to protect themselves from an attack by the FSA. Afterwards, some of the leaders of the village, including Shaikh Ali al-Omar and Shaikh Saa'do Hamash and the retired Colonel Shaker Akkash, [were in] a group of eight people who went to negotiate the release of the women and children, and to ask the regime forces to turn themselves in, promising their safety. The leaders were kidnapped in an attempt to pressure the FSA, and thus the FSA retreated. Afterwards, the shabiha killed the leaders and threw hand grenades at the women and children who were trying to escape. They took advantage of the FSA's retreat by leaving the building and blowing it up, attempting to frame the FSA for this operation. They also fired missiles at the building, and an air raid on the area left it completely destroyed, killing the 200-250 civilians (including women and children) inside. Some of the wounded Alawites, women and children, were evacuated, and verified this report.

Click to read more ...