Syria, Yemen (And Beyond): Switching From West to East

The scene at the "victory party" outside of the Al Nahda party headquarters in Tunisia

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2216 GMT: A protest in the Damascus suburb of Zamalka tonight:

And a march from the Al-Rifai mosque in Kafarsouseh:

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Syria, Yemen (And Beyond): Two Cities Burning in Two Countries

Houses burn after they were lit on fire, reportedly by regime supporters, in Ahlbit in Syria's Idlib Province on Monday

See also Syria Video Special: Homs is Still Burning
Yemen Feature: Drones & the Killing of an American Teenager
Monday's Tunisia, Libya, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Election, Liberation, Protest

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1920 GMT: A couple of the protest videos from Syria tonight --- the Ghouta and Qosour districts of Homs:

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Syria Video Special: Homs is Still Burning

On Friday we documented the Syrian military assault on Homs, a city of 1.2 million civilians. The noose has been tightening for weeks, as the Syrian military first laid siege to Al Rastan, and many of the other suburbs, but what has happened since Friday can only be described as the slow destruction of the third largest city in Syria.

The siege did not end on Friday. On Saturday, the Syrian military rolled tanks into the center of the city, intimidating residents and making many arrests. But on Sunday, and again today, the artillery and tank shells once again ripped through the streets and exploded over the rooftops.

We don't wish to give the impression that the syrian military's brutal tactics are limited to Homs, but the city has become a symbol, of sorts, of what the Assad regime is capable of, the lengths they are willing to go to to cling to power.

Below is a collection of videos from Monday, Sunday, and Friday. If the media is unwilling to catalog the attack on the city of Homs, then EA will gladly follow the story:

This is just a small sampling of the videos that we have seen.

See Also, Syria Video Essay: The Military Assault on Homs

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Monday

Deir Bielbe, Homs. Before the tank fires, you can hear children scream, and nearby gunfire:

Deir Bielbe, Homs. Gunfire and explosions can be heard, while several of the buildings and vehicles appear to have been destroyed by shelling. Some protesters point out the spent ammunition on the ground. At the end of the video, a tank can be seen rolling through the streets:

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Syria Video Essay: The Military Assault on Homs

Homs is a city of 1.2 million people, larger than Washington DC and Boston combined. For weeks, it has been the target of a large scale military campaign. Syrian soldiers have defected, and have been hiding, and fighting, in the suburbs and rural pieces of Homs, but now, according to many eyewitness reports, and the claims of the videos below, it seems that the Syrian military, loyal to President Bashar al Assad, is targeting the entire city, with minimal discrimination and maximum malice. Communication has largely been cut, but activists are already reporting that at least 114 civilians have been killed and 2100 arrested this month alone in Homs.

These are the scenes of the shelling, and the aftermath, of the assault on Homs on Friday, October 21, 2011:

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The Shelling

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Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: 360 Degrees of Homs on Fire

The Bab Amr District of Homs, Syria, is targeted by heavy machine guns, tank shells, and anti-personnel shells that explode overhead See Also, Syria Video Essay: The Military Assault on Homs

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1933 GMT: James Miller posts a video essay evaluating the assault by the Syrian military on the city of Homs and its aftermath.

1921 GMT: EA's source in Bahrain writes this report of what happened today:

Just came back from my last round in Bahrain. On my way out I saw groups of protesters (men and women) marching in Sitra, 7 villages, police vehicles chasing some of them. The roads looked like a war zone, sounds of horns honking the famous tune, "Tn.Tn.Ttn," AKA "down down Hamad" could be heard all around from protesters who were in the streets or up the roofs of the houses.

After managing to find a way out, I took the highway leading to the Saudi causeway. Police jeeps and traffic officers where all parking on both sides of the highway & at some checkpoints in the entrances to the villages. I noticed that the turn leading to Budayeh road (north of Bahrain) was open so I took it, and tried to get inside some of the villages there, like Karanah or Janosan, but it was no use. They were either blocked by police or by barriers that had been placed by protesters. So I had to go back from where I came.

I went back and took another road leading to east the of Bahrain. On my way I saw a group of protesters blocking the other lane of the highway near Athari village (police jeeps were just about 300m away!!). They used bricks, wood plats and 1 of them was pouring on the ground some kind of liquid -I think it was used car oil- they were fast and ran away immediately once they completed!

So I just contined on my way. I saw police SUVs heading toward the blocked road. I reached Juffair village, and I noticed the remainings of the roadblock that was done early this morning. There was a police SUV parked next to the scene, seems it was there to prevent protesters from doing it again, I continued until I reached Seef area (the place where protesters were determined to reach and gather). It was full, but with police thugs, not with protesters.

It's the last day of the weekend, people usually go out, malls are suppose to be full, but two main malls, Bahrain mall & Dana mall, were closed, and the other 2 big ones, Seef & City Center, the parking lots were almost empty!

That's when I decided to get back home, it's true that we couldn't reach the center point which we planned to gather in, but for sure and thanks to the huge security presence in all around Bahrain roads I can say with certainty that the Bahrain revolution is still alive and people are defiantly not going to give up. Government fears us, it fears our existence and fears our truthful movement for freedom and dignity.

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Syria Video Special: "We'll Continue until the Regime is Toppled"

Today was busy, and with so many dramatic pictures, videos, and nuggets of news, the scale of the protests can easily be overlooked. In the liveblog, we have focused on the violence, but what occurred this Friday, like many others, was another mass demonstration of peaceful protesters, in nearly every corner of the country, demanding the resignation of those responsible for the violence.

See Also, Syria, Bahrain, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Watching the Protests

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7. Homs at Night

6. Homs by Day

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Syria Special: Syrian Ambassador to US Responds to Accusations

As we noted yesterday, the Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, Imad Moustapha, spoke on NPR, and he tells a very different story than the evidence that we have collected here. In our conversation with NPR's Andy Carvin and Foreign Policy's Blake Hounshell, none of us have seen any video evidence that would support the Syrian government's claims, despite the fact that Moustapha claims there are hundreds of videotapes that the Syrian government has collected which show armed gangs killing innocent civilians.

Below we have posted the audio, one of our favorite excerpts (of which we have hundreds or thousands of counterexamples), and a link to the full transcript.

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Syria, Libya (and Beyond) Liveblog: Protests in Homs Defy Violence

1859 GMT: This video reportedly shows the aftereffects of the shelling of Jabal al Zawiya, Idlib province, by Syrian forces yesterday. Cars are on fire, bullet casings litter the ground, and a nearby house is ransacked:

1836 GMT: This video, reportedly taken today, shows women in Taiz, Yemen, chanting, "Oh Sanaa revolt revolt, towards the Presidential Palace."

1748 GMT: More video, reportedly showing protests in Hama today. One of the signs clearly reads, "SOS."

1744 GMT: Now Lebanon describes this video: "A YouTube video purportedly filmed on Thursday in the Homs area of Bab al-Sibaa shows many soldiers deploying on the street as gunfire can be heard in the background":

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Syria, Libya (and Beyond) Liveblog: Homs Under Siege

1939 GMT: More video claiming to show protests in Al Kiswah, Syria:

1929 GMT: Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to the UN, spoke with NPR today. (Audio will be available here after 6 PM ET). NPR's Andy Carvin gives us a rolling a transcript, with commentary, including a back and forth with EA's James Miller and Foreign Policy's Blake Hounshell, via Twitter:

Syrian ambassador to US: "Extreme fundamentalist Muslims are waging a war of insurgency" against

Syria ambassador: We've allowed reporters into Syria "time and again." Hmm.

Syrian ambassador on Syrians: "What unites us is far more than what divides us apart."

Syrian amb to man who says brother was killed. "This is unfortunate and I don't want to spend my time discussing preposterous stories."

Syrian man not buying it; he argues back. Ambassador ignores comments, complains media gives license to false stories.

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Syria Special: Syria’s Sons of No One (Shadid)

Abdullah (left) and Ahmed in a safe house in Homs, Syria.Abdullah, a 26-year-old computer engineer and pious Muslim, is a wanted man. He joined the first protest in Homs in March, and since then he has emerged as one of the dozen or so leaders of the youth resistance. His savvy with technology has made him a target for the police, and this was the fifth place he had slept in in less than a week. He hadn’t been to his family’s home in two months. Around his neck he wore a tiny toy penguin that was actually a thumb drive, which he treated like a talisman, occasionally squeezing it to make sure it was still there. I sat next to him on the mattress and watched as he traded messages with other activists on Skype, then updated a Facebook page that serves as an underground newspaper, then marked a Google Earth map of Homs with the spots of the latest unrest. “If there’s no Internet,” Abdullah said, “there’s no life.”

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