If we show tangible results through reform, then the youth will move towards reform rather than revolution. But without progression and with the government’s denial of the existence of a political problem, the people will go for a violent revolution.
After 42 years of absolute power in Libya, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi spent his last days hovering between defiance and delusion, surviving on rice and pasta his guards scrounged from the emptied civilian houses he moved between every few days, according to a senior security official captured with him.
Under siege by the former rebels for weeks, Colonel Qaddafi grew impatient with life on the run in the city of Surt, said the official, Mansour Dhao Ibrahim, the leader of the feared People’s Guard, a network of loyalists, volunteers and informants. “He would say: ‘Why is there no electricity? Why is there no water?’ ”
Friday, August 19, 2011 at 11:38 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran In a separate entry, we had posted 2 exclusive videos. One video showed what may be the remains of the now infamous bodies that were dumped in a Hama river.
But the video at the top of the entry shows something very interesting, soldiers beating protesters while they are detained in a bus, forcing them to shout pro-Assad chants. Al Jazeera now has an interesting piece of analysis, that the soldiers in the video have beards, and beards are not allowed in the regular army.
1814 GMT: The LCCS has released a statement entitled "Indications of Victory:"
This Friday was one of the most important during the course of the protest movement in Syria. For weeks, the security forces and the military, through their operations, have prevented mass demonstrations. However, in a remarkable step and due to increasing international support for the protest movement and the subsequent morale boost, many protesters have managed to overcome the security and military barriers and begin taking the steps necessary to de-legitimize the government. Despite the Syrian president’s promises to withdraw his troops and end military operations across the country, armored vehicles and tanks have continued to be stationed in city centers. In fact, security backups have been called to quell protests such as the one that occurred in Hirak and Ankhal in the Daraa Governorate, where they have resumed gunfire using both light and heavy machine guns. Today alone, security forces killed at least 22 protesters, including children who were not part of the demonstrations.
In the besieged city of Homs, all neighborhoods, including Khaldieh, Bab Sbaa, and Baba Amr demonstrated in thousands, despite gunfire yesterday and today, and despite the violent military operations in the city for the past week, which take lives on a daily basis. Deir Ezzor is in the same condition, but demonstrations approached large numbers before the military invasion.
The statement also said that there were renewed protests in the embattled regions of Idlib, its suburbs, and Hama, where security once again fired on demonstrators. In Lattakia and in Jableh, the most recent scenes of the military crackdown, protesters also began retaking the streets.
1700 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch (cont.). And for the most distinctive source of criticism today, consider the head of Iran's armed forces, General Hassan Firouzabadi, who has told Fars, "Subsidy refunds and justice shares should not be abused for campaigning."
That is a pointed jab at President Ahmadinejad, accused of using "justice shares" --- dividends from state holdings handed out to the public --- to influence votes in the 2009 Presidential election, and his allies, accused of wanting to do the same in the 2012 and 2013 Parliamentary and Presidential ballots.
1600 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Even amidst the frequent criticism of the President these days, this blast from Ahmad Salek of the Society of Militant Clergies is rather special:
Hopefully the djinns around Ahmadinejad aren't British, Israeli, and Russian....Obama & Netanyahu supported him because Ahmadinejad shares the same beliefs....Ahmadinejad sat at home with 25 million votes [in the disputed 2009 election], but people didn't support him because the Islamic Republic has its own management."
Masked security personnel in effect turned the Salmaniya Medical Complex hospital and other health facilities into detention centers where many injured and sick persons, particularly those apparently wounded by security forces, feared to seek treatment for fear of ill-treatment and arrest and where many medical staff feared to work. Security forces forcibly moved patients, sometimes against medical advice, within and between hospitals and held them incommunicado. Medical staff and families of protesters injured and killed by the security forces were unable to learn the whereabouts of detained patients. In at least four cases, officials in hospitals or police stations later called families to inform them that their relatives had died and that the families should retrieve their bodies from the hospital.
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 10:42 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran Claimed video of Syrian troops joining demonstrators in Al-Bukamal on Saturday (see 0440 GMT)
1929 GMT: Activists are reporting that security forces have used live gunfire against protesters in Daraa, Barza (southwest of Jisr al-Shughour), and in the LCCS is reporting that armed cars, driven by secret police (Shabiha) have opened fire in Homs:
"Cars belonging to armed shabiha roam the besieged neighborhoods and open arbitrary gunfire especially in Bayada & Khaldieh districts, gunfire from checkpoint present at Zenoubia School in Khaldieh"
1922 GMT: An activist has posted these graphic pictures, claiming to show casualties in Sana'a today.
1913 GMT: An in Sana'a, violence has broken out. There are reports of deaths, including a family of five. According to Reuters:
Fighting between government forces and opposition supporters erupted in Yemen's capital Sanaa on Monday, killing six people, opposition sources said. The fighting was the first to break out in Sanaa since President Ali Abdullah Saleh flew to Saudi Arabia for treatment after sustaining severe burn wounds when an attempt to assassinate him was made in June....One clash began when demonstrators seeking to increase pressure on Saleh to quit marched outside a square where they have been camped for months, said the sources, who declined to be identified.
'Hundreds of youths marched out of the sit-in area, but were confronted by security forces and gunmen in civilian clothes who fired on them. They killed one protester and wounded eight others,' said one source.
In northern Sanaa, a family of five was killed by shelling during clashes between Republican Guard forces and pro-opposition tribesmen, opposition and tribal sources said.
1905 GMT: We've often spoken of the 3 fronts in Yemen, protesters v. Saleh, tribes v. Saleh, and the Yemeni government v. radical muslim insurgents, including members of Al Qaeda. As if the situation there could get any more complicated...
Sunday, June 5, 2011 at 9:46 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 2120 GMT: Videos of a pro-reform demonstration today in Casablanca in Morocco --- estimates are circulating of 20,000 to 30,000 in the crowd:
And an image of thousands more in Tangier:
UPDATE 1325 GMT: Pakistan's Geo News has posted that Saleem Shahzad's car has been found with an unidentified dead body and the journalist's identity.
Geo TV is now reporting that the http://www.twitter.com/AleemMaqbool">body is that of Shahzad and it bears marks of torture.
Sources on Twitter are reporting that Shahzad's brother-in-law has identified the body.
Ethnic divisions make it extremely challenging to have a unified popular voice, but what is encouraging is the fact that the Syrian youth who are leading this nonviolent reform movement have made it clear that it is purely secular in nature and they will not allow it to be hijacked by any opportunist ethnic group or opposition party.
It is too early to ascribe the "revolution" label to this Syrian youth movement. But what is clear from the Tunisian example is that revolutions need a spark and it seems Assad has already ignited it in Daraa.
Faraz Sanei, a researcher in Bahrain for Human Rights Watch, reports:
I have spoken to two people in the Shia village of Sitra, south of Manama, who confirmed that security forces, both civilian and police, attacked the medical center there following clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces that began in Sitra at around 11 a.m. Both were at the hospital during the attack at about 4.45 p.m. As we spoke on the phone during calls earlier today I heard shots being fired. I just spoke to both witnesses for a second time and they said that security forces did not enter the center but fired rubber bullets and tear gas inside the hospital. People who had gathered outside to find out what's happening to their loved ones were forced to go inside.
