Egypt, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Which Story Leads in Cairo?
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 10:54 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran Protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Tuesday night
See also The Real Net Effect: Egypt, Dissent, and the #FreeMona Perfect Storm
Egypt Analysis: Assessing the Elections
Tuesday's Egypt LiveBlog: A Big Turnout and Some Glitches in the Elections
Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Protest in the Heart of Damascus
2125 GMT: Josh Shahryar has done a great job wrapping up our Egypt coverage in the previous update, and we'll close the blog looking forward. By tomorrow, we should see the fuller results, and we'll watch as the nation, and the political parties, react. Suffice it to say, the Islamists did quite well, though with no single party likely to hold a majority, we'll most likely be looking at a coalition government. Then Egypt will have to learn the first lesson of Democracy - how to govern when not everyone agrees.
In Syria, we started by looking to Turkey, as new sanctions were announced today, but the big stories were closer to home. With tanks storming Dael, a mass-shooting in Idlib, and large student demonstrations in Aleppo, today was just another sign that this conflict is hardly isolated to Homs and Hama. Assad's problems are everywhere.
Which brings up the next point. Idlib has not seen violence like this in many weeks, though protests have steadily been growing there. Dael had zero military presence at the start of the day, and the army had to deploy dozens of tanks, armored vehicles, buses, and perhaps as many as 1000 soldiers to the city in order to commence a new crackdown. Aleppo, once untouchable, has seen protests of some sort nearly every day for the last week. Assad has problems, but he does not have forces everywhere he has problems, and even where he thinks he does not have problems he has problems.
As evidence of this, the LCCS has posted this video, reportedly showing the military bombardment of Rankous, north of Damascus. Two weeks ago we did not know where this town was, but since then we've seen an increased presence of protests, and now several days of bombardment:
And we've seen yet another crack in Assad's armor, as a large army unit defected today in Idlib. So even within Assad's forces, his trusted solution, he still has problems.