Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: New Opposition Coalition Gathers International Support

Israeli military video of the airstrike that killed senior Hamas military commander Ahmed al-Jabari

See also Israel-Palestine Opinion: Why Obama's Re-election Offers Renewed Hope for an Agreement
Tuesday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Fighting Escalates Near Damascus and in East

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Today's live coverage is closed. Follow the story at Thursday's Israel-Palestine Live Coverage: Day 2 of Operation Pillar of Cloud

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2228 GMT: Israel-Palestine. The number of rockets fired at Israel may wind up being in the hundreds (it's too early, but clearly many dozens have already been fired), yet the Israel Defense Forces are confident that their missile defense, Iron Dome, is working:

Iron Dome system has so far successfully intercepted 25 rockets fired from #Gaza, aimed at major Israeli cities. #Hamas

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) November 14, 2012

2220 GMT: Israel-Palestine. AlAkhbar reports:

Below are the names of Palestinians in Gaza who have been killed so far in this latest attack by Israel:

1. Ahmed al-Jaabari - Hamas leader - 52 years old

2. Mohammed al-Hams - 28 years old

3. Mohammed Kusaih - 18 years old

4. Esam Abu Meza - 19 years old

5. Heba al-Mashharawi - 19 years old

6. Renan Yousif Arafat - 3 years old

7. Omar al-Mashharawi - 11 months old

8. Mahmoud Abu Sawaween - 62 years old

The death toll is expected to rise even further.

More than 50 have been injured.

Many of the victims appear to be children:

@idfspokesperson These are the people you are killing. #GazaUnderAttack twitter.com/Mohamad_AlAssa…

— وطني سوري (@Mohamad_AlAssad) November 14, 2012

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: What Happened to the Syrian National Initiative for a New Opposition?

Former MP Jawad Fairouz, one of 31 people whose citizenship was revoked by the Bahraini regime (see 0635 and 1125 GMT), speaks with the BBC

See also Syria Feature: Latest on Fighting Among Free Syrian Army, Kurdish Militias, and Regime Forces
Yemen Feature: How A Country Was Lost in Obama's "War Laboratory"
Syria Audio Special: Regime's Leadership Defiant as Opposition's Disintegrates --- James Miller and Scott Lucas with Monocle 24
Friday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Opposition Still Seeking Leadership

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1530 GMT: Turkey. Six leading Kurdish politicians have joined hundreds of jailed militants and activists in a hunger strike, now in its 60th day.

About 700 Kurdish prisoners in dozens of facilities are calling for the leader of the PKK insurgency, Abdullah Ocalan, who is imprisoned on an island south of Istanbul, to have access to lawyers after 15 months of no contact.

Osman Baydemir, mayor of Diyarbakir in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey, said in a statement on Saturday that he had stopped eating. Five Kurdish members of the Turkish Parliament --- Sirri Sureyya Onder, co-chair of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), Gultan Kisanak, Aysel Tugluk, Adil Kurt, Sabahat Tuncer --- were also on hunger strike, he said.

The hunger strikers are consuming sugared water and vitamins that will prolong their lives and the protest.

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Bahrain Special: Growing Concerns Amid Questions Over Bombs and A Tide of Repression

One of the claimed sites of Monday's explosions in Manama (Photo: Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters)

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The fear is that the regime will exploit the violence and tragic deaths to publicly --- and internationally --- justify its current path of repression, rather than reform, evading any accountability and obligations. Equally, regime factions will likely use the conflict to stoke up the loyalist base to ensure that any attempts at dialogue or reconciliation are undermined.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Deaths from the Air

Bahraini police arrest Said Yousuf Almuhafda of the Bahrain Center of Human Rights on Friday

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2125 GMT: Egypt. About 1000 activists rallied in Cairo on Saturday demanding an end to brutality in Egyptian prisons and calling for a ban on torture in the new Constitution.

Aida Seif al-Dawla, of the El Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, told the crowd near the Ministry of Interior that the group has documented 150 cases of torture in the 100 days since President Mohamed Morsi took office in June.

"Oh martyrs rest in peace, the struggle continues," chanted the demonstrators, who hung posters showing the disfigured faces and bodies of torture victims.

The protest commemorated the death of Essam Atta, a young Egyptian whose family said he was tortured to death by authorities in October last year while held in Torah prison south of Cairo.

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Lebanon, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A Day of Rage, 19 Months of Protests and Deaths

Claimed footage of Syrian forces lining up detainees in Deir Ez Zor Province --- activists claim some of those held were later among 75 dead found in a cemetery on Friday

See also Saturday's Syria, Lebanon (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Will a Beirut Bomb Widen the War?

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2011 GMT: Morocco. Mamfakinch reports that police broke up a protest by the February 20th Movement in Casablanca today before it even began, detaining demonstrators who were gathering.

The website names four of the activists who are still held.

1947 GMT: Lebanon. Scenes from Beirut today, captured by Antoun Issa on his camera phone:

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Bahrain Interview: Activist Said Yousif on His Beating and Detention

Human rights defender Said Yousif AlMuhafdha speaks to protesters in Bilad Qadeem last Sunday. (©AP Photo/Hasan Jamal)

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Wednesday was supposed to be a day of fun for Said Yousif and his young daughters. Instead, it turned into fright and tears.

"I was driving to Manama with my two daughters," Yousif told EA. The girls, 4 and 2 years old, wanted their father to take them to play at Magic Island in the capital. But Yousif is not just a loving parent, he's also Head of Monitoring and Follow Up at the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR). So, even on a fun evening with his girls, he finds it an obligation to keep an eye out for human rights abuses. As they were driving out of their home village of Aali, Yousif noticed a police checkpoint on the road that had caused a traffic jam.

Such checkpoints have been routinely opened and closed at different times of the day throughout Bahrain, usually without announcement, since mass protests began in February 2011. They are manned by traffic officers as well as riot police and law enforcement agents in plainclothes, wearing masks.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: "This is What Aleppo Has Become"

Saleh ed Dine in Aleppo in Syria on Friday

See also Syria Video Feature: Re-Visiting the Mass Killing in Houla
Friday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Almost 25,000 Dead as the United Nations Departs

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1915 GMT: Syria. Claimed footage of a demonstration today in central Damascus:

1715 GMT: Bahrain. The funeral procession for Hussam Alhamad, killed overnight by police amid clashes in Muharraq:

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Bombings, Kidnappings, Iranian Drones, A Captured MANPAD....

1910 GMT: Syria. Contrary to popular opinion, there is still plenty of fighting in the Salleh el Dine district of Aleppo:

The battle lines have not changed very much in recent days. In places like Saleh el Dine, the FSA is not making an effort to establish permanent control, as they were last week, but because of this they are still able to enter the district, conduct ambush or "hit and run" style attacks, and prevent further Assad military incursions.

Also, despite all the violence in the city, primarily characterized by intense bombing and shelling campaigns, the majority of the city is still in partial or total FSA control, and there are almost no areas where the regime has been able to effectively send in tanks.

1850 GMT: Syria. The LCC has now raised their death toll to 197. At least 60 of those deaths were reported in Qatana (map), where 60-65 bodies have reportedly been found, some of them burning, in the local landfill. A low-quality video claims to show some of the bodies.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Annan Quits, The Mass Killings Do Not

Claimed footage of the aftermath of regime attacks on the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, which killed at least 20 people on Thursday (Warning: Graphic)

See also Syria Audio Feature: "Annan's Resignation is A Sideshow...and What Is Really Important" --- Scott Lucas with Monocle 24
Syria Video Feature: Fighting the Battle with Camera Phones
Thursday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Is Aleppo Out of Control?

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2040 GMT: Syria. For two weeks we have been talking about the likelihood that the Syrian Army will liberate Aleppo in the sudden push of a massive military assault on the country's largest city. For two weeks, we have been saying that the Free Syrian Army will make Assad pay for every inch of that liberation. Now, however, we need to consider that the most likely scenario may no longer be regime victory in Aleppo.

The roads north of Aleppo are virtually clear of the Syrian army. The area as far east as Kobani (also known as Ayn-al-Arab), and as far west as Dar T'Izzah, all the way north to the border with Turkey, is either completely or largely in insurgent hands. Free Syrian Army fighters have captured perhaps hundreds of vehicles, some of them armoured, and a few of them are tanks.

The FSA has more and more weapons, and has proven it can beat Assad's armour. Those fighters have been hit hard by the helicopters and jet fighters, but have proven that they are strong enough to take those hits. We have now gone many days without a regime victory in the area, and the FSA continues to advance. Perhaps as much of 70% of Aleppo is under some degree of FSA control, while the insurgents are closing in on Assad's military bases south of Salaheddin.

Common knowledge says that the regime will strike soon, but common knowledge said that the regime would retake the city last Saturday. It didn't happen. The FSA won the battles. In fact, there is no available empirical evidence that suggests the Assad regime can win the future battles inside Aleppo.

A quick look at the map tells the story --- the area in blue is area over which the FSA has at least partial control, though this is likely too conservatively drawn):

View Syria - 2012 August 3 - EA Worldview in a larger map

The regime is working against the clock. Since February, the Syrian military has not retaken a single city or town that has been in insurgent control for more than 2 weeks. Reporters on the ground are saying that the FSA is become better equipped and better supplied and that its ranks, both inside Aleppo and outside, are growing.

The regime could make a significant military assault in a bid to take Aleppo back, but it would likely have to be much larger than anything we have seen so far.

Without being alarmist, the most likely scenario may not be a regime assault on the city. Soon, the Free Syrian Army could be poised to take Aleppo --- all of it.

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Bahrain Exclusive: An Interview with Maryam Alkhawaja

Nabeel Rajab gets arrested, imprisoned for periods [weeks] at a time, and yet nothing from the State Department; nothing from the US administration. The situation right now as it is is that Nabeel is in prison, possibly for a little more than two months; Zainab Alkhawaja, who is also one of the most active activists, is unable to walk without crutches for at least six weeks afer she was directly targeted and shot in the leg at close range, which not only shattered her thigh bone, but removed all skin and tore the muscle. Removing two of the most well-known activists from the streets at this time seems to be too convenient right before Ramadan to be a coincidence.

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