Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Embassy Attacks Recede, While 164 Die Across Syria on Saturday

See also Libya Opinion: The Lesson of Ambassador Stevens' Last Act --- "The Gravest Mistake Would Be to Write Off The Country"
Yemen Feature: The Story Behind the Attack on the US Embassy
Syria Snapshot: The Insurgents Kill a "Jihadist" Leader
MENA Opinion: Time for Muslims to Manage Their Anger
Saturday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Will the Clashes Around the US Embassies Continue Today?

---

1705 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees report that 113 people have been killed by security forces today, including 47 in Aleppo Province and 31 in Damascus and its suburbs.

Despite the clashes in much of the country, including reported shelling today of southern suburbs of Damascus, the Government has restarted the school year.

State news agency SANA said more than 5 million students would return to 22,000 schools, with only those damaged by war or housing refugees not resuming classes, quoting the Minister of Education:

The Ministry accomplished all procedures in cooperation with the parties concerned for launching the educational process at schools for the 2012-2013 study season and is working to complete preparations in the areas where armed terrorist groups prevent students from going to school.

Click to read more ...

Syria Snapshot: The Insurgents Kill a "Jihadist" Leader (The Economist)

The demise of Abu Muhammad offers a window into the local dynamics of Syria’s bloody conflict and the tensions between the different groups of fighters. Although they often work together, competition for money, weapons and influence has been growing, and religious faultlines are deepening.

Click to read more ...

Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Will the Clashes Around the US Embassies Continue Today?

Friday's peaceful protest in Binnish in northwest Syria against the US-produced film "The Innocence of Muslims"

See also MENA Audio Feature: Beginner's Guide to the Mohammad Film and the Violence --- Scott Lucas with the BBC
Friday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Re-Focusing on the Conflict

---

2105 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees have updated today's death toll to 144, including 65 in Damascus and its suburbs, 23 in Aleppo Province, 22 in Idlib Province, and 15 in Deir Ez Zor Province.

1745 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees report that 127 people have been killed by security forces today, including 57 in Damascus and its suburbs, 20 in Aleppo Province --- among them, an entire family in Daret Azzah --- and 20 in Idlib Province.

Click to read more ...

Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Re-Focusing on the Conflict

The moment that crowds charged the US Embassy in Yemen on Thursday

See also Iran Propaganda Feature: Fars News Makes Up Interview with "Bahrain Opposition Leader
Thursday's Libya, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Extraordinary Death, "Everyday" Death
MENA Video Special: The Biggest and Most Important Protests are in Syria

---

2146 GMT: Syria. Earlier we reported that the Free Syrian Army conducted an offensive against Assad positions in the Saleh el Dine district of Aleppo. We also reported that there were rumors that the Assad military retreated after the battle. Now, we've found many videos showing fighters inside the district today, claiming that they have captured the entire area. But this may be the most compelling evidence.

The video below claims to show the district being shelled, an activity that would not be possible if Assad troops were still in the district. Another video shows fires burning there, reportedly the result of the shelling:

The key to winning any battle is to maintain the initiative. The Assad regime is failing to do that. The FSA is mixing up attacks in the east with assaults on the military airport, and really disrupted the pattern of battle last weekend when they briefly captured a major military base in the heart of the city. The center of the city has been shelled for four days, and now this turn of events suggests that, at least for the moment, the Assad regime is more content to sit back and shell opposition forces than fight them on the streets.

Click to read more ...

MENA Video Special: The Biggest and Most Important Protests are in Syria

Protesters in the Syrian city of Kafranbel hold a placard reflecting the focus of their concerns (Source).

See also Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Re-Focusing on the Conflict
Syria Video Feature: Inside the Al-Farouq Brigade (Mani/Channel 4)

---

The past forty-eight hours has been a tense time in the Middle East and North Africa, following the anti-American violence in Egypt and Libya which resulted in the death of a US Ambassador. However, whilst there have been demonstrations in many countries against the US-produced film deemed blasphemous to Islam by many, these protests have been notably small in number and comparatively peaceful. Widespread regional demonstrations had been anticipated today, following Friday prayers. However at present, despite incidents in Sudan and Lebanon, and clashes in Egypt, protests against the film are failing to rally large numbers of people.

In Syria, the focus is different and the story is different. There, we are seeing large, peaceful and motivated protests against the Assad regime. Indeed, the largest, most widespread, likely the most peaceful, and definitely the most dangerous protests today are in Syria - not elsewhere in the Middle East. While protesters elsewhere are focused on a Youtube video created by an individual in the United States, Syrians are using their own YouTube videos to oppose the Assad regime.

Click to read more ...

Syria Video Feature: Inside the Al-Farouq Brigade (Mani/Channel 4)

---

To its supporters, the Al-Farouq Brigade of the Free Syrian Army is a leading unit in the fight to remove the Assad regime; to its critics, it is guilty of kidnappings and abuses.

Channel 4 features the work of French filmmaker Mani as he moves on the front line with the Brigade. A take-away line from a fighter, "It's not about the army anymore or toppling the regime. It's a sectarian conflict now."

Libya, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Extraordinary Death, "Everyday" Death

1829 GMT: Egypt. As predicted, things have turned ugly in Cairo:

Clashes between protesters and police outside the US embassy in Cairo have left hundreds injured, according to the health ministry, which last put the number of injured at 224.

1535 GMT: Egypt. Anti-US sentiments, protests, riots, embassy stormings, RPG attacks... it's all very dramatic and scary stuff right now...

But really, protests against the US have been pretty small today. Besides Tuesday's protests in Cairo, the terrorist attack conducted by a relatively small amount of insurgents in Libya, and the few hundred angry rioters in Yemen, we haven't really seen widespread protest against the US.

Foreign Policy's Blake Hounshell states what's been on our minds:

Friday could prove me wrong but so far, isn't the real story how small all these anti-U.S. protests have been?

— Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) September 13, 2012

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (12 September): Economic Problems? What Economic Problems?

See also Iran Audio Feature: The Gathering Economic Storm --- Scott Lucas with Monocle 24
The Latest from Iran (11 September): Promoting the "Resistance Economy"

---

1653 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Relatives of political prisoners born in the Iranian month of Shahrivar (August/September) gather to celebrate their birthdays:

1648 GMT: Economy Watch. Shabestan News Agency claims that the sale of stationery has been halted because the price for 70-gramme paper has tripled in price in the past two months.

Click to read more ...

Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The UN Tries Again With Assad

1618 GMT: Bahrain EA's John Horne reports:

A group of Human Rights organisations have written to US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton "asking her to suspend all US military aid to the government of Bahrain because of its human rights violations".

The letter brings attention to the US Leahy Law (Section 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act) which states that:

No assistance shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms Export Control Act to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.

The NGO's cite a series of reports which they argue constitute "credible information", adding that "attacks by the police and other security forces on unarmed, non-violent, pro-democracy activists rise to the level of 'gross human rights violations,' particularly so when the attacks resulted in death.

The letter continues:

Click to read more ...

Syria Feature: Assad's Useful Apologists (Hill)

Sharmine Narwani of Al-Akhbar and Oxford University speaks with Russia Today in August about the Syrian conflict and "so-called massacres"

---

Here's what we know. The Assad family has ruled Syria like its own personal colony for decades. Just like the foreigners that ruled Syria before them, they have been a distant elite, treating Syrians not as citizens but as tools of the state. Many of those Syrians have risked everything to reject the Assad regime, and since the very beginning Assad has responded with bullets and bombs. His promises of "democratic reform" have been a fiction, just like they always were.

Whatever is to become of Syria, those genuinely engaged in trying to "halt the descent into darkness" will only be hindered by those whose ideological agenda is more important than seeking and presenting the truth.

Click to read more ...