The "independence flag" is celebrated in "liberated" Al-Bab, 3 August 2012
In the ransacked and burnt-out remains of various security headquarters in al-Bab lie many clues to the means used by Bashar al-Assad's government to stay in power, revealing why life under the regime had become increasingly intolerable for its citizens.
In the widely-hated building of military security, the formerly locked cupboards containing files on the town's "suspect” citizens and how to "manage" them are now all emptied of their contents.
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)
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):
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.
In April last year Ahmad Mohammad left his village in northern Syria filled with its pomegranate trees, figs, and goats, and moved to Lebanon. He came back five months later with a certificate in mobile phone maintenance – a weapon more powerful than Bashar al-Assad's helicopters and tanks.
While he was away Mohammad learned how to upload videos to YouTube – a website banned by the Syrian regime. "Nobody in Syria knew how to do this," he said. In the meantime Syria's revolution snowballed from a handful of protests into a seething nation-wide revolt, characterised by nightly anti-regime gatherings, shootouts with the security forces and a growing number of casualties.
Mohammad had a laptop but no money. His brother lent him some cash, with which he bought a 3G modem and a Sony Ericsson phone from Turkey. Within a couple of days, he had rigged up a high-speed internet connection at his parent's home – the cable sitting next to the vine above the terrace and a pot of basil on a wall.
Last autumn opposition fighters took control of his village. On 10 January 2012, Mohammad shot his first video, a demonstration, on which did a voiceover in Arabic: "Don't trust Assad's reforms, join the revolution!"
The day was muggy and wintry; the picture quality wasn't great, with sepia tones. But Mohammad's career as a video activist had begun.
President Obama on Phone with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, 31 July 2012The Obama administration very publicly signaled a shift in its approach to dealing with the Syria crisis after negotiations broke down at the United Nations in mid-July.
But the actual details of that shift are still being debated internally and the administration's rhetoric has gotten out ahead of its policy, according to officials, experts, and lawmakers.
Those details are being discussed among a select group of top officials in a closed process managed by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon. Within that group, some officials are arguing for more direct aid to the internal Syrian opposition, including the Free Syrian Army, that would help them better fight the Syrian military.
2020 GMT:Bahrain. Speaking before a Congressional committee enquiring into human rights in the kingdom, US Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner has called on the regime to take three steps to implement the "reform" sought by last November's report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry:
First, there are several hundred pending criminal cases related to the events of February and March 2011. Many individuals have been in detention for over a year. The government continues to prosecute 20 political activists and appeals cases are ongoing in the prosecution of respected medical professionals. In addition to the ongoing cases against doctors and nurses, we are discouraged by the Court of Appeals’ decision to issue a gag-order banning the media from reporting on trials for the 20 high-profile activists. We urge the Government of Bahrain to ensure fair and expeditious trials in appeals cases and to drop charges against all persons accused of offenses involving political expression and freedom of assembly....
Second, we call on the Government of Bahrain to hold accountable those officials responsible for the violations described in the BICI report....
Third,...further efforts need to be made to enhance the professionalization of the police. Ongoing violence in the streets between police and protesters points to the need for professional, integrated police and security forces that reflect the diversity of the communities they serve and that adopt a community policing approach.
However, activists have noticed the limits in Posner's call for change --- for example, Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain has noted this exchange between Representative James McGovern and the Assistant Secretary of State:
McGovern: has the administration called for the release of @nabeelrajab ? #bahrain
Tammam al-SaabA peaceful demonstrator to his supporters, a "terrorist" according to the government --- Tammam al-Saab's killing by Syrian forces in Damascus on 20 July has galvanised protesters in the city, writes a journalist in the Syrian capital.
State media announced that Saab had died during one of the army's "cleansing" operations targeting "terrorists" in the north-eastern suburb of Barzeh.
Opposition activists in Barzeh meanwhile mourned the "uncle of the revolutionaries", who they said had led peaceful anti-government protests there and was shot dead by a sniper while rescuing a wounded demonstrator.
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and Syrian President AssadThroughout Damascus, there are small blue plaques with yellow Arabic writing, providing a brief history of an important building, event, or person who once lived nearby. The plaques are not only in the historic medina adima --- The Old City --- but also in newer neighborhoods, such as Sha’alan. Some commemorate the martyrs who died resisting the Ottoman presence in the city during World War I --- they are a reminder of Syria’s troubled ties with its northern neighbour Turkey and the factors which are shaping the response of Ankara, and the "West", to recent events in and beyond Damascus.
1845 GMT:Sudan. Six people were killedtoday at a protest in Nyala in South Darfur, according to a Government source . The specifics of the killings are still unconfirmed, but witnesses have reported that police used batons and tear gas against protesters who were chanting "No, no to high prices" and "The people want to change the regime". AFP reports, citing an eyewitness, that protesters "threw stones at government buildings and burned tyres in the street":
Four bleeding protesters and three security officers were taken away for medical treatment from the demonstration, the witness said.
Nobody was allowed inside the city's hospital where a crowd had gathered outside, he added.
Claimed footage of insurgents in Deir Ez Zor, 2 July 2012
As they stood outside the commandeered government building in the town of Mohassen, it was hard to distinguish Abu Khuder's men from any other brigade in the Syrian civil war, in their combat fatigues, T-shirts and beards.
But these were not average members of the Free Syrian Army. Abu Khuder and his men fight for al-Qaida. They call themselves the ghuraba'a, or "strangers", after a famous jihadi poem celebrating Osama bin Laden's time with his followers in the Afghan mountains, and they are one of a number of jihadi organisations establishing a foothold in the east of the country now that the conflict in Syria has stretched well into its second bloody year.
Saturday, August 4, 2012 at 8:15
