Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) Live Coverage: What Happens After the "Friends of Syria" Meeting?

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Sunday's Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Gathering of the "Friends of Syria"

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2040 GMT: A mass demonstration in the Douma suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus:

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Syria Document: Beginner's Guide to The 27 Points of the "Friends of Syria" Meeting

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Photo: Murad Sezer/Reuters)The 27-point summary by the more than 70 national delegations at today's "Friends of Syria" gathering in Istanbul --- the condensed version of the narrative....

The representatives called for a political transition (Point 5) and implementation of the "peace plan" of United Nations envoy Kofi Annan (6), while regretting regime actions, such as the support of violence, that appeared to defy that plan (7).

What to do? The delegations vaguely suggested "additional appropriate measures with a view to the protection of the Syrian people" (7) and "support for legitimate measures taken by the Syrian population to protect themselves" (13).

The most substantial of the decisions was recognition of the Syrian National Council as the sole representative of the Syrian people (10), with endorsement of moves by factions to align with the SNC (8-9). The representatives also called for further sanctions, with emphasis on "prevention of the regime’s access to arms" (12 and 18), and for a daily two-hour "humanitarian pause" to provide aid to Syrians.

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THE STATEMENT

1. The Second Conference of the Group of Friends of the Syrian People (“the Friends’ Group”) was held in Istanbul on 1 April 2012.

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Syria Analysis: "Peace" Only Buys Time for All Sides

Protest last night in the Damascus suburb of Arbeen

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As the song goes, "Peace sells, but who's buying?" The United Nations this UN peace agreement just bides time for all parties involved. With every passing day of that biding-time, more people die, more people protest, and the conflict appears to be further away from resolution, not closer.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Will the US Aid the Opposition?

2002 GMT: A late-afternoon surprise from the State Department. While we could have guessed that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be traveling to Turkey for the "Friends of Syria" meeting, we were not aware that she would be traveling to Saudi Arabia to discuss Syria first:

ecretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will travel to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from March 30-31, 2012. While in Riyadh, she will meet King Abdullah and Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. She will also attend the First Ministerial Meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council-U.S. Strategic Cooperation Forum. In her conversations, she will discuss the full range of bilateral and regional issues, including ongoing security cooperation in the region, as well as the international community’s continuing efforts to stop the bloodshed in Syria.

Secretary Clinton will then travel to Istanbul, Turkey from March 31-April 1 to attend the second meeting of the “Friends of the Syrian People.” This meeting will build upon steps that our friends, allies, and the Syrian opposition continue to take in an attempt to halt the slaughter of the Syrian people and pursue a transition to democracy in Syria. While in Istanbul, Secretary Clinton will also conduct bilateral meetings with Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu and other foreign leaders.

What does this mean? We could read a lot into a short statement, but it certainly means that Clinton is seeking regional unity on Syria. Remember that Saudi Arabia walked out of the last "Friends of Syria" meeting because of a lack of perceived progress in ending the crisis. Whatever the FoS decides, they will look weak and illegitimate without the backing of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and the other major regional players.

1957 GMT: The Syrian government has banned all male citizens under the age of 42 from traveling internationally:

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A Peace Plan?

Mass protest in Jarjanaz in Idlib Province in northwest Syria today

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2130 GMT: A disturbing close to our coverage today --- footage has been posted claiming to be of women executed by regime "shabiha" (plainclothes forces) in Addawia in Homs in Syria.

2057 GMT: An evening demonstration in Kharab Al-Shaham in Daraa Province in southern Syria:

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Crushing the Opposition?

1936 GMT: A prominent activist Facebook Page reports that 106 people have been killed today in Syria, most of whom were killed in Idlib province. There are unconfirmed reports that the city of Idlib has fallen to Assad military forces today. We'd note that the city has been nearly impossible to get any information out of for the last 24 hours or so.

The Local Coordinating Committees of Syria have not released numbers for several hours, but at their last tally, they had confirmed 49 deaths.

1929 GMT: Despite the violence, this is an extremely impressive protest in the Qusour neighborhood of Homs:

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Syria Snap Analysis: Kofi Annan - Lost on the Road to Damascus

See also Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A UN Envoy in Damascus

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The Syrian National Council's Burhan Ghalioun has today condemned statements made by the UN's envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, suggesting that a political solution in Syria is possible, and desireable:

These kind of comments are disappointing and do not give a lot of hope for people in Syria being massacred every day. It feels like we are watching the same movie being repeated over and over again ...

Any political solution will not succeed if it is not accompanied by military pressure on the regime ...

As an international envoy, we hope he will have a mechanism for ending the violence ...My fear is that, like other international envoys before him, the aim is to waste a month or two of pointless mediation efforts.

These statements echo those made by the ranking members of the Free Syrian Army, other ranking members of the SNC, the various splinter groups, many of whom are even more hawkish than the SNC, every contact we have within the opposition, and nearly every single video that comes out of Syria.

Our assessment - We've been wondering if Kofi Annan is in the right country. Maybe he got lost on the road to Damascus, because from what we've seen, there is no chance of reconciliation between the regime and the opposition.

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Syria Feature: Obama Administration Quietly Backs Arms to Insurgents?

We have assessed, based on weeks of reports, that foreign governments and groups have been sending supplies --- including communications equipment, night-vision goggles, and bullet-proof vests --- to Syrian insurgents. We also suspect, though we cannot establish, that foreign actors are ensuring small arms get to the Free Syrian Army.

Now Josh Rogin, writing for The Cable blog of Foreign Policy magazine, gives an indication that the Obama Administration has been or is on he verge of supporting these efforts:

The Obama administration is moving to provide direct assistance to the internal opposition in Syria for the first time, marking a shift in U.S. policy toward a more aggressive plan to help oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Last week, a group of senior Obama administration officials met to finalize a package of options for aiding both the internal and external Syrian opposition, to include providing direct humanitarian and communications assistance to the Syrian opposition,

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Battle of Baba Amr

2127 GMT: A new Tweet by the activist "Sami" who is inside Homs:

Electricty is back to many of #Homs 's districts after 3 days of its cut off #BabaAmr & #Inshaat are still in darkness.#Syria

— Samsom homs (@Samsomhoms) March 1, 2012

Earlier, Sami spoke to NPR's Andy Carvin, and said that electricity, and water, was cut for much of the city.

2111 GMT: Reuters, citing several sources, says that wounded French journalist Edith Bouvier has arrived in Lebanon. French President Sarkozy also told Reuters that he spoke to Bouvier, and she will be flown back on a government plane.

Sarkozy sparked a false rumor earlier this week that Bouvier was free, but this seems like a legitimate report.

2103 GMT: An explosive allegation from a major opposition group in Syria tonight:

Qunaitara: Jabatha: Regime forces stormed the town which lies on Israel's border with Syria. They are not permitted to enter this specific area without an Israeli permission or without the observation of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) . The regime's forces killed 7 citizens during their operation, among them 3 brothers of the Marweed family and one woman with her daughter, as well as a man from the Hariri family.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A Referendum Amidst the Deaths

Residents of Baba Amr in Homs, under siege for the 24th straight day, stage their version of Sunday's referendum on a new Constitution

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2153 GMT: At the end of the day, the two Western journalists who remain injured in the Baba Amr district of Homs have not been rescued. However, the Red Cross did manage to remove three injured Syrians from the besieged district:

A negotiator in the evacuation efforts said they fell through "at the last minute after ambulances had entered Baba Amr" but declined to specify if regime forces or rebels had blocked the operation.

2146 GMT: The on-line magazine Mother Jones has received a document that they say was leaked from someone inside the Syrian government and contains more than 700 pages of names of activists who have been placed on a government "kill list." A series of experts whom Mother Jones shared the document with believe it is genuine:

Joshua Landis, a scholar on Syria who has consulted for the State Department and other US government agencies, said he thinks the document merges the records of several Syrian intelligence agencies in order to better coordinate the crackdown. "This is what a secret service does," he said. Actions allegedly taken by individuals in the document—such as setting up a roadblock near Homs or issuing instructions about how to attack a Syrian military outpost—are "the kind of thing that people get whacked for all the time, or at least tortured for."

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