Reporters Without Borders grants its Freedom of the Press Award to Mazen Darweesh, the well-known Syrian human rights activist currently languishing in jail.

 

News

Russia Sends Warships Toward Syria for Possible Evacuation

Syrian Rebels Battle Palestinian Fighters in Damascus

Richard Engel of NBC Is Freed in Syria The identities of the kidnappers and their motives were unknown. But an article on the NBC News Web site quotes Mr. Engel as saying their captors “were talking openly about their loyalty to the government” of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

 

Special Reports

Wounded, starving crowd ill-equipped Damascus hospital
As the civil war escalates around the capital, doctors are treating up to 100 injured a day at the 400-bed Damascus Hospital and have had to use local anesthetics even for complicated operations, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said. Cases of severe acute malnutrition in children being referred to the hospital from rural Damascus, Deir al-Zor, Hassakeh, Deraa and Homs have risen to 7-8 a month from 2-3 in previous months, he said, and staff and patients have difficulty reaching health care facilities due to deepening insecurity.

What a Bosnian Mass Grave Can Teach Us About Syria’s Civil War
… perhaps the greatest justice could be found in ensuring a way for the international community to act, to prevent such slaughters. For whether they are yesterday’s mass graves in Bosnia, or today’s mass graves in Syria, the sick, sticky scent of death will linger, long after the international community fails to act.

When Assad Dropped the Façade
Given that Lesch has consulted for the American government, and that his access to al-Assad was itself an act of public diplomacy on the part of Syria’s Ba’athist regime, the value of his work is to shed light on the deeply ambiguous relationship between Western officialdom and that regime in the last few decades—and the embarrassing series of about-turns that ensued when this relationship was confronted with the Arab Spring in 2011.

Rubble and Despair of War Redefine Syria Jewel
As temperatures drop and the weakened government’s artillery thunders on, Aleppo is administered by no one and slipping into disaster. Front-line neighborhoods are rubble. Most of the city’s districts have had no electricity and little water for weeks. All of Aleppo suffers from shortages of oil, food, medicine, doctors and gas. Diseases are spreading. Parks and courtyards are being defoliated for firewood, turning streets once lined with trees into avenues bordered by stumps. Months’ worth of trash is piled high, often beside bread lines where hundreds of people wait for a meager stack of loaves.

 

Syria Deeply

Social Media Buzz: Rebels Lose a Charismatic Commander
Abu Furat defected after he received orders to shell a village in Latakia earlier this year. He joined the Islamist Tawheed Brigade, the largest rebel group in Aleppo, and would often pop up in videos from the frontlines, always ready with an uplifting and compassionate message.

Today’s Death Toll:131 (including 5 women and 6 children)

36 in Damascus and suburbs, 26 in Aleppo, 18 in Homs (mostly in Rastan), 17 in Idlib, 12 in Daraa, 6 in Deir Ezzor, 8 in Hama and 3 in Raqqa.

Points of Random Shelling: 256

Clashes:103

Rebels brought down a helicopter in Hassakeh and captured loyalist soldiers in Deir Ezzor as well as a major arms depot in Aleppo (LCC).

In Jordan, officials who defected from the Syrian government announced that they had formed a new opposition group led by Mr. Assad’s former prime minister, Riyad Farid Hijab, one of the highest-ranking officials to desert during the conflict. The group, called the National Free Coalition of the Workers of Syrian Government Institutions, aims to keep state structures intact if Mr. Assad’s government falls, Reuters reported.

 

News

Foreign Minister Blames Sanctions for Syria’s Troubles

Iran warns against Patriot deployment on Syria frontier

Syrian rebels gaining ground in Aleppo, opposition says

Palestinian faction leader Jibril leaves Damascus: rebels

Key rebel commander killed in Aleppo

UN contingency plan to deploy up to 10,000 peacekeepers in Syria – reports

Push Begins in EU to Arm Syria Rebels

UN, EU urge more Syria aid as conflict enters ‘new phase’

NATO says Syrian Scuds hit ‘near’ Turkey

Zarqawi’s brother-in-law reported killed while leading Al Nusrah Front unit

 

Special Reports

A Bread Shortage Is the First Big Test of a Transitional Council in Aleppo
In August, the prominent doctors, engineers, pharmacists and businessmen sheltering here established the Aleppo Transitional Revolutionary Council, a kind of city government in exile for the liberated portions of the city. Mr. Khanji, 67, a civil engineer with a long history of opposing the Syrian government, serves as its president.

Syrian refugees on run: ‘I want people to feel our pain’
“I feel so much ashamed of myself, being in a warm place and having my violin with me and playing music while people have to stand in long queues in order to have something to eat,” he says.

Syrians sounding alarm over growing food shortages
The Sahel al Ghab plain, in Hama province, used to be one of Syria’s richest agricultural regions, producing grain, olives, rice, cotton and sugar. But this year has been disastrous because of the war. Several people from the area said their land wasn’t being farmed because of shellfire from regime-loyal villages.

 

Syria Deeply

Jabhat al Nusra Shows Its Bloody Mark on Aleppo
Jabhat Al Nusra, now a U.S.-designated terrorist group believed to have links with Al Qaeda, still wins fans in Syria for its disciplined, ferocious fighters. It is considered the most effective fighting force against the Assad regime, and its latest film highlighting attacks in and around Aleppo seeks to bolster that reputation. In an hour-long video… Jabhat al Nusra takes us behind the scenes of its suicide bombings and attacks on military bases, demonstrating its craft and explaining the reasons behind what it describes as jihad against the Assad regime.

Today’s Death Toll:106 (including 5 women and 8 children)

49 in Damascus and suburbs (including 4 in shelling of Hajar Aswad and 4 were shot in a funeral in Barza in addition to unidentified martyrs in Qaboun), 21 in Idlib, 11 in Aleppo, 8 in Daraa, 5 in Homs, 5 in Deir Ezzor, 4 in Hama, 2 in Qunaitra and 1 in Hassaka.

Points of Random Shelling: 262

Clashes:109

Heavy clashes took place in Damascus and suburbs, with rebels downing a MiG near the Damascus International Airport. Rebels also shelled the military airport in Deir Ezzor and downed a MiG there as well. In Aleppo, more than 100 soldiers and officers defected from the Defense factories following a rebel attack (LCC).

 

News

U.S. Officials: Syria Has Prepared Several Dozen Chemical Bombs

Russia Steps Back From Envoy’s Comments on Syria

Patriot missiles a warning to Syria’s al-Assad

 

Special Reports

Assad’s chemical card
There are plausible scenarios in which Assad would use CW in a tactical manner against his domestic enemies—and it’s not at all clear that he wouldn’t get away with it. Assad will fight tooth and nail to maintain control over Damascus, while also securing the route from Homs to the coast (an area that witnessed regime ethnic cleansing attacks)… Obama has now offered Assad another loophole with the designation of the Jabhat al-Nusra group as a terrorist organization. As soon as news came out that the designation was forthcoming, the regime rushed to claim that rebels had seized control of a toxic chlorine factory in east Aleppo, and may now use these chemicals in an attack. Such bogus stories set the stage for a possible attack in the future and provide Assad, and his backers in Moscow, with enough to muddy the waters.

In Syria, hunger spreads as war intensifies
Conditions are especially dire in the northern city of Aleppo, where civilians enduring incessant clashes and air raids in rebel-held districts say hunger is a new threat to survival in the 20-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria’s Kurds face uncertain future if Assad falls
The regime’s exit from Kurdish areas has sparked mistrust between the rebels and Syria’s third biggest ethnic group

Syria: a scathingly beautiful photograph of the edge of starvation
Artfulness only adds to this picture’s stark reality. Here is a sinister new chapter in the war between Assad and his people

Under Siege, Damascus Gets Desperate for Food and Fuel
As rebel fighters advance on the Syrian capital, those caught in the middle suffer from food, gas, and power shortages. Mikel Ayestaran on how Damascus residents are struggling to ride out the storm.

The Syria-North Korea Scud Missile Link
One day apart, North Korea launched a long-range missile to much fanfare, and the Assad regime fired Scud missiles on the rebels. Eli Lake on how the Hermit Kingdom helped Syria with the technology—and why chemical weapons might be next.

Russia and Its Syrian Debacle: When the Enemy of My Friend Becomes My Friend
For Russia, there are no good options left. The NCC is made up mostly of academics and dissidents with no military wing, and it has little hope of turning the situation in Russia’s favor if Assad is overthrown. “They have zero influence in Syria,” says Hassan Al-Huri, a Syrian businessman in Moscow who owns the Picasso restaurant and hosted his countrymen there. “If anything, the Syrian people now hate them for associating with the Russians,” he told me after the dinner was over. That means Moscow has no choice but to accept the loss of its last real foothold in the Middle East, says Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs. Says he: “Maybe they have no more illusions.”

Syrian opposition forces say they are on brink of major victory in Aleppo
If Syrian rebels succeed in breaching an infantry school in Aleppo, they will gain some strategically critical pieces of territory, a windfall of supplies, and possibly a slew of regime defectors.

As Syrian Rebels Close In, Assad Has Cards To Play
He still has thousands of loyal troops and a monopoly on air power. A moribund diplomatic process has given him room to maneuver despite withering international condemnation. And the power of Islamic extremists among the rebels is dashing hopes that the West will help turn the tide of the civil war by sending heavy weapons to the opposition.

Syrian Rebel Seeks Prisoner Exchange to Free Hostages
The commander, Amar al-Dadikhi of the North Storm brigade, which has been holding the prisoners at an undisclosed location in Syria’s northern countryside, said in interviews that he would free the hostages if the Syrian government released two prominent opposition figures and if Lebanon freed all Syrian activists in government custody.

 

Op-Eds

George H. Wittman: Syria Backstory
If Assad is to be replaced, who will replace the Alawites?

Michael Young: For Obama, it’s not too late on Syria
… the U.S. must rebuild its relationship with Syrians. This will be important for many reasons: to isolate the jihadists; to have a say in likely future talks between a post-Assad Syria and Israel over the Golan Heights; and to block Iran out of the country, and in that way contain it regionally. With some attention, this is achievable.

 

Syria Deeply

Interview with Robert Ford: The Terror Stamp on Jabhat al Nusra