Today’s Death toll: 163. The Breakdown: Toll includes 13 children and 7 women: 72 in Damascus and Suburbs, 50 in Idlib (most in the shelling of Maaret Al-Nouman and dozens in Saraqeb and Kafar Batekh), 13 in Aleppo, 12 in Homs, 7 in Daraa, 5 in Hama, 2 in Deir Ezzor and 2 in Lattakia (LCC).

The rebel hold on Maaret al-Numan has disrupted the regime’s ability to send supplies and reinforcements to Aleppo, where government forces have been bogged down since July in a bloody fight for control of Syria’s largest city. Rebel advances over the past week in Aleppo have added urgency to opening the route.

… over the last several months, according to U.S. officials and Syrian opposition figures, the State Department has worked to broaden its contacts inside the country, meeting with military commanders and representatives of local governance councils in a bid to bypass the fractious SNC… The new council is an attempt to change that dynamic. Dozens of Syrian leaders will meet in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Nov. 3 and hope to announce the new council as the legitimate representative of all the major Syrian opposition factions on Nov. 7, one day after the U.S. presidential election. The Obama administration sees the new council as a potential interim government that could negotiate with both the international community and the Syrian regime. The SNC will have a minority stake in the new body, but some opposition leaders are still skeptical that the effort will succeed.

Jacques Bérès, combat zone field surgeon; Mario Bettati, professor emeritus of international law; André Glucksmann, philosopher; Bernard Kouchner, former minister; Bernard-Henri Lévy, philosopher, director of the review “La Règle du jeu”, member of the supervisory board of “Le Monde”: Enough Evasion, We Must Intervene in Syria!

It is precisely when one judges, as we do, that the dictatorship of the Assads is deservedly doomed and Islamist fundamentalism constitutes a major danger for the country’s future that the duty to protect is imperative. And related to and as imperative as this duty to protect is the duty to ensure the security of all elements, all the constituant minorities of the Syrian people. What is at stake goes beyond the fate of Syria.

Ammar Abdulhamid & Khawla Yusuf: The Shredded Tapestry: The State of Syria Today