“Yeah!”

The battles in Damascus City represent a serious escalation on part of rebel groups. In time, the regime will lose control of certain outlaying neighborhoods, such as Al-Qaboun, Al-Tadamon, Al-Hajar Al-Aswad, Al-Qadam and the Yarmouk Camp, but it will remain entrenched in the center for a while, and will use massive fire power to wreak havoc on rebel-held areas. In short, we are heading towards an Aleppo-style stand-off in Damascus.  

Today’s Death Toll: 161 martyrs (including 13 women, 8 children and 1 martyr under torture). 68 in Hama (most of them were martyred in an explosion in Salamiya Munition Factory), 33 in Damascus and Suburbs, 28 in Homs, 14 in Aleppo, 6 in Daraa and 2 in Raqqa (LCCs).

Points of Random Shelling: 366 points, 8 points were shelled by warplanes, 4 points by barrel bombs, 4 points by Cluster Bombs and 1 points (Eastern Ghouta) by Thermobaric Balloons

Artillery shelling was reported in 149 points, mortar shelling in 117 points and missile shelling in 83 points (LCCs).

Clashes: 169 locations. Successful operations include blocing an attmpt by regime forces to wrest control of Port Said Neighborhood in Damascus City, and asserting full control of Harmala checkpoint in Jobar Suburb. In Raqqa, FSA rebels took control of the Alam checkpoint in Raqqa city (LCCs).

News

Fight Expands in Damascus as Diplomatic Hopes Sink The expanded mayhem, described as some of the worst fighting to afflict Damascus in months, offered further indication that any hope for a diplomatic resolution to the nearly two-year-old conflict has all but evaporated.

Syrian jets bomb Damascus ring road to halt rebel push Warplanes fired rockets at southern parts of the route where rebels have spent the past 36 hours overrunning army positions and road blocks encircling the heart of the city, the site of key state security and intelligence installations.

Islamic Summit Backs Syria Dialogue Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose country is Syria’s closest ally in the Middle East, attended the summit and said at a news conference Thursday that he supported dialogue. He added that Egypt, Turkey and Iran were moving toward cooperation on Syria. But he also defended Bashar Assad regime, warning against meddling in the domestic affairs of other countries.

UN Chief Criticized Syria’s President The U.N. chief told a group of journalists Thursday that the Syrian crisis didn’t start because of terrorism — but he said because Assad continued to kill his own people, terrorist elements are now taking advantage of the turmoil. “He could have stopped this violence a long time ago and this political dialogue could have commenced a long time ago,” Ban said. “But he has been continuously killing … That’s why people, out of frustration, out of anger, they have been fighting against their own government.” The secretary-general strongly welcomed opposition leader Mouaz al-Khatib’s proposal for political talks and expressed hope that Syrian authorities would accept it.

Aid doesn’t reach camp for displaced Syrians just outside Turkey This is Syria’s biggest camp for the internally displaced, and the flimsy tents shelter more than 20,000 people who have nowhere else to go. In its poverty and dire shortages, its poor hygiene and lack of utilities, Atma’s white wave has become a symbol of the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who’ve fled the fighting in their country… “We know about Atma,” said Amanda Pitt, a spokeswoman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a little-known U.N. agency. “In order to get to these parts of northern Syria you have to cross the border,” she told McClatchy on Wednesday. “We have to work with the government of Syria in order to cross the border.”

Syria Says ‘No Truth’ Israel Targeted Convoy Israel has all but confirmed it was behind the Jan. 30 airstrike a few miles (kilometers) from the Syrian capital, Damascus. U.S. officials said the Israelis struck a military research center and a convoy next to it carrying anti-aircraft weapons destined for the Islamic militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Panetta backs Syria rebels arms plan In testimony to Congress, Leon Panetta said he still supported the supply of weapons to rebels fighting forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The plan was proposed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus, then director of the CIA, but reportedly rebuffed by the White House. The US has so far offered only diplomatic backing to Syria’s rebels.

Syria Soldiers Dance To Usher In Online Video (VIDEO) A video posted online purportedly shows Syrian soldiers taking a break from the country’s civil war by bopping around to American R&B star Usher’s hit song “Yeah!”… Near the end of the video, they stop dancing and break into their version of an oft-heard battle chant in the Middle East: “With our souls, our blood, we sacrifice for you Bashar!” as black smoke billows from a building in the background. In a jarring finale, they shoot bursts of automatic gunfire in the air.

Special Reports

‘Syria could be a second Somalia’
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon warns of increasing Islamist forces in Syria, in an interview with DW: On the one hand, it seems as if there is no consensus in the Security Council. On the other, it has become a zero-sum game inside Syria between the opposition and Assad. There is no in-between; both sides are going to fight to the bitter end. This is very bad. Once Assad is gone, and nobody can say when, I’m afraid Syria will fall further into a chaotic situation of sectarian warfare. The danger is that the Islamists – the jihadists who have the weapons on the ground and the financial backing of certain Arab countries – will turn Syria into an extremist Islamist state, or a failed state like Somalia or Mali. In the absence of any international consensus, things could get very bad, especially for the Syrian people, and the situation will also destabilize the region, because what happens in Syria won’t stay in Syria. It will spill over into Lebanon and Iraq.

A film that foretold the downfall of the Baathist conceits
“Thirty-three years ago, I was a staunch advocate of modernising my homeland, Syria, to the degree that my first film was about building a dam: the Euphrates Dam, the source of pride and joy for the Baath Party.” That introduction to the film A Flood in Baath Country leads to a very different story. Life under the Baath Party in Syria was not about modernity, but about a facade that led to these past two years of bloodshed… “Today I regret that mistake I had committed in my youth. The collapse of a dam [Zeyzoun Dam in 2002] and the release of a report that foresees the same fate for the rest of dams that were built during the reign of the Baath Party pushed me back to the location of my first film.”

A staggering map of the 54 countries that reportedly participated in the CIA’s rendition program
The section on Syria is disturbing. That government’s record of horrific abuses has spilled out into the open since the uprising of 2011 became a civil war, with more Syrians subjected to – and speaking out about – a torture regime that sounds as if it were from another century. According to a 2005 article by the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, quoted in the report, Syria was one of the “most common destinations for rendered suspects.” Government forces, according to the report, held some U.S.-provided detainees in a prison known as “The Grave” for its coffin-sized cells and subjected them to “torture involving a chair frame used to stretch the spine (the ‘German chair’) and beatings.”

In Syria, blood flows while money runs dry
From oil shortages to commodities inflation and climbing unemployment, the Syrian economy is essentially bankrupt. Will it change the course of fighting? Not any time soon.

My new paper, prepared for a briefing in Washington, D.C. that took place on January 15, 2013, is now out and is titled “Syria 2013: Rise of the Warlords.” It should be read in conjunction with my previous briefing “The Shredded Tapestry,” and my recent essay “The Creation of an Unbridgeable Divide.”