Exits Assad!

Syrian Revolution Digest – April 2, 2013 

In case of Assad, a proof of life is no longer sufficient to make him relevant. Indeed, there is a difference between being “calm under fire” and being “disconnected from reality,” while Assad attempt to project the former image, his actions indicates that, at heart, he fits the latter mold. More importantly, both the revolution and the crackdown will proceed irrespective of his presence or absence. There is no longer any need for an exit strategy for a man who has imperceptibly exited the scene.

 

Tuesday April 2, 2013

 

Today’s Death Toll: 113 martyrs, including 7 women, 5 children and 2 martyrs who died under torture. 58 in Damascus and suburbs; 16 in Aleppo; 11 in Qunaitera; 10 in Homs; 7 in Idib; 6 in Daraa; 2 in Hama; 1 in Raqqa and 1 in Deir Ezzor (LCCs).

 

Points of Random Shelling: 301 points. Warplanes bombed 9 points. Regime forces launched 8 surface-to-surface missiles, most of which targeted the Yarmouk refugee camp and Hajar Aswad neighborhood in Damascus. Explosive barrels were used in 4 points, and mortars in 105. 108 points were shelled with artillery, and 67 points were shelled with rocket launchers (LCCs).

 

Clashes: 119. Successful rebel operations included shooting down a warplane that was shelling the area of Maaret Al-Numan in Idlib, and shelling Wadi Dayf and Khazanat Camp using locally-made Grad rockets. In Hama, rebels targeted the checkpoints of Breideej, Tal Othman an Al-Mughir using mortars, in addition to hitting Hama Military Airport with two rockets. In Daraa, FSA rebels shelled Air Defense battalion using rocket launchers. In Damascus and its Suburbs, the FSA liberated the checkpoint of Ibn Sina Hospital and Masah Walid in Adra; they also targeted loyalist militias positions in Abbasiyeen Square (LCCs).

 

News

Syrian forces pound opposition strongholds in Damascus Damascus has become a key battleground in the civil war. From their strongholds in the suburbs, rebel fighters are trying to slowly push their way into the heart of the capital. Assad has deployed his most loyal and best equipped troops there, trying to insulate it from the violence.

Israel Says Its Tanks Responded to Shots Fired From Syrian Side There were no injuries on the Israeli side, but Tuesday’s tank fire represented the second time in 10 days that Israel had responded to fire from Syria, a sign of increasing spillover from Syria’s bloody civil war. On March 24, the Israeli military said it destroyed a Syrian machine gun post after two Israeli patrols came under fire from across the decades-old cease-fire line, which is monitored by the United Nations. Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, toured the Golan Heights frontier on Tuesday morning, where he was briefed by the chief of staff and regional commanders.

Syria: UN food agency convoys increasingly caught in conflict “It has become a struggle now to move food from one area to the other with our warehouses and trucks getting increasingly caught in the crossfire,” said Muhannad Hadi, WFP Regional Emergency Coordinator for the Syria crisis. “We are sometimes left with the difficult decision of calling off the dispatch of food to a place where we know there is dire need for it.”

Syria’s crisis: The extent of the suffering A new report on the northern city of Aleppo goes some way to showing how dire the situation is. Researchers funded by a group of humanitarian agencies, including Britain’s Department for International Development, spent two weeks surveying 52 of 125 neighbourhoods in the city, Syria’s most populous, which has been stuck in a tug of war between regime and opposition forces since July 2012. The findings are some of the most detailed yet.

Rape and sham marriages: the fears of Syria’s women refugees As well as the fear of attack , there is another more insidious assault on the women and girls of Zaatari. Men – usually from Saudi Arabia and other gulf states – are given free rein at the camp. Coming in the guise of benefactors offering charity, in return many want a wife. But these are marriages of convenience – for the men at least. So called “pleasure marriages”, they give cover – a sheen of respectability – to what is often wealthy men exploiting vulnerable women for sex.

Disease stalks Iraqi camps for Syrians: UNHCR “Pressure to accommodate refugees is growing,” said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. “The crowding is in turn having an impact on sanitation, which is already below humanitarian standards. Congestion and warmer temperatures are increasing vulnerability to outbreaks of diseases as well as to tension between camp residents,” he told reporters in Geneva. As of the end of March, a total of 121,320 Syrian refugees were registered in Iraq, Edwards said, with 90 percent of them hosted in the country’s Kurdistan region. The situation at a camp at Domiz, in northwestern Iraq, is particularly worrying, he noted.

Assad offers kidnappers amnesty deal Kidnappers who do not release victims within the 15 days will be sentenced to “a life of hard labor,” or executed if their victims have been killed or sexually abused, state news agency SANA reported. “Anyone who has kidnapped a person for a ransom and deprived him of his liberty for political, financial or sectarian reasons will be sentenced to a life of hard labor,” said the decree, according to SANA.

In north Syria, eating herbs to survive “We eat herbs and collect stagnant rainwater to drink and wash in,” says 24-year-old Hisham, his head covered in a red and white chequered keffiyeh scarf. Hisham, who sports a budding blonde beard, was about to enter university when the fighting that has engulfed Syria erupted in 2011. Now he has joined the wave of his compatriots displaced by the conflict.

Syria crisis: Lebanon struggles with influx of refugees An estimated 400,000 Syrian refugees have crossed the border into Lebanon since the start of the fighting. However the influx of people is challenging for such a small country – and creating tension with local people.

Conflict dents loyalties of Golan Druze The Golan’s native Druze have remained fiercely loyal to Damascus through 46 years of Israeli occupation but as the Syrian war draws ever closer, it is dividing the tight-knit community. With the sound of fighting between Damascus troops and rebels booming from just across the armistice line that separates them from their compatriots, some among the Golan’s 20,000 Druze are beginning to question their longstanding devotion to the Syrian regime.

By the numbers: Syria deaths Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in Syria since unrest began in the country two years ago, according to the latest estimate from the United Nations. And that might actually be an underestimate. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Syria’s raging civil war has made it “increasingly challenging” to collect accurate and reliable data. But even if that number is on the low side, it does provide a way to put Syria’s conflict in historical context.

 

Special Reports

Sorting out the Syrian opposition Even though the rebels have only loose coordination, they have become a potent force. They have seized control of most of Aleppo and northern Syria, and they are tightening their grip on Damascus, controlling many of the access routes east and south of the city, according to rebel sources. Free Syrian Army leaders believe that the battle for Damascus will reach its climax in the next two to three months.

Amid Syria’s Atrocities, Kurds Scratch Out a Home: Will the minority group succeed at creating a flourishing, autonomous region after Assad? The Syrian Kurds are determined to preserve their fragile autonomy, but rebels, backed by the Turkish government, are equally committed to nullifying it… if Syria is to split, the Kurdish part of it stands a fair chance of emerging as the most stable, peaceful part of the country. The most one can perhaps legitimately hope for is that the PYD ascendancy in northeast Syria will secure a way for Syria’s Kurds and the other minorities that live among them to avoid the worst atrocities of the civil war in Syria, for as long as it lasts by securing their area of control, and continuing to deny entrance to regime and rebels alike.

A Black Flag In Raqqa For the next few hours, the men engaged in a combative and highly charged discussion. It was about the black banner, but more than that about the direction the Syrian uprising has taken. The men of the house feared that it had been hijacked by Islamists, led by Jabhat al-Nusra, who saw the fall of the regime as the first step in transforming Syria’s once-cosmopolitan society into a conservative Islamic state. All four men said they wanted an Islamic state, but a moderate one.

U.S. restraint in Syria could aid Iran nuclear talks President Barack Obama’s reluctance to give military aid to Syrian rebels may be explained, in part, in three words: Iranian nuclear weapons… “You can argue it either way, but in the end I think the collapse of Assad makes a nuclear deal more likely, because the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) will feel more isolated, under greater pressure, more likely to make tactical concessions in order to relieve further isolation and pressure,” Samore said Monday. “Of course, that is not going to change his fundamental interest in acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. I think it will confirm for him that the best way to defend himself against countries like the United States is to have that capacity.”

Portrait of an Activist: Razan Ghazzawi, the Syrian Blogger Turned Exile Despite her outspokenness, Ghazzawi is also self-effacing to a fault, and she has been uncomfortable with the international attention that came with her arrests. She is critical of the way the international media elevates the voices of English-speaking activists like her. “I was not fearless. I am still not fearless. I wrote in English because they [the regime] don’t read English. Those who are fearless are those who write in Arabic, and they write in their real name,” she says, bringing up bloggers like Hussein Ghrer, who has been jailed for over a year after writing under his own name.

 

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.”

 

Quickly Noted

 

* Bashar Al-Assad has reportedly given an exclusive interview to a Turkish channel that will be aired this Friday, this is the promotional clip that the channel is currently airing http://youtu.be/_L4n3edvQYA In it, Assad is commenting on the assassination of Sheikh Ramadan Al-Bouti, saying that he was a key figure in combating the sectarianism of the rebels and that he was not the only religious figure to be assassinated by them.

 

Video Highlights

 

Damascus City: the pounding of Jobar Neighborhood continues http://youtu.be/xPFKSs38ZnE , http://youtu.be/JierDtw81aU , http://youtu.be/mec4CyRFZbM And Yarmouk Camp http://youtu.be/9xExxT7O9jQ Tadamon http://youtu.be/esz5xCDvHz4 , http://youtu.be/binCBlXmdB4 Assaly http://youtu.be/G8KwR-caing , http://youtu.be/SE6afY-friQ

 

MiGs take part in bombing Eastern Ghouta: Saqba http://youtu.be/5ZQ4cjONwvA , http://youtu.be/gh9ufLDvBw4

 

To the west, the suburb of Daraya comes under fire http://youtu.be/gh9ufLDvBw4 Tanks continue to operate at the outskirts of the suburb http://youtu.be/zWiEU1Fr9bk

 

Homs City: the pounding of rebel strongholds continues http://youtu.be/K4TNPCQ6E9s , http://youtu.be/FpbXvcVF6-4

 

Scenes from rebel operations around Raqqa City http://youtu.be/xwbi3wLLNhU , http://youtu.be/ERwD5ahHN6M Operations near Tabqa City in Raqqa province http://youtu.be/hPtDZx3OVm4 But as this 6-minute tour of the city of Raqqa shows, life is very much back to normal there and rebels groups do not seem to maintain any overt presence there http://youtu.be/lyKJkpSE1G8

[scribd id=133733526 key=key-1ij8jxl3wqvyo2ken8e6 mode=scroll]

Ah, the Humanity!

No one has rushed to help the people who rebelled, but, in a typical fashion, many have rushed to take advantage of them: ideological groups seeking to reintroduce themselves onto the scene, a former superpower that wants to relive the glory of the old days, no matter how vicariously, neighboring states that saw a chance to fight their brewing domestic wars abroad, and lonely Arab men in search of cheap sex with desperate refugee women. The more things change the more humanity proves to be as screwed up as we always knew her to be.

 

Today’s Death Toll: 146 martyrs, including 5 women, 4 children and 2 martyrs under torture: 55 in Damascus and Suburbs; 31 in Homs; 25 in Idlib; 18 in Aleppo;10 in Hama; 6 in Deir Ezzor; and 1 in Daraa (LCCs).

Points of Random Shelling: 291 points, including 16 points shelled by warplanes, 4 points with Scud missiles, and 3 point using barrel bombs. Thermobaric bombs were used to shell Kafr Zeta and Kafr Nabouda in Hama, and cluster bombs to shell Qara in Damascus Suburbs. In addition, 107 points were shelled with mortar, 98 points with heavy caliber artillery and 60 points with rockets (LCCs).

Clashes: 113. Successful rebel operations included the liberation of a number of buildings in Jobar and Qaboon in Damascus City, targeting the Damascus International airport with rockets, and the headquarters of the 22^nd Brigade in Otaibeh with missiles. In Idlib, rebels targeted the reservoirs checkpoint with Grad missiles (LCCs).

 

News

March bloodiest month so far in Syria uprising March was the bloodiest month of the Syrian uprising, with more than 6,000 documented deaths, a pro-opposition human rights group reported Monday. More than one-third of those killed were civilians, including nearly 300 children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based organization with monitors in Syria.

Historic Damascus synagogue damaged, looted The Jobar Synagogue, in the neighborhood of the same name in northeastern Damascus, is a relic of the area’s once sizeable Jewish population. Tradition holds that the biblical prophet Elisha built the first structure on the site over a grotto in which his teacher, the prophet Elijah, had sought refuge.

Tit-for-tat kidnappings bring Syria’s war into Lebanese backyards In northern Lebanon, the kidnapping of a member of the powerful Shiite Jaafar clan has created yet another arena for Sunni-Shiite tensions fomented by Syria’s unrest.

‘Iran’s Plan B is Alawite State If Syria’s Assad Falls’ A Syrian professor says Iran hopes to fragment Syria and create an Alawite state to maintain power in the region, Today’s Zayman reports.

As Casualties Mount in Syria, Children Tend to the Wounded

Syria accuses rebels of setting fire to oil wells

Syria rebels, regime trade accusations of ‘massacre’

Syrian rebels enter strategic Aleppo neighborhood

Iraq to up searches of Iran overflights to Syria

 

Special Reports

The Kurdish Factor … last week’s reversal in Sheikh Maksoud suggests that Erdogan’s recent overtures to Ocalan are already bearing fruit in his struggle with Assad. Although the Kurdish groups in Syria are not very significant militarily, their cooperation would free the Turkish government’s hands by allowing it to increase its support for the rebels in Syria without fear that the Assad regime could stoke the Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey in response. It remains to be seen whether the Kurds’ newfound cooperation with the rebels in Aleppo is part of a larger realignment by the P.Y.D. But if over the weeks ahead government forces are pushed out of their remaining bases in Kurdish areas, like oil-rich Hasakah in the northeast, then the fall of Sheikh Maksoud on Friday will have marked the beginning of a dramatic shift in Syria’s civil war.

Syria’s Civil War: The Mystery Behind a Deadly Chemical Attack The investigation, when it starts, will be hobbled by the passage of time. According to a chemical weapons expert familiar with such inquiries, who spoke on condition of anonymity over the telephone, the investigating team will examine soil, air and oil samples taken from the blast site. It is unclear whether they will have access to survivors (who probably bear little traces of the chemicals so long after the attack) or to autopsy reports. But initial assessments based upon body counts, photos and video footage taken at the hospital after the attack seem to rule out nerve agents or mustard gas. “Looking at the death rate relative to the number of people exposed, it couldn’t have been a weaponized nerve agent,” says the expert. “And mustard gas rubs off on whoever touches it, but you don’t see the medical personnel taking additional protective measure when they treat the patients. So it’s pretty likely it was something else.”

Syrian Newspapers Emerge to Fill Out War Reporting Mr. Smesem has used the paper to confront the mood of intimidation that he said had infected towns like Binnish, where supporters of the fundamentalist Salafi movement leveraged their success on the battlefield to take over the town council. In one editorial, he criticized changes in the tone of the town’s weekly Friday protests since the Nusra Front began organizing them. The very people who now shouted about killing all the Alawites were once members of the Binnish Coordination Committee who marched every Friday in support of civil society, he wrote. Now Sham editors worry whether the new freedom of expression that has emerged in the areas seized from government control will persist should the Assad government fall.

Brides for ‘Sale’ The offer comes via BlackBerry Messenger: “If you want to marry a beautiful fair young Syrian woman, contact …” and a number is provided. As the conflict in Syria rages on, with no respite in sight, desperation is hitting Syrians hard. And there are many around to take full advantage of it.

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.”

 

Quickly Noted

* Much controversy surrounds what happened to Ghassan Saleh Zeidan, a Druze Elder who went to the town of Hadar to mediate between Sunnis rebels and the local Druze population. On the way there, Ghassan’s convoy was ambushed and he was killed. Both the regime and rebels accused each other of perpetrating the murder, albeit, in practice, the murder serves the regime’s agenda of fomenting conflict between Sunnis and Druzes more than the rebels’ agenda which seeks to entice the Druze to join the revolution. The man speaking here is Ghassan’s brother. He accuses the pro-Assad Druze militias of shooting at their convoy, and names their leaders who were present and ordered the shooting http://youtu.be/0x__lYWHeIY The events took place in Quneitrah Province, where rebels formed a new division under Liwa Al-Tawhid http://youtu.be/Tb5H6Bl-Q2M.

* On Saturday, Syria’s State TV denied reports of Bashar Al-Assad’s death and promised that Assad would address the nation “within hours.” By dawn of Tuesday April 2, Assad is still nowhere to be seen or heard. Rumors of his physical demise might still prove to be false, but the truth of his political irrelevance can now be seen by all.

 

Video Highlights

Aleppo City: Ansari Neighborhood removing the rubble after an aerial raid http://youtu.be/uSOE5MWD0pc Sheikh Maqsoud mass exodus following bombardment of the liberated neighborhood by loyalists http://youtu.be/v2eCTKmK_XA , http://youtu.be/gJpaKIQO4_E A loyalist headquarters in Maksoud after its liberation, the headquarters were used by the Mardel Clan, a small Sunnis ethnic group that has long been coopted by the Assads http://youtu.be/St3w2LlPIFI The pounding of the neighborhood continues http://youtu.be/Ac41IKcg3Pk

Damascus City: regime uses missile launchers to target restive communities in Eastern Ghoutah http://youtu.be/XkRG0q6QJuA Sounds of distant pounding http://youtu.be/z54vHteuqrk Rebels in Otaibeh hunt down a pro-regime sniper http://youtu.be/xA2-tpNj_sU Rebels manufacture their own mortars http://youtu.be/TSE7Gi7h8RQ Homes in Jobar catch fire due to pounding http://youtu.be/pRiLLo1CQd

Damascus Suburbs: rebels from the town of Qarrah dismantle a cluster bomb that failed to explode http://youtu.be/x65sAMggDXI In Daraya, the pounding leave many homes on fire http://youtu.be/cjGviCgCiws

Homs City: the pounding of the neighborhood of Khaldiyeh continues http://youtu.be/lQ2VyS-HzEI

Daraa: the liberation of the province continues with rebels now laying siege to the headquarters of the 46^th Regiment in the town of Alma http://youtu.be/ayJfaboPYpQ , http://youtu.be/09kRwYkAKwY , http://youtu.be/4lVLwARGc2E

Idlib: clashes takes place on the outskirts of Maa’arrat Al-Nouman http://youtu.be/-s1xgAfW488 , http://youtu.be/eeDxYEZYxo0 , http://youtu.be/iTQFX-SdGcw

Leaked video shows loyalist soldiers torturing a Sunni scholar http://youtu.be/Fy_b_IXbn7Q Another leaked video from Idlib City shows a local loyalist militia leader cutting the hair of a man and his wife whom he suspected of being sympathetic to the rebels http://youtu.be/B-x3dW_2bcs

[scribd id=133456464 key=key-1sfgamf622z7f1p1dztz mode=scroll]

Killer Rumor!

It doesn’t really matter if he is still physically alive, politically Assad is dead. The revolution shrunk him into insignificance. He is not even a zombie at this stage, he is simply irrelevant, his fate sealed by a rumor.

 

Today’s Death Toll: 150 martyrs, including 6 women; 17 martyr under torture and 10 children: 52 in Damascus and Suburbs including 15 under torture in security branch 215; 39 in Aleppo, most martyred due to a SCUD missile attack in Hreitan; 18 in Daraa; 16 in Homs; 8 in Deir Ezzor; 5 in Raqqa; 7 in Hama; and 5 in Idlib (LCCs).

Points of Random Shelling: 283. Shelling with warplanes reported in 19 points; Scud missiles were reported in 3 districts; Surface to Surface rockets reported in 9 districts, the heaviest one was in Aleppo; explosive barrels reported in 6 points; phosphoric bombs reported in Deir Ezzor; cluster bombs reported in Hreitan, Aleppo. Shelling with mortars reported in 102 points, while artillery shelling was reported in 98 point; rocket launchers shelling reported in 99 points (LCCs).

Clashes: 130. Successful rebel operations included shooting 3 warplanes in the town of Alboukamal in Deir Ezzor Province, 1 plane in Khan Al-Sheeh in Damascus Suburbs and another in Jabal Al-Zawyeh in Idlib. In Raqqa, rebels entered the town of Ein Issa after liberating all loyalist checkpoints. In Aleppo, rebels took control of the Sheikh Maqsood Neighborhood (LCCs).

 

News

Southern Town in Syria Is Seized by Rebel Fighters The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an antigovernment group in Britain with contacts throughout Syria, said rebel fighters secured the town, Dael, after more than a day of clashes in which three military checkpoints were destroyed and more than 24 combatants and at least nine civilians were killed. The town, with a population of about 40,000, sits on an important north-south highway that connects Damascus to Dara’a, the southern city that was the birthplace of the March 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad that turned into a civil war. “The entire town, which is on the Damascus-Dara’a road, is now outside the control of government forces,” the Syrian Observatory said in its daily dispatch on the fighting.

20 dead in Scud missile attack in Syria, activists say The missile landed in a populated neighborhood of Hretaan, injuring 50 people and destroying more than 30 homes, the activists said. Videos reportedly recorded afterward showed residents pulling out dozens of bodies from the rubble of flattened buildings. There was no immediate response from Syrian officials to the charge, which could not be independently verified because of restrictions the government places on outside media.

U.S. considers no-fly-zone over Syria The U.S. administration is studying in depth all options that could lead to a peaceful settlement in Syria, Nuland added. On Wednesday, the former head of a U.N. monitoring mission, who tried in vain to secure a ceasefire in Syria’s civil war, said it was now time to consider imposing a no-fly zone over the country. The comments from Norwegian General Robert Mood came after NATO Chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen ruled out Western military intervention and called for a political solution to the two-year-old crisis which has claimed an estimated 70,000 lives. “I have come to the conclusion there has to be a leveling on the playing field,” Mood, who headed the U.N. mission in Syria until last July, told Britain’s BBC TV. “To level the playing field now in the military terms would be to consider no-fly zones, to consider whether the Patriots in Turkey could have a role also in taking on some responsibility for the northern part of Syria.”

An Unlikely Jihadist, Denouncing Assad in Mandarin He spoke in Mandarin. He called himself Yusef, but a subtitle in English said his Chinese name was Bo Wang. On the surface, he appeared to be an extremely rare — perhaps the only — example of an ethnic Han citizen of China joining a jihadist group in the Arab world. The bizarre video first got the attention of some Chinese last week, when it was posted on YouTube and then on Youku, a popular video-sharing site in China. It was quickly deleted from there, possibly by censors aware that the material was too delicate for the sensibilities of Chinese officials. In the video, the man told the Chinese government to drop its support of Mr. Assad or “all Islamic countries of the world will unite to impose economic sanctions against the Chinese people.”

Syria’s Red Crescent caught in the middle of bloody civil war Caught between warring factions as violence continues to rip apart Syria, the agency — Syria’s equivalent of the Red Cross — has had to contend with looting, threats of violence, arbitrary arrests and the killing of 17 staff members. The organization has also found its reputation under fire from Syrian-Canadian groups and others who have accused it of being little more than a puppet for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Has Bashar Al Assad been killed? Two videos that are circulating on social media over the past hours are once again alleging that Bashar Al Assad has either died or fled the country. “The Brigade of Martyrs of Douma conveys to you the news the Syrian people have waited for for a long time, namely the assassination of the despot Bashar Al Assad, which was carried out in coordination with one of the honorable officers from inside the Palace,”  the chief of the Brigade said in a video posted on YouTube. “I challenge Bashar to make a media appearance within the next 12 hours if he is still alive”, he added.

 

Special Reports

Syria’s cultural heritage under attack during bloody civil war Aleppo – one of the most beautiful cities in the Middle East and a crossroads of Christian, Jewish and Arab cultures – is among the hardest hit by the fighting between regime forces and rebels. In the nation’s capital of Damascus, once described by Mark Twain as the city that “has seen all that has ever occurred on earth,” historic buildings and landmarks are at increasing risk of damage.

Syria: Rebuilding education One brave teacher, Nour Al-Haq, is fighting her own war, determined to teach come what may. She explained: “We wanted to reorganise this school for the kids of Salaheddine who are coming back to their own neighbourhoods. “Families are coming back to their own houses. That is why we wanted to open this school here. “The four biggest schools in Salaheddine have been bombarded. We will have to rely on schools like this one for many years. “We are recovering books, and chairs from the damaged schools. We went to those schools even though we were targeted by a sniper who shot at us.”

Revolution or civil war? The battle of narratives in Syria The battle of narratives in Syria can be encapsulated as that between two tales from two cities: Paris and Geneva, where two parallel conferences were held in the last week of January 2013. These two meetings broadly represent two opposing narratives with little common ground and with each having its international backers both in policy circles and in the media. The Geneva meeting was organized with Scandinavian support and brought together several of the so called internal opposition groups and parties, most prominent of which were the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change and the Building the Syrian State Current. The conference also formed the Democratic Civil Alliance, a coalition of like-minded groups calling for a peaceful solution through dialogue. The Paris conference was organized with French support and included the two main opposition groupings outside Syria: the Syrian National Council and the National Coalition headed by Moaz al-Khatib. The main difference between the two meetings is that Geneva called for stopping the violence and for dialogue with the regime whereas Paris called for arming the opposition and rejected any idea of dialogue with the regime. But there are also other significant differences in the narratives.

The complications of dispersing aid in Syria According to Medecins Sans Frontiers, by the end of January 2013 over 60 countries had expressed a commitment to providing $1.5 billion in aid to the Syrian population. However such substantial figures, in reality, amount to much less. The urge to donate and distribute humanitarian aid is complicated by the complex international laws and bureaucratic labyrinths, and ultimately dictated by the host government’s willingness to grant international access to a country. Those few international organizations (less than 10) given permission to enter Syria face extreme difficulties in moving between government and rebel controlled areas. These realities and the Assad regime’s continued shelling of hospitals and bakeries merely add to the growing humanitarian crisis. Accordingly, international aid organizations are often forced to rely on third parties within Syria to disperse aid.

Syria: freedom is economics too Before any elections, the first stone will have already been laid – with reconstruction. On which policies will Syria be rebuilt? Which checks and balances will be organized around an international aid campaign driven by vested interests? Who will plan it? What can work, and what doesn’t, in Syria?

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.”

 

Quickly Noted

* Rebels from the Douma Martyrs Brigades, one of the main rebels groups fighting in Eastern Ghoutah in Damascus Suburbs, “confirm” through its leader Abu Ali Khibyeh the assassination of Bashar Al-Assad by one of his Iranian bodyguards and call on his officials and officers to surrender promising a fair trial to all. “The one you were fighting for has been killed, save yourselves by refraining from further bloodshed,” he told them. Abu Ali also says that the news was confirmed by an officer in Bashar’s entourage who works for the rebels http://youtu.be/7oipjyvqAz4. Abu Ali reiterates his statements in this Skype interview with a rebel network http://youtu.be/g0se3fVcDKQ. But while some rebels are so sure that Assad has been killed as to risk making such a categorical announcement, others claim that he was only injured, and that he was now replaced by a security commission led by the person who was in charge of Assad’s secret service: Salim Al-Ali (Abu Ibrahim), the son of an Alawite father and a Sunni Lebanese mother, a man whose own son was kidnapped by rebels a few months ago and was released following a deal.

 

Video Highlights

The town of Hreitan, Aleppo Province: the aftermath of a Scud attack http://youtu.be/rJ5qbCdNJZI panic after the attack http://youtu.be/XAq_HzB4Z5w

Assad’s tanks keep pounding Jobar neighborhood in eastern parts of the Damascus City http://youtu.be/lJr7tB-tr8o , http://youtu.be/AICVFcSxe-c

Scenes from the clashes that ended with the liberation of the town of Da’el, Daraa Province http://youtu.be/tOTuPB2cz5U , http://youtu.be/wfMR9QdOuc0 , http://youtu.be/Lxv_q9mX6ww

In Damascus, rockets launchers from the Mazzeh Military Airport in action http://youtu.be/tAdVS23rbwU