Holy Shit!

Battle fatigue on part of pro-Assad troops and militias coupled with the call to Jihad might just act as prelude for the introduction of foreign Shia militias, and perhaps for official Iranian intervention similar to the old Syrian intervention in Lebanon. The Islamic Reformation has found its new theater of operations. The plot thickens, and the blood flows.

 

Today’s Death Toll: 103 martyrs, including 5 women, 2 children, and 1 martyr under torture: 50 martyrs in Damascus and suburbs including 30 FSA rebels, 16 in Aleppo, 12 in Daraa, 11 in Hama, 6 in Homs, 2 in Idlib, 1 in Quneitera, 1 in Hassakeh and 1 in Lattakia (LCCs).

Points of Random Shelling: 276 points. Aerial bombardments in 21 points. Scud bombing in 2 points. Shelling using Surface-to-Surface missiles in 2 points. Shelling using Thermobaric bombs in Raqqa city. Artillery shelling in 96 points. Mortar shelling in 90 points. Rocket shelling in 65 points (LCCs).

Clashes: 135. Successful operations include liberation of the Industrial Institute in Deir Ezzor City, repelling attempts by regime forces to retake Barzerh Neighborhood in Damascus City (LCCs).

 

News

In Secular Syria, Top Muslim Cleric Picks Sides In Civil War Hassoun’s decree struck many Syrians as very strange because Assad’s government has long dismissed the uprising as the work of jihadis. The regime has often claimed that extremists from abroad have been inciting violence within Syria. In addition, the Assad regime has long championed itself as secular. The Baath Party, to which Assad belongs, has ruled Syria for over 40 years, sometimes acting in ways that were hostile to religiosity.

Syria’s Assad running out of troops to fight rebels Jeffrey White with the Washington Institute reports that an estimated 40 government soldiers are killed every day. Mr. White’s just toured Syria, and his estimate comes from the country’s funeral data. “In [the funeral worker’s] view, the army was exhausting itself,” Mr. White said, in The Guardian. Mr. White also confirms what the United Nations just reported — that Syria’s government has been increasingly relying on armed militia groups for aid.

Signs of Strain on Syria’s Military Build The government has long lacked enough reliably loyal troops to blanket contested areas with patrols or take them with ground operations, so instead has relied on indiscriminate air strikes and artillery attacks that have pushed the death toll well above 70,000, according to United Nations estimates. Now, to fill the gap, the government is increasingly relying on paramilitary groups, according to analysts and a recent United Nations report.

Syria’s Children Risk Becoming ‘Lost Generation,’ UNICEF Warns “Millions of children inside Syria and across the region are witnessing their past and their futures disappear amidst the rubble and destruction of this prolonged conflict,” UNICEF chief Anthony Lake said in a report published two years to the day after the Syrian conflict began. The Geneva-based agency pointed out that nearly half of the four million in dire need of aid inside Syria are under the age of 18, and 536,000 of them are children under the age of five.

Britain could sidestep EU ban on arming Syria rebels: PM Asked by a parliamentary committee whether Britain would veto the arms embargo when it comes up for renewal in three months’ time, Cameron said he would “like to continue with an EU approach.” “I hope that we can persuade our European partners if and when it becomes necessary (to provide weapons) they’ll agree with us,” he told the House of Commons Liaison Committee. “But if we can’t, then it’s not out of the question we might have to do things in our own way. It’s possible. “We are still an independent country, we can have an independent foreign policy.” Pressed on whether Britain could sidestep the arms ban, Cameron said: “If for instance we felt that action needed to be taken to help bring about change in Syria, to help end this appalling bloodshed, and if we felt our European partners were holding that back, then we’d have to change the approach.”

Israel’s Peres urges Arab intervention in Syria Israel’s Shimon Peres called Tuesday for Arab intervention “to stop the massacre” in Syria as he delivered the first speech by an Israeli head of state to the European Parliament in almost three decades. The free world “cannot stand by when a massacre is carried out by the Syrian president against his own people and his own children. It breaks all our hearts,” he said. Saying “the intervention of Western forces would be perceived as foreign interference,” Peres said the best option to end two years of tragedy in Syria “might be achieved by empowering the Arab League, of which Syria is a member, to intervene.” The 22-member Arab League pulled out its observer mission to Syria after only a month in January last year amid controversy after failing to halt the regime’s campaign against the rebels. “The Arab League can and should form a provisional government in Syria to stop the massacre, to prevent Syria from falling to pieces,” Peres told the 754-member European Parliament. “The United Nations should support the Arab League to build an Arab force in blue helmets,” he said. Asked at a news conference immediately afterwards whether he was indeed calling for military intervention by an Arab force, Peres said he did mean “a force” but that its actions could be as a peacekeeping force and “not necessarily military”.

Fearful Syrian voters will keep Assad in power: Qassem Sheikh Naim Qassem, who predicted a year ago that Assad would not be dislodged from power, said the Syrian leader would win a vote because his supporters understood that their communities’ very existence depended on him. “I believe that in a year’s time he will stand for the presidency. It will be the people’s choice, and I believe the people will choose him,” said the bearded, turban-wearing Shi’ite cleric, speaking carefully and deliberately. “The crisis in Syria is prolonged, and the West and the international community have been surprised by the degree of steadfastness and popularity of the regime.”

Syria crisis: Clashes as rebels target Baba Amr in Homs For a third day, rebel forces tried to regain control of the Baba Amr neighbourhood; pro-regime troops responded with artillery attacks. There have also been clashes on the key road between Damascus and the airport, as well as in the city of Aleppo.

U.N.: Both Syrian rebels and government forces guilty The Syrian war has never been a simple fight between good rebels and evil government forces, and the United Nations has said so several times in the past. But this week, U.N. investigators released a particularly detailed and horrific report that slams both sides, accusing rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad of murder, rape, torture and forced disappearances. Government forces and the rebels have violated international humanitarian law in the two-year war, said Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria. “The war displays all the signs of a destructive stalemate,” he told the U.N. Security Council this week.

France says Syria balance of power must be changed “France is thinking – although it is a European decision – of going further in lifting the embargo,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told a parliamentary committee. Just days after EU governments agreed a hard-fought compromise on a limited easing of the arms embargo to help Assad’s opponents, Fabius said there would be steps taken to go further. He did not give more details. “You will ask me is that not contradictory with finding a political solution, but we don’t think so,” he said. “If we want President Bashar al Assad to shift then he must be made to understand that he cannot win through military force. There is a new balance of power that has to be created.”

UN peacekeepers held in Syria ‘reach Israel’ UN peacekeepers held by rebels for several days in southern Syria and freed at the weekend crossed into Israel from neighbouring Jordan last night, a military spokeswoman said. The spokeswoman would not comment, however, on a report by an Israeli newspaper that Israeli troops had later escorted the 21 Filipino peacekeepers back to their base along the Syrian frontier with the Golan Heights, which are occupied by Israel.

 

Special Reports

Commentary: Saudis Gain Upper Hand on Syria’s Battlefields

With Al-Assad driven out, the Saudi-based, fundamentalist Wahhabi Sect that had been established among the Syrian tribes can, the reasoning goes, secure the continuation of Sunni domination there. That would protect the security of the Kingdom and the wealth and power of all of the other rulers along the Gulf… The Saudis may be able to get the Russians to bend. Saudi Arabia has the means to make life for the Russians dangerous. Wahhabi cadres operating in the Moslem regions of Russia are already starting uprisings. Once-peaceful areas in Russia are no longer safe, and Moscow has not figured how to deal with the problem. Is Russia prepared to sacrifice its own stability to save Al-Assad? The Saudis are in a position to force Putin to consider seriously the answer to that question.

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.”

 

Video Highlights

This leaked video from the majority-Alawite village of Al-Amriyeh in North Homs shows a regime representative reading a list of names of people who will be given weapons by the regime. The scuffle that ensures when he is done reading the names reflects the anger of people whose name was not on the list. The video basically corroborates the existence of a policy calling for arming Alawite and Shia villages to use them as part of popular militias to help regime operations in their areas http://youtu.be/pl5M5vD_lzU

The town of Maarbah in Daraa Province comes under intense shelling http://youtu.be/gzX5jswSDSk

Aerial raids on the town of Heesh, idlib Province, intensifies http://youtu.be/7RIca7s-ciw Scenes from the clashes around Heesh http://youtu.be/SWjpx7aci3

In Damascus City, Jobar Neighborhood and surroundings come under renewed shelling and bombardment http://youtu.be/t2At2q1TGzA , http://youtu.be/Ctx4CGjJCIw

In Mazzeh Neighborhood, regime forces destroy homes near the Mazzeh Military Airport http://youtu.be/HBWmA3K7n3o

In Western Ghoutah, Damascus, rebels attack a loyalist outpost and take it over. We see them here pulling the dead bodies of regime loyalists from under the rubble in preparation or mass burial http://youtu.be/zJ5_s31VV7Y

Rebel strongholds in Homs City come under renewed pounding: Bab Houd http://youtu.be/DFmhtR07sA0 Khaldiyeh http://youtu.be/LbL99v1QZJw Rebels attack loyalist outpost near Baba Amr http://youtu.be/kQnSyEmj0fY

An Alawite opposition figure claim on Al-Arabiya TV that the number of Alawite soldiers and officers who have been killed since the beginning of the Revolution is around 40,000. No independent confirmation is available http://youtu.be/h8-UhLVPLMI

Date of incident: 26-1-2013
Documented by the Syrian Network for Human Rights
The location of Menbaj city on the map:
http://www.worldmapfinder.com/GoogleMaps/Ar_Asia_Syria_Manbij.html

 

The following is an eyewitness account of a media activist known as Abu Riyad , who was present during the shelling and is still alive.

“At approx 4pm, we were distributing aid to displaced civilians, when we heard the sound of a rocket and an explosion. Following this, people started to shout and run in the streets and we saw the airplane which launched the rocket. It was very far and too high to be caught by camera. We ran to the location of the shelling, which was the street of a public park and the shelling was close to the fence of the park, therefore, the open area lessened the extent of destruction. The rocket was dropped on an Arabic home which was completely destroyed, in addition to five other homes surrounding it, and it was clear that the shelling was done by an interstitial missile, not an explosive barrel due to the extent of destruction. This missile caused severe destruction over 100m in diameter and minor destruction over 200 diameters. Glass, doors and windows of shops were severely damaged, and the high pressure caused a truck on the side road to topple over, additionally, the cars were also destroyed and approx 10 shops were completely demolished.

18 people were killed, including a whole family ( Taha, Mohammad, Reem, Israa, Raghad and their mother Nozha) in addition to this,  approx 16 people were injured and were taken to hospital.”

The eyewitness can be contacted by voice and video on the following Skype account: msyria89

We were able to document the deaths of 19 civilians, including one family made up of a mother and 4 children. We also documented approx 50 injured people including 10 children who were less than 4 years old.

Names of the victims of the massacre: 

1. Rami Babensi – 22 years

2. Mohammad Sabahi – 12 years

3. Mohammad Makhlouf – 20 years

4. Basam AlHamam – 20 years

5. Ahmad AlShaher – 40 years

6. Ayman Darwish – 13 years

7. Siham Al Khalaf – 45 years

8. Fiddah AlShalash – 50 years

9. Zakaria Hunaifi – 25 years

10. Mohammad Qurrah Muhammad – 12 years

11. Bassam Hammam – a second year student in the college of chemistry

12. Nuzha AlHammam – 31 years – married to Khaled AlHamdouni

13. Taha Khaled AlHamdouni

14. Reem Khaled AlHamdouni

15. Raghad Khaled AlHamdouni

16. Israa Khaled AlHamdouni

17. Huda Qurrah Mohammad – 4 years

18. A 3 year old child whose name was not identified

19. An unidentified martyr

 

Attachments: 

When the civilians heard the sound of the airplane, a few activists used their cameras to film the airplane which enabled them to document the shelling.

The airplane which shelled the city:

http://youtu.be/CZSt4WqKV4A

The moment during which the missile was dropped

http://youtu.be/CZSt4WqKV4A

http://youtu.be/CZSt4WqKV4A

The martyrdom of a whole family

http://youtu.be/STISQkAI8vU

Children martyrs who died due to the shelling

http://youtu.be/ASwaVmTdEc0

http://youtu.be/eh-r08wAoEg

Footage of the incident and victims

http://youtu.be/STISQkAI8vU

http://youtu.be/STISQkAI8vU

http://youtu.be/ASwaVmTdEc0

http://youtu.be/eh-r08wAoEg

An injured child who is now in turkey, he has not be identified yet:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=420393344705532&set=a.389346417810225.92523.387744874637046&type=1&theater

A few images of the missile shelling on the city

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=321980471254248

Please note that there were no clashes prior to the shelling, the free Syrian army was not present in the area and the airplane only targeted civilians.

The paramedics or civil defence teams which belong to the Syrian government did not come to the scene of shelling to aid the Syrians or save the wounded or injured.

Additionally, the Syrian government or the Syrian parliament did not open an investigation or any sort of questioning as if nothing had happened.

According to the seventh session/ paragraph 100 in the Rome statute, murder is a crime against humanity. Also, according to the eighth session, murder is a war crime.

All paragraphs in the seventh and eighth sessions are present in this massacre.

Based on this information, the Syrian government is considered responsible for the systematic killing and torture of Syrian citizens. No government in the world has the right to kill civilians.

 

—

الشبكة السورية لحقوق الإنسان 

Syrian Network for Human Rights 

https://www.facebook.com/syrianhr

The Holy War!

As calls for Jihad and counter-Jihad proliferate, and an all against all holy war unfolds, Syria disintegrates.  

 

Today’s Death Toll: 121 martyrs, including 8 women and 5 children: 36 martyrs in Damascus and suburbs, 31 in Aleppo, 17 in Homs, 14 in Deir Ezzor, 14 in Daraa, 4 in Idlib, 3 in Hama, and 1 in Jableh (LCCs).

Points of Random Shelling: 308 points. Aerial bombardment counted in 17 points. Scud bombing in 3 points, Shelling using Surface-to-Surface missiles in 7 points. Shelling using cluster bombs recorded in Busra Harir, Daraa. Artillery shelling in 102 points. Rocket shelling counted for 78 points, while mortar shelling counted in 102 points (LCCs).

Clashes: 159. Successful rebel operations include the liberation of the towns of Karnaz, Tal Jadid and Hammamiyat in Hama Province, and shelling the vicinity of the Military Security and Air Force Intelligence headquarters in Deir Ezzor. FSA rebels also seized control over the main road in Busr Al-Harir and targeted few locations where regime forces were stationed. In Aleppo, the FSA targeted a regime checkpoint manned by pro-regime thugs in Tal Shuoaib area near Nairab Camp and killed several regime soldiers (LCCs).

 

News

Deadly abuses intensify in Syria as war worsens: U.N. The Syrian government has stepped up indiscriminate, heavy bombardments of cities while rebels are executing prisoners condemned in their own makeshift courts without due process, U.N. investigators said on Monday. The independent investigators said they were looking into 20 massacres committed by one or the other side and hundreds of “unlawful killings”, cases of torture and arbitrary arrests since September in the two-year-old conflict… “In a disturbing and dangerous trend, mass killings allegedly perpetrated by Popular Committees have at times taken on sectarian overtones,” the 10-page U.N. report said. “Some appear to have been trained and armed by the government.”… “We are not saying that it is a sectarian war but we call attention to sectarian elements in the present conflict,” Pinheiro said. Foreign fighters from more than a dozen countries are estimated to comprise less than 10 percent of the opposition forces fighting the Assad government, he said. “We don’t want to contribute to a paranoia that Syria is being invaded by foreign fighters. But they have a lot of skills and have been very successful in spreading acts of terror inside Syria,” said Pinheiro.

Turkey Links Syria to Deadly Car Bombing at Border Turkey’s interior minister blamed Syria’s intelligence agencies and its army for involvement in a car bombing at a border crossing last month that killed 14 people, after he announced Monday that police detained five suspects. Four Syrians and a Turk are in custody in connection with the Feb. 11 attack at the Bab al-Hawa frontier post. No one has claimed responsibility, but a Syrian opposition faction accused the Syrian government of the bombing, saying it narrowly missed 13 leaders of the group.

EU Foreign Ministers Split on Arms to Syria The ministers were sharply divided, with Britain and Italy joining France in supporting eventual military aid for the opposition while Germany, Sweden and others see that as moving in the wrong direction. Sweden’s Carl Bildt warned that a military solution carries the risk of “the devastation of the region.” On her way into the meeting, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she supports a political solution.

Supporting Assad is a ‘religious obligation:’ Syria’s Grand Imam Supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is a “religious obligation” of all Muslims, whether they live inside or outside of Syria, the country’s supreme religious ruling body said Monday. The state television quoted Grand Mufti Shiekh Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun as urging all Arabs and Muslims to fight so called “enemies of Syria.” The Assad government had recently claimed in an interview with The Sunday Time that it was the last “secular” state in the Middle East, reiterating that radical Islamists would come into power if the Alawite president was overthrown.

Assad ‘will fight to the end’ despite setbacks
“Now he is much more the ‘boss’ than before, though he of course could not do without his military and security supporters,” Nikolaos van Dam, a Dutch diplomat and leading expert on Syria, told AFP. “He will fight until death if necessary,” said van Dam, author of “The struggle for power in Syria.” “There is too much at stake here, not only for him, but for his Alawite followers and the Alawite community as well.” The Alawites are an offshoot of Shiite Islam, while the rebels in Syria are mostly Sunni. “The future may hold a long and ferocious civil war,” van Dam added… “He seems both more erratic and more delusional, still convinced he can win militarily,” said Berlin-based Volker Perthes, who heads the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Steeped in the “anti-imperialist” ideology of the Baath party which has ruled for 50 years, Assad believes Syria is the target of a foreign conspiracy because his government supports movements fighting Israel, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah. He also believes that control over Syria’s main cities – chiefly Damascus – and the west of the country will give him cards to play in any future negotiations led by the United States and Russia.

The Guardian Interactive Report on Aleppo River Massacre

 

Special Reports

Syria’s Opposition: Ready or Not?
there is no reason why a government, as opposed to an opposition, could not be the interlocutor with regime-designated negotiators in talks aimed at producing the peaceful, managed, and complete regime change transition agreed to by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council at Geneva last year. British and American reluctance on this score has less to do with who does the talking and the implications for continuity of government than it does with their own preparedness to take the next step on Syria.

The Enigma of the Syrian Nation
Today a political order is needed to manage the multiple identities of the Middle East—Syria included. It must not impugn them, suppress them or pretend they don’t exist. Orientalists, Arabists in particular, should stop railing [3] against the pre-modern heritage of the region. They would serve their fields by admitting that tribal, sectarian, and ethnic identities matter in the Middle East, trump all others, and deserve consideration in any thoughtful reflection on the region’s troubles. Absent that, no sense of meaningful civic identities, or genuine “citizenship” can ever develop, and Syria will prove a mere passageway to the impending unraveling of other Middle Eastern states.

What might have been: a decade of civil activism in Syria
The Syria Trust for Development was beginning to play an important role in Syria, when the Syrian uprising took place: an excerpt from a study of Syrian civil society on the eve of revolution that helps us to understand some of the deeper changes that were under way.

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.”

Onward Holy Soldiers!
In a statement read by Sheikh Mamdouh Junaid, the League of Syrian Ulema (Sunni religious scholars) responded to yesterday’s call for Jihad issued by Syria’s Grand Mufti with a call of their own. Today’s call was for Jihad against “Assad and his sect,” and threatened the international community that if it fails to intervene to stop Assad’s sectarian war against the “Syria’s Sunni people,” it will be considered a culprit http://youtu.be/lHKdR5D4MZY.

Yesterday’s call for Jihad by the Grand Mufti was not just aimed at Syrians, but at all Arab and Muslim nations. Many activists fear that the call is meant as a prelude for inviting Iran to officially send troops to defend the regime. In my recent paper “Syria 2013: Rise of the Warlords,” I actually predicted that Assad will resort to recruiting Shia fighters from other countries, including in South Asia. This development might be around the corner now. The Assads are not planning to give up despite their recent setbacks.

Activists today posted today a video showing Syrian TV running an actual Jihadi song titled “We will wage our battle against them.” If the video is not actually fake and meant as a joke, it would be the most surreal development to have taken place so far http://youtu.be/rLlpsDLrGVQ. Social media is picking it and describing as real.

Reports from Qardaha now explain that the weekend clashes happened when officials showed up to seek over 2,500 young Alawite men who are dodging the draft. Certain Alawite cans in Latakia may not be willing to directly challenge the Assads, but they are becoming increasingly reluctant to see their children being drafted and forced to fight against rebels, even as rebel groups inch their way towards Latakia City. If Alawite youths are to fight, they might as well fight to safeguard Alawite strongholds, rather than engage in a battle to safeguard Assads’ hold over Sunni-majority areas.

Still, an Alawite youth movement based in Turkey, the Coalition of Alawite Youth Against Bashar Al-Assad, issued a statement today promising to provide shelter and compensation for all Alawite youths willing to leave Syria in order to avoid the draft.

Meanwhile, a group of Alawite sheikhs from Latakia, where most Anti-Assad Alawite clans are based, came up with a 10-point plan to stop the current conflict. In the preamble, the sheikhs refer to a conspiracy against homeland, accuse all actors of working for their own private interests, and a accuse the opposition of being “weak,” “unable to lead the society,” and does not “represent the will of the Syrian people.” For its part, the regime is described as having become “weak and unable to manage the crisis to get Syria to the safe side.” This is not exactly an endorsement of the revolution, nor is it a reflection of a popular move among Alawites, but it does capture the mood within a certain small segments of the Alawite community.

The points: 1) A cease fire observed by all, 2) all non-Syrians should leave the country, 3) A committee of wise men should be established to oversee the implementation of the plan, 4) No more political kidnappings, 5) Assad should declare that he will not run for reelection and the date for the presidential elections should be moved forward to the last quarter of 2013, 6) all exiles should be allowed to return, 7) A representative national reconciliation committee should be established, 8)  Syrian should transition to a civil state with equal rights for all within a year, 9) the transitional period should be supervised by a joint civilian and military council whose members will not be allowed to run or occupy any position in the future, 10) no political party will be allowed to impose its ideology on the state, and the army should not dabble in politics.

Judging from comments on social media sites run by the opposition, the plan seems to have come too late to be taken seriously at this stage.

 

Video Highlights

Missile hit the recently liberated neighborhood of Baba Amr, Homs City http://youtu.be/8WNgCm-Q0b4 Tanks heads towards Baba Amr to take part in the shelling http://youtu.be/7Vn2zDHTMQs Missile launchers positioned inside Homs University are used in pounding Baba Amr http://youtu.be/EozPmjG-1nY The launchers as tehy enter the university grounds http://youtu.be/C2jz1ES_2Go MiGs take part in the pounding http://youtu.be/PJR9oX52u4g

Member of Jabhat Al-Nusra carried out a suicide operation against a checkpoint at Mashtal checkpoint, Damascus http://youtu.be/_3fW77WQ8To

Rebels bring down a Sukhoy warplane in the Raqqa countryside http://youtu.be/SiUYdw2iQgk

Another video produced by the Russians covering the tank assault on the town of Daraya in Damascus Suburbs http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=437792469635518 The view from the rebels’ perspective http://youtu.be/jl4Qx7GluMU

Heavy clashes in Daraa City http://youtu.be/Uf8Ck526Mh4 , http://youtu.be/9cbV567yzJ8 , http://youtu.be/DwXq2gdqNsg , http://youtu.be/rS75XcGg8f0

Heavy clashes take place in Rushdiyeh, Deir Ezzor http://youtu.be/Bz0CKaQ3KWE , http://youtu.be/5KL1Wq5L_eI

The towns of Eastern Ghoutah, Damascus Suburbs, continue to be the target of warplanes and missile attacks: Saqba http://youtu.be/4Pmp5wVheuk Arbeen http://youtu.be/vF791qGyDsE

On the sixth of this month Alassad troops targeted the city with two Scud missiles, the first fall south of the city , and the second one kilometer far from Almashlab area in the city, that’s makes the total number of Ballistic missiles targeted the city is 11.

In light of the inability of the international community to stop the Syrian regime from launching ballistic missiles against the Syrian, where SNHR documented through our reports until the moment at least for 73 Scud missiles we launched.

We are afraid and in a serious manner that the Syrian regime will avenge from the people of the province and the target Al- Baath and Al-Furrat dams.

In 12-2-2013, a Scud rocket hit Albaroda village, 1.5 Km away from Al- Baath dam, and another one hit Aaid protected area, 10 Km away from Al-Furat dam.

Al- Furrat, located 40 Km upstream from  Raqqa city. The dam is 60 meters high and 4.5 kilometers long and is the largest dam in Syria.

Its construction led to the creation of Lake Assad, Syria’s largest water reservoir.  The dam was constructed between 1968 and 1973 with help from the Soviet Union.

Raqqa Tand at least 1.3 million displaced people in addition to nearly half a million of its indigenous population.

Thus destruction of the dam will inundate the city’s buildings until the fourth floor and there will be no time to evacuation the city of its population, because the water will cross the distance between the dam and the city, which almost 50 miles in less than 15 minutes, the water level of the lack is 200-250 m rising from the sea – while Raqqa city rise 170 m and Dier Alzoor rise 150 m, that’s mean water will flood Raqqa up to 50 m and Dier Alzoor up to 100 m.

Then the Dam water will turn to destroy other cities on the same line, which is Ma’dan and Dier Alzoor, it will take less than 40 minutes to get there, and also Abu Kamal city on the Iraqi Syrian border.

To be mentioned that Al-Furrat dam has been liberated in 11-2-2013.

Recommendations:

Scud missile, classified by USA as a mass as a mass destruction weapon in Al Iraq case because of its ability to carry chemical weapons.

For that the International community in the maximum speed should protect Syrian from death and destructions cause using Scud Missile by Alassad Troops, almost two  Scud missile ever day.

SNHR demands international community represented by security council to maintain civil peace, in case it is not deter the Syrian regime, it will be considered as a green light, and it may led to a repeat a major disaster like Hama massacre in 1982, and hold the responsibility again to Alassad regime, security council and Arab League.

 

–

الشبكة السورية لحقوق الإنسان 

Syrian Network for Human Rights 

https://www.facebook.com/syrianhr