Today’s Death Toll: 125 martyrs, including 13 children 11 women and 1 martyr under torture. 54 in Aleppo, 45 in Damascus and Suburbs, 9 in Daraa, 6 in Homs, 3 in Hama, 3 in Idlib, 3 in Deir Ezzor, 1 in Raqqa and 1 in Qouniter (LCCs).

Points of Random Shelling: 324 points, including 11 point were shelled using warplanes; 2 using Scud missiles; 4 points using explosive barrels; 1 point was shelled using cluster bombs; artillery shelling was reported in 124 points; mortar shelling in 95 points and rocket shelling in 87 all around Syria (LCCs).

Clashes: 114. Successful FSA operations include bringing down a fighter jet in Aleppo, taking over the Yarobiya Checkpoint along the Syrian-Iraqi border to the northeast, and attacking a loyalist barracks in Eastern Khirbet Ghazaleh in Daraa(LCCs).

 

News

Assad forces take Aleppo village, reopening supply line The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the capture of Tel Shghaib marked the last step to creating a land supply route north into Aleppo from Hama province, crucial for Assad’s forces who have lost control of part of the main north-south highway. Rebels say they hold most of the city itself and nearly all the rural hinterland. But they have been unable to achieve a decisive victory and complain that they are outgunned and vulnerable to Assad’s air force, artillery and ballistic missiles, which killed dozens of people in Aleppo last week.

Syria risks “dissolution”, U.N. chief says He said the situation in Syria was deteriorating by the day after almost two years of conflict in which 70,000 people have died, but there was now a slim chance for peace talks. “This is a very small window of opportunity which we strongly support and encourage them to use that. The opportunity may soon close,” Ban said at a news conference in Geneva.

Syria crisis: European countries expected to start arming rebels Syrian opposition representative in UK says ‘breakthrough’ is expected after relaxation of EU rules.

Kremlin says Putin, Obama seek “new initiatives” on Syria “The presidents have instructed (Lavrov and Kerry) to continue active contacts focused on working out possible new initiatives aimed at a political settlement of the crisis (in Syria),” the Kremlin said in a statement.

Are Syria’s pro-Assad hackers up to something more nefarious? So what, exactly, does the Syrian Electronic Army hope to achieve? Some believe the answer may be something more insidious than the group’s stated purpose of “show[ing] the world the truth about the ‘Syria Revolution.’”… The Post’s James Ball has suggested that pro-government hackers have actually begun acting as a sort of quasi-intelligence unit, “using the Internet to uncover members of the opposition” by advertising fake Facebook and Skype software that is embedded with spyware.

U.S. aid to Syria should be “non-lethal,” new Pentagon chief says New U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Friday he believed U.S. policy of giving only “non-lethal support” to Syria’s opposition was the correct one.

Scud missile fired in Syria lands near Iraqi village: mayor “A Russian-made Scud landed near the village of Yoush Tapa, 3 km from the Iraqi-Syrian border between Telafar and Baaj,” said Abdul Aal Abbas, the mayor of Telafar. “There were no casualities or damage, but it created fear among the Turkuman population of that village and they fled their houses”. Nineveh governorate spokesman Qahtan Sami said security forces had also said the rocket was of Russian provenance.

Desperate Situation in Syria: The Regional Director for the Middle East of the IRC talks about the conflict in Syria and the awful conditions that people are living in (Video).

 

Special Reports

In Syria, the U.S. Makes a Move
This is a hydra-headed war, a bit like a high-stakes poker game, and the best Washington can likely do is take a deep breath and sit down at the table to try its hand, hoping to make some profit by doing so and not lose the family farm in the process. Given the U.S. role in the world, there is no real option but to play, because out of Syria’s mess will come some kind of new reckoning between the world’s powers where everyone’s leverage lies in the new Middle East. The Russians have staked their bets, and, in their own way, the Chinese, the Iranians, the Turks, and the Saudis have, too. So has everyone else in the neighborhood, even the small fry. The result is a bloody stalemate. For better or worse, everyone is looking to the Americans to tip the balance, because that is the role that a superpower, still in the game, is expected to play. This is not about what’s right so much as it is about the game. If the Americans want the outcome to favor them and their allies they must try to help mold it. Direct aid may have its risks, but no move at all means losing, too.

U.S. Steps Up Aid, But Syria’s Rebels Want Arms
The U.S. has declined to supply the rebels with the heavier weaponry that could help neutralize the regime’s advantages in air power, armor and artillery, and is widely reported to have also restrained many of its allies from doing so. Still, Saudi Arabia has reportedly recently managed to supply some rebel forces with anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, and has openly agitated for the West to do the same. But the Administration sees arming the rebels — a plethora of small armed groups, some of the most effective among them being jihadists, and lacking a single overarching chain of command or political leadership — as a risky bet.

Syria solution – strategic attacks by West
Why couldn’t NATO forces take on targeted attacks like that to hasten Assad’s fall from power? (A transitional government and U.N. peacekeeping force would have to be ready, waiting.) Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican, is calling for using cruise missiles to destroy Syrian aircraft on runways.

Weighing U.S. Intervention: Syria v. Congo
Using the Bosnia precedent, and allowing for a population four times its size, up to 200,000 foreign troops could be needed in a post-war stabilization effort – if only for a time. But if their focus were on policing ceasefire lines, the number might be cut in half, with the U.S. share perhaps 20,000.

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.”

Thursday February 28, 2013

 

Today’s Death Toll: 98 martyrs, including 4 women and 5 children, and 18 martyrs under torture: 35 martyrs were reported in Damascus and suburbs, 33 in Aleppo, 9 in Hama, 8 in Daraa, 6 in Idlib, 4 in Deir Ezzor and 1 martyr in each of Qunaitra, Homs and Latakia (LCCs).

 

Points of Random Shelling: 268 points, including 7 points were shelled using warplanes, 2 points using Scud missiles, artillery shelling was reported in 107 points, mortar shelling in 83 points, and rocket shelling in 71 points all around Syria (LCCs).

 

Clashes: 94. Successful FSA operations include targeting loyalist bases on top of Mount Qasayoun, Damascus and shelling of a loyalist camp in Nayraib, Idlib. In Aleppo, FSA rebels inched towards Sabaa Bahrat Square after intense clashes with pro-regime forces (LCCs).

 

News

£1bn pledged in aid to Syria fails to materialise Gulf countries and other states including the UK pledged the money at a donor conference in Kuwait last month.

Syria Rebels Seek Premier-in-Waiting as U.S. Steps Up Support It’s not clear when the meeting, originally scheduled for March 2, will take place. The coalition said on its Facebook page yesterday that it has been delayed for “logistical reasons.”

Putin Signals Russia Can Be More Flexible on Syria “We should listen to the opinion of our partners on some of the aspects of that difficult problem,” Putin told reporters. “It seems to me that we would need to sit over a bottle of vodka — a bottle of good wine wouldn’t be enough — to sort things out. We would need to sit down and think it over.” Hollande responded jokingly that he would prefer port.

Syria refugees threaten Lebanon’s stability: interior minister The minister, Marwan Charbel, has said Syrian rebels have set up training camps in Lebanon. In addition, members of the rebel Free Syrian Army have used Lebanon’s mountainous terrain to regroup before staging attacks on the Syrian army across the poorly demarcated border. “What is concerning me is the security situation,” Charbel said at a joint news conference with the United Nations Development Programme. “Who is exploiting (the Syrian refugees)? Who is arming them? We are not controlling them.”

Croatia Withdrawing Soldiers from U.N. Force on Israel-Syria Frontier Croatia has nearly 100 soldiers serving with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, which is responsible for maintaining the fragile calm between Israeli and Syrian troops at the demilitarized zone along Syria’s Golan frontier that was established after a cease-fire ended the 1973 war. The decision to withdraw the soldiers from the area came after The New York Times reported on Monday that Saudi Arabia had underwritten a large purchase of infantry arms in Croatia. Croatia has denied selling weapons to either Saudi Arabia or the Syrian rebels. But Mr. Milanovic said t reports of the sales had put Croatian soldiers at risk and that he was compelled to withdraw them because their safety could no longer be assured.

Syria protests Israel’s approval for oil drilling In letters sent to the U.N. Security Council and the U.N. secretary general Thursday, the Syrian Foreign Ministry called the decision a “blatant violation” of U.N. resolutions and Syria’s sovereignty… On Feb. 21, Israel said it had issued a permit for the American-Israeli company Genie Energy to drill for oil on the plateau. Syria alleges that Israel is trying to consecrate its occupation of Syrian territory and steal its resources.

Syria retains senior post at U.N. committee responsible for ‘decolonizing’ American Samoa Yes, the same Syrian government that has killed thousands of civilians in a brutal civil war was just reappointed to a senior position at a United Nations committee in charge of “decolonizing,” among other places, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa.

 

Special Reports

BBC Radio: The Alawis

The government of President Assad of Syria is under threat. So too is the secretive Shia sect known as the Alawis – or Alawites – to which he and many of the governing party and security officials belong.

Hostility towards the minority Alawi population is such that one leading commentator predicts they are likely to be the victims of the world’s next genocide. Presenter Owen Bennett Jones investigates the Alawis’ origins, history and culture and asks how these once marginalised people came to power in a Sunni majority state. He discovers that for many their fortunes changed fifty years ago when the Baath party seized power in a coup d’etat. Alawis were dominant among the army officers who took control. They set about modernising the country and rolling out a secular agenda. Now, as Syria’s revolution has morphed into a civil war, many Alawis believe their only choice is to kill or be killed. Are the majority of Alawis right to be convinced that the Assad regime is all that stands between them and a return to second-class status, or worse? If the opposition wins in Syria, are warnings about pogroms against the Alawis alarmist, or inevitable?

In a pickle: Lebanon’s Shia leaders are not sure what to do about Syria

This is increasing tensions in fractious Lebanon. Its population is bitterly divided over the war in Syria, causing Hizbullah’s popularity to plummet. Having experienced their own 15-year civil war, most Lebanese fear being dragged into Syria’s conflict.

Another Problem in Syria: How Do Kurds Fit In? A major Kurdish group opens talks with the leading Syrian opposition groups. Will this pave the way to a unified Syria after Assad?

Salih Muslim, the leader of the biggest Syrian Kurdish Party, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), has opened up the possibility that people of Rojava might join the struggle of their fellow Syrians and work toward a more unified transfer of power in post-Assad Syria. Muslim met with leaders of the Syrian National Coalition on Wednesday in Cairo to discuss joining the umbrella organization of opposition groups.

It’s Too Late To Stop Syria Disintegrating

As we watch and they die, as we did 20 years ago with Bosnia, I am reminded that conscience, at the collective level demanded for state action, usually kicks in when it is much too late — not just to spare individual tragedies on a grand scale, but also to preserve the territorial integrity of disintegrating multi-ethnic states. Looking at the Middle East, there is not much in terms of borders that makes sense — they neither reflect national divisions, nor religious ones. They are lines in the sand — the legacy of a rapacious colonial era kept together after the colonial powers left by even more rapacious dictators.

Dreams deferred: The life and death of a veterinarian-turned-rebel fighter in Syria

As the violence deepened into a civil war, Qadi worked as a medic but later took up arms when his brother was killed, becoming a field commander. Qadi was leading fighters into battle against the government forces when I met him on two occasions last year, a 25-year-old who was swept up in events he didn’t quite understand and didn’t expect to survive.

Direct US aid to Syria’s rebels: Why now – and is it too late?

The US decision to give direct aid to Syria’s rebels (but still no weapons) is too little, too late – unlikely either to speed President Assad’s departure or to boost US influence over the conflict, say many experts.

Will limited US aid to Syria rebels hasten the end of war, or prolong it?

The US has promised to do a lot more to help Syria’s rebellion against the government of Bashar al-Assad, but is stopping well short of the kind of aid that might prove decisive.

Syrians are receiving US aid – they just don’t know it

The widespread perception among Syrians that the US has abandoned them is untrue, but US aid is rarely branded as such and it is still far short of what is needed.

How the Graffiti Boys ignited the Syrian Revolution

So Syria, you see, is probably the Arab Left’s last chance at having a revolution free from religion. This is most likely the reason for their opposition to the revolution from the very outset because they knew for sure that it would carry a strong religious flavour. Well, sorry to disappoint them. I crossed the length and breadth of Syria shortly before the revolution and saw most communities, Christian and Muslim alike, holding tight to their faith. Whatever shape their revolution will take, the future will be dominated by believers.

 

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.”