While developments in Damascus City are certainly important, it’s the intensification of the shelling of Hama and Homs cities that tells the real story – the story of an ethnic cleansing campaign getting put on hyperdrive. Assad needs to establish full control over Homs Province and the Sahel Al-Ghab Region, and that requires destabilizing all surrounding areas. Assad is burning the country to the ground except for the little subservient enclave he’s building for himself. Now it’s Damascus’ turn to burn.
Monday July 16, 2012
Today’s Death toll: 97. The Breakdown: 30 in Hama, 21 in Homs,13 in Aleppo,15 in Damascus (11 in city, and 4 in Suburbs), 8 in Daraa, 7 in Deir Ezzor and 3 in Idlib.
Reports from the FSA clam that over 60 pro-Assad militias have been killed in the outgoing clashes in the Midan District. But District and surrounding neighborhoods of Naher Eisheh, Al-Zahirah, Daf Al-Shawk, Al-Tadamon and Al-Yarmouk have been cordoned and surrounded by tanks and armored vehicles.
The International Airport of Damascus was reportedly closed to incoming and outgoing traffic today, due to the worsening security situation in Damascus. According to a late LCCs
report, Al-Qaboun suburb was shelled by a helicopter gunship.
In the refugee camp of Kilis, Turkish authorities used tear gas and batons to break up a rally organized by Syrian refugees to protest their deteriorating living conditions. Dozens have reportedly suffered from various injuries and are in need of medical treatment.
News
Op-Eds & Special Reports
Aside from a brief foray into town in late December, the army has yet to attempt to occupy Yabrud. “They came here for a few days, but then they simply left. There was no significant battle,” said Abu Mohammed, an anti-government activist who asked that his full name not be used. The result is an oasis of calm amid a conflict that the International Committee of the Red Cross formally declared a civil war on Sunday…
Deadly Uncertainty: The Reason Syria’s Chemical Weapons Are So Dangerous Best-case scenarios for Syria’s chemical weapons appear to be pipe dreams: Assad is highly unlikely to willingly leave power willingly and allow a negotiated transition; and his downfall isn’t likely to come from a clean overthrow by the rebels, either. Assad’s hold on power inadvertently prevents the need for a rapid response to contain the massive stockpile chemical weapons–but Washington must develop a long-term plan if its policy is truly for the strongman to leave power.
The Russian foreign minister claims the West is threatening not to renew a UN observer mission in Syria if Russia doesn’t vote for a resolution that could lead to military intervention… “There is a red line that Russia will not cross, and that is authorizing any forceful intervention in Syria from outside,” says Lukyanov. “No amount of turmoil, no terrible atrocities, nothing will convince Russia to vote for a Libya-style operation against Syria. It looks bad, but Russia is convinced that after the fall of Assad it will only be much worse.”
To Lukyanov and others, let me be clear in stating that the situation in Syria will most certainly grow worse after Assad’s departure, but maneuvering through the post-Assad mayhem is the price that we will gladly pay in order to get out from under his stinking mantle. My advice to Putin and his officials is to invent a time machine and use it to go back and serve under the Czar and his ministers, so that their beloved
Anastasia won’t have to scream in vain. For some people are more interested in glory, power and stature than they are in freedom: usually they are the ones who don’t have to suffer the indignities of serfdom.
Recent defector confirms assertions that I have repeatedly made on this blog regarding the real party responsible for the car bombings in Syria: the Assads.Of course, recent events also indicate that local resistance groups have finally adopted this tactic but only in targeting loyalist checkpoints and not during in-city operations where civilian casualties can take place.
The Situation in Damascus
The population of Tadamon is a mix of Palestinian refugees who originally hailed from Yarmouk Camp and old Damascene families who were forced by worsening socioeconomic conditions to relocate to the suburbs, from such districts as Midan and Kafar Sousseh.
To the northwest of Midan, in the majority-Kurd neighborhood of
Ruknaddine, nighttime protesters come under fire
http://youtu.be/QvZkpnq-f0UOther Video Highlight
In
Hama City,
Hamidiyeh Neighborhood is shelled
http://youtu.be/kYbT3iUwIFM ,
http://youtu.be/xtrBLo2VT4E ,
http://youtu.be/GpZcOJgjtGk ,
http://youtu.be/nYrdPydHZQI ,
http://youtu.be/bRh83oV3jRQ ,
http://youtu.be/G_pwTdEakaY ,
http://youtu.be/0F2TxyeniaM Close-up of the loyalist troops taking part in the pounding
http://youtu.be/7tsB18UPoLQ And there were wounded
http://youtu.be/Hs49j5_6fyc And Aleppo Road came under intense pounding as well
http://youtu.be/nL8fJhr4cYk ,
http://youtu.be/eECm8xKdeOo ,
http://youtu.be/pqJ44QQfGxU As pro-Assad militias carry out their patrols
http://youtu.be/ZWV_3Ss1qII Al-Jib Neighborhood was also pounded
http://youtu.be/O1JSGyw_ekc Tanks take part in the pounding
http://youtu.be/-okdPAvfNlg The pounding of
Arba’een Neighborhoodhttp://youtu.be/SV4MoVekVrU ,
http://youtu.be/ef7bscvLlho ,
http://youtu.be/wvDanldesok, On July 14 pro-Assad militias detonated a car bomb in Al-Karaeh Neighborhood
http://youtu.be/6lS4F_qoVTEThe pounding of
Old Homs continues:
Jouret Al-Shayahhttp://youtu.be/ab5kfip7r6I ,
http://youtu.be/mBlncas-CL4 ,
http://youtu.be/S442pOwMOTA ,
http://youtu.be/DpILK2RQgjw ,
http://youtu.be/pDvTQJdqvIQ ,
http://youtu.be/uXm3PPxWhF0 ,
http://youtu.be/_CJAF_vzVOg ,
http://youtu.be/7xFoJDbP0FU ,
http://youtu.be/EKrVzYkxHcI ,
http://youtu.be/e0rHVJC_vQY Old Homs is now in a state of utter desolation
http://youtu.be/VBTzVGcjc9g ,
http://youtu.be/3Rk6p41GmUY The pounding of
Qarabishttp://youtu.be/UHHBxfaLNk8 ,
http://youtu.be/ZgDjLiOJ_ns ,
http://youtu.be/7mF309BMiMs ,
http://youtu.be/c9tSDqv30o4 ,
http://youtu.be/BxOUAsHRkhQ Khaldiyeh http://youtu.be/IffixwTQmjc The pounding of
Jobar http://youtu.be/r0uzRaHF3Ek ,
http://youtu.be/d2VSLCbYgBYSome wounded and some dead in
Jobar http://youtu.be/4gDhlf9b_x8 ,
http://youtu.be/hRkpKrrFVcIThe Kurdish Question
While most of Syria burns, Kurdish regions in Syria, especially in Al-Hassakeh Province, are dancing to their own unique tune. A recent agreement between the PYD and KNC ensures signed in Irbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, dubbed as the Hawler Accord, after the Kurdish name for Irbil, has finally agreed a mechanism for power sharing in Kurdish majority towns between the two major coalitions: the Kurdish National Council, made up of a number of Kurdish parties, and the People’s Council of Western Kurdistan (PCWK) affiliated with the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdish Labor Party (PKK). Other Kurdish parties and political movements that remain outside the scope of these two major coalitions, such as the Future Current, established by the late Mishaal Tammo, assassinated early in the Revolution, and a variety of youth movements are expected to play along.
As such, the Kurdish strategy at this stage is clear: to further consolidate their hold on their regions to strengthen their recently gained autonomy. While these changing priorities are not likely to impact the level of Kurdish youth participation in the revolutionary movements in Damascus and Aleppo cities, among other places (Homs, Lattakia), they do rule out the possibility of extending the revolutionary spirit to Kurdish-majority areas where rallies will increasingly focus on showing solidarity from a distance. Barring a major change in dynamic between Arab and Kurdish opposition groups, especially the Syrian National Council and the two main Kurdish groups, the Kurds will not be a factor in future confrontations with the Assad regime.
Still, there is a potential conflict brewing in Kurdish areas, albeit, its dynamics will be quite different from what’s taking place elsewhere in Syria. The new conflict could either pit Kurd against Kurd, should the power sharing arrangement fail, as many expect it to – after all, it is the second such arrangement to be reached in the last few weeks, the first one collapsed amidst a series of kidnapping, beatings, and assassinations, blamed mostly on PYD. Or Kurds cold find themselves in conflict with local Arab tribes who are not too enthusiastic about the prospects of becoming a minority in an autonomous Kurdish-majority enclave. This applies especially to those Arab clans known as Arab Al-Ghamar, or the Flood Arabs, who were introduced into the area by Baath officials since the late 1960s and early ‘70s as part of an Arabization campaign. Many Kurds would want to see these particular Arab clans leave their areas. The problem is that these Arabs have no place to go back to, their original lands having been submerged under the waters of the Euphrates when the Assad regime built the Tabqa Dam (1968-73).
The minority Assyrian, Chaldean, and Armenian communities find themselves caught in between, but are more likely try to work out an arrangement with the more secular leaning Kurds, than they are with Arab tribes.
