As Islamists increasingly fill the ranks of Syrian rebels, President Bashar al-Assad is waging an energized campaign to persuade the United States that it is on the wrong side of the war
“If the Syrian regime falls, al Qaeda wins.” That’s what Bashar al-Assad wants US officials to believe: By playing off US fears of Islamic terrorism, he’s hoping America will shift its support from the Syrian rebels to the incumbent regime, or at least withhold providing any more material support for the rebels. Because at least one rebel faction is allied with al Qaeda, it’s not an altogether crazy strategy. The regime is reportedly relying on Khaled Mahjoub, a Syrian-American businessman, to relay this message to US officials. “We are partners in fighting terrorism,” said Wael Nader al-Halqi, Syria’s prime minister.
Sooner rather than later there will be change, a transition. Our only hope is that this happens before more blood is shed, and before Syria self-destructs more than it already has.Turkish President Abdullah Gul • Pushing for an end to the violence in Syria, and for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his inner circle to step down. After nearly a week of daily violence between the two nations, many in the international community are worried about yet another escalation of the Syrian uprising that has led to more than 20,000 deaths. source
Breaking news regarding the quickly deteriorating diplomatic relations between Turkey and Syria, both of which previously counted one another among their regional allies. source
Video footage has emerged showing U.S. freelance journalist Austin Tice being held by a group of masked men toting assault rifles in the first direct evidence of his condition since his disappearance in mid-August.
The 47-second video clip was posted onto YouTube on Sept. 26 and came to light on Monday after it appeared on a Facebook page associated with supporters of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It is the first to show Tice since he disappeared while reporting on Syria’s civil war. Tice contributed stories to multiple news outlets, including The Washington Post and McClatchy.
The video opens with shaky footage of a convoy of three vehicles moving through scrubby mountain terrain, before cutting to a small knot of armed men, faces obscured, leading Tice up a mountain path while calling “Allahu al-Akbar,” or “God is great.”
A blindfolded Tice is then pushed to his knees and filmed speaking a partially indecipherable prayer in Arabic. Tice, visibly distressed, cries out “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus” in English, before reverting to Arabic, seconds before the footage is cut.
An important development regarding the disappearance of Austin Tice, the American freelance journalist who went missing while reporting on the Syrian uprising in August.
Rami Abdulrahman, head of the British-based opposition watchdog the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that four people in Aleppo had told him of the incident which happened on either Friday or Saturday.
“The soldiers were from the Aleppo district of Sekenat Hanano but they were killed in the district of Sabaa Baharat,” he said by telephone.
The videos showed rebel fighters holding assault rifles standing around the dead men, calling them “(President Bashar al-) Assad’s Dogs.”
“The Suleiman al-Farisi brigade … killed several members from the (state) security,” a man said off camera, filming a car with the name of the brigade written on the bonnet.
This isn’t the first time that war crimes have been reported, by either side of the Syrian conflict, though its never welcome news when new stories break. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that the total number of casualties in Syria has now topped 27,300, 19,500 of whom were civilians, during the 17-month-old uprising.
» Diplomacy failing: After two days of fighting, following an army offensive aimed at retaking the Damascus suburb of Mouadamiya from opposition forces, international tension over the Syrian uprising is flaring again. Though President Obama has threatened American military action, should President Assad try to use chemical or biological weapons, Russian and Syrian officials have once again warned against Western intervention. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that both Russia and China were committed to upholding the norms of international law, and are committed to preventing their violation, while Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said that American intervention would lead to a conflict that stretches “wider than Syria’s borders.”
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The Assad regime suffered one of its most public setbacks last month, when members of the Free Syrian Army successfully bombed a secret meeting of senior Syrian military officials. The attack claimed the lives of four people, including al-Assad’s brother-in-law, widely believed to be members of Assad’s inner circle. Now, reports suggest that the President’s brother Maher al-Assad — who gained notoriety after footage emerged of him allegedly firing on unarmed civilians during the early days of the Syrian uprising — may have lost his leg in the attack. If true, it would be the latest in a string of PR blows suffered by the regime. (Photo via syriana2011) source
No more Annan: Kofi Annan, the diplomat tasked by both the United Nations and the Arab League with ending the violence in Syria, has decided to resign his post. Annan had proposed a peace plan for the country, but the first step of that plan—a ceasefire—fell apart within days, and his subsequent efforts to quell the violence failed. This departure may tarnish Annan’s legacy…but it shouldn’t. Absolutely nobody has been able to make any headway whatsoever in resolving the Syrian mess; the violence has perpetuated for sixteen months, and even seems to be getting worse as of late. Perhaps Annan could have come up with a different or better plan, but there’s little reason to expect that would have worked, either. When you can’t even get two sides of a conflict to stop shooting each other, it’s hard to expect a political dialogue to take hold. source
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The resistance fighters, known officially as the “Free Syrian Army,” were merely five miles from the capital city of Damascus. After two days of fighting, Syrian tanks rolled in this morning, forcing the rebels to make “a tactical withdrawal,” in the words of an activist. However, a spokesman for the FSA says that despite the retreat, the army is “still operating close to Damascus.” Meanwhile, in the city itself, residents are telling news agencies that police and military units have assembled around main squares in the city. This would suggest that al-Assad & co. believe it’s possible, at the very least, that the FSA will reach the capital in the near future. Syria’s been hot for ten months now, but it might now be approaching red-hot.
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