All advice and no weapons makesthe White House a fickle ally.
Today’s Death toll: 138. The Breakdown: 111 in Damascus and Suburbs (including 70 in Moadamiyah where 18 where slaughtered in the fields between Moadamiya and Daraya), 33 in Daraa (most in Sheikh Miskeen Massacre), 11 in Aleppo, 9 in Homs, 9 in Dier Ezzor (+ undetermined number of dead bodies found under the rubble today and yesterday), 7 in Idlib, 4 in Lattakia and 1 in Hama.
Cities & Towns Under Shelling:Harasta, Arbeen, Moadamiah, Harran Al-Awameed, Zabadani, Madaya, Eltal, Dmeir, Hameh, Yelda, Rankous, Qarrah (Damascus Suburbs), Sit Zeinab, Al-Qadam, Modan, Al-Hajar Al-Aswad, Yarmouk, Kafar Sousseh, Mazzeh, Qaboun, Barzeh (Damascus City), Daraa City, Khirbet Al-Ghazaleh, Tafas, Bostra Al-Sham, Na’eemah, Mseifrah, Jimreen, Hraak (Daraa), Rastan, Talbisseh, Houla, Tal Kalakh, Al-Qusayr, Al-Hosn, Al-Ghanto, Al-Bouaydah, Old Homs (Homs Province), Hreitan, Elbab, Eizaz, Marei, Bayanoun (Aleppo Province), Haffeh, Jabal Al-Akrad (Lattakia), Deir Ezzor City, Mouhassan, Albou Kamal (Deir Ezzor Province), Kafar Zeiteh, Hawash, Shahshabo, Hama City (Hama Province), Jabal Al-Zawiyeh, Ma’rrat Al-Nouman, Saraqib, Maar Shoureen, Ariha, Kafroumah, Al-Rami, Khan Shaikhoon (Idlib).
While no videos have been made available, local activists say that pro-Assad militias have committed a massacre in the town of Sheikh Miskeen in Daraa Province, in which over thirty people were executed in cold blood. Clashes between rebels and pro-Assad militias are currently taking place.
Why Syrian refugees protest While criticism of the AKP is either ideological or nationalist, the Turkish people’s reactions to Syrian refugees are marked by anti-Arab sentiments.
The Fate of Syria is in the Hands of … Palestinians? Indeed, it is already clear that the Syrian conflict has placed Assad’s Palestinian clients into an untenable position. It’s hard for Palestinian groups to claim they are fighting for justice when their patron is in the midst of slaughtering its own people—18,000 souls and counting—in cold blood. That is why an ever growing number of Palestinians are now working to topple the regime that once supported them.
Abdurrazzaq Tlas, leader of the Al-Farouq Brigade, an FSA fighting unit active in Homs and parts of Damascus and Hama, issues a statement welcoming the defection of his cousins Manaf and Firas, but refutes statement made by Firas to the effect that they have provided support to Al-Farouk. Abdurrazzaq explains that Al-Farouq was built and is being funded by honest people, and that, for this reason, it’s completely independent in its decision-making, and that its particular position vis-à-vis a political solution can only be enunciated by its political cadre
http://youtu.be/qteey2O9md0
Curious Conversion: A Buddhist Defection
A Japanese journalist fighting in the Turkmen Mountain in
Lattakiaconverts to Islam in a ceremony supervised by the Mamdouh Jolhah Brigade affiliated with the FSA. His Muslim name is Moustafa. He doesn’t seem to have done it under any duress
http://youtu.be/pBIGJOZGDZcMoustafa then proceeds to learn how to perform ablutions
http://youtu.be/10y58J_hK-0
Some still
advocatea role for Russia, even Iran, in diplomacy concerning Syria. But considering that some Russian officials, according to other Russian officials,
are telling Assad to “to adopt much harsher methods, carpet bombing, total destruction,” while Iranians are busy supplying him with drone and funds to buy Russian weapons, it’s really surreal to keep advocating such an approach. For Iran and Russia, the endgame they want is clear: defeating the revolution or partitioning the country.
According to U.S. Defense Secretary
Leon Panetta, Assad’s attack on Aleppo “will be a nail in Assad’s own coffin.” With the attack, Mr. Panetta noted, the regime has “lost all legitimacy,” and the question ahead is “no longer… whether he’s coming to an end, it’s when.”
Well, Assad has lacked legitimacy from the day he came to power, yet he is still with us. Despite the advances made by the opposition, including the attack that left 5 security chiefs dead, and the “liberation” of Aleppo, the end of Assad rule, as General Mustafa Al-Sheikh
explainedyesterday, “is not in sight.” As much as Obama officials want to, the end of this regime cannot come without actual involvement by U.S. the kind of weapons the rebels need to get the job done cannot be acquired without at least a tacit approval from the U.S. that approval, as can be deduced from Mr. Panetta’s responses is not there.
There are so many experts and officials out there who seem to think that the rebels will be able to topple the regime on their own and without U.S. involvement, thus justifying the do-nothing approach by the Obama Administration. Well, it won’t happen. The price of waiting and betting on this policy is inheriting a bloody mess, and having to midwife processes down the road that will drag the U.S. back into the region from which it is trying to disentangle itself. It’s the do-nothing approach of the Obama Administration that will make its nightmare scenarios come true.
In Damascus, a number of massacres perpetrated by pro-Assad militias took place in different suburbs and neighborhoods
The nearby suburb of
Daraya witnessed a smaller scale massacre: 5 men and two women, slaughtered by pro-Assad militias
http://youtu.be/iVyyY5r83ko
From the beginning of the revolution, local activists throughout Syria have been claiming that doctors working for pro-Assad militias often harvest the organs of the martyrs without any consent. This case comes from
Yelda, Damascus Suburbs
http://youtu.be/SwGtcyKv3hk
In Aleppo, the shelling and clashes continue claiming many lives and leaving many injured.
In a video that surfaces now, the leader of
Al-Tawhid Brigade is seen given a speech to some of his lieutenant before they were sent to fight in Aleppo City. He says that the legitimate targets for their operations are the police, the military and gun-toting pro-Assad militias. He forbids them to assault civilians or take part in robberies, and insist that protecting public institutions is one of their main duties
http://youtu.be/gRSfwTiruus Another Al-Tawhid leader tells his soldiers the eyes of the world are on you
http://youtu.be/zybI8acUbOM More fighting units join Al-Tawhid
http://youtu.be/eqk7pH7-xyg,
http://youtu.be/sLyAw2tMZZo
In
Dmeir, Damascus Suburbs, a leaked video shows some of the artillery and cannons used in pounding the town
http://youtu.be/O6aKN0z1-y0
In
Daraa, captured militiamen explain how they liquidated local civilians held at a detention camp in the local stadium
http://youtu.be/GZN2WAuVLg8
A video edited by local activists in
Al-Rami village, Idlib Province, showing scenes from as recent battle with loyalist troops
http://youtu.be/7GBLy0vUzyE Elsewhere in the province, in
Saijar Region to be particular, a new fighting unit is formed funded it seems by a French engineer, of Syrian origins,
Abdel Rahman Ayachi http://youtu.be/RUuP6xI81HU