What To Do About Syria

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/annan-ends-syr...143209371.html

Annan ends Syria trip with no deal

By ZEINA KARAM | Associated Press – 4 hrs ago


BEIRUT (AP) — International envoy and former U.N. chief Kofi Annan left Syria Sunday without a deal to end the bloody year-old conflict as regime forces mounted a new assault on rebel strongholds in the north.
Annan said he presented President Bashar Assad with concrete proposals "which will have a real impact on the ground."
"Once it's agreed, it will help launch the process and help end the crisis on the ground," he told reporters at the end of his two-day visit to Syria.
Annan, who also met with Syrian opposition leaders and businessmen in Damascus, said he was optimistic following two sets of talks with Assad, but acknowledged that resolving the crisis would be tough.
"It's going to be difficult but we have to have hope," he said.
The former U.N. chief called for reforms that would create "a solid foundation for a democratic Syria," but added: "You have to start by stopping the killing and the misery and the abuse that is going on today and then give time for a political settlement."
The ongoing bloodshed cast a pall over the U.N. efforts to end the country's yearlong conflict, with both the regime and the opposition refusing talks with the other.
In his discussions with Assad on Saturday, Annan made several proposals to end the political crisis and start a political dialogue. He was rebuffed by the president who rejected any immediate negotiations with the opposition, striking a further blow to already faltering international efforts for talks to end the conflict.
Assad told Annan that a political solution is impossible as long as "terrorist groups" threaten the country.
The opposition's political leadership has also rejected dialogue, saying talk is impossible after a crackdown that the U.N. estimates has killed more than 7,500 people. That makes it likely that the conflict will continue to edge toward civil war.
Annan left Syria later Sunday, headed for Qatar, a U.N. spokesman said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Syrian forces, meanwhile, kept up an offensive against rebel strongholds in the north of the country and shelled neighborhoods in the restive central city of Homs, as well as clashing with rebel fighters across the country.
Military units loyal to Assad appear to have been freed up after finally crushing lightly armed rebels in the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr last week, and are on the attack in Idlib province, across the border from key opposition supply bases in Turkey.
Troops on Saturday launched a long-anticipated assault to crush the opposition in Idlib province, bombarding its main city with tank shells from all sides and clashing with rebel fighters struggling to hold back an invasion.
Syrian forces had been building up for days around Idlib, the capital of a hilly, agricultural province along the Syria-Turkey border that has been a hotbed of protests against Assad's regime.
An AP photographer touring Turkish villages across the border from Idlib reported hearing constant artillery pounding. Turkish villagers said the artillery fire began just before dawn and that refugees were trickling in across the border into Turkey during lulls.
A Turkish official said the violence had led to a spike in Syrian civilians fleeing to Turkey. Some 1,000 have crossed the border in the past week as opposed to 1,000 in the previous month, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under government protocol.
Turkey now hosts some 12,500 Syrians, part of the more than 100,000 refugees who have fled to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground in Syria, reported military arrests, raids in towns and villages across Syria as well as clashes with armed rebels.
In the north, three soldiers were killed in the village of al-Janoudieh near the Turkish border in clashes between troops and army defectors. A mother and her son were killed in the crossfire during another clash in the town of Ariha that also killed two soldiers. And four civilians were killed during an army raid of the village of al-Dabeet.
Others were killed in raids outside Damascus, the group said.
In Homs, several activists reported intense shelling of the Karm el-Zeytoun, Bab Dreib and Job al-Jandali districts with mortars and rocket propelled grenades and said several people were killed and wounded.
"There is very heavy destruction. Cars are burning and smoke is rising from the area," said Homs-based activist Abu Bakr Saleh.
"They are trying to punish all districts of Homs where anti-government protests still take place," he said.
Other activists said government forces shelled a bridge on a road to the Lebanese border often used by families fleeing violence. It was unclear if the bridge was destroyed.
The activist claims could not be independently verified. The Syrian government rarely comments on specific incidents inside the country and bars most media from operating.
Many fear the offensive in Idlib could end up like the regime's campaign against the rebel-held neighborhood of Baba Amr in Homs. Troops besieged and shelled Baba Amr for weeks before capturing it on March 1.
Activists say hundreds were killed, and a U.N. official who visited the area this week said she was "horrified" by the destruction in the district, now virtually deserted.
In the northwestern city of Aleppo, gunmen assassinated local boxing champion Gheyath Tayfour. State-run news agency SANA said an armed group ambushed the 34-year-old Tayfour in his car near Aleppo University square and opened fire, killing him instantly with five bullets to his head.
Syria has seen a string of mysterious assassinations lately targeting doctors, professors and businessman, as the uprising against Assad turns more militarized.
____
AP writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey contributed to this report.

[Dino Velvet]

Assad is partially right. They do have terrorists in his country. Could we possibly get Al Qaeda vs Hezbollah on PPV?

http://news.yahoo.com/blasts-kill-do...130211721.html

Blasts kill dozens in Syrian capital

By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY | Associated Press – 7 hrs ago


BEIRUT (AP) — Twin car bombs struck intelligence and security buildings in the Syrian capital on Saturday, killing at least 27 people and wounding nearly 100, according to state media.
State TV, citing the health minister, said the death toll could rise. Gruesome images of the scene were aired, with mangled and charred corpses, bloodstained streets and twisted steel.
"All our windows and doors are blown out," said Majed Seibiyah, 29, who lives in the area. "I was sleeping when I heard a sound like an earthquake. I didn't grasp what was happening until I hear screaming in the street."
The blasts were the latest in a string of mysterious, large-scale attacks targeting the Syrian regime's military and security installations. The previous blasts, all suicide bombings, killed dozens of people since December, even as the regime wages a bloody crackdown against the year-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.
The government has blamed the explosions on the "terrorists" that it claims are behind the revolt. The opposition has denied any role, saying they believe forces loyal to the government are behind the bombings to tarnish the uprising.
But top U.S. intelligence officials also have pointed to al-Qaida in Iraq as the likely culprit behind the previous bombings, raising the possibility its fighters are infiltrating across the border to take advantage of the turmoil.
Al-Qaida's leader called for Assad's ouster in February.
A suspected al-Qaida presence creates new obstacles for the U.S., its Western allies and Arab states trying to figure out a way to help push Assad from power, and may also rally Syrian religious minorities, fearful of Sunni radicalism, to get behind the regime.
Bassma Kodmani, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council, said she doubted armed groups trying to bring Assad down by force, such as the rebel Free Syrian Army, have the capacity to carry out such attacks on security institutions in the capital.
"I don't think any of the opposition forces or the free Syrian army has the capacity to do such an operation to target these buildings because they are fortresses," she said by telephone. "They are very well guarded. There is no way anyone can penetrate them without having strong support and complicity from inside the security apparatus."
According to SANA, preliminary information indicated two blasts were caused by car bombs that hit the aviation intelligence department and the criminal security department at 7:30 a.m local time. Shooting broke out soon after the blast and sent residents and others who had gathered in the area fleeing, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said.
A Syrian official also said there were reports of a third blast Saturday targeting a military bus at the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, but there were no details. He asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
The Syrian government denies there is a popular will behind the uprising, saying foreign extremists and gangs are trying to destroy the country. But his opponents deny that and say an increasingly active rebel force has been driven to take up arms because the government used tanks, snipers and machine guns to crush peaceful protests.
The U.N. estimates that more that 8,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad began last March.
The last major suicide bombing in Syria happened on Feb. 10, when twin blasts struck security compounds in the government stronghold of Aleppo in northern Syria, killing 28 people. Damascus, another Assad stronghold, has seen three suicide previous bombings since December.
In recent weeks, Syrian forces have waged a series of heavy offensives against the main strongholds of the opposition — Homs in central Syria, Idlib in the north and Daraa in the south.
The bloodshed fuels the country's sectarian tensions. The military's top leadership is stacked heavily with members of the minority Alawite sect, to which Assad and the ruling elite belong.
Sunnis are the majority in the country of 22 million and make up the backbone of the opposition.
Diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis have so far brought no result. But U.N. envoy Kofi Annan told the Security Council in a briefing Friday that he would return to Damascus even though his recent talks with Assad saw no progress in attempts to cobble together peace negotiations between the two sides.
After the confidential briefing via videolink, Annan told reporters in Geneva that he urged the council "to speak with one voice as we try to resolve the crisis in Syria." Russia and China have blocked U.N. action against Assad's regime.
"The first objective is for all of us to end the violence and human rights abuses and the killings and get unimpeded access for humanitarian access to the needy, and of course the all-important issue of political process that will lead to a democratic Syria," Annan said.
Both Assad and much of the opposition spurned Annan's appeal for talks.
___
Associated Press writer Albert Aji contributed to this story from Damascus, Syria.

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/secretary-clin...163814047.html

And in response to reports of the growing reach of al Qaeda in Syria, Clinton said: "The vast majority of the people who are standing up against the horrific assaults of the military machine in Syria are ordinary citizens defending themselves and their homes."

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/top-military-o...194617171.html

Top military officers targeted in Syrian conflict

By BASSEM MROUE | Associated Press – 21 mins ago


BEIRUT (AP) — The gunmen walked into an apartment building before dawn earlier this month in the quiet Damascus suburb of Jaramana, went to the fifth floor and knocked on the door. When the police commander opened up, the men shot him dead and left.
Syrian President Bashar Assad's opponents appear to be resorting increasingly to assassinations of loyalist military officers in an escalation of their campaign to bring down the regime. At least 10 senior officers, including several generals, have been gunned down in the past three months, many of them as they left their homes in the morning to head to their posts.
The latest occurred Tuesday, when attackers shot and killed a retired lieutenant colonel and his brother, a chief warrant officer, at a home supplies store in another suburb of the capital, according to the state news agency. Elsewhere in Damascus, an intelligence officer was killed, opposition activists said.
Such targeted slayings are rising as an intensified crackdown by regime forces in recent months has dealt heavy setbacks to Syria's rebels. For the moment, Assad's troops have shattered the rebels' strategy of trying to seize ground in several cities and provinces.
Their pace appears to have accelerated even more sharply since a cease-fire plan brokered by U.N. and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan went into effect April 12 — and just as quickly began to unravel.
The peace plan was meant to halt 13 months of violence by government forces to put down an anti-Assad uprising in which the U.N. says more than 9,000 people have died. A spokesman for Annan said in Geneva that satellite imagery and other credible reports show Syria has failed to withdraw all its heavy weapons from populated areas as required by the cease-fire deal.
It remains murky whether the recent slayings are being carried out by rogue elements in the opposition seeking revenge or whether they represent a coordinated strategy by rebels to destabilize the regime. A spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, the Turkish-based umbrella group for armed opposition groups in Syria, denied it was behind the string of attacks, although he said the victims were legitimate targets.
There is also a sectarian tone to the killings. Almost all the slain officers come from the religious minorities that have been the most die-hard supporters of Assad in the face of the Sunni Muslim-led uprising against his rule. Such minorities — particularly Alawites, followers of a Shiite offshoot sect — make up the backbone of the military's officer ranks.
Mohamad Bazzi, a Syria expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the killings are "likely a tactic by the Syrian rebels who are fighting from a much weaker position."
"In many ways, it's a classic guerrilla tactic — to strike at weak points in the regime's military and security apparatus," he said.
Some such targeted killings did take place last year as the uprising against Assad became increasingly militarized. But the pace appears to have sped up in recent months.
One of the first major attacks occurred Feb. 11, when gunmen opened fire at Brig. Gen. Issa al-Khouli early in the morning as he left his home in the Damascus neighborhood of Rukn-Eddine. Al-Khouli was a doctor and the chief of the Hameish military hospital in the capital.
On April 11, gunmen shot and killed army Brig. Gen. Jamal Khaled in the Damascus suburb of Aqraba as he drove to work, the Syrian state-run news agency SANA said. His driver, a soldier, was also killed.
The slaying of the police commander in Jaramana came on April 12. Jaramana, on the capital's southeast outskirts, is predominantly Christian — a community that, like Alawites, has stuck strongly by Assad, in large part because of fears of Sunni domination if he falls. The gunmen knocked on the door of police Brig. Gen. Walid Jouni, gunned him down and then escaped unscathed, according to SANA.
At least five more officers have been assassinated since, including the three Tuesday.
Faiz Amru, a rebel general in the Free Syrian Army, insisted those who were killed were involved in the crackdown on the opposition in the past year. Aside from assaults battering pro-opposition residential areas with tank fire and heavy machine guns, regime forces have also directly targeted dissidents, with activists taken from their homes and later found dead.
"Under any law, the killer should be killed," he said. "These officers have direct orders to kill people and destroy homes."
Amru said the FSA is not directly involved and that the assassins were individuals seeking revenge for abuses by the regime.
However, it is not clear whether all those assassinated directly participated in the crackdown. The motive in the hospital chief slaying, for example, is unknown; one slain officer was part of the air defense forces, which is not known to be participating in attacks on opposition areas.
That could suggest the assassinations aim to intimidate anyone in the military — or the attackers are selecting easier targets of opportunity.
One activist said those killed appeared not to be the most prominent commanders of the assaults. "It is very difficult to assassinate intelligence officers who are taking a major part in the crackdown because they move amid tight security," he said. "Such officers don't drive or walk alone in the streets."
Another activist, based in the city of Homs, said he believed the main motive was revenge against the loyalist religious minorities.
Both activists spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
The Syrian government consistently blames "terror groups" for the killings, just as it blames the country's turmoil in general on terrorists, denying there is a popular-based uprising. The regime says more than 2,000 members of the military and security forces have been killed in the past year, almost all of them in rebel attacks on checkpoints or convoys, or in gunbattles.
The last time Syria saw any such major string of assassinations was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the Muslim Brotherhood waged a campaign of violence against Assad's predecessor and father, Hafez Assad. One of the most notorious attacks came on June 16, 1979, when gunmen killed dozens of cadets at Aleppo Artillery School in northern Syria. The dead were mostly Alawites, the sect to which the Assad family belongs.
Hafez Assad eventually responded with a three-week siege of the main Brotherhood stronghold, the city of Hama, that leveled parts of the city. Amnesty International has estimated that 10,000 to 25,000 were killed in the Hama assault, and the Brotherhood was all but wiped out of the country.
An official with the main political umbrella group for the opposition, the Syrian National Council, said he didn't believe that anyone in that organization or the Free Syrian Army was involved in the latest killings. Instead, he suggested, it reflects a growing extremism among rogue enemies of Assad.
"The longer it takes for an international intervention to contain the crisis, Syria is going to the unknown," Sameer Nashar said. "Many local, regional and international forces will enter Syria and will find a good atmosphere for extremist cases."
___
Bassem Mroue can be reached on twitter at http://twitter.com/bmroue

[jimbo1974]

Im sure this has been said (i cant be arsed to read all the thread), but there is one way to solve Syria :

Get Russia to stop fucking about

[Dino Velvet]

Im sure this has been said (i cant be arsed to read all the thread), but there is one way to solve Syria :

Get Russia to stop fucking about

Deal with Vlad then.

[irvin66]

I have a solution to the problem of Syria. Nuke them back to the Stone Age! muhahahahahaha .....

[Stavros]

You just said this about Afghanistan -I thought you were being sarcastic, but now I am not so sure. Give it some thought for a few moments, then I think you will need another cup of tea.

[Prospero]

Well Irvin - that seems to be your solution with all our contemporary political problems. Very enlightened. Perhaps the solution with Breivik is to nuke him too? Oh whoops. Too much collateral damage. Or are you perhaps simply a lame prankster?

[irvin66]

Yep that is the solution to the problem Breivik, take him out back and shoot him in the head. Problem solved muhahahaha........