We are surrounded. We can’t drive north. We can’t drive south. We can only go west, to Lebanon, a Syrian journalist told Liz Sly, of The WP.
Yabrud, Douma, Saqba, Hamuriyeh, Irbin, Al-Ghouta, Daraya, Ein Tarma, and Kfar Batna: the Syrian army launched a counterattack last weekend in order to wrest control of those suburbs of Damascus from the Free Syrian Army and its armed supporters.
The number of tanks is unimaginable. They are shelling the street randomly, one Yabrud resident told the NYT.
We are scared. We hear loud explosions and shooting. We don’t know what is going to happen, a resident of Daraya told the NYT.
The Free Syrian Army has made a tactical withdrawal. Regime forces have reoccupied the suburbs and started making house to house arrests, an activist from al-Ghouta told Aljazeera.
Regular Syrian army troops are also fighting the Free Syrian Army and other armed activists for control of Homs, Hama and Idlib.
The town of Rankous, near the Lebanese border, and home to 25,000 residents, has been under siege by the Syrian army (led by the Fourth Division, headed by Bashar Assad’s brother, Maher) since last Wednesday, in an attempt to drive out armed defectors.
At least 33 people were killed in that assault and more than 160 in Syria over the weekend. A further 100 died on Monday.
Clearly, the violence in Syria is escalating as more and more opponents of the government take up arms to defend themselves and their cause against a ruthless regime, which will stop at nothing to remain in power.
Case in point, twelve members (including four children) of a Sunni family, the Bahadours, were gunned down by Syrian army troops last Sunday in Homs, according to Le Monde (see photographs here).
Also in Homs, a family of six, including four children, suffered a similar fate in the Karm el-Zeitoun district.
In Hama, the bodies of dozens of executed prisoners were found on Thursday, according to the NYT.
We have the right to defend ourselves, activists chanted at last Friday’s national anti-Assad demonstrations. In addition, they are determined to do so, with or without your help, an activist told Aljazeera.
The Assad regime has resorted to brutal repression in order to crush the uprising.
That attempt however, has clearly failed, as more and more Syrians refuse to be cowed into submission.
Free Syrian Army branches are being created across the country, as well as military councils consisting of both civilians and defectors.
Yes, civilians who want to hold weapons are joining our struggle…Even if it requires us to smuggle weapons into the country we will do this. We are being killed. Whatever action we take to defend ourselves is justifiable, an activist named Omar told Aljazeera.
This is our right. It is our right to take up arms and we are not going to shy away from this any longer. We are being killed. We waited for any action from the Arab League and the United Nations and none was forthcoming. All they have been doing is stalling and that has given the regime time to crush the revolution, Omar said.
Defectors are joining the ranks of the armed resistance at a brisker pace than previously thought.
Each time they bring new forces here, some of them defect, Khaled Abou Salah, of the Homs Revolution Council, told the NYT.
Syria’s immediate prospects are dim at best.
What is happening is obvious. You can see it. It’s civil war. Everyone is trying to deny it but you can’t hide from it, a Syrian journalist told Liz Sly.
The Syrian resistance moreover, has been left to its own devices as the Arab’s League observer mission was suspended last Saturday
The observers had been sent to Syria last December to monitor the regime’s compliance with the Arab League peace plan it had approved.
The regime had agreed to pull back its troops; release all prisoners detained since the beginning of the uprising; allow the media to report on events in Syria and begin a dialogue with opposition groups.
Needless to say, the Assad regime failed to comply with any of these demands.
Given the critical deterioration of the situation in Syria and the continued use of violence…it has been decided to immediately stop the work of the Arab League‘s mission to Syria pending presentation of the issue to the League’s council, Nabil el-Araby, the Arab League’s secretary general declared last Saturday.
The Russians deplored the decision.
We would like to know why they are treating such a useful instrument in this way. I would support an increased number of observers. We are surprised that after a decision was taken on prolonging the observers’ mission for another month, some countries, particularly Persian Gulf countries, recalled their observers from the mission, Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister said on Sunday.
Syria was disappointed as well.
This will have a negative impact and put pressure on Security Council deliberations with the aim of calling for foreign intervention and encouraging armed groups to increase violence, a statement on Syrian television indicated.
The Arab League however, has not abandoned its efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis.
Its secretary general, accompanied by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, in charge of the Syrian issue at the Arab League, are to present today a new peace plan at the UN Security Council in New York.
It calls for Assad to transfer his powers to the Syrian Vice-President, and the creation of a unity government, followed by elections.
Syria denounced the plan as a violation of its sovereignty.
Russian foreign minister Lavrov characterized the plan’s demand that Assad step down as absolutely unforgivable.
Yet, the new UN draft resolution under discussion in New York and sponsored by Morocco, calls for such a political transition.
By suspending the mission of the observers and seeking the backing of the UN Security Council for its new peace plan, the Arab League clearly seeks to increase the pressure on Assad and his principle supporter, Russia.
Why is Russia so keen on backing the brutal Assad regime?
Firstly, Syria is a major client of the Russian arms industry.
Recently, Syria signed a contract worth $550 million to purchase Russian jet fighters.
Secondly, the Russians are still seething over the West’s successful military campaign to oust the Qaddafi regime.
The Russians consider that they were deceived; as far as they were concerned, they had approved a UN Security Council resolution creating a no-fly zone in Libya, and not authorizing regime change!
We were naïve and stupid. The Chinese were the same. Trust this: that was the last mistake of such type, Yevgeny Y. Satanovky, president of the Institute of the Middle East in Moscow, told the NYT.
Russian support however, has encouraged the Assad regime to pursue obstinately its preferred, yet failing strategy: the brutal military repression of its own people.
It is central to the regime’s narrative and key to the cohesiveness of the regime’s ranks.
They believe that the international community is divided. So Russians are providing cover for the regime to push forward with their approach. There is a belief that all doors are not closed, Peter Harling, of the International Crisis Group, and an expert on Syria, told the NYT.
Syria doesn’t yet seem to feel that it’s sufficiently isolated, that it needs to change the course of action. It certainly won’t feel that as long as Russia is telling it that it still backs it, Aljazeera’s Anita McNaught said.
Hence, Russian support is encouraging Assad to seek a military solution to what is fundamentally a political problem, thereby radicalizing the opposition, and encouraging more and more Syrians to take up arms, if only to defend themselves.
The Russians, in order to alleviate the growing political pressure exerted by the Arab League and the UN Security Council, and portray itself not as the supporter of a pariah regime but as a responsible world power, invited representatives of both the opposition and the Syrian government to hold informal talks in Moscow to resolve the crisis.
In an attempt to contribute with the Syrians to a peaceful settlement without foreign intervention and with respect to the sovereignty of Syria, we have appealed to the Syrian government and to all opposition groups to send their representatives to Moscow at a mutually acceptable time for informal contacts without prior conditions, the Russian foreign ministry announced yesterday.
Although the Syrian regime responded favorably, the Syrian National Council declared that negotiations with the Assad regime were no longer possible.
The resignation of Assad is the condition for any negotiation on the transition to a democratic government in Syria, Burhan Ghalioun, leader of the Council, told AFP.
What then, will happen Tuesday in New York?
That the session is bound to be an important one is underscored by the list of attendees, which includes Hillary Clinton, and the foreign ministers of France and Great Britain, Alain Juppé and William Hague.
We have seen the consequences of neglect and inaction by this Council over the course of the last ten months, not because the majority of the Council isn’t eager to act-it has been. There have been a couple of very powerful members who have not been willing to see that action take place, declared Susan E. Rice, American ambassador to the UN, referring to Russia and China.
Failure to approve the resolution would lead to more violence and intensified chaos, she added.
What will the Russians do?
The western draft Security Council resolution in Syria will not lead to a search for compromise. Pushing it is a path to civil war, claimed Russian deputy foreign minister Gennady Gatilov.
As we have seen however, it is the current regime’s obstinate insistence on resolving the crisis militarily that is pushing the country towards civil war.
As such, with civil war looming, the West seems intent on accelerating a process that can only lead to Assad’s ouster.
Assad’s fall is inevitable, Jim Carney, the White House spokesman said yesterday.
Since it is inevitable, the sooner he leaves the better.
That is the prerequisite to resolving the crisis, and allowing meaningful negotiations between the parties to take place.
Russia’s behavior will thus be crucial. Only they can nudge Assad towards the door…
Will they have the wisdom and decency to do it?
The violence has now reached the hitherto peaceful cities of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest and commercial capital, and Damascus, thereby demonstrating that the regime’s strength is ebbing.
In Syria, looking weak is a dangerous thing, and if they can’t control the Damascus suburbs, they do look weak, a Western diplomat told Liz Sly.
Resistance against the regime is thus steadily spreading.
People are so angry, one a man selling headscarves in a Damascus souk told Liz Sly.
The brutal Assad regime has to go.
The Western powers in the UN Security Council seem keen on compelling both China and Russia to either abstain when the resolution comes to a vote, or take the very public responsibility of vetoing it.
Their allegiances would be crystal clear for the entire planet to see: support for a bloody and repressive regime intent on killing its own people if that is the price for remaining in power.
They can’t continue to defend an unsustainable status quo, one US official told the NYT.
Let us see if China and Russia have the nerve to rebuff the entire international community…
(thre photograph of the Free Syria Army soldier was found here)
