Homs is burning and no one cares......

Baba Amr...

This beleaguered district of Homs, a city located 140 kilometers north of Damascus, on a strategic road leading to the Mediterranean, finally fell Tuesday morning after a further round of ruthless fighting that lasted two weeks.

Baba Amr...

The Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin and the French photographer Rémi Ochlik were in Baba Amr thirteen months ago as the neighborhood was being besieged by the Syrian army. They were killed while trying to convey to the outside world the anguish and suffering of a hapless civilian population victimized by its own army, their makeshift media center the target of an artillery barrage (see this post for an account of these events). Bab Amr in Homs had been under control of Assad’s forces ever since…

Two weeks ago, the Syrian army launched a series of raids in order to crush the last remaining pockets of rebel resistance in central Homs. The Syrian rebels seized the moment and attempted to recover Bab Amr. Those efforts were not successful and on Tuesday, Assad’s forces repelled the revolutionaries and regained full control of the neighborhood once again…Syrian regime forces have recaptured total control of the district of Baba Amr, after more than two weeks, after rebel fighters had infiltrated the area and seized several neighborhoods, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syrian human rights organization based in the UK, reported. The army used war planes, rockets and tank shells to bombard the district, it added.

The Syrian Revolution General Commission, a coalition of some forty Syrian opposition groups, released a video depicting the damage inflicted on the city. This is total destruction…residential buildings have been destroyed…shops have been destroyed…everything inside the buildings has been destroyed, an activist declares in the footage. Homs is burning and no one cares, he added…

Although they lost this battle for Baba Amr, the Free Syrian Army and other opposition military groups have become gradually more proficient on the battlefield. Arms purchases and shipments have significantly increased over the last year as it has become clearer and clearer that Assad will never relinquish power except by force of arms.

As a result, a complex and efficient weapons procurement program was set up by Assad’s numerous foes in the region. Indeed, a considerable volume of Croatian weaponry was bought by the latter, particularly Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and flown to Turkey and Jordan, and then smuggled into Syria. The intensity and frequency of these flights (are) suggestive of a well-planned and coordinated clandestine military logistics operation, Hugh Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told the NYT.

The CIA has greatly facilitated this operation, helping select the recipients of the arms shipments, so as to avoid the weapons falling into the hands of Islamic extremists also fighting the Assad regime, such as the battle-hardened Jabhat al-Nusra Front, an organization the US has characterized as an al Qaeda affiliate.

The volume of weaponry seeping into rebel territory appears to be considerable. People hear the amounts flowing in, and it is huge. But they burn through a million rounds of ammo in two weeks, a former US official familiar with the operation told the NYT.

Yet, the fighters on the ground pitted against Assad’s forces complain that the effort is insufficient. The rebels demand anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons in order to level the military playing field. As of yet, these weapons have not been provided, chiefly due to US resistance. The Americans fear that such weaponry could eventually fall into the hands of Islamic extremists, who could then target civilian aircrafts in terrorist attacks...

In short, more weaponry is reaching the anti-Assad fighters on the ground, but not enough and not the type that would be most usefull...

In order to tip the military balance in the rebels' favor, France and the UK, unlike the US, are considering arming ther rebels. The two European powers are striving to convince the European Union to lift its arms embargo imposed on the variuous Syrian parties involved in the conflict.

Our objective is to convinvce our partners, by all diplomatic means available...If, by chance, one or two nations were to veto our proposition, then France would take it upon itself to do what it felt it must do, French president François Hollande declared on March 15.

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius elaborated on the issue in a radio interview on monday. The current situation is disastrous. If we wish to prevent Syria from disintegrating, and the extremists from prevailing, then we must strive for a political solution, and thus achieve a military balance of power among the various rebel factions, he stated.

Furthermore, we're hoping the Syrian opposition will remain moderate. We could never accept a radicalization toward extemism, he added.

Yet, this effort to bolster militarily the rebel forces on the ground may have been grievously undermined by the internecine conflicts bedevelling the Syrian political opposition.

Mouaz al-Khatib, leader of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, resigned last Sunday. The former imam of the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus condemmed the constant foreign meddling within the organization. Who is ready to obey (those foreign countries) will support him. And those who refuse to obey endure starvation and siege, he declared. He also objected to the designation, as did the US, of a prime minister, Ghassan Hitto to distibute aid and administer those parts of Syriua under rebel control, as a needless distractionl.

Mr. Khatib's recent call to negotiate peace with the current Assad regime had already undermined hilm politically. The Muslim Brotherghood, a powerful force within the Syrian opposition, had vigorously objected to this initiative. Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood has been ruthlessly persecuted by the Assad family for over forty years...

Not coincidentally, Mr. Hitto, a Syrian of Kurdish origin who has lived in the US for years and became an American citizen, was the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the latter's patron, Qatar.

This nomination simultaneously allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to bolster its influence within the Syrian National Coalitionl and weaken the widely respected Khatib.

Qatar also claimed that it had to act quickly in order to invite the new prime minister to occupy Syria's vacant seat at the the Arab League meeting taking place in Doha March 26 and 27.

Saudi Arabia, miffed at being outmaneuvered by Qatar, leaned on its client, the Supreme Military Command, the military wing of the opposition coalition and a major recepient of Saudi largess, which then promptly denounced the nomination and refused to recognize the new prime minister.

We unequivocally declare that the Free Syrian Army, in all its formations...conditions its support and cooperation on the achievement of a political agreement on the name of a prime minister, General Salim Idriss, leader of the Supreme Military Command, declared.

A Free Syrian Army spokesman added that they could not recognize a prime minister who was forced on the Narional Coalition, rather than chosen by consensus.

In short, the Syrian opposition's curent disarray is depriving the West of a credible and effective partner that it could assist and potentially guide towards the establishment of a civilized regime in Damascus once Assad falls, for fall he eventually will...

In the end, chaos can only serve and embolden the Islamic extremists who are already gaining ground, due to their military prowess on the front lines.

We have a leader who resigned, an interim prtime minister whose election was conducted without transparency and the formal opposition has failed. I don't know what happens if Assad falls, Rafif Jouejati, a spokesman for the Local Coordination Committees, a network of opposition organizations, told McClatchy.

At the Arab League meeting in Doha, the Syrian National Coalition president was invited to take Syria's seat for the very first time. Syria was expelled from the organization in late 2011, due to its brutal repression of the opposition movement.

The Assad regime shrilly denounced this move. The League has handed Syria's seat to bandits and thugs, to the Coalition which thinks it can sit in the name of the Syrian people. They have forgotten that it is the people who grant powers and not the emirs of obscurantism and sand, the official news outlet al-Thawra wrote.

In his speech to the Arab League Khatib characterized the conflict in Syria as a struggle between freedom and slavery, justice and tyranny.

He also called upon Nato to protect civilian populations in the north of the country from air raids with the Patriot missiles already installed on Turkish territory near the border.

Nato, however has no plans to intervene in the conflict.

Yet, the battle being fought in Tal Abyad, Raqqa province, on the Turkish border, may be a harbinger of things to come.

There, moderate Islamic militants of the Farouq Battalions have been confronting the Islamic extremists of the Jabhat al-Nusra Front, who seek to impose a caliphate on the nation., for control of the area and its border crossings...

On Sunday, four people were killed in the fighting.

It seems we cannot deal with them peacefully, Abu Mansour, of the Farouq Battalion, told McClatchy, referring to the Jabhat al Nusra Front. So it seems inevitable we will fight them, whether it is before the regime falls or after.

Thus, this confrontation no doubt awaits the Syrian people.

After two years of inaction on the part of the civilized world (a posture some would no doubt characterize as irresponsible if not criminal), which has allowed the extremists to gain a considertable foothold in the country, the Syrians are being left to their own devices.

Tomorrow, all of Syria may resemble Tal Abyad, Raqqa province...

And who shall we blame for that development?

(the photograph above of Homs in ruins is by Yazan Homsy/Reuters)