Big Changes Ahead in Syria

[MadImmortalMan]

Lots of footage here:

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/middle-east/syria-live-blog-march-25

[jamesww]

Didn't Languish conclude that Bashar gets a pass due to having a HOTT wife?  Or was that thread lost?

Yeah someone killed my thread. 

Maybe I should go and rescue his wife ? 

[Darth Wagtaros]

My impression was that the dad was a pretty smart operator.  Don't know about the son, or even really how much the son is truly in charge as opposed to being a puppet for someone else.

Good point.  I get the feeling that Bashar was pulled into his role and didn't really seek it out.

His elder brother Basil was supposed to be The One. Unfortunately, he wrapped his car around a tree in Switzerland or something. But Bashar has kept up the family business of destroying the non-Alawi. 

That or his uncle. I think his exile was rescinded in Hafez' last years.

[KRonn]

Reports that groups of snipers in Deraa wearing all-black and killing protesters have been mobbed and captured by the crowd. Turns out they only speak...Farsi. 

Well, gee, no one would have seen that one coming, eh?

Heh, no surprise. Iran is going to be the biggest loser if half these revolts gain traction, and it looks like quite a few are making progress. Iran is the baddest apple of the group, and successful revolts just showcase the illegitimacy of governments like in Iran.

[derspiess]

Lots of footage here:

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/middle-east/syria-live-blog-march-25

Yikes-- glad my uncle's family got out when they did (1920's )

[Savonarola]

Changes so awesome that Assad can't even announce them:

Syria's Assad warns of 'conspiracy' 

Syrian president fails to lift emergency laws in his first speech since security forces curbed anti-government protests.

Assad spoke day after thousands of Syrians joined government rallies across country in mass outpouring of support

Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, blamed "conspirators" for two weeks of anti-government protests that have rocked the nation but failed to lift emergency rule or offer other concessions.

In his first address to the nation since the start of a violent crackdown on protests demanding greater freedoms that erupted earlier this month, Assad said Syria was going through a "test of unity".

"I belong to the Syrian people, and whoever belongs to the Syrian people will always keep his head high," he said in the televised address before members of parliament in the capital, Damascus, on Wednesday.

"I know that the Syrian people have been awaiting this speech since last week, but I was waiting to get the full picture ... to avoid giving an emotional address that would put the people at ease but have no real effect, at a time when our enemies are targeting Syria," he said.


Al Jazeera's Cal Perry travelled to Daraa to gauge reaction to President Assad's speech
During his speech, that lasted almost one hour, Assad took aim at social networking websites and pan-Arabic satellite television news channels but made no mention of any plans to lift the state of emergency.

Assad said he supported reform but offered no new commitment to change Syria's rigid, one-party political system.

"Staying without reforms is destructive to the country," Assad said, without elaborating on a pledge by his adviser Bouthaina Shaaban last week that the president would look into lifting the emergency law.

Assad echoed that statement on Wednesday.

"The emergency law and political parties law have been under study for a year. There are more, unannounced reforms ... but giving a timeframe is a logistic matter," the president said.

He said "conspirators" have tried to reinforce sectarianism to incite hatred and "bring down Syria".

Assad entered parliament to a mass of cheering crowds outside the building. Once inside, legislators chanted "God, Syria and Bashar only!'' and "our souls, our blood we sacrifice for you Bashar.''

Witnesses from the coastal city of Latakia, where 12 people were killed last week during protests, told Al Jazeera clashes broke out between government troops and protesters within an hour after Assad's speech in Damascus.


Deadly unrest

Assad's rule has been rocked by a wave of demonstrations in defiance of the law over the past two weeks, with protesters emboldened by uprisings in the Arab world.

Assad was expected to use the address to discuss a string of reforms announced last week, amid a wave of dissent and protests demanding more freedoms. But he failed to elaborate on any such reforms.

The speech came a day after the country's cabinet resigned.

Naji al-Otari, the resigning premier, has been chosen by Assad as caretaker prime minister. Otari has been prime minister since 2003.

The government has little power in Syria, where power is concentrated in the hands of Assad, his family and the security apparatus.

Syria has been ruled by the Baath Party since 1963 and Assad succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad, in 2000.

The 32-member cabinet will continue running the country's affairs until the formation of a new government.

The new cabinet, which is expected to be announced by the end of the week, will face the task of implementing the reforms.

The wave of protests, which began on March 15 in Damascus, were quickly contained by security forces, before taking root in the southern tribal region of Daraa and the city of Latakia in the north.

More than 60 people have died since March 18 as security forces cracked down on protesters, Human Rights Watch has said.

'Pushed into chaos'

Daraa has sustained the most casualties, with activists estimating at least 100 people killed on Wednesday last week in clashes with security forces.

Syrian rights activists have accused security forces of killing 130 people in the crackdown, while Amnesty International says upward of 55 people have been killed. Officials put the toll at 30 killed.

Tuesday's announcement about the cabinet came as tens of thousands of Syrians joined government-organised rallies across the country in a mass outpouring of support for their leader.

On Tuesday, all roads leading to Sabeh Bahrat ("Seven Seas") square in the capital were cut off by police armed with batons, as the crowd raised Syrian flags and pictures of Assad.

"The people want Bashar al-Assad," they chanted in unison.

"Bashar al-Assad is the spine of Syria. Without him, our country will be pushed into chaos," said a man who identified himself as Abu Khodr.

Authorities have accused fundamentalists and "armed gangs" of aiming to incite unrest in the country, particularly Daraa and Latakia, which emerged as the focal points of dissent.

Such demonstrations would have been unthinkable a couple of months ago in Syria, but it now faces the wave of Arab revolutionary sentiment which has toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia..

Hail Bashar

[derspiess]

Bashar looks like he's aged a bit in the past few weeks.  The paradox he finds himself in is that lifting the state of emergency will probably cause things to spin even further out of control.

[KRonn]

 

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/04/11/syrian-army-enters-key-city-deadly-shooting/?test=latestnews

Student Protest in Syrian Capital Turns Violent

BEIRUT –  A rare demonstration by hundreds of Syrian university students turned violent Monday when security forces beat up and arrested several protesters who were shouting for freedom and unity as the country's three-week uprising gathered strength despite a government crackdown, witnesses said.

Video footage posted online showed what appears to be plainclothes security forces beating protesters and forcefully pulling others away as they marched inside the campus of Damascus University. An activist in touch with students who witnessed the demonstration corroborated the footage, but he spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

"The Syrian people are one!" the students shouted in the video.

Protests erupted in Syria more than three weeks ago and have been growing steadily, with tens of thousands of people calling for sweeping reforms to President Bashar Assad's authoritarian regime.

More than 170 people have been killed, according to human rights groups.

International and Arab reaction to the violence in Syria had been relatively subdued, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has suggested America would not be getting involved.

She said late last month that Assad is a a "different leader" than Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, and that many members of Congress who have visited the country "believe he's a reformer."

But with the mounting casualties, others in the international community have begun voicing criticism.

France on Monday strongly condemned the violence in Syria, calling it "unacceptable," and called for immediate reforms.

"Reform and repression are incompatible," a Foreign Ministry statement said.

German spokesman, Steffen Seibert, called the continuing use of force against peaceful demonstrators "dismaying and outrageous."

While at the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a telephone conversation with Assad, said he was "greatly disturbed" by the reports of violence and said the killing of peaceful demonstrators was unacceptable and should be investigated.

Most of the demonstrations in Syria so far have happened outside the capital. The fact that students were gathering in Damascus on Monday suggested that the protesters were becoming emboldened as their unprecedented movement enters its fourth week.

The activist said most of the students taking part in Monday's protest were from Daraa -- the southern city that has become the epicenter of the violence -- and the port city of Banias, where four protesters were killed Sunday.

Some 2,000 mourners chanting "Death is better than humiliation!" turned out in Banias on Monday for a funeral for the four after Muslim noon prayers, an eyewitness said.

The military rolled into the city early Monday, taking up positions around key buildings and intersections. But the army pulled out after several hours and kept up their positions on the outskirts. The witness, speaking on the phone from Banias, said schools and shops were closed because people feared more clashes.

He said the army's arrival was met mostly with relief.

"We are happy it's the army and not security forces who are like regime-hired gangs," he told The Associated Press. Like most eyewitnesses who spoke to the AP, he requested anonymity for fear of reprisals from the government.

In Banias, no soldiers were present at the funeral. Participants dispersed peacefully.

"The troops just came into the city to say they are with the people, not against them," the resident said.

In Daraa, a resident contacted by telephone said Syrian employees evacuated a government compound in the city. He said road blocks were erected and at least one tank stood at the city's northern entrance on Monday. Overnight, Syrian forces set up dirt mounds on main city roads and on Daraa's exit roads.

The move to evacuate the government compound raised fears among residents that a military operation was being planned.

The government blames the violence on armed gangs rather than reform-seekers and has vowed to crush further unrest. On Sunday, state television reported that thugs killed nine soldiers in an ambush near Banias, which is 185 miles northwest of the capital, Damascus.

The report said gunmen hiding among trees along a road shot at the soldiers, and it broadcast images later of ambulance and other civilian vehicles coming under fire along the same road.

The accounts could not be independently confirmed. The government has placed severe restrictions on news coverage and many journalists -- including from The Associated Press -- have been ordered to leave the country.

Assad has made a series of overtures to try and appease the growing outrage, including sacking local officials and granting Syrian nationality to thousands of Kurds, a long-ostracized minority.

But the gestures have failed to satisfy protesters who are demanding political freedoms and an end to the decades-old despised emergency laws.

On Sunday, Assad ordered the release of 191 detainees who were arrested in the past few weeks during protests in the Damascus suburb of Douma, where 12 people were shot dead during last Friday.

[jimmy olsen]

Shocking!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42578969/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

A Syrian plan to attack protesters?
Human rights activist says document lays out how to brutally suppress the opposition

President Bashar al-Assad.
By Michael Isikoff National investigative correspondent
NBC News
updated 4/13/2011 11:07:07 PM ET


WASHINGTON — A document purportedly drafted by senior Syrian intelligence officials details a chilling plan to infiltrate the ranks of anti-regime protesters, arrest and assassinate their leaders, and link anti-regime demonstrations to the work of "Zionist" and other outside agitators.

The document was circulated by Syrian opposition figures Wednesday and cited by dissidents as fresh evidence of the brutality of the regime of President Bashar Assad. "It is very scary — this is the work of a Mafia state," said Radwan Ziadeh, a prominent Syrian human rights activist and visiting scholar at George Washington University, who said he obtained the document from sources inside Syria on Tuesday night.

U.S. officials told NBC News that they were reviewing the document and could not immediately authenticate it. NBC was also unable to independently verify the document. But one U.S. official said the initial view is that there is a "strong likelihood" that it is real. "It would not be surprising if the Syrians are plotting the use of dirty methods to discredit its opponents," the official said.

The Syrian Embassy in Washington did not respond to email and telephone requests for comment.

The document comes amid intense political debate inside the Obama administration and Congress over how tough a stand the U.S. government should take toward Assad's regime. By purportedly showing the extreme measures that Assad's top officials are willing to take toward demonstrators, the document would appear to strengthen the hands of hard-liners and dissidents like Ziadeh who argue the regime is unwilling to reform and should be ostracized.

"No leniency shall be observed with regards to smearing the image of our highest symbol" — a reference to Syrian President Bashar Assad — "regardless of the costs," according to an English translation of the Arabic language document provided to NBC. The plan also calls for banning news media coverage of the protests and punishing those "who convey any news that does not serve the country," adding that the security services should "show no leniency in this matter."

The document is dated March 23, when anti-regime protests were starting to spread. It purports to describe a meeting that day of a special "Security Committee" inside the country's General Security Directorate, the chief internal security agency.

Ziadeh said the initials of those attending the meeting indicate that the group included Muhammed Nasif Khaybrik, a top adviser to Assad and deputy vice president for security affairs, who serves as the chief Syrian government liaison to Iran. (The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions against Nasif and three other Syrian officials in 2007 for their role in fomenting violence in Lebanon in order to reassert Syrian control over that country.) Another whose initials indicate he attended the meeting was Maj. Gen. Ali Mamuk, the former chief of state security who serves as the top security adivser to Assad, Ziadeh said.

The purpose of the meeting, according to the document, was to make sure that the Assad government benefits "from the mistakes of the Egyptian and Tunisian regimes" as well as from its past experience in suppressing the Muslim Brotherhood —a reference to a brutal crackdown on the Brotherhood by Assad's father in 1982. It outlines what it describes as a highly detailed three-pronged media, security and political plan to suppress the protests.

Among the key elements, according to the document:

    "Link the anti-regime demonstrations and protests to figures hated by the Syrian populace such as the usual Saudi and Lebanese figures, and connecting the lot of them to Zionism and to America."
    Assign security agents to work "via Facebook" to "jam up" political opponents. In particular, it suggests that security agents using "pseudonyms" pose as political dissidents and then gather intelligence about the opposition as well as "slip in" messages that would tarnish the reputations of leading dissident figures. Opposition figures should also become the target of lawsuits designed to "smear their moral and religious reputations."
    The locations of political protests should be blocked off and civilian-clothed security agents should infiltrate the protests "in an attempt to cause a state of chaos." In order to further "deceive the enemy," snipers should be concealed in the ranks of the protesters and be given the leeway to shoot some security agents or army officers, "which will further help the situation by provoking the animosity of the army against the protesters."
    Any areas where the protests get out of control should be isolated, with the electricity and Internet links cut off. Then, the plan calls for the "arrest of key influential figures in that area, and if the situation is critical, to kill them." But the plan cautions, when security forces and snipers enter protest areas, "the number of people killed must not exceed twenty each time, because it would let them be more easily noticed and exposed, which may lead to situations of foreign intervention."

Ziadeh said the best evidence of the document's authenticity is the continued reports about the regime's suppression of the protests. On Wednesday, according to media reports from The New York Times and others, the government's crackdown intensified.

Read more reporting by Michael Isikoff in 'The Isikoff Files'

After four pro-democracy protesters were killed in the port city of Baniyas on Sunday, checkpoints blocked off access to the city and government security forces mounted a violent raid on a nearby village — with men and women pulled into a town square and "collectively beaten" — purportedly as punishment for offering refuge to the protesters, according to accounts from human rights advocates.

[MadImmortalMan]

Protesters being attacked with live rounds in Damascus.

http://www.livestation.com/channels/43-al-jazeera-arabic

[HisMajestyBOB]

If Bashar is overthrown, will he go back to practicing ophthalmology?
Much less chance of a violent overthrow in that profession.

[jimmy olsen]

If Bashar is overthrown, will he go back to practicing ophthalmology?
Much less chance of a violent overthrow in that profession.

I'd love to see the resume he hands into his prospective employers.

[MadImmortalMan]

I bet Vogue is regretting that huge fawning fluff piece they did on Asma a few months ago. 

[HisMajestyBOB]

President, Syrian Arab Republic, 2000-2011
Key responsibilities included: Managing medium sized country, including appointing ministers and generals; overseeing secret nuclear weapons project; crushing dissidents; and frequent public speeches condemning the Zionist enemy and Great Satan.

[The Brain]

The government has little power in Syria

When will America's love affair with big government end? If some Arabs can do it...