Syria is disintegrating

[citizen k]

Red Cross blocked by Syria from ex-rebel enclave

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria blocked a Red Cross convoy Friday from delivering badly needed food, medical supplies and blankets to a rebellious neighborhood of Homs cut off by a monthlong siege, and activists accused regime troops who overran the shattered district of execution-style killings and a scorched-earth campaign.
Humanitarian conditions in the former rebel stronghold of Baba Amr have been described as catastrophic, with extended power outages, shortages of food and water, and no medical care for the sick and wounded.
British Prime Minister David Cameron called Homs "a scene of medieval barbarity."
Syrian state TV showed burned-out and destroyed buildings in Baba Amr, a western neighborhood of Homs, which was covered with a blanket of fresh snow.
Syrian government forces took control of Baba Amr on Thursday after rebels fled the district under constant bombardment that activists said killed hundreds of people since early February. The Syrian regime has said it was fighting "armed gangs" in Baba Amr, and had vowed to "cleanse" the neighborhood.
"It is unacceptable that people who have been in need of emergency assistance for weeks have still not received any help," said Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Red Cross said it had received permission from the government of President Bashar Assad on Thursday to enter Baba Amr, on the western side of Homs, and a convoy of seven trucks with 15 tons of humanitarian aid was poised to do so, but authorities then blocked their access. There was no explanation from the government about the change.
"We are staying in Homs tonight in the hope of entering Baba Amr in the very near future," Kellenberger said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Syria to give humanitarian workers immediate access to people who desperately need aid.
"The images which we have seen in Syria are atrocious," said Ban. "It's totally unacceptable, intolerable. How, as a human being, can you bear this situation?"
U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos has been trying, without success, to get permission from the Syrian government to visit, and Ban said Assad's regime should let her into the country to assess the situation without delay.
British photographer Paul Conroy, who was wounded by shelling in Baba Amr and trapped there for several days until he escaped, told Britain's Sky News that thousands of people were still in Homs, "living in bombed-out wrecks with children six to a bed, rooms full of people waiting to die." He said they had no electricity or water and only meager supplies of food.
"It's not a war. It's a massacre — indiscriminate massacre of men, women and children," he told the broadcaster. "It's snowing there now and these people can't make fires."
Bassel Fouad, a Syrian activist who fled to Lebanon from Baba Amr, said a colleague there told him Friday that Syrian troops and pro-government gunmen known as shabiha were conducting house-to-house raids.
"The situation is worse than terrible inside Baba Amr," Fouad said. "Shabiha are entering homes and setting them on fire."
His colleague said the gunmen lined 10 men up early Friday and shot them to death in front of a government cooperative that sells subsidized food. Syrian forces were detaining anyone over the age of 14 in the three-story building, he added.
"They begin at the start of a street and enter and search house after house," he said. "Then they start with another street."
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said it had received reports of 10 people slain in front of a co-op and called on the Red Cross team heading to Homs to investigate claims by residents the building is being used a prison. Another group, the Local Coordination Committees, said 14 were killed.
The claims could not be independently verified. Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in Geneva that the agency had received unconfirmed reports of "a particularly grisly set of summary executions" involving 17 people in Baba Amr after government forces entered.
Colville said his office was seeking to confirm the reports and called on both government and rebel forces to refrain from all forms of revenge attacks.
Syria has a fragile mix of ethnic groups including Sunnis, Shiites, Christians and the minority Alawite sect, to which Assad and the ruling elite belong. Homs, the country's third-largest city, has emerged as a key battleground and has seen an alarming rise in sectarian tensions and reprisal killings.
The European Union committed itself to document war crimes in Syria to set the stage for a "day of reckoning" for the country's leadership, in the way that former Yugoslav leaders were tried for war crimes in the 1990s by a special U.N. tribunal.
EU leaders in Brussels condemned Assad's regime for its nearly yearlong crackdown on an uprising that began with mostly peaceful protests but has veered toward civil war, with Syrian forces firing heavy artillery against civilians. The U.N. has estimated that more than 7,500 people have been killed, while activists put the death toll at over 8,000.
"We will make sure — as we did in Serbia — that there is a day of reckoning for those who are responsible," said Cameron, who accused the Assad regime of "butchering its own people."
"It is very important that we set out the war crimes that effectively are being committed, that we write them down, we take the photographic evidence, we bring it together and ... make sure that the day of reckoning will come," he told reporters.
The EU leaders pledged to step up sanctions against the Damascus regime "as long as the violence and human rights abuses continue." They again called on Assad to resign.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said his country is closing its embassy in Syria, a day after two French journalists — one of them wounded — escaped to Lebanon after being trapped for days in Baba Amr for nine days. Britain and the United States have already closed their embassies.
Russia, a staunch ally of Syria, blasted the West for backing the opposition, with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin calling for both the rebels and the government forces to pull out of besieged cities to end the bloodshed.
"Do they want Assad to pull out his forces so the opposition moves right in?" Putin said at a meeting with Western newspaper editors in remarks on state TV. "Is it a balanced approach?"
Sarkozy greeted Edith Bouvier, a journalist for Le Figaro, and William Daniels, a photographer, after they flew to a military airport in Villacoublay, France, from Beirut.
Bouvier was taken off the plane on a stretcher. She sustained several fractures to a leg during a rocket attack on Feb. 22 that killed two Western journalists — American-born reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik — and wounded Conroy, who was spirited out of Syria. Spanish reporter Javier Espinosa also was smuggled out.
Red Cross spokesman Bijan Farnoudi told The Associated Press that the organization has the bodies of Colvin and Ochlik and was taking them to Damascus. Activist videos posted online Thursday purported to show the burials of Colvin and Ochlik in Baba Amr this week. The Syrian government news agency said the bodies were exhumed after Baba Amr fell so they could be repatriated. But in an obviously erroneous report, it said Espinosa's body was among them, even though he appeared on international TV shows Friday, detailing his escape.
Activists said protesters took to the streets in towns elsewhere across Syria Friday, with security forces unleashing tear gas and gunfire, and making mass arrests.
The Observatory said 10 people were killed in the town of Rastan near Homs when a mortar shell landed near marchers. The LCC said 16 were killed in the same event, among 65 reported dead nationwide.
Amateur video posted online by activists showed a protest in Rastan of about 200 youths singing and flashing the "V'' sign for victory until a gunshot sent them fleeing. The video showed gruesome images, including a bloodied corpse slumped in front of a shop and a severed head in a pool of blood.

[citizen k]

Here are two videos that I think give a good picture of the revolution in Syria:

Freelance cameraman provides a rare glimpse into Homs :
http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/24/world/meast/syria-homs-closeup/index.html?hpt=imi_mid

Homs: City Under Siege - CNN Report on Syria :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV9b0D9pPBQ

[Viking]

Oh?  Why?  Assad has a small, but well armed and organized base.  I think they are perfectly capable of putting down the rebellion.

The Israelis have a better armed and organized base, but haven't managed to put their own rebellion down in 60 years.

Yes, but the Israelis don't committ the mass scale murder required to get the palestinians to calm down like Assad t.E. did at Hama.

[derspiess]

Freelance cameraman provides a rare glimpse into Homs :
http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/24/world/meast/syria-homs-closeup/index.html?hpt=imi_mid

Fascinating, gritty stuff. 

Reinforces a few notions I had:
*The opposition is extremely well-motivated.
*The opposition/NSA has a long way to go to before they have a serious chance to overthrow the regime.  Motivation and bravery can't overcome lack of equipment & training.
*We don't want any part of this fight.  At least not directly.
*War is hell.

[citizen k]

A street called Syria divides tense Lebanese city

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - Two rival communities are preparing for war in Lebanon's northern coastal city of Tripoli and the frontline in their conflict is a street called Syria.

In the Sunni Muslim district of Bab Tebbaneh, Syrian rebel flags flutter from buildings, declarations of support for the one-year uprising against Bashar al-Assad.

The neighboring Jebel Mohsen area is home to Tripoli's defiant Alawite minority - from the same sect as Assad - who display their loyalty with pictures of the Syrian president.

Bullet holes scar buildings in both districts, reminders of conflict which date back nearly four decades and which flared again last month in street battles between fighters firing automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Two people were killed in that confrontation before the army was deployed to restore calm, reinforcing fears that the turmoil in Syria, which has already polarized Lebanese politicians and religious communities, may spark wider violence in the country.

Along Syria street, the dividing line between the Sunnis of Bab Tebbaneh and Alawites of Jebel Mohsen, banners supporting Assad flap alongside posters demanding his downfall.

On Fridays, when frictions often rise after Muslim prayers, soldiers deploy in force in the street to prevent further clashes. Armored personnel carriers are stationed in the area throughout the week.

"When the army leaves, people will kill each other ... It will be war," said a Sunni Muslim fighter from Bab Tebbaneh who gave his name as Abdullah.

LEBANON WAR "ISN'T OVER"

Tensions between Jebel Mohsen and Bab Tebbaneh date back to the early years of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, when Assad's father Hafez al-Assad sent troops into Lebanon, a military presence which was to last until 2005.

Alawites in Tripoli sided with the Syrian forces, while the city's Sunni Muslims backed the Palestinian militants fighting Assad's troops.

"The (civil) war ended but it is not over here," said Waleed, a Sunni Muslim fighter and community leader. "The people of Bab Tebbaneh suffered the most from the Syria regime."

"At least 86 people from here are still missing since the 1980s. They disappeared because of the Syrian regime and we don't know if they are dead or in prison."

"Now the wounds have reopened," he added, his message reinforced by fresh pictures of residents, missing for 30 years, pasted on the walls of Bab Tebbaneh against a background of rebel Syrian flags.

Zakaria al-Masri, imam of a mosque in the Qebba district where anti-Assad protests take place most Fridays, said people had a duty to support the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim uprising in Syria after a year of unrest in which the United Nations says 8,000 people have died.

"Syrian people are facing injustice. It is important to stand by those facing injustice," he said at a demonstration earlier this month where people waved rebel Syrian flags and children painted anti-Assad slogans including "Freedom" and "Leave" on their foreheads.

Alawites in Jebel Mohsen, a hillside district overlooking the Mediterranean city, counter that the hostility to Assad has come from an increasingly hardline current of Sunni Islam which they say is taking hold in their city. They say they are well armed and ready for a showdown.

"We have noticed how extremism is spreading and nobody is criticizing it," said one man at a cafe in a poor district of Jebel Mohsen. He said some moderate Sunni sheikhs in Tripoli had been replaced by more conservative clerics, adding he saw more men with long beards and short dishdasha robes - signs of extreme religious piety - some of whom did not speak Arabic.

"We are a minority. Nothing will protect us but our weapons," said another man, who said that any conflict in Tripoli would spread to the capital Beirut and the Bekaa Valley.

"We have plenty of weapons and we are buying - heavy and light weapons, all is here," he said.

GUNS IN EVERY HOUSE

Weapons are a constant feature of conversation in the tinder-box city, and are rarely out of sight.

Speaking to a reporter in his home, Waleed proudly held his M-16 assault rifle, while his son showed off a Kalashnikov, saying they were stocking up on arms for the war they expect will erupt in Tripoli.

"We are buying guns to defend ourselves. Each house has guns depending on the number of men in the house," said the 52-year-old father of three, who says his own father was killed by Syrian forces.

His two sons and daughter are all trained to use a gun.

"Ten-year-old boys can use guns here. All men teach their sons how to use weapons. Even our women, we teach them".

"I know people who sold their televisions and gold just to buy weapons," he said. "When we are living in a security vacuum it is only natural that we protect ourselves".

A Tripoli resident called Munir said the bloodshed in Syria, where Assad's forces bombarded the rebel Homs neighborhood of Baba Amro into submission last month, had brought back Lebanese memories of their own civil war.

"What is happening in Syria has repercussions here. When a son of Bab Tebbaneh sees what happens in Syria he is reminded of what happened in the 1980s," he said, speaking at a cafe near the Sunni Muslim district.

"People lived through the same shelling and same massacres."

SPARK FOR CONFLICT

Although both sides say they are ready for a fight, no one will predict when the spark for a conflict might be struck.

"Definitely there will be a battle here but the question is for what purpose," said Waleed, who estimated the Alawites had about 1,000 to 2,000 fighters, while the Sunnis had 5,000. "Everyone is waiting for the right moment."

Most political leaders in Lebanon, from Sunni Muslim Prime Minister Najib Mikati to Shi'ite Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, have sought to prevent the Syrian crisis from spilling over into its smaller neighbor.

But the uprising has laid bare the country's divisions, with Nasrallah backing Assad and others, including Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and former Sunni prime minister Saad al-Hariri stepping up their condemnation of Assad's crackdown.

"Bab Tebbaneh and Jebel Mohsen are the weakest link in the country, but to ignite it requires a decision," Waleed said.

One Alawite resident, referring to the high levels of deprivation in Tripoli, said it was no accident that poverty was so widespread in the port city.

"We are left here as poor people so that when they need fuel for any war they can use us," he said, standing near two mosques, one Sunni and another Alawite, both pockmarked with bullet holes.

Another supporter of the Syrian leader, sitting in a car playing songs praising Assad, said Alawites were brought up to fight "to the end".

"When a child is born we do not bring him gold or sweets. We bring him a gun. This is his gift because he will be a fighter."

He smiled, and added: "Let them try to fight us".

[citizen k]

GUNS IN EVERY HOUSE

Weapons are a constant feature of conversation in the tinder-box city, and are rarely out of sight.

Speaking to a reporter in his home, Waleed proudly held his M-16 assault rifle, while his son showed off a Kalashnikov, saying they were stocking up on arms for the war they expect will erupt in Tripoli.

"We are buying guns to defend ourselves. Each house has guns depending on the number of men in the house," said the 52-year-old father of three, who says his own father was killed by Syrian forces.

His two sons and daughter are all trained to use a gun.

"Ten-year-old boys can use guns here. All men teach their sons how to use weapons. Even our women, we teach them".

"I know people who sold their televisions and gold just to buy weapons," he said. "When we are living in a security vacuum it is only natural that we protect ourselves".

This reminded me of the stand your grounders in the US, like derspeiss or Rasputin.

[Razgovory]

Oh?  Why?  Assad has a small, but well armed and organized base.  I think they are perfectly capable of putting down the rebellion.

The Israelis have a better armed and organized base, but haven't managed to put their own rebellion down in 60 years.

Yes, but the Israelis don't committ the mass scale murder required to get the palestinians to calm down like Assad t.E. did at Hama.

I don't think it's really comparable. The Israelis don't really rule the Palestinians.  It's more like a nation state bordered by a pirate enclave.  They send in soldiers to suppress the pirates occasionally, but don't really govern them.

[Razgovory]

Freelance cameraman provides a rare glimpse into Homs :
http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/24/world/meast/syria-homs-closeup/index.html?hpt=imi_mid

Fascinating, gritty stuff. 

Reinforces a few notions I had:
*The opposition is extremely well-motivated.
*The opposition/NSA has a long way to go to before they have a serious chance to overthrow the regime.  Motivation and bravery can't overcome lack of equipment & training.
*We don't want any part of this fight.  At least not directly.
*War is hell.

Damn thing won't play for me.    Says requested video is not available.

[Sheilbh]

Tunisia's stance is interesting.  They've offered forces for any international intervention, but they've also offered Assad asylum if he steps down.

[Monoriu]

Tunisia's stance is interesting.  They've offered forces for any international intervention

*Any* international intervention?  What prevents them from going alone 

[KRonn]

So what do we think? The Syrian leadership is now, or will be, wanted for crimes against humanity and other heavy duty charges. Will the world be adamant in seeking to punish these thugs, or will this get somewhat forgotten?  It was forgotten with Assad's father; but this is a different era. I can't see this  human slaughter being left alone after the carnage is over.

[mongers]

So what do we think? The Syrian leadership is now, or will be, wanted for crimes against humanity and other heavy duty charges. Will the world be adamant in seeking to punish these thugs, or will this get somewhat forgotten?  It was forgotten with Assad's father; but this is a different era. I can't see this  human slaughter being left alone after the carnage is over.

Tricky, because all the foreseeable alternative outcomes seem worse, to varying degrees; I'd guess many in the west would still take a 'successful' crackdown as the least worst option. That's not to say governments wouldn't huff and puff about ICC indictments, but it would still be the old Ba'thists that 'we' could reply on to be 'rational' players in the region. 

My view is a Sunni dominated government, with substantial islamist components that probably actively or at least passively engage in ethnic politics would be a disaster for the Syrian people, many times worse than what's happening now.   

[Razgovory]

So what do we think? The Syrian leadership is now, or will be, wanted for crimes against humanity and other heavy duty charges. Will the world be adamant in seeking to punish these thugs, or will this get somewhat forgotten?  It was forgotten with Assad's father; but this is a different era. I can't see this  human slaughter being left alone after the carnage is over.

Nah, there will be no charges from the Hague.  If Assad wins, nobody will care in a few years.  It'll be brought up everyone once in a while when someone wants to make a point on how he's such a bad guy, but otherwise nothing.  Unless the situation changes dramatically (with outside intervention), Assad will win.  The best the rebels can hope for is to go to ground as a guerrilla movement and remain a thorn in the government's side.

[Sheilbh]

Nah, there will be no charges from the Hague.

Why not?

If Assad wins, nobody will care in a few years.  It'll be brought up everyone once in a while when someone wants to make a point on how he's such a bad guy, but otherwise nothing.  Unless the situation changes dramatically (with outside intervention), Assad will win.  The best the rebels can hope for is to go to ground as a guerrilla movement and remain a thorn in the government's side.

I'm nowhere near as confident in predicting where this'll go. 

At this point the regime's response is growing in violence.  There's not really rebellion as there was in Libya.  The rebels are able, generally, to stop the regime's forces from establishing themselves, so they're providing some protection for the ongoing protests.  That's part of the reason the regime's becoming more violent.  But the regime at this point doesn't look like it's in control of most of the country.  The reports on where protests have taken place week after week doesn't suggest this is weakening and it also indicates how, so far, the regime's not been able to regain control.  The rebels are less of a threat to the regime than the protests.  Reports suggest that they are starting to cause more problems in Damascus and Aleppo than before, those are regime strongholds and the commercial centre of Syria.  In addition the rebels have, by all accounts, attracted deserters but also petty thieves, criminals, jihadists from Syria and other Arab states. 

There's a sectarian element that's growing especially against the Alawites, but it's not simply sectarian.  For example the Druze are starting to shift (under pressure from Walid Jumblatt and the Lebanese Druze) because some of their leaders are helping funnel funds to the FSA, and because the government's not in control.  Villages and neighbourhoods of all sects have started setting up vigilante committees to keep order and look out for outsiders.  This is necessary given the state Syria's in, but if the government can't protect minorities (or anyone) then their argument for why minorities should back them is gone.  The chaos erodes the support for the government and, I think, it'll be difficult for any force to restore complete order any time soon.

I think right now there's a few possibilities.  The regime could survive.  But it will struggle desperately to re-establish itself as the dominant force in Syria.  Even if it does I can't see the sanctions being lifted any time soon so it'll be in a far weaker state than before.  Syria's sort of like the Eastern Bloc of the Arab world.  They've been under sanctions for a long time and so, apparently, the clothes they wear, the cars they drive, the haircuts they have all look about 20 years out of date to other Arabs.  That'll get a lot worse if the regime survives.

I think the regime could also split.  Though this is unlikely given that they're all tied together, complicit in their crimes.  If the regime splits chances are there'll be a sectarian element and I think we'd see a full on war.  There are regiments that are entirely Alawite.  They've been doing most of the work for the regime so far because the other regiments aren't fully trusted.  If they go over to the FSA, or a Sunni Minister forms a National Transitional Council or something - with the non-Alawite army - then I think we'll end up with an active civil war.

Or what's prompting the Druze to start self-defence groups could continue.  I think we're at the point where Syria could just entirely disintegrate.  This is about where I think we are now and, if I had to guess, I think this is probably where we'll end up.  The regime exists and is in power in Damascus, Alawite regions and Aleppo.  Aside from that it's power extends as far as the secret service and the Alawite regiments of the army - or the regime could collapse on itself entirely.  There's still no unifying group, as existed in Libya, so I think you'd see different power centres form across the country, with different leaders and in between them armed villages trying to live.  So somewhere between Lebanon and Afghanistan.

[Razgovory]

The question is not "Why wouldn't the Hague do something", it's "Why would it?"  I seriously doubt the UN would create a tribunal unless Assad is already out of power.  And has the ICC indicted anyone who wasn't in Africa?

I agree that Syria has been weakened by this, but I don't think it'll fall.  I think the Alawite and the Druze will ultimately stay loyal.  A new government may very well butcher them and they know it.  The rebels can't resist the military and the crowds can't protest forever.  The fractious nature of the opposition means that the government can buy off portions in a divide and conquer strategy.