Sunday 12 February 2012

Syrian Uprising 2011 Information Centre: We posted this earlier as a comment but we are reposting this on the wall so more people get to see it. The Syrian American Council has listed 24 ways to help Syria – most of the ideas seem relevant wherever you live not just in America. We would add to it that you can also write to the Syrian embassy or diplomatic mission in your country (check in the Notes to the left for a list of addresses) to express your disgust at what the Assad regime is doing.
 ACT NOW: 24 WAYS TO HELP SYRIA

SUMMARY (12/02/2012): 36 martyrs have been reported today – in Daraa, where several towns are under attack, Homs, which remains under bombardment and is suffering from severe food shortage, and Idlib. Part of Hama was raided and Ma’rat al-Nu’man also came under attack, and there were a lot of defections today, especially in Idlib province. Meanwhile the Arab League met and called for a joint UN-Arab League peacekeeping force to be sent to Syria. At least we have seen the last of General Dabi…  Be sure to check out today’s videos in Homs (Baba Amru). Syria – Sunday 12/02/2012 – Google Maps

Al Jazeera English report on defected soldiers in Homs: “We are not going to be oppressed. We are not going to bow down before Bashar al-Assad. We are living with our families and neighbours now…. the oath is to protect the army and the people. Now we’ll only defend the people and let God be our witness.”
 Syrian soldiers defect to fight against government

Update (12/02/2012): 20 martyrs have fallen already, in the continuing bombardment of Homs, and also in Daraa and Idlib provinces where the regime is stepping up it’s raids. While the Arab League is meeting to discuss “what next?” the humanitarian situation in Homs is becoming unbearable as well as in Zabadani and Madaya where the FSA has done a deal to allow Assad forces to enter the two towns in exchange for letting some food supply get in after more than a week of siege. This video shows how a house looks after being hit by one of the hundreds of shells that have fallen on Baba Amru.
 Homs (Baba Amru) 12/02/2012

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NOW! Lebanon
[local time]  22:35 The United States and its allies are bringing “pressure to bear” on Syria, White House chief of Staff Jacob Lew said Sunday, predicting the efforts would lead to the end of Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
 22:27 Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour said on Sunday that the Arab League’s decisions are holding the Syrian regime accountable for the crisis in Syria and ignoring the responsibility of the opposition.
 21:25 A massive explosion took place near a gas station in the Daraa town of Nawa, activists told Al-Arabiya.
 20:18 Syrian security forces carried out an arrest campaign in the Damascus town of Assaly, Al-Jazeera quoted activists as saying.
 20:16 Syria on Sunday “categorically” rejected the decision by Arab foreign ministers to back the Syrian opposition and call for a joint UN-Arab peacekeeping mission, the Syrian ambassador to Cairo said.
 20:15 Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad on Sunday said Syria had proof that neighboring countries were actively supporting “terrorist groups” within its borders.
 19:02 Hundreds of protesters gathered on Sunday outside the Omar Bin al-Khattab mosque in the Bekaa town of Taalabaya to show support for the Syrian people, NOW Lebanon correspondent reported.
 18:13 Syrian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia leaves Riyadh at the request of the authorities, Al-Jazeera reported.
 17:39 Arab foreign ministers will agree to start talks with the Syrian opposition and call for a joint UN-Arab peacekeeping mission in Syria, according to a draft resolution of their meeting in Cairo on Sunday.

 17:34 Lebanon voiced reservation regarding the final statement issued following the Arab foreign ministers’ meeting in Cairo, Future News reported.
 17:29 Jordan’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood on Sunday called for “jihad” against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and support for a rebel army, saying it is “an Islamic duty.”
 17:22 Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday received a copy of the new draft constitution from the head of the National Committee charged with drafting a new constitution, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.
 17:06 Syrian security forces have killed 22 people, on Sunday Al-Arabiya reported.
 16:44 The Arab foreign ministers called for cutting all sorts of diplomatic ties with Syria and sending UN peacekeeping forces to the country, Al-Arabiya reported on Sunday.
 16:15 The Syrian army is arbitrarily raiding houses in the city of Zabadani, located near Damascus, Al-Arabiya reported.
 15:26 Arab foreign ministers met in Cairo on Sunday to mull their next move on Syria where a bloody 11-month crackdown has left thousands dead, an official told AFP.
 13:52 Arab League is mulling over a proposal to form an Arab peacekeeping forces in Syria, Al-Jazeera television reported.
 13:27 The controversial head of Arab League observers to Syria resigned on Sunday, an official said, as the bloc met to decide on reviving the mission jointly with the United Nations in the latest bid to end bloodshed.
 13:10 Syrian forces are violently shelling Marat al-Numan in Edleb, Al-Arabiya television quoted the General Commission of the Syrian Revolution as saying. 
 13:03 The Syrian army has raided the Syrian town of Tafas in Daraa on Sunday, wounding and killing people, Al-Jazeera television quoted the General Commission of the Syrian Revolution as saying.
 11:45 Sunday’s death toll in Syria has risen to 15 people, Al-Arabiya television quoted the General Commission of the Syrian Revolution as saying.
 11:13 Syrian forces have renewed the shelling of Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr on Sunday, Al-Arabiya television reported.
 11:10 A Turkish court Sunday detained five people suspected of turning over to Syria a founder of the Free Syrian Army who is reported to have since been executed, reports said.
 11:08 The Syrian army is shelling Hama’s neighborhood of Al-Thahiriya, Al-Arabiya television quoted the General Commission of the Syrian Revolution as saying.
 10:42 The Syrian army targeted a car in the Daraa village of Mseifra on Sunday, killing four people, Al-Arabiya television quoted the Syrian Center for Media as saying.
 10:39 Arab and Western states are to launch a new bid at the United Nations this week to put pressure on Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, setting off new diplomatic hostilities between Assad’s friends and foes.
 10:08 Syrian security forces killed 10 people on Sunday, the General Commission of the Syrian Revolution said on its website.
 9:08 Syrian forces are raiding Al-Karak village in Daraa and shooting arbitrarily, Al-Jazeera television quoted the General Commission of the Syrian Revolution as saying.
 7:44 Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has voiced his support for the Syrian uprising in a new video message released on jihadist forums, US website monitors said Sunday.
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Guardian: Arab League urges joint UN-Arab peacekeeping mission in Syria

Resolution calls on UN security council to send monitors to Syria as Arab League decides to scrap its own mission to the country

Arab leaders have called for a joint United Nations-Arab peacekeeping force to end bloodshed in Syria and agreed to end all diplomatic co-operation with Damascus.

The 22-member Arab League, meeting in Cairo on Sunday, adopted a resolution calling for renewed international efforts to end the 11-month conflict and scrapped its own monitoring mission to Syria.

Syria swiftly rejected the resolution, which called for “opening communication channels with the Syrian opposition and providing all forms of political and material support to it.” The league was also considering a proposal to expel Syrian ambassadors from Arab capitals.

“How long will we stay as onlookers to what is happening to the brotherly Syrian people, and how much longer will we grant the Syrian regime one period after another so it can commit more massacres against its people?” the Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, asked at the start of the Cairo meeting.

After the meeting, the league said it would “ask the UN security council to issue a decision on the formation of a joint UN-Arab peacekeeping force to oversee the implementation of a ceasefire”.

Syria’s ambassador to the league rejected the resolution “completely”, Syria’s state news agency reported. He said Syria, which has been suspended from the league, would not accept any resolution decided in its absence.

The proposal follows the withdrawal of league monitors last month after the team encountered obstruction and the Syrian regime flouted the terms of its agreement.

The Sudanese general who led the monitors resigned on Sunday, claiming he had performed his role “with full integrity and transparency” but the situation was skewed. Mohammed Ahmed al-Dabi, who had been criticised for his handling of the role, said he could no longer work within the framework of the league.

As part of Arab efforts, Tunisia said it would host the first meeting on 24 February of a “friends of Syria” contact group made of Arab and other states and backed by the west. The league called on the Syrian opposition to unite before then.

The Cairo meeting was intended to find fresh ways to put pressure on the Syrian regime after Russia and China vetoed a security council resolution backing an Arab plan urging the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to give up power.

In unusually strong language, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, called the veto a “travesty”. Washington’s ambassador to the UN said it was “disgusting” and “any further bloodshed that flows will be on [Russia's] and China’s hands.” Diplomatic pressure on the Syrian regime intensified on Sunday with a senior White House aide saying the US was pursuing “all avenues that we can”. Jacob Lew, the US president’s chief of staff, told Fox News: “The brutality of the Assad regime is unacceptable … There is no question that this regime will come to an end. The only question is when.”

William Hague, the foreign secretary, said: “There can no longer be any doubt that President Assad has lost legitimacy. I call on him again to spare the Syrian people from the atrocities of his regime, step aside, and allow a peaceful transition to a new Syria.”

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the most senior figure in al-Qaida since the death of Osama bin Laden, called on Muslims to support the Syrian uprising against Assad’s “pernicious, cancerous regime”.

In a videotaped message released on Saturday, Zawahri said the Syrian opposition could not depend on the west for help, and urged Muslims in the neighbouring countries of Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey to join the fighting.

In Homs, which came under sustained bombardment last week by the Syrian army, killing hundreds of residents, a lull in the assault was broken by renewed shelling on Sunday afternoon. At least four people were killed, activists said.

Food and medicine are running short in the city, which remains besieged by government forces, and people have been trapped indoors for days. Local activists said more than 400 people had died since the attack began the previous Saturday.

Syria: veteran French surgeon saves lives after 44 years in world’s war zones 

  When Dr Jacques Bérès crossed into Syria by truck last week, his hulking suitcase full of surgical kit was perched against an awkward cargo – two dozen rocket launchers.

The retired French surgeon – who has volunteered his services in nearly every major global conflict since Vietnam in 1968 – said he rarely had to share transport with gunrunners on his mercy missions. But nothing about this war in Syria seems to be going to script.

“It’s not good,” Bérès said of his arrival. “In principle, it is forbidden for humanitarian people to travel with weapons. But it is their country and their war. We are the observers. We are just here to help in some way.”

But on Saturday, even as diplomats sought UN backing for an Arab plan to end the bloodshed, reports came from the state-run news agency that a senior army general had been assassinated in Damascus, the first killing of a military figure in the Syrian capital since the uprising began in March last year.

As Syrian forces continued the week-long siege of Homs with a rocket bombardment of its opposition neighbourhoods, while sending shells into the mountain town of Zabadani, north of Damascus, violence reaching the capital was a new development.

The UN estimates that 5,400 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began, but it stopped counting in January and hundreds are reported to have died since.

In the three days that the 71-year-old orthopaedic surgeon Bérès has been near Homs, he has been at the centre of an escalating uprising. Hours after arriving on Thursday he helped to save the life of a gunshot victim and gave first aid to five seriously wounded opposition fighters.

On Saturday he operated in Zabadani on a civilian shot in the leg, as the victim’s family and Free Syrian Army soldiers waited anxiously outside. The fighting has seen opposition fighters launching attacks last week against key government posts.

But the destruction during the past week of the two most prominent resistance hubs in Homs, Baba Amr and al-Khalidiyah, had its effect in the city’s outskirts, where residents are waiting for an invasion.

“It’s 100% certain that they will do the same here that they have done in Homs,” said Abu Mahmoud, a Free Syrian Army captain, as he arrived at Zabadani’s medical clinic. “We know they are coming and we are preparing for them. We only have light weapons,” he said, pointing at the webbing around his waist that carried five ammunition clips for a Kalashnikov and a hand grenade.

Only six weeks ago, this hard-bitten rebel was a career officer in the Syrian army. “But they wanted us to kill our own people, our own families,” he said, standing in the muddy courtyard of the improvised clinic. “I waited for the chance to run. There were a group of officers who they thought were going to escape and a military firing squad killed 17 of us. I got away.”

Abu Mahmoud is a recent defector; he waited for almost 10 months before fleeing and was party to some of the most prominent operations of the regime crackdown, in Idlib, Deraa and Homs. But the time it took him to defect is not being held against him in his home town, where he is now one of the Free Syrian Army’s local leaders.

“Every officer like him had three people from Assad’s army watching him,” said the lead physician at the clinic, Dr Qassem. “He couldn’t run. If he did, he would have been killed.”

Captain Mahmoud offered a warning: “In Homs they are firing from the hospital and other high ground. Here, they are only five or six kilometres away, in the military firing range. They have positions on every exit from town and some units are less than one kilometre away.”

He picked up a box of medicines, turned for the gate and left.

Minutes later the wounded civilian arrived, blood pouring from a bullet wound above his right knee. Dr Bérès has personal experience in treating such injuries; he has been shot three times himself. One bullet in Monrovia claimed a finger, another in Chechnya caused a deep wound to his side, and a third in Sudan left his right arm scarred. “It is normal to treat such things,” he said. “Very normal. I have been doing it all my life.”

His war wounds have won him kudos among the band of medics at the clinic. All of them fled the nearby state-run hospital, which is now being used as a firing position by the Syrian army. “They know where we are and we are all wanted,” said Dr Qassem. “I don’t know why they haven’t bombed us yet. We saw what happened to the clinics in Homs.”

Frontline medics have been killed and wounded in Homs and their facilities and dispensaries have been hit by mortars and rockets. So, too, has a hospital. The opposition-held sectors of the city have been battered into submission by the eight-day barrage.

Few people are making it out of the satellite towns and villages that spill north to Hama, or south towards Lebanon. “We still can’t get there,” said one medical worker. We want to go very much, but the roads are not safe.”

So, too, does Bérès. “The symbolism is very strong,” he said of the presence of foreign doctors in a war zone. “People here are happy to meet a surgeon from a well-developed country who just wants to be with them. “It seems to be a war here, yes. But I don’t know if it’s a continuation of the (Arab) spring, or a religious war between the Alawite and the Sunni people.”

For Bérès, some 44 years in the field, including 10 trips to the war zones of Lebanon, Gaza, the Balkans, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan and Iraq, interspersed with time at Paris hospitals, have chipped away at the ideals he first brought to the profession. “Humanity is not drifting away, but it’s not improving,” he said.

As he prepared to move on into Homs itself, which could for him be perhaps his last stop on a long road of humanitarian help, he delivered a prediction that seemed to echo around this place, in the hinterland of civil war. “I am not optimistic about Syria,” he said gravely. “It is a very difficult situation.”

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BBC: Syria unrest: Arab League ‘seeks peacekeeping mission’

The Arab League is calling for a joint Arab-UN peacekeeping mission to end the 11-month conflict in Syria.

In a resolution seen by the BBC but not yet officially released, it scrapped its observer team, suspended last month, and said it was ending all diplomatic co-operation with Syria.

Damascus “categorically rejected” the resolution, a Syrian envoy said.

The League’s moves come a week after a UN Security Council resolution on Syria was vetoed by Russia and China.

The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen in Cairo says the resolution contains the toughest language on Syria by the Arab League so far and makes it much more likely that the issue will return to the Security Council.

The fact that they are considering these moves shows the extent of the Syrian regime’s isolation, our correspondent adds.

It remains to be seen whether Moscow will continue to ride diplomatic shotgun for its old allies and trading partners, he says.

Earlier, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri backed the Syrian uprising in a video message, telling the opposition not to rely on the West or Arab countries for support.

Meanwhile the bombardment of the Syrian city of Homs was reported to have continued after a brief lull on Saturday night and Sunday morning, with activists saying four people had been killed.

Human rights groups say more than 7,000 have died throughout Syria since March. The government says at least 2,000 members of the security forces have been killed combating “armed gangs and terrorists”.

‘Hysteria’

A statement issued by the League after the Cairo meeting said it would “ask the UN Security Council to issue a decision on the formation of a joint UN-Arab peacekeeping force to oversee the implementation of a ceasefire”.

It said it was ending its observer mission, sent in December but suspended in January amid criticism that it was ineffective in the face of continuing violence.

The head of the mission, the controversial Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi, submitted his resignation earlier on Sunday.

The League also called for “opening communication channels with the Syrian opposition and providing all forms of political and material support to it”, and urged opposition groups to be more united.

It held the Syrian government responsible for the protection of civilians, and said their killing was a crime which must be punished.

A representative of the League told the BBC the resolution had been agreed to by a majority of the foreign ministers.

But the Syrian ambassador in Cairo, Yusuf Ahmed, rejected the resolution, saying it “reflected the hysteria of these governments” after they failed to get UN Security Council support.

‘Move swiftly’

Opening the meeting, the League’s Secretary General, Nabil al-Arabi, said the failure of international diplomacy had put a special responsibility on the league.

• “It is imperative for us to move swiftly in all directions, to halt the vicious cycle of violence,” he said in his opening words to the meeting.

The UN General Assembly is scheduled to discuss Syria on Monday.

There is no power of veto at the General Assembly but its resolutions have no legal force, unlike those of the Security Council.

There were reports of a respite in the bombardment of Homs on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Shelling later resumed, but the lull was enough to allow some people to get out and queue for bread.

At least four people were killed in the Baba Amr neighbourhood of the city on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory on Human Rights said. At least 35 died on Saturday.

Activists say more than 400 people have been killed since security forces launched an assault on opposition-held areas on the city last Saturday.

Separately, Syrian state TV showed pictures of funerals of car bomb victims in the country’s second city Aleppo.

The government says 28 people were killed in two attacks in the city on Friday.

Uprising activists have condemned such attacks, and blamed them on the regime itself, but US officials are reported to believe they were the work of al-Qaeda.

Analysis: Jim Muir BBC News, Beirut

The Arab League decisions to halt all economic and diplomatic co-operation with the Syrian government may intensify the pressure and isolation for Damascus.

But the call on the UN Security Council to pass a resolution to set up a joint UN/Arab League peacekeeping operation is unlikely to bring swift results.

Any such move needs a ceasefire which does not exist, and which Syria would not accept because it would put rebels and government on the same footing.

It would also require a consensus at the Security Council which is not there. Russia and China have staunchly protected Syria, which immediately rejected the League decisions out of hand.

But the League’s decisions gave its members political cover for backing and financing the Syrian opposition. Syria already accuses some Arab states of paying and arming the rebels.

The appearance on the scene of al-Qaeda further complicates the picture as the opposition strives to appear peaceful victims of state oppression.

Syria uprising: Al-Qaeda’s al-Zawahiri lends support

Al-Qaeda’s leader has backed the anti-government uprising in Syria, urging the opposition not to rely on the Arab League or the West for help.

In a video message, Ayman al-Zawahiri said the Syrian rebels had the right to use whatever means they saw fit to get rid of a “cancerous regime”.

Egyptian-born Zawahiri, 62, took over as head of al-Qaeda after the death of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011.

The Syrian government blamed al-Qaeda for two blasts in Damascus in December.

That double suicide bombing killed 44 people.

‘Muddy the waters’
Zawahiri, who has a $25m (£15m) US bounty on his head, addressed his video message to the “Lions of Syria”.

He urged them to depend on their own efforts and sacrifices, and not on what he called the “failed states of the Arab League, the West, or Turkey”.

“If we want freedom, we must be liberated from this regime. If we want justice, we must retaliate against this regime,” he said in the video.

Arab League ministers are meeting in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the crisis in Syria, following the league’s decision to suspend its observer mission in the country last month.

Zawahiri called on militants in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, to rise up and support what he called “their brothers in Syria”.

There have already been reports of Islamic militants crossing into Syria from Iraq.

It is the clearest sign yet of involvement by al-Qaeda in the uprising in Syria, as it takes on increasingly an aspect of armed insurgency as well as popular protest, says the BBC’s Jim Muir, in neighbouring Lebanon.

US officials are reported to believe the recent suicide car bombings in Damascus and Aleppo were the work of al-Qaeda.

Opposition activists have blamed the Syrian government itself for the attacks.

If violent Islamic extremists are becoming increasingly involved, it is going to muddy the waters of an already very complex situation, our correspondent says.