Sunday 5 February 2012

[Comment: Khaled Abu Salah, human rights activist,  has shown a number of children with broken bodies to the world today. Dead children are shocking, however, children with essential parts of their bodies blown away but they are still alive have to speak to all of us. Maybe people need to stop talking and start listening.]

Syrian Uprising 2011 Information Centre:Summary (05/02/2012): At least 47 martyrs have fallen today including 5 women and 7 kids, mostly in Homs and Rastan which are under heavy shelling and also Darayya, Idlib and elsewhere. Assad is not only killing our people, but also our history – last week his forces were shelling Madeeq Citadel in Hama province and now it is the ancient city of Palmyra where people are very concerned about the archaeological treasure there. Syria – Sunday 05/02/2012 – Google Maps

Homs (05/02/2012): “This is the armed groups, let everyone with a conscience see what is happening to us in Syria”. The man holding the martyred child is Khaled Abu Salah. one of the bravest activists in Homs.
 Homs 05/02/2012

UPDATE (05/02/2012): At least 31 martyrs have fallen so far today including 3 women and 5 kids, reflecting the increasingly indiscriminate shelling of residential areas. Homs is under heavy fire, especially Baba Amru. A hospital in Insha’at neighbourhood was also hit. Other towns under attack include Rastan, Madaya and Zabadani (NW of Damascus), and several towns in Idlib. In the Damascus suburb of Darayya, the home of the martyred activist Ghayath Mattar, 23 martyrs have fallen since Friday.
 Darayya 05/02/2012

Homs (05/02/2012) : After Khaldiyah, now it is Baba Amru, this is an example of what is also happening right now in Rastan, Zabadani, and many towns in Idlib.
 Homs, 05/02/2012

The Syrian Days Of Rage – English: ?(02-05-12) #Homs #Syria | Activist Khaled Abu Salah carries the body of a child murdered by #Assad forces. [Who benefits from this carnage?]
 (02-05-2012) Baba Amr | Homs | Activist Khaled Abu Salah carrying the…

Hadi al-Abdullah from Homs on Alarabiya: assad thugs are raising the Syrian Independence flag at the checkpoints to trick people into believing it is now under FSA control & then they are proceeding to arrest them when they come close chanting their support. Rastan is now around 90% under FSA control, however, the regime is still launching attacks.
 Syria’s most senior defector: Assad’s army is close to collapse – Telegraph

The bravery of Syrians is amazing. Two men risk their lives to rescue a man lying in the middle of the street who was shot by a sniper. They rescue him & find that he is still breathing.
 Dariya, Syria: Rescuing a civilian sniped by a military sniper
 this video is very shocking - Baba Amr  5-2-2012 +18

 nail bombs in Rastan 4/2/2012

The decision by Russia and China to veto a weak draft UN Security Council resolution on Syria, the day after the Syrian army launched a major assault on residential areas of Homs leaving scores dead, is a shockingly callous betrayal of the people of Syria:

 Double veto of draft Security Council Resolution on Syria a betrayal of protesters | Amnesty Internal 

 Demonstrate for a Human Rights Revolution – Trafalgar Square 11 Feb 2pm

Responding to the vote in the UN Security council on Syria, the Foreign Secretary said the following;
“Russia and China faced a simple choice today: would they support the people of Syria and the Arab League or not? They decided not to, and instead sided with the Syrian regime and its brutal suppression of the Syrian people in support of their own national interests. Their approach lets the Syrian people down, and will only encourage President Assad’s brutal regime to increase the killing, as it has done in Homs over the past 24 hours.

“The draft resolution, tabled by Morocco, supported Arab League efforts to resolve the crisis in Syria and called for an immediate end to all violence. It did not impose any sanctions, nor did it authorise military action. At every stage we worked to accommodate the concerns of some Council members and tabled a text which did just that. There was nothing in the draft to warrant opposition.

“More than 2,000 people have died since Russia and China vetoed the last draft resolution in October 2011. Over 6,000 people have died in the 10 months since the uprising began. Many more have been tortured and detained. How many more need to die before Russia and China allow the UN Security Council to act? Those opposing UN Security Council action will have to account to the Syrian people for their actions which do nothing to help bring an end to the violence that is ravaging the country.

“The United Kingdom will continue to support the people of Syria and the Arab League to find an end to the violence and allow a Syrian-led political transition.”

Suspension of services of our Visa Application Centre

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NOW! Lebanon
[local time]  19:21 France announced on Sunday that Europe is seeking to strengthen sanctions on Syria after a resolution condemning the Syrian regime was vetoed at the UN Security Council, AFP reported.
 19:05 Syrian security forces’ gunfire killed 36, Al-Arabiya quoted activists as saying.
 17:25 Syrian security forces’ gunfire killed 27, Al-Arabiya quoted activists as saying.
 16:32 US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the US will seek sanctions to halt funding and arms shipments to Syria, AFP reported Sunday.
 16:04 The Arab League will continue working to end political violence in Syria to stave off foreign military intervention after Russia and China blocked a UN resolution condemning Damascus, league chief Nabil al-Arabi said on Sunday.
 15:58 Turkish police fired tear gas Sunday to disperse protestors who were seeking to storm the Syrian consulate in Istanbul.
 15:05 Sunday’s death toll in Syria has reached 22 people, most of them killed in Homs, Al-Arabiya television quoted the Syrian Coordination Committee as saying.
 14:44 The Arab League called on Damascus Sunday to respect its peoples’ demands and promised to maintain its efforts for resolving the Syrian crisis, Al-Jazeera reported.
 14:39 Crowds of Syrians chanting anti-Russian slogans entered Moscow’s embassy in Tripoli on Sunday and hoisted the new Syrian flag on the building, an AFP journalist and a Syrian activist said.
 14:36 The world’s largest Muslim body said on Sunday it was “deeply sorry” that the UN Security Council had failed to agree on a resolution condemning Syria’s deadly crackdown on protests.
 14:27 The Syrian regime’s army is besieging Homs’ neighborhood of Baba Amro, Al-Jazeera television quoted the General Commission of the Syrian Revolution as saying Sunday.
 13:19 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will ask President Bashar al-Assad for rapid reforms on a visit to Syria this week, his ministry said Sunday, as Moscow hit back at Western outrage over its UN veto.
 13:19  Russia said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will seek “rapid democratic reforms” during his visit to Syria, AFP reported.
 12:17 Russia on Sunday blamed Western powers for the UN Security Council’s failure to pass a resolution condemning the violence in Syria, saying they had failed to make an additional effort for a consensus.
 12:00 Pro and anti-Syrian regime protests took place in front of the Russian Embassy in Beirut, New TV reported on Sunday.
 11:32 Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali called Sunday on all countries to cut off diplomatic relations with Syria over the violence there.
 11:09 The opposition Syrian National Council on Sunday slammed the Russian and Chinese veto of a UN Security Council resolution on Syria as giving the regime of President Bashar al-Assad a “license to kill.”
 10:00 Nine Syrian soldiers were killed in clashes with deserters, AFP quoted activists as saying on Sunday.
 8:06 China’s official Xinhua news agency said Sunday Beijing and Moscow’s veto of a UN Security Council resolution on Syria was designed to prevent more “turbulence and fatalities” in the violence-hit state.
 8:02 Protestors stormed Syria’s Australian embassy and trashed its lower level, as the Syrian opposition said troops had killed more than 260 people in shelling the city of Homs, police said Sunday.
 7:55 The violence in Syria has claimed 48 more victims, including 18 soldiers and six army deserters, amid growing outrage following a “massacre” in the protest city of Homs, a rights group said Sunday.
 7:52 French President Nicolas Sarkozy Saturday condemned China and Russia’s veto of a UN Security Council resolution on the Syria crisis, saying it encouraged the Syrian regime crackdown.

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Guardian: Syria on brink of civil war as diplomacy fails to dislodge Assad

As Arab countries lose patience with diplomatic effort, Qatar rumoured to be arming Free Syrian Army with Saudi blessing.

For Syria‘s president, it was business as usual, even as his country experienced one of its most dramatic and violent moments. On Saturday, Bashar al-Assad was at work in his heavily guarded Damascus palace. On Sunday, he celebrated a Muslim holiday as state media reported triumphantly on the defeat of the “Arab-western conspiracy”.

Ninety minutes north of the capital, in Homs, residents were burying their dead after what Barack Obama condemned as an “unspeakable assault,” amurderous overnight attack that left dozens, scores even, dead. With at least 6,000 people killed in the past 10 months and international diplomacy in tatters, Syria is teetering on the brink of civil war. Its president, emboldened by the unwavering support of two powerful allies, shows no sign of changing tack.

Thanks to the vetoes of Russia and China, the UN security council failed to pass a even a watered-down resolution backing a “Syrian-led” political transition. The draft contained no threat of sanctions or punitive action, let alone Libyan-style military intervention.

That defeat was grim news for the main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, which put all its eggs in the basket offered by the Arab League – proactive regional diplomacy led by Qatar and Saudi Arabia and backed by the west. Burhan Ghalioun, the SNC’s exiled leader, pledged on Sunday to work “outside the security council”. Hillary Clinton put out a similar message.

“The SNC’s whole strategy was for the cavalry to come over the hill – whether that meant the Arab League, the UN or Nato,” said a Damascus-based diplomat. “They don’t have an alternative. Their whole raison d’etre has disappeared.” In any event, prospects for a negotiated end to the uprising look even bleaker than before.

Perhaps, though, suggested analyst Rime Allaf, there is a silver lining. “Russia’s veto showed that Assad’s supporters are not really prepared to negotiate,” she said. “Everything is clearer now that we know – even if things will get worse.” On the ground, the activists of the local co-ordination committees and the fighters of the Free Syrian Army already sound more defiant. “In the coming days, many Syrians are going to do a lot of soul-searching ultimately leading to a decision to support armed struggle,” one activist tweeted. “We have to depend solely on Syrians to liberate ourselves,” insisted another. “Where do I donate to buy arms for the Free Syrian Army?” asked a third.

Overnight, demonstrations in the suburbs of Damascus – in solidarity with Homs and in support of the FSA –displayed growing readiness to risk everything. But the balance of forces between the regime and even its armed opponents remains terrifyingly unequal. In Homs, BBC correspondent Paul Wood reported from inside the city, it was a battle of “Kalashnikovs versus tanks.”

Propaganda is certainly playing a role. Initial claims of hundreds of dead in the shelling of the Khaldiyeh area of Homs were revised downwards by one opposition group on Sunday as a Syrian minister lambasted “fabricated” information in a “hysterical media war conducted by the armed terrorist gangs and their mouthpieces.” The bloodshed and destruction though, are real enough.

So what next? The US, Britain and other western countries made no secret of their fury at Russia’s veto. Clinton called it a “travesty”; the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said she was “disgusted” at the vote, in a rare break with the usual diplomatic niceties. William Hague’s verdict of a “doomed and murdering regime” caught the mood well.

Angry words are one thing, workable policies another. The Arab League will face pressure to come up with something. Nabil al-Arabi, its secretary-general, noted that despite Saturday’s double veto “there is clear international support” for the league’s stance.

But its hawkish vanguard is losing patience. Qatar, the wealthy dynamo of regional diplomacy, is already rumoured to be arming the FSA with Saudi blessing. Senator Joe Lieberman, the former US democratic presidential candidate, welcomed the idea too. Further militarisation could see Syria becoming a battleground in a proxy war between the Gulf Arabs and Iran, Assad’s only regional ally. Many see parallels with Libya – though Syria’s opposition is fragmented and has no stronghold like Benghazi from which to fight the regime.

Another more remote possibility, some warn, is that an Arab “coalition of the willing” might intervene and seek a retroactive mandate from the UN in a replay of the Kosovo war in 1999. But Clinton’s call for “friends of democratic Syria to unite” was about helping the opposition politically and financially, not going to war.

Could Russia yet surprise? Sergei Lavrov, its foreign minister, and Mikhail Fradkov, head of foreign intelligence, are due in Damascus on Tuesday. Will they twist Assad’s arm to stop the killing and launch reforms or find a compliant Alawite general to take his place?

Moscow’s model could be the deal that forced the departure of Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. “It’s a long shot,” said one Middle East veteran. “The Arab League initiative was the Yemeni solution and the Russians shot it down. How can they broker a deal with the opposition when they’ve now lost all credibility?”

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Reuters: UPDATE 1-Arab League to pursue Syria efforts after UN setback

CAIRO Feb 5 (Reuters) – Arab states will not stop their efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis even though their bid to secure U.N. backing was blocked by Russia and China, the Arab League’s secretary-general said in a statement obtained by Reuters on Sunday.

Nabil Elaraby also said the Russian and Chinese veto “does not negate that there is clear international support for the resolutions of the Arab League”, which had sought U.N. Security Council backing for a decision that called for President Bashar al-Assad to step aside so talks with the opposition could start.

The League statement was expected to be issued more widely later on Sunday.

Western and Arab states responded with outrage after Russia and China vetoed on Saturday the U.N. Security Council resolution based on the Arab peace initiative.

Elaraby and Qatar’s prime minister, whose country heads the League committee following the Syrian crisis, had briefed members of the council on the plan before the vote.

“The Arab League will continue efforts with the Syrian government and opposition, and coordinating with all sides related to the Syrian issue, in order to realise the higher objectives which the Arab League is working towards,” Elaraby’s statement said.

It cited those goals as ending all acts of violence and killing, protecting unarmed citizens and finding a political solution to enable reforms that protect Syria’s unity “and avoids any … foreign military intervention.”

The statement said Elaraby “expressed hope that the Syrian government heeds the demands of its people and ends the violence and bloodshed.”

Foreign ministers would meet on Feb. 11 to discuss the Syrian crisis and will “take the appropriate decisions to deal with these developments including presenting the issue another time to the Security Council,” the statement said. (Reporting by Ayman Samir; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Tim Pearce)

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 Britain under pressure to withdraw diplomatic recognition of Syria – Telegraph

 

www.telegraph.co.uk