Assad's Revenge: 40 Killed In Rebel-held Damascus Suburb

Syria's President Assad got a wee bit of revenge Friday when he spilled the blood of 40 in a Damascus suburb that rebels control.  Every day in Syria it is back and forth, death and dying.  It's become the world's new hellhole.

The story comes from Israel National News.

Assad kills 40 in Damascus bombing bonanza

Death toll expected to rise in regime rocket and mortar barrage on market in rebel-held Damascus suburb.

Forty people were killed on Friday when rockets fired by Syrian government forces crashed into a market in a rebel-held area outside Damascus, a monitor said.

"There were 40 people killed and at least 100 wounded in the center of Douma," a town in the Eastern Ghouta suburb of the Syrian capital, Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.

"There is still heavy fire now, with both rockets and mortars," he said, adding that the toll was expected to rise as people were still being pulled out of damaged buildings.

Rebel-held Douma lies in Eastern Ghouta, the largest opposition stronghold in Damascus province.

The region is regularly targeted by rocket fire, shelling, and aerial raids by government forces, and opposition groups there also fire rockets into the capital.

On Thursday, government air strikes in Douma hit a market and a hospital, killing at least nine people, according to the Observatory.

In August, 117 people were killed in a single day of air strikes in Douma, causing a global outcry.

Throughout Syria's brutal war, both the government and opposition forces have been criticized by rights groups for indiscriminate fire on civilian areas.

More than 250,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in March 2011.

Assad's Shabiha Torture Squads

From The Telegraph.

How Bashar al-Assad created the feared shabiha militia: an insider speaks


A former Assad regime insider has given the first direct account of how Syria's ruling family created the feared shabiha militia that is blamed for some of the worst atrocities of the civil war, and gave it orders to kill or torture anti-regime protesters.

Abdul Salam, a former close ally of Rami Makhlouf, the president's cousin, has described how he attended meetings in which Mr Makhlouf and Maher al-Assad, the president's brother, planned "the making of the shabiha" - and others in which they commanded it to do their "dirty work" by shooting unarmed opposition activists.

His testimony to The Telegraph, given in eastern Turkey, provides a unique first-hand glimpse into the inner workings of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. It could prove valuable for United Nations war crimes investigators currently gathering evidence to be used should the Syrian leadership be brought to trial for war crimes in the International Criminal Court.

Over the past three years the shabiha militia have reigned with violence and impunity, destroying entire villages by setting fire to homes or looting them, and raping, torturing and slitting the throats of inhabitants suspected of opposing the regime.

Although UN investigators have pointed to cases where the militia have seemed to operate alongside the Syrian military, a direct chain of command from the Syrian leadership has never been explicitly shown.



The account by Mr Salam intimately details, for the first time, how at the beginning of the uprising in 2011 the Syrian leadership decided to create a paramilitary force - secretly commanded by them - that could attack anti-government protesters.

It relates how they appointed leaders for militias across the country; released prisoners from "death row" to join the force; and then provided the financing and the weapons that they needed in order to act.

"I was one of eight people invited by Maher and Rami to meet in 2011," said Mr Salam, who, for his own protection spoke to the Telegraph using a pseudonym. "They are the brains behind the shabiha operation. They offered us money, weapons, anything we needed [to form the militias]."

For decades, Mr Salam had been a partner of Mr Makhlouf, one of the most powerful businessmen in Syria, and soon became one of Syria's biggest weapons dealers.

He was part of the original "shabiha", a term that at the time referred to smugglers and racketeers, mostly operating from the coastal Alawite heartland province of Latakia. An official blind eye was turned to their use of smuggling routes to import and export goods illicitly, in exchange for their loyalty to the government.

The war, and a personal feud with another friend of Mr Makhlouf, broke down those relationships. Now, living in hiding and under armed protection, Mr Salam gave a rare insight into how in 2011 members of the president's inner circle converted the "shabiha" from a smuggling ring into a violent militia force.

As anti-government protests erupted in the southern city of Deraa, and spread across the country, the hardliners in the Assad family, led by Maher al-Assad, who commands the elite fourth armoured division of the military, stepped in to take the lead from the president, said Mr Salam. "It's Maher who has the real power now."

In May 2011 a video was posted to YouTube which purported to show Maher, surrounded by security officials, firing live rounds at unarmed protests in the Barzeh neighbourhood of Damascus. That same month the European Union imposed sanctions against Maher, describing him as the "principal overseer of violence against demonstrators".

But his role in the attacks was only set to increase. Two months later, in July, Mr Salam received a call from Mr Makhlouf. "I was invited to a meeting in Damascus. Maher and Rami led it," he recalled.

"They told us they were worried that the army, in front of the world's media, couldn't use the necessary force to stop the protests. They couldn't be seen to be shooting the protestors. So their idea was: 'Let's keep our hands clean and create a paramilitary group to do the dirty work.'

"They wanted to put each of us in charge of the shabiha militia in different parts of the country. They briefed us that the shabiha should set out to terrify protesters. They really believed they could scare the opposition into submission and that soon everyone would go home."

Syrian officials have consistently denied using pro-regime militiamen to intensify the crackdown on protesters and commit atrocities on its behalf.

However, Mr Salam said the order he was given in that meeting were "specific". "They told us to kill protesters, armed or unarmed, and top 'torture those you capture'," he said.

The meeting then moved to the details of how militia would be created, and where to recruit its fighter.

Mr Salam said: "Maher told us we could source shabiha for our units from prisoners held in Homs and Tartous jails. Most Alawites who were on death row for their crimes were suddenly released. Once released, the ex-convicts did not have a choice; they were paid salaries but ordered to join the shabiha."

Though The Telegraph cannot independently verify the claims made by Mr Salam about the meeting, the paper has received outside assurances from trusted sources that Mr Salam's claimed connections to Mr Makhlouf are genuine. Other specific details that he gave, such as the locations of bases for the shabiha in Aleppo and the names of local militia leaders, have also been independently confirmed.

In the months that followed, the shabiha burgeoned from a few plain clothes loyalists, to gangs that roamed each village and town in Syria, catching anyone suspected of opposing President Assad.

They were supplied with guns, and told there are no limits to what they could do. In 2012, The Telegraph met one shabiha who told of how he had raped and killed a female university student in Aleppo. Intoxicated by alcohol and the sense of being able to act with impunity, he and his boss had simply grabbed the girl from the street and taken her to an abandoned building.

When they were finished, they shot her.

In 2012 the UN issued a damning, 102-page report accusing the Syrian government forces and shabiha fighters of committing war crimes in the torture and the massacre of more than 100 civilians, almost half of them children, near the Sunni town of Houla in May.

Mr Salam, who at the meeting declined the offer to lead a shabiha group, said he still witnessed some of this brutality first hand. In early 2012, he visited Ali Qasaq, a colleague who had become of the leader of the shabiha in the northern city of Aleppo.

He went to their headquarters in Aleppo. A former sports centre in al-Sleimanie district has been converted into an operating base for several hundred militia men.

"This is where victims are taken. I was disgusted by what I saw," said Mr Salam. "I watched Ali Qasaq and a friend of his torture a 15 year-old boy.

"They both had beers in one hand and, holding penknives in the other, they slowly and sadistically stabbed the boy who was tied up. They laughed every time he screamed in pain."

One of the youngest shabiha in the sports centre in Aleppo is just 16 years old, said Mr Salam. Already he has learned to torture, using knives and beating with sticks and electric cables. When the shabiha's victims die, Mr Salam said, the bodies are dumped in a river 300 yards from the base, and are left to float away downstream.

It was these kinds of acts that the shabiha leaders would later brief Maher al-Assad and Mr Makhlouf about, said Mr Salam. Qasaq and other commanders across the country would fly to Damascus "every six months" to make their reports. Sometimes, they would be given "hit lists" of people to assassinate. "These would usually be tribal or religious leaders who had spoken against the government," he said.

Watching Qasaq torture his victims Mr Salam's stomach turned. Disgusted with what he saw, he decided that Qasaq had gone "too far".

"I sent some of my men to kidnap Qasaq," he said. "But they were caught and tortured, so he found out it was me who sent them. At that point I knew I had to leave Syria."

Assad Sends His Warplanes of Death To Aleppo....40 Dead

Assad continues to punish Aleppo for their defiance.

The story comes from Times of India.

Air strikes kill at least 40 in northern Syria


BEIRUT: Air strikes around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo killed at least 40 people on Saturday, most of them civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The pro-opposition monitoring group said there were at least six strikes on the outskirts of Aleppo and nearby towns. Dozens of people were wounded, it said.

"Some of the strikes in the neighbourhood of Tareeq al-Bab appeared to be targeting rebel headquarters but instead the rockets fell in a busy street and caused heavy civilian casualties," Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Observatory, said by telephone.

Assad regime refuses Red Cross access to besieged Syrian town of Qusayr

From The Telegraph.

Assad regime refuses Red Cross access to besieged Syrian town of Qusayr


The Assad regime on Sunday night rejected calls to allow the Red Cross to rescue civilians trapped in the besieged town of Qusayr, currently scene of one of the biggest battles of the Syrian civil war.


Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, led calls for a ceasefire to allow civilians to leave, including 1,500 people said to have been injured.

But Syria's foreign minister, Walid al-Muallem, said the regime would not allow entry until its forces had retaken the town.

"Syrian authorities will allow the Red Cross in cooperation with the Syrian Red Crescent access to the area immediately after the end of military operations," he said.

The regime launched an assault on the town, which has been partly or largely in rebel hands for 18 months, two weeks ago.

It lies south-west of the battleground city of Homs, where rebel fighters have been holding out in two neighbourhoods since the suburb of Baba Amr fell to regime forces in spring last year.



It also guards the smuggling route through which rebels have spread weapons brought in from Lebanon across Homs province, while for the regime the main road that runs between it and the Lebanese border is a supply route to its forces further north, including in Alawite-dominated areas of Latakia province.

But the regime's forces and the Lebanese Shia militia Hizbollah, which has been fighting alongside them, have been held up on the outskirts of town by fierce rebel resistance.

On Friday, a relief force of Free Syrian Army fighters from Aleppo, led by a defected army colonel, Abduljaber Al-Oqaidi, and said to be 400-strong, broke through to the town.

Video posted online on Sunday apparently showed him, together with "Abu Arab" the FSA leader, in Qusayr. Locations presented in the video suggested rebels still had control of a large part of the town.

It is thought that up to 20,000 civilians remain trapped inside the town, which is now under regular regime bombardment, with many of its apartment blocks lying in ruins.

Rebels say convoys that attempted to leave the town with some of the injured came under fire from regime forces.

Mr Ban said all sides had a duty to protect non-combatants. A spokesman for Navi Pillay, the UN human rights commissioner, said: "There should be a ceasefire at least and they let the civilians and the wounded get out and also let some aid in as well. Civilians who stay behind will need food and water. International law does require fighting forces to allow aid to civilians in this sort of situation."

But Mr Muallem complained that no one expressed concern when the rebels, whom he described as "terrorists", took control of the town.

"What the Syrian Arab Army is doing is to free these citizens from the terrorism of these armed terrorist groups and return security and stability to Qusayr and the surrounding area," he said.

In fact, before Qusayr was surrounded by Hizbollah and the regime's military, many families, and the injured, were able freely to travel to neighbouring Lebanon.

Russia used a similar pretext to block a resolution at the United Nations human rights council on Saturday night calling for aid to be allowed in to the town.

The rebels launched a series of raids in towns near Qusayr to distract regime forces, but suffered heavy casualties in a battle for the largely Alawite town of Kafr Nan, according to monitors outside the country.

In another sign of the war's gradual spread into Lebanon, one battle was fought on the Lebanese side of the border south of Qusayr, when rebels apparently about to stage an attack on a Hizbollah neighbourhood were themselves attacked.

Assad: Syria Will 'Give Hizbullah Everything'

As is usually the case in the Muslim world, even when you get rid of a brutal Islamic terror point in the region, there's ALWAYS a worse alternative waiting in the wings - they are, after all, the "Muslim" world and there never is a silver lining.  Many months ago, some bought into the fact that Assad being removed from power in Syria would be a good thing but then, of course, the truth rears its ugly head that if it actually happened, the vacuum would be filled with the likes of al Qaeda-linked al Nusrah and Hezbollah.

We can't win in this kind of situation, believe me.

The story comes from Israel National News.

Assad: Syria Will 'Give Hizbullah Everything'


Syria will "give Hizbullah everything" in recognition of its support and will follow the terrorist group's model of "resistance" against Israel, a Lebanese newspaper on Thursday quoted President Bashar al-Assad as saying.

His comments, published by Al-Akhbar, reportedly came during meetings with Lebanese visitors in Damascus and appeared intended to refute any suggestion that Israeli raids on Syrian targets would halt assistance to the Shiite group Hizbullah in Lebanon.

The newspaper said visitors quoted Assad as expressing "confidence, satisfaction and great gratitude towards Hizbullah,” according to the AFP news agency.

The organization is a long-time ally of the Syrian regime and has sent fighters to battle alongside Assad's troops, particularly in the Qusayr district of the central province of Homs.

Damascus has long served as a supply conduit for Iran-backed Hizbullah, and Assad said they would reward the group for their loyalty.

"We have decided to give them everything," the newspaper quoted him as saying, without elaborating.

"For the first time we feel that we and they are living in the same situation and they are not just an ally we help with resistance," he said, as reported by AFP.

"We have decided that we must move forward towards them and turn into a nation of resistance like Hizbullah, for the sake of Syria and future generations."

Assad was quoted as saying Syria could "easily" respond to Israeli air strikes by "firing a few rockets at Israel."

"But we want strategic revenge, by opening the door of resistance and turning all of Syria into a country of resistance."

"After the strike, we are convinced that we are fighting the enemy now, we are pursuing its soldiers deployed throughout our country," he said, in apparent reference to rebel forces, which the regime has accused of being allied with the Jewish state.

Israel carried out two raids last week against military targets inside Syria, in an effort to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of the terrorist group.

Syria's Assad Says the West Will Pay a Price For Supporting Al Qaeda in the Syrian Conflict

I'm not sure if Syria's Assad is conceding that he will lose the battle in Syria and then the West will pay the price by the jihadis on the rebel side coming to power or if he means that since the West is supporting the rebels and Assad will survive - that he will team up with Hezbollah and Iran to do us all in.

Either way he's a clown who can't even win a damn war against a bunch of Toyota bed troops.

The story comes from The Telegraph.

West will pay for 'supporting al-Qaeda in Syria', Assad warns


A bullish Mr Assad sought to exploit the West's embarrassment over the fractured opposition to his rule.

"The West has paid heavily for funding al-Qaeda in its early stages," he said during a rare appearance on state television. "Today, it is doing the same in Syria, Libya and other places, and will pay a heavy price in the heart of Europe and the United States."

Mr Assad was attempting to draw a parallel between American support for the mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980s and the de facto alliance that has emerged between Western-backed rebels in Syria and hardline Islamists.

Mr Assad added: "There is no option but victory. Otherwise it will be the end of Syria, and I don't think that the Syrian people will accept such an option.

"The truth is there is a war and I repeat: no to surrender, no to submission."

Mr Assad's words suggested that he has been buoyed by last week's announcement by Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the most powerful rebel groups, that it owed allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of al-Qaeda. Jabhat al-Nusra has been blacklisted as a terrorist group by the United States, but is still fighting alongside – and sharing weapons with – rebel factions supported by the West.

Mr Assad also criticised his neighbours for backing the uprising. Jordan has recently allowed a substantial quantity of arms – apparently bought by Saudi Arabia – to cross its border into Syria. "I cannot believe that hundreds (of rebels) are entering Syria with their weapons while Jordan is capable of arresting any single person with a light arm for going to resist in Palestine," said Mr Assad in the interview, which marked the anniversary of Syria's independence from France.

In response to the increased tensions between the two, America is sending 200 more troops to Jordan to bolster its defences, a Jordanian minister announced. US and other special forces are already believed to be based in the country.

Mr Assad's forces have recently managed to recapture territory from the rebels. Last weekend, they broke the siege on two army bases located south of Aleppo. Hamadiya and Wadi Deif, which sit on the vital highway linking Damascus with Aleppo, had been largely cut off for five months. But the army successfully ambushed rebels near the road, killing at least 20 in a major reversal of fortune.

The insurgents are now tyring to regain control of the highway, fearing that Mr Assad would otherwise be able to resupply his beleaguered battalions in Aleppo.

The rebels have been able to take a number of military bases and towns in northern Syria, but have not managed to muster the resources for a major push southwards towards Damascus. Instead, they have been fighting on new fronts in the south, between the capital and the Jordanian border, but with only mixed results.

With no end to the war in sight and a rising number of casualties, the United Nations issued an urgent appeal this week for outside powers to halt the fighting. The widely reported figure of 70,000 dead is probably an underestimate, according to aid workers.

The western-backed "Friends of Syria" group is due to meet again in Turkey this weekend, with John Kerry, the new US Secretary of State, attending.

But its stated position opposing Mr Assad's regime means that other key players – like Russia and China – refuse to take part. They continue to block any UN action against Mr Assad. They argue the West should be putting pressure on the opposition to negotiate with the regime without preconditions.

But the rebels say they will not deal directly with Mr Assad.

"Right now, we see this process is making a negative contribution," said Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, while on a visit to Istanbul. "When one party is isolated in any mechanism set up to deal with a conflict, we miss the ground for dialogue."

Despite Russia's concerns, however, Britain and France both favour a fundamental review of the European Union arms embargo on Syria when it comes up for consideration next month.

Syria's Assad Blames Turkey and Iraq For Helping Send Terrorists Into Syria (did he forget he sent terrorists into Iraq during the Iraq War?)

From The Telegraph.

Bashar al-Assad: our neighbouring countries help terrorists to enter Syria




Speaking in an interview with Turkish TV station Ulusal Kanal and its sister newspaper, Aydinlik, from the presidential palace in Damascus on Tuesday, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad criticised its neighbouring countries for fomenting the Syrian rebellion.

In particular, he accused Turkey of knowingly supporting rebels.

"Turkey's government officially harbours terrorists and sends them into Syria," President Assad said.

Damascus has regularly accused Ankara of financing, training and arming rebels fighting troops loyal to Assad. The United Nations says Turkey currently hosts more than 260,000 Syrian refugees.

The UN says more than 70,000 people have been killed in a spiralling war that broke out in March 2011 after the army unleashed a crackdown on a peaceful revolt which morphed into an armed uprising. ]

Chemical weapons 'are being used on children and babies in Syria by Assad's army'

From the Daily Mail.

(Hat Tip:  Poppy)

Chemical weapons 'are being used on children and babies in Syria by Assad's army'


Chemical weapons are being used against children in war-torn Syria, it was claimed today.

Evidence of youngsters including babies being targeted includes pictures of them covered in horrific wounds.

Surgeons believe they were caused by nerve gases including one called Agent XV which has been unleashed by the Syrian Army.

Paris Match, the French weekly magazine, today publishes disturbing pictures of some of the victims, including a boy identified only by his first name of Omar.

The 13-year-old saw all his family wiped out in an attack on their home in the city of Homs two months ago, saying that they were hit by ‘A bomb like no other’ which caused ‘yellow smoke’.

Omar escaped, but has since suffered all the symptoms of a nerve gas attack, including soars, paralysed limbs, burns and blisters. He has since been evacuated to Libya, where he is undergoing specialist treatment.

Other pictures include one of the hideously deformed hands of Salim, a boy of 11 who was admitted to a Homs hospital in November 2011 suffering from horrific burns.

The French media, including Paris Match, today suggested that evidence of the gas attack means a ‘red line had been crossed’, and that western countries were duty bound to intervene in the civil war.

It follows William Hague, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, hinting that Britain could start arming rebel fighters in Syria within months.

Mr Hague warned this week warned that the conflict was becoming a ‘catastrophic’ humanitarian crisis.

He said that millions of pounds worth of armoured vehicles and body armour would be sent to Syrian rebels fighting to depose dictator Bashar al-Assad.

And he said Britain was ‘ready to move further’ if the fighting, which has already claimed 70,000 lives, continues to intensify.

As the number of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria topped one million, Mr Hague said Britain believed Assad could use chemical weapons against his own people.

Testing equipment to provide evidence of any use of chemical weapons is also being sent.

Syria's uprising began in March 2011 with protests against President Bashar Assad's authoritarian rule.

When the government cracked down on demonstrators, the opposition took up arms and the conflict turned into a full-blown civil war.

The United Nations estimates that more than 70,000 people have been killed.

Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said yesterday the number of refugees has swelled dramatically this year, with most Syrians pouring into Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.

The war has escalated in recent months, and more than 400,000 of those people become refugees since the start of 2013.

Guterres said the refugees often arrive in neighbouring countries 'traumatised, without possessions and having lost members of their families'.

Around half are children, the majority under the age of 11.

The Syrian Civil War Is Over. Assad Is the Victor. Peace Talks Signal the Rebels' Surrender.

Now, that headline may make some waves but if you believe the article from DEBKA, it's a fact that Bashar Assad has weathered the storm in Syria and has remained in power and will remain in power.  It's over.  The rebels put up a solid effort but between Iran and Russia's support of Assad...well, was there ever much doubt?

So now, Assad's major dilemma is going to be what to do with hundreds of al Qaeda misfits running around his country unwilling to give up the ghost.  Perhaps Mr. Assad will look back at the fact that he allowed al Qaeda to funnel through his country and enter Iraq a few years back.  I know, Bashar Assad isn't that retrospective to think about that kind of stuff.

As the article states, one of the biggest losers in all of this is Turkey - they are going to have hell to pay on numerous fronts after this is all over.

Assad Pulls Ahead in Syrian War. Putin, Khamenei Are Co-Victors


March 5 has been set as the date for peace talks to open in Moscow between the Syrian opposition and the Assad regime, debkafile reveals here exclusively. Opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib is waiting to meet the Assad regime’s representative, possibly Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, in the Russian capital by the end of February to set up the talks. Bashar Assad has taken his resignation off the agenda and insists on reserving the option to run again for president in 2014. He is backed in this by President Vladimir Putin. And even the Syrian opposition appears to have tacitly bowed to this precondition – an admission that the rebel movement has reached its limit and Assad’s genocidal, no-holds-barred tactics have paid off. With all their acclaimed victories, rebel forces know that their desperate bid to conquer Damascus was repulsed by the Syrian army’s superior fire power and heavy armor. They were thrown back from the heart of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. And they failed to gain control of Assad’s chemical arsenal. Ferocious fighting failed to bring the big Syrian Air Force bases into rebel hands. Now, most of the fighting opposition to the Assad regime is ready to negotiate terms for a ceasefire as the opening gambit for a political settlement. They face their enemy standing firm as the unvanquished ruler of Syria and commander-in-chief of its armed forces at the cost of Syria 80-100,000 Syrian lives and a ravaged country. In so doing, Assad has cemented the Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah alliance. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s’s sphere of influence now stretches from the Persian Gulf up to the Mediterranean – his reward for the billion dollars worth of aid per month he poured into buttressing Assad. His other ally, Hassan Nasrallah, whose Hizballah operatives fought shoulder to shoulder with Syrian troops, emerges as the strongman of Lebanon. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Assad’s staunch backer in diplomacy, arms and moral support, congratulates himself for picking the winning side in Syria’s civil war and, moreover, frustrating US and NATO designs to remove the Syrian ruler from power. Those are the winners. And the losers are the United States, the Gulf emirates and Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey. Barack Obama’s vision of a democratic, liberal “Arab Spring” has collapsed. Al Qaeda is a ubiquitous presence as transitional governments struggle to their feet – or not - in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Israel finds a tighter than ever Syrian-Hizballah-Iranian noose closing around its borders as Tehran’s nuclear weapons program marches on. Turkey gambled heavily on bringing about Assad’s overthrow as the key to its bid for regional power– and missed.

Israel 'preparing for collapse of Assad regime in Syria'

The story comes from The Telegraph.

Israel 'preparing for collapse of Assad regime in Syria'


Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, Mr Netanyahu said such an event would have "implications" for Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons.

Israel and the US fear the weapons could fall into the hands of radical Islamists fighting Mr Assad or the Lebanese Shia group, Hizbollah.

"We are monitoring developments in Syria, where there are dramatic developments almost daily," the Israeli prime minister said.

"We are co-operating with the US and, together with the international community, are taking the necessary measures to prepare ourselves for the possibility of far-reaching changes in the regime, with implications for the sensitive weapons systems there."

Mr Netanyahu's prediction that the Assad regime – one of Israel's sworn enemies – could be nearing its end came as the United Nations envoy was forced for safety reasons to travel by road to Damascus from neighbouring Lebanon for urgent talks with the Syrian president.


Lakhdar Brahimi, who also represents the Arab League, was reported to have decided against flying to Damascus because of fighting near the airport between government and rebel forces.

A senior Israeli defence official, Amos Gilad, said that Syria's chemical weapons were still in the hands of the government, even though it had lost control of large parts of the country.

But he cautioned against the consequences of Mr Assad being toppled or stepping down, as Western powers and some Arab countries have urged him to do.

"Suppose he (Assad) does leave, there could be chaos ... in the Middle East you never know who will come instead," Mr Gilad told Israel Radio.

"We need to stay level-headed; the entire world is dealing with this. At the moment, chemical weapons are under control. The opposition is not managing to defeat him and he is not defeating the opposition, though more and more parts of Syria are no longer under his control and that is what matters."

Separately, Syrian rebels attacked a base protecting a military industrial compound in the town of al-Safira, near Aleppo, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. Seven rebels were killed in the raid. Elsewhere, rebel forces claimed to have a captured a government military camp on the outskirts of Damascus.

Does Al Qaeda in Syria Now Have Assad's Chemical Weapons?

Good grief...it's being reported that one of the al Qaeda-linked rebel groups in Syria, along with a few other rag tag groups have captured a Syrian military base outside of Aleppo and that this base is somehow involved with Assad's chemical weapons program.

Is it possible that the likes of al Qaeda is now in possession of chemical weapons?  G_d save us all.

The story comes from The Long War Journal.

Al Nusrah Front, foreign jihadists seize key Syrian base in Aleppo


The Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, an al Qaeda-linked jihadist group that is fighting Bashir al Assad's regime in Syria, and allied jihadist groups took control of the last major Syrian Army base in western Aleppo after a two-month-long siege. The base is believed to be involved in Syria's chemical weapons program.

The Sheikh Suleiman base, or Base 111, fell to the Al Nusrah Front and "several Islamist rebel battalions linked to it," a representative of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP. Foreign fighters are also said to have played a key role in the assault that led to the fall of the Sheikh Suleiman base, while nearby units of the Free Syrian Army stood by and watched.

"Many of the fighters were from other Arab countries and Central Asia," AFP said, based on observations from one of its reporters who covered the area. An estimated 300 to 400 Syrian soldiers defended the base before it fell to the jihadist alliance. Al Qaeda's black flag of jihad was raised over one of the buildings on the base as the fighting took place.

The two other Islamist groups who fought alongside Al Nusrah were identified as the Mujahedeen Shura Council and the Muhajireen group, according to The Associated Press. The term muhajireen means emigrants, a strong indication that many of its fighters are from outside of Syria.

Some of the fighters who took the base are non-Syrian. One of the leaders involved in the battle to take the base identified himself to AFP as Abu Talha and said he was from Uzbekistan. Other foreign fighters said, "We are all mujahedeens and muhajireens."

Captured base said to be part of Syria's chemical weapons program

The Sheikh Suleiman base is rumored to be involved in the Assad regime's chemical weapons program. The base "contained a clandestine scientific research whose purpose was unknown even to the rank and file," AFP reported in late November, based on a claim from a soldier who defected.

US officials have expressed concern that the Syrian government has been preparing to use chemical weapons against the rebels after suffering a string of defeats throughout the country. The US is also training Syrian rebels in Jordan to secure chemical weapons sites in the event that the Assad regime falls, CNN reported.

The Syrian government has warned that rebels may also use chemical weapons after the Al Nusrah Front took control control of a chlorine factory in Aleppo last week.

Islamists hold sway over new rebel military command

The fall of the Sheikh Suleiman base to jihadist forces took place just days after the supposedly secular rebels established a joint military command that is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and individuals linked to the various Salafist-jihadist groups.

"Its composition, estimated to be two-thirds from the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, reflects the growing strength of Islamist fighters on the ground and resembles that of the civilian opposition leadership coalition created under Western and Arab auspices in Qatar last month, France 24 reported.

Senior military officers who defected from the Assad regime as well as military commanders opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists were excluded from the joint command.

The Al Nusrah Front's position on the newly established joint military command is unclear. In mid-November, the Al Nusrah Front and 13 other jihadist groups based in Aleppo rejected the Western-backed National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, and instead called for the establishment of an Islamic state.

"We declare our legitimate rejection of what came to be called the 'national alliance.' An agreement has been reached to establish a just Islamic State and to reject any foreign project, alliances or councils that are forced on us domestically from any entity, whatever it is," according to a statement that was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.

Al Nusrah becomes a dominant force in the Syrian insurgency

The Al Nusrah Front has by far taken the lead among the jihadist groups in executing suicide and other complex attacks against the Syrian military. The terror group has now claimed credit for 42 of the 51 suicide attacks that have taken place in Syria in the past 12 months. The group has also conducted numerous other attacks against the Syrian military and government.

The Syrian terror group is known to conduct joint operations with other Syrian jihadist organizations. In mid-November, Al Nusrah reported that it attacked a base in Idlib along with the Ahrar al Sham Brigades, and even shot down a Syrian MiG fighter aircraft.

The Al Nusrah Front is also known to conduct joint operations with the Free Syrian Army, which is often upheld as the secular resistance to Assad's regime. On Oct. 11, Al Nusrah, the Free Syrian Army, and Chechen fighters overran a Syrian air defense and Scud missile base in Aleppo [see LWJ report, Al Nusrah Front commanded Free Syrian Army unit, 'Chechen emigrants,' in assault on Syrian air defense base]. In August, Al Nusrah said it attacked a police station outside of Damascus along with the Al Sahaba Battalion, a unit of the Free Syrian Army that operates in the capital [see Threat Matrix report, Al Nusrah Front conducts joint operation with Free Syrian Army].

Al Nusrah has become more appealing to Syrian rebels as the group's fighters are better organized and have expertise from waging jihad in Iraq and elsewhere, and have integrated their operations with the Free Syrian Army.

Foreign jihadists have begun to pour into Syria to wage jihad against Assad's regime. Fighters from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Territories are known to have been killed in Syria. Recently, two of Abu Musab al Zarqawi's cousins were detained by Jordanian security forces after fighting in Syria.

Jihadists from the UK may be flocking to the Syrian battlefields as well. In mid-October, The Times reported that authorities had identified a Bangladeshi resident of London as the leader of a group of British jihadists seeking to fight in Syria. Scotland Yard seized computers and mobile phones from members of the group, which consists mainly of Londoners and includes seasoned Chechen fighters.

The US government is contemplating adding the Al Nusrah Front to the list of global terrorist groups, but some observers in Washington fear that designation would harm the overall insurgency.

Rebels in Syria Send Message To Assad...We Can Kill You Anytime We Want - Rebel Bomb Kills Top Two Defense Leaders In Syria

If you are Bashar Assad tonight, you have thoroughly soiled your underwear, your regular pants AND the chair you've been sitting on as anti-Assad rebels today set off a bomb that killed the top Defense officials in the whole damn country of Syria.  This would be like Leon Penetta and David Petraeus getting killed at a meeting in the Pentagon.

So, for the rebels to get a bomb into that building means they have lots and lots of friends in security and the government itself so that is where Assad is screwed - right now he knows of no one he can trust.  I think the pussy Assad is gonna flee to Iran any day.  And when he does, it's all over in Syria.

The story comes from The Long War Journal.

Suicide bomber kills Syrian defense minister, top security officials


A suicide bomber killed the top two defense officials and the president's national security advisor, and seriously wounded the interior minister and the chief of the national security office in an attack at a high-level meeting of security officials in Damascus today. The attack was claimed by both the "Brigade of Islam" and the Free Syrian Army.

The suicide bomber, who is said to have been a bodyguard of a senior official in the Assad regime, detonated his explosive vest during a high-level meeting at the National Security building in the Syrian capital. Defense Minister Daoud Rajha, Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, who is also President Bashir al Assad's brother-in-law, and Hasan Turkmani, Assad's national security adviser and assistant vice president, were killed in the blast, according to the state-run Syrian television. Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaar and the chief of the national security office Hisham Bekhtyar were wounded in the attack.

An Islamist group calling itself the Brigade of Islam as well as the Free Syrian Army claimed credit for the attack. The Liwa al Islam, or Brigade of Islam, claimed it "targeted the cell called the crisis control room in the capital of Damascus" in a statement on its Facebook page, according to Al Jazeera.

The Free Syrian Army, which holds itself up as being the secular opposition to Assasd's regime, said the attack was just the beginning of their offensive in Damascus. The group has previously denied responsibility for suicide attacks against security forces and said Islamist terror groups are not present in its ranks.

"This is the volcano we talked about, we have just started," spokesman Qassim Saadedine told Al Jazeera.

Today's attack took place as Damascus entered its fourth day of heavy fighting. The Assad regime has deployed tanks, armored fighting vehicles, and attack helicopters against rebel forces that have infiltrated the Syrian capital. Hundreds have been reported killed in the fighting.

For 17 months, the Assad regime has been fighting a tenacious rebellion against the Free Syrian Army and Islamist terror groups such as the Al Nusrah Front, the Al Baraa Ibn Malik Martyrdom Brigade, and the Abdullah Azzam Brigades. Al Nusrah has claimed credit for several suicide attacks and complex assaults against Syrian security forces since they announced their existence at the beginning of the year. More than 17,000 Syrians are reported to have been killed since the rebellion began early last year.

Confessions of an Assad Shabiha Loyalist In Syria - Raping and Killing For Assad For Money

Captured Syrian army soldiers in their makeshift prison cell Photo: ALESSIO ROMENZI

The story comes from The Telegraph.

Confessions of an Assad 'Shabiha' loyalist: how I raped and killed for £300 a month


Sitting in the dark, fetid cave that served as his makeshift prison, Mohammed confessed with the frankness of a man who knew he had no escape from death. For the equivalent of £300 a month, plus a £100 bonus for every victim, he had become a hired killer for President Bashar al Assad, he said. What was more, he had enjoyed every minute of it.

"We love Assad because the government gave us all the power - if I wanted to take something, kill a person or rape a girl I could," he said, in a calm, quiet voice devoid of remorse.

"The government gave me 30,000 Syrian pounds per month and an extra 10,000 per person that I captured or killed. I raped one girl, and my commander raped many times. It was normal."

Mohammed - not his real name - spoke to me last week at a secret rebel detention centre in Idlib Province in northern Syria, where he had been captured a few weeks earlier during a shoot-out with units from the Free Syrian Army.

Tucked away in the hills, the limestone caves where he is now confined were once used by rebel units to hide from President Assad's forces and stash their weapons. Now, 16 months into the uprising, they have become a prison for captured pro-regime fighters.



But Mohammed cut a very different figure to the 25 others with whom he shared his underground chamber. While they were all gaunt, bewildered-looking Syrian Army conscripts, he was a member of the Shabiha, the feared pro-Assad civilian militia for whom fighting is a matter of both business and pleasure, and who are blamed for many of the conflict's worst massacres.

Like many of their ilk, he had the appearance of an Arab Arnold Schwarzenegger, with huge biceps, honed during endless gym sessions, bulging under a tight white T-shirt.

That same intimidating physique made him easily identifiable as a member of the Shabiha when caught, and has now effectively sealed his fate. While ordinary Syrian army conscripts may be treated as prisoners of war, Shabiha are often executed - especially ones like Mohammed, whose personal notoriety as a thug had spread throughout the province.

So it was that, with no expectation of mercy, he spoke candidly of his crimes - his casual, matter-of-fact manner telling its own story about just why Syria has become so steeped in violence.

Born in Orem al Kubra, a farming village loyal to President Bashar al-Assad's regime, he was at first reluctant to get involved when the uprising began, he said. "My friends were joining the Shabiha, and they encouraged me to come with them. I hesitated, and men in the local Air Force base beat me up until I agreed.

"I informed on people who didn't like Assad, I captured them and I put them in jail. The government gave me a gun."

For the first time in his life, Mohammed, who is in his late twenties, found himself with both money and power. Not only that, he was effectively exempt from Syrian law.

He described one rape he had committed. "She was a student of Aleppo University. It was daytime and I was driving around the city with my boss. She was passing on the street. I said to my boss, 'What do you think about this girl? Is she not beautiful?'

"We grabbed her and put her into the car. We drove to an abandoned home and we both raped her. After we finished we killed her. She knew our faces and our neighbours, so she could not live."

For weeks he and his friends continued their rampage around Aleppo, the main commercial hub of northern Syria. During one anti-Assad demonstration, he said he killed a man by firing into a crowd.

What was his motivation, I asked? He shrugged. He was not particularly interested in defending President Assad's regime, he said, nor the Syrian leader's minority Alawite sect, from which most Shabiha are drawn. "It wasn't for Bashar. I didn't care about Bashar al Assad. All I cared about was that I got the power."

Listening to him talk, it was tempting to wonder whether he might be making it all up, perhaps on the orders of his captors. But our interview took place in a secluded corner of the jail, well out of their earshot, and had he been under pressure to fabricate a story, he could easily have communicated that discreetly.

He showed none of the nervousness I have encountered previously among prisoners in rebel jails in Libya, where it was often obvious that some were following a confessional "script".

Instead, the only glimmer of emotion came when I asked him just why he seemed so emotionless. "I grew up in a normal family, and I was taught to respect women," he said. "But the devil took hold of my mind in those days."

New Massacre Reported In Syria...100 Executed, Nearly Half of Victims Were Women and Children

 Families leave their homes in Taldou, near Houla, following last week’s massacre, June 5, 2012. Picture taken June 5, 2012.    — Photo by Reuters

It just gets worse and worse for Syrian President Assad....or should I say it gets worse and worse for civilians finding themselves inside the war torn nation of Syria as reports are coming out of a new massacre that states that Syrian forces killed 100 civilians, with 40 of them being women and children.

From the report at DAWN:

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “massacred” about 100 people including women and children, the opposition said, as the US demanded a full transfer of power in the country.

The call by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton set the stage for a renewed diplomatic stand-off over Syria, after Russia and China said they were strongly against intervention and regime change.

If reports of the killings in the central province of Hama prove accurate they will rank among the worst atrocities in Syria’s 15-month uprising against Assad’s embattled regime.

“We have 100 deaths in the village of Al-Kubeir, among them 20 women and 20 children,” Mohammed Sermini, spokesman for the exiled opposition Syrian National Council, told AFP.

He accused the regime of being behind the “massacre”.

This comes, of course, just after the first reported massacre of 108 civilians - people killed execution style by Assad's forces and has caused world outrage.  If any of this new claim can be verified, it's going to be pretty close to lights out for Assad as some world leaders have already gone almost all in.

100 killed in new Syria ‘massacre’: opposition


DAMASCUS: Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “massacred” about 100 people including women and children, the opposition said, as the US demanded a full transfer of power in the country.

The call by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton set the stage for a renewed diplomatic stand-off over Syria, after Russia and China said they were strongly against intervention and regime change.

If reports of the killings in the central province of Hama prove accurate they will rank among the worst atrocities in Syria’s 15-month uprising against Assad’s embattled regime.

“We have 100 deaths in the village of Al-Kubeir, among them 20 women and 20 children,” Mohammed Sermini, spokesman for the exiled opposition Syrian National Council, told AFP.

He accused the regime of being behind the “massacre”.

Other sources also reported a mass killing had taken place in the same area, including the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tentatively put the number of dead at 87.

The Syrian government on Thursday denied responsibility, saying in a televised statement: “What a few media have reported on what happened in Al-Kubeir, in the Hama region, is completely false.”

“A terrorist group committed a heinous crime in the Hama region which claimed nine victims. The reports by the media are contributing to spilling the blood of Syrians,” the statement said.

But the Britain-based Observatory said in a statement that pro-regime shabiha militia armed with guns and knives carried out the “new massacre” at a farm after shelling by regular troops.

“What is certain is that dozens of people died, including women and children,” the watchdog’s Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Both Sermini and the Observatory urged UN observers to immediately head to the region to investigate.

The reports come after at least 108 people were killed in a two-day massacre that began on May 25 near the central town of Houla, most of them women and children who were summarily executed, according to the United Nations.

News of the new incident came after Russia and China said they were “decisively against” intervention or regime change in Syria, as Arab and Western calls mounted for strong international action in the conflict.

The United States endorsed an Arab proposal to invoke the UN Charter’s tough Chapter VII, while refraining from supporting its powers to initiate military intervention.

Meanwhile Clinton, who has voiced mounting frustration with the Chinese and Russian positions, sought to mobilise support in Turkey, calling on the international community to “close off the regime’s economic life lines”.

“We can’t break faith with the Syrian people who want real change,” said a State Department official who briefed reporters on Clinton’s meeting in Istanbul with officials from 16 regional and European powers.

Clinton set forth “essential elements and principles that we believe should guide that post Assad transition strategy, including Assad’s full transfer of power,” the official said.

Other elements include “the establishment of a fully representative and inclusive interim government which leads to free and fair elections, a ceasefire to be observed by all and equality for all Syrians under the law”, the official said.

But Clinton’s Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov warned regime change in Syria would lead the Middle East to “catastrophe”.

Beijing and Moscow said after two days of talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leaders that they strongly opposed intervention and regime change.

“Russia and China are decisively against attempts to regulate the Syrian crisis with outside military intervention, as well as imposing… a policy of regime change,” a joint statement said.

Speaking in the Chinese capital, Lavrov urged the international community to resist calls from the exiled opposition to help oust Assad’s regime.

Opposition groups “outside Syria appeal to the world community more and more to bomb the Assad regime, to change this regime. This is very risky, I would even say it is a way that will bring the region to catastrophe”, he said.

Lavrov hit out at the rebel Free Syrian Army’s announcement it was no longer bound by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan’s six-point peace plan, and proposed a high-level conference with the participation of Iran among other powers.

His proposal was given a cool reception by Clinton, as well as by the French and British foreign ministers.

Russia and China have vetoed two Security Council resolutions against Assad’s regime, but backed Annan’s blueprint to end the conflict in which more than 13,500 people have died since March 2011, according to the Observatory.

The Annan plan was supposed to begin with a ceasefire from April 12 but doubts have emerged about its effectiveness as violence has raged on despite the deployment of nearly 300 UN observers.

In other violence, rebels went on the offensive in and around Damascus and 46 people were killed across the country, the Observatory said.

The Shabiha: Inside Assad's death squads

 Areen Al Assad: As President Bashar al-Assad's country continues its savage slide towards full-blown civil war, the violent, dark and secretive world of the Shabiha is coming out into the open

Trying to wrap your mind around the brutality and sheer madness behind the Assad regime in Syria?  Well, this article from The Telegraph will help explain how seemingly nonchalant the murder and execution of Syrians has become in the past few months as we get a bird's eye view of Assad's hit squads....called "The Shabiha."

The Shabiha: Inside Assad's death squads


The door to Dr Mousab Azzawi's clinic, on the Mediterranean coast of Syria, was always open to anyone who needed help. But, operating in the heartland of the feared Shabiha militia, there were some patients the doctor would have preferred not to treat.

"They were like monsters," said Dr Azzawi, who worked in Latakia. "They had huge muscles, big bellies, big beards. They were all very tall and frightening, and took steroids to pump up their bodies.

"I had to talk to them like children, because the Shabiha likes people with low intelligence. But that is what makes them so terrifying – the combination of brute strength and blind allegiance to the regime."

As President Bashar al-Assad's country continues its savage slide towards full-blown civil war, the violent, dark and secretive world of the Shabiha is coming out into the open.

Nine days ago, 108 people were butchered by the Shabiha in the town of Houla. The pro-Assad thugs went through the village, house to house, and slit the throats of anyone they came across – including 49 children. Exactly a week later, the Shabiha pulled 12 factory workers off a bus in the town of Qusayr, 40 miles to the south; tied their hands behind their backs, and shot them in the head.

"This is my son, my son," sobbed one old man in a video of the aftermath posted on YouTube, as he tugged in vain at the leg of a corpse lying face up, his blue shirt covered in blood.

The world is learning just how bloodthirsty the Shabiha can be. But inside Syria, their capacity for hideous brutality has long been known.

"Even before the revolution, any time there was unrest they would go out into the streets and stop it for the government," said Selma, who comes from a prominent Alawite family – a Shia Muslim sect, into which the Assad family was born, and to which almost all of the Shabiha belong. Her cousins are Shabiha.

"They would just break people's arms and legs. They would fight for Bashar to the death. It is natural – they have to defend their sect."

Her cousins wore civilian clothes, she explained – "then the television can say that these are just civilians who love Bashar."

Indeed, a survivor of the Houla massacre said he knew they were Shabiha, and not the army, because the men were wearing white trainers instead of black military boots. The white running shoes have grown into a terrifying sight for the people of Syria, who fear the ruthless, lawless Shabiha almost more than the army.

Tit-for-tat killings on both sides are on the rise, with the rebels and the pro-government forces both accused of carrying out attacks. But it is the Shabiha - whose name means ghosts in Arabic - who inspire the most terror.

President Assad, and his father Hafez before him, used the Shabiha to terrorise Syrians into obedience, brainwashing the militia into believing the Sunni majority was their enemy.

Alawites comprise about 12 per cent of Syria's population, and historically were persecuted by the Sunnis; living in poverty in the mountainous rural areas around Homs and the port city of Latakia.

Alawites, who split from the Shia branch of the Islamic faith in the ninth century, believe prayers are not necessary and do not fast or perform pilgrimages. Many of the key tenets of the faith are secret, adding to their mystique, although some scholars say Alawites have incorporated elements of Christianity into their creed. Sunnis see them as heretics.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Syria's French rulers needed soldiers willing to defend the regime from a Sunni uprising, so they incorporated large numbers of Alawites into the army, who were only too happy to fight their Sunni "oppressors".

They became the most politically powerful sect in Syria, and the vast majority of the country's top intelligence and military officers adhere to the faith. It was from the army that Hafez al-Assad emerged to stage his coup.

Initially the Shabiha were a mafia clan, making money through racketeering. Selma, the Alawite with Shabiha family, said her cousins were "filthy rich" through smuggling in diesel, milk and electronics. "Anything to Lebanon that is cheaper in Syria, and whatever is needed in Syria from Lebanon," she said.

The ruling Assad family turned a blind eye to their criminal behaviour and violent methods. In return, the Shabiha became the Assads' fiercely loyal defenders and enforcers.

"They are fuelled by this belief that they are fighting for their survival," said Dr Azzawi. "Assad tells them that they must defend the government or else they will be destroyed; it's kill, or be killed."

Dr Azzawi, who now runs the Syrian Network for Human Rights from London, showed The Sunday Telegraph a video of the Shabiha in action.

An enormous man, identified on the video as Areen al-Assad – a member of the president's family clan – posed with his gun, grinned from the steering wheel of his car, and flexed his muscles. His huge bicep bulged with a tattoo of the president's face.

At the end of the video, the posturing Shabiha militants proclaim: "Bashar, do not be sad: you have men who drink blood."

"It is their motto," explained Dr Azzawi, who said that many of the men were recruited from bodybuilding clubs and encouraged to take steroids. "They are treated like animals, and manipulated by their bosses to carry out these murders. They are unstoppable."

Hamza al-Buweida, a Sunni activist from Qusayr province, told The Sunday Telegraph how he watched in horror as his childhood friend got sucked into the Shabiha.

"Even when we were at university he looked to Bashar like he was God. Nobody was allowed to say something bad about him.

"It is something in their religion that moves them. And state media is terrifying them that terrorists will kill them if Bashar falls from power," he said.

"The army gave my friend a gun, he started using it to shoot at the people in the demonstrations. The security forces gave him a special sense of identity."

The militia operated with blind devotion to the leaders, referred to as "muallim", meaning boss, or "khaal", uncle. And indeed, it was in many ways a family business.

Mr Assad's cousin Numir has taken over as one of the key rulers of the Shabiha – even though the government is careful to avoid direct association with the militia and their murderous acts.

How the men are paid is unclear, although many claim the Shabiha is funded by businessmen tied into the Alawite clique that dominates the government.

What is known is that the Shabiha have a strong economic motives for backing the regime. Foot soldiers can earn up to £120 for a day's thuggery – a fortune in Syria.

The regime has long supported the Alawites financially: in the 1980s President Hafez al-Assad built homes in the Mazzeh area of Damascus for poor Alawite labourers who moved to the capital. When the uprising began in March 2011, the residents thanked the regime by violently repressing any stirrings of revolt.

In addition to sectarian hatred and economic motives, the Shabiha have another reason for wanting to keep the Assad regime in power.

"Being linked in the minds of most Syrians to the government, the Alawites are absolutely terrified of retribution if the government falls," said Professor Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

"And that fear is probably pretty accurate. The Alawites will face very bad things if the Assads are forced out."

Indeed, reassuring the country's 2.1 million Alawites that they will not be targeted in a post-Assad Syria is one of the key aims of the opposition, alongside encouraging ordinary Alawites to defect.

Of the Syrian Network for Human Rights's 239 dissidents inside the country, only 19 are Alawites. Of the Syrian National Council's 311 members, only five to ten are Alawites.

One of the most prominent Alawites on the council is Monzer Makhous.

"The Alawites are supporting Assad because they have been told that he is protecting them, and are very afraid about what will happen when he goes," he told The Sunday Telegraph. "But I don't think there will be revenge against them. Syrian people want peace.

"It is a big challenge for the SNC to attract more Alawites. The Shabiha are killing them too, if they try to leave. But we need them on our side."

Other Alawites agree that more should be done to encourage defections.

Oubab Khalil, an Alawite in Texas from the Syrian Expatriates Organization, said that many were willing to desert the president.

"Assad appointed himself guardian of the sect, but it's certainly not true that all Alawites support him," he said. "Assad has targetted Alawites too.

"They are there in the demonstrations, but are more afraid of turning against him."

But are economic reasons, sectarian hatred and fear of the future really enough to drive someone to slit a child's throat? Selma thinks so.

"If they know the whole area is against the regime they have no problem killing everybody," she said. "That is how it works."

Syria: nine members of same family killed by Assad regime troops

Vehicles that were damaged following blasts in Idlib Photo: AFP/GETTY

Syria...it keeps falling further and further into genocide.  Remember when Hillary Clinton called Assad a "reformer".....?   Once again, the Obama administration is all over it baby - they bomb Libya due to a "threat" of harm to civilians...yet after tens of thousands of dead Syrian civilians, nothing but crickets.  That's what I love - a consistent foreign policy.


The story is from The Telegraph.

Syria: nine members of same family killed by Assad regime troops


The family died in the northern province of Idlib, near the frontier with Turkey, which has been the focus of a government offensive since February.

A mortar round fired by President Bashar al-Assad's army destroyed their home in the village of Mashmashan, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based group. Four women and two children were among those killed.

Elsewhere in Idlib, a boy of 13 also died. This area, once a stronghold for rebels of the Free Syrian Army, has suffered some of the worst fighting with Mr Assad's forces trying to reimpose their control.

A ceasefire supposedly took effect on 12 April, policed by United Nations observers. However, fighting between the army and rebels claimed the lives of 12 soldiers in the north-eastern province of Deir Ezzor. The rebels also attacked the offices of military intelligence and air force intelligence in Idlib.

So far, only 30 UN observers have deployed in Syria, out of a total of 300. Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary general, called for "armed violence in all its forms by all parties to cease immediately", urging "full co-operation of all parties with the work of UN Supervision Mission in Syria as it expands its presence on the ground".

Assad Regime in Syria Stopping Women and Children From Fleeing the Country

Bashir Assad is certainly doing a good job of revealing to the world just what kind of a man and leader he is...perhaps this is why President Bush refused to have anything to do with him while Nancy Pelosi traveled there to kiss his ring and Hillary Clinton called him a "reformer" ...of course, now Clinton calls for Assad to go. What's wrong, Hillary? Did old Bashir prove you wrong and dumb old Bush right?

Well, Assad's regime now is apparently doing everything they can to keep Syrian women and children from fleeing the country. I'm guessing that part of his motivation is that if all the women and children leave, his troops won't have anyone to hide behind when Israel comes across the border down the line.

The story is from The Telegraph.

Syria 'stopping women and children from fleeing the country'


The attempt, which appears well organised and is assumed to be intended to prevent men defecting or joining the opposition, has led to a build-up of thousands of refugees inside the borders with Lebanon and particularly Jordan.

"Most families that fled to Lebanon in recent weeks escaped Syria using smuggling routes," said Burhan Abu Saleh, a spokesman for a volunteer Syrian refugee group.

"Some have relatives who are activists, and so would risk arrest at the official border, but many went and were turned back.

"Every day it is becoming more difficult."

Rana, a refugee in Lebanon who would not give her full name, said she had been forced to pay a bribe to cross the border. "Security forces were attacking my neighbourhood in Aleppo," she said. "I fled with nothing but I had to pay $40 dollars to be allowed to cross."

A number of opposition activists abroad say their families inside the country have been taken away or beaten up in retaliation, while defecting members of the regime's army have described waiting until they were able to accompany their families abroad before crossing over, earlier in the uprising.

But tens of thousands of refugees are continuing to try to leave, despite the current supposed ceasefire and peace plan put forward by the UN envoy, Kofi Annan.

Yesterday, a visit by members of the UN monitoring mission withdrew from Arbeen, a Damascus suburb, after troops started shooting at a crowd of protesters, activists said.

The Syrian authorities yesterday said they were drawing up a "protocol" with the monitors to allow the arrival of the main party, supposed to consist of 250 peacekeepers.

The flow of refugees to Jordan and Lebanon, which have been trying to remain neutral in the conflict, is particularly worrying for the regime.

Mr Abu Saleh said it had become "common" for families to be refused exit at the Masnaa border crossing between Beirut and Damascus. An activist in Jordan said there were now 4,000 families, mostly from Homs, near the border at Jaber, many sleeping in the open and some with families.

The authorities are only allowing those over 60 to cross, unless bribes are paid, and no children, the activist said, adding that the regime was keen to stop numbers of refugees inside Jordan, which already stand at 100,000, reaching 150,000. "That would be a major embarrassment for Bashar," he said.

Mousab Azzawi, of the London-based Syrian Network for Human Rights, said the regime had reactivated old laws under which a woman leaving the country without her husband needed a letter of approval from him, certified by a judge and the security forces.

"In past years this has not been enforced and woman and children could cross freely," he said. "Now they use it - it is a lengthy process that amounts to a ban," said Azzawi.

Aside from bureaucratic constraints, activists reported seemingly arbitrary excuses being given by border officials. Mr Abu Salah's aunt and uncle were told they could not leave the country with their child as he had to attend school in Syria.

"Officials said they should get papers from the education ministry to leave the country," he said. "But they are from Homs, there are no schools open there anymore.

"My brother's fiancee wanted to come to Lebanon with her family. They were turned back. 'Go away and shut up', the border guards told them."

Emboldened Assad of Syria Pulls the Switch and Pounds Syrian Rebels With All He Has

Syrian President, Assad, who is feeling pretty confident that he won't have any kind of Western intervention in his war on the Syrian rebels has pulled the switch on all of his weaponry and the result is that the remaining rebel strongholds are getting pounded. Big time.

From the article at DEBKA:

Certain he is safe from Western-Arab intervention, Bashar Assad Sunday unleashed an across-the board air and ground offensive against the last surviving rebel locations. debkafile’s military sources report that starting Sunday noon, April 8, 30 towns and villages were hit simultaneously. For the first time since the outbreak of revolt thirteen months ago, heavy long-range artillery and air force helicopters pounded the rebel positions remaining in the northern mountains of Idlib near the Turkish border. The scale of the onslaught was such that it is hard to come by casualty figures, but they certainly run into hundreds.
The mountains of ordnance and numbers of tanks and artillery the Syrian army is pouring into the embattled sectors attest to Assad’s determination to root out with no holds barred the last rebel and protester however long it takes.

To this day I am amazed that not a single new reporter in America has asked Barack Hussein Obama why he pulled the trigger in Libya and not in Syria. Don't get me wrong, I have never advocated our military be used in Syria and I will not, but it irks the hell out of me that this President hasn't been called out on the carpet for his reasoning for Libya - he made a fatal mistake when he said that action was taken to avoid casualties to citizens of Libya and yet he has stood by as thousands of Syrians have been slaughtered.

Syria launches its heaviest air-ground assault yet against the opposition


Certain he is safe from Western-Arab intervention, Bashar Assad Sunday unleashed an across-the board air and ground offensive against the last surviving rebel locations. debkafile’s military sources report that starting Sunday noon, April 8, 30 towns and villages were hit simultaneously. For the first time since the outbreak of revolt thirteen months ago, heavy long-range artillery and air force helicopters pounded the rebel positions remaining in the northern mountains of Idlib near the Turkish border. The scale of the onslaught was such that it is hard to come by casualty figures, but they certainly run into hundreds.
The mountains of ordnance and numbers of tanks and artillery the Syrian army is pouring into the embattled sectors attest to Assad’s determination to root out with no holds barred the last rebel and protester however long it takes.
He probably never intended standing by his commitment to observe a ceasefire from April 10. He simply used the UN envoy Kofi Annan’s peace proposals to buy time to rout his opponents once and for all.

Our military sources say the rebels, and especially the Free Syrian Army, don’t have the slightest chance of surviving Assad’s killing machine.

As he lifts all restraints, the Syrian ruler is also certain he is backed to the hilt by Tehran and Moscow.

Our sources add that, just as Iranians is sure President Barack Obama will avoid military intervention in Syria, they are certain that their nuclear program is equally safe from a military offensive. Tehran was therefore emboldened Sunday to reject out of hand the core demands of the West to give up high-grade uranium enrichment and shut down their underground nuclear facility at Fordow.

So as not to bury the negotiations with the six world powers before they even begin on – the Iranian spokesman, atomic energy chief Fereidoon Abbasi left the door open a tiny crack: “We will produce 20 percent uranium to the amount needed for the Tehran research reactor and the reactors we are planning to build in the future,” he said.

That too was a typical Iranian exercise in deception.
Since no one in the West has a clue to how many reactors requiring 20-percent uranium Tehran plans to build, the size of its stocks and the quantity reserved for building a bomb cannot be determined.

Nevertheless, the European foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton later announced formally that the talks between the Six Powers and Iran would begin in Istanbul on April 14.