zeitvox

January 5th
10:05 PM

3 notes

Assad to make rare speech as Syrian rebels draw nearer

Reuters »

With insurgents fighting their way closer to the seat of his power, state media said in a statement that Assad would speak on Sunday morning about the “latest developments in Syria and the region”, without giving details.

It will be the 47-year-old leader’s first speech in months and his first public comments since he dismissed suggestions that he might go into exile to end the civil war, telling Russian television in November that he would “live and die” in Syria.

Insurgents are venturing ever closer into Damascus after bringing a crescent of suburbs under their control… >continue<

December 31st
1:33 PM

1 note

$Increasing Barbarity in Syria Christoph Reuter | Der Spiegel » It is an ocean of small stories and large decisions, and we can only publish a fraction of it. Taken together, though, the things we learn allow us to reach conclusions about events in this war and about shifts occurring in the balance of power, because every few months we revisit the same places and meet the same people. If they’re still alive, that is. >continue<$

Increasing Barbarity in Syria

Christoph Reuter | Der Spiegel »

It is an ocean of small stories and large decisions, and we can only publish a fraction of it. Taken together, though, the things we learn allow us to reach conclusions about events in this war and about shifts occurring in the balance of power, because every few months we revisit the same places and meet the same people. If they’re still alive, that is. >continue<

December 22nd
2:29 PM

3 notes

Via

Aleaveobashar:

ANOTHER FIRDAY OF PROTESTS ACROSS SYRIA. Dec 212, 2012 - This week’s protest was named in honor of the coming victory in Aleppo, Syria. “Victory Began on Your Doors oh Aleppo” (النصر انكتب ع بوابك يا حلب ). Again, despite the raids, the shooting, the shelling, the bombing, the airstrikes and now the SCUD missile strikes, the people of Syria still emerge to protest.

ALEPPO:

A massive protest in Sha’ar neighborhood, the site of some of the worst destruction and massacres perpetrated against the people by Assad’s regime. (video here)

A protest in the neighborhood of Bustan Al Qasr (video here)

A protest in Kobani (video here)

DAMASCUS:

In the suburb of Al-Dhiyabiyeh they have to protest in an alley to escape the air-strikes and shelling (video here)

A protest in the besieged suburb of Douma (video here)

HOMS:

The refugees of Wa’er, who come from all areas of Homs, come out to protest again. (video here)

IDLEB:

he animated people of Kafranbel come out to protest for another Friday (video here)

The people of Sarmada come out to protest (video here)

Protesters march in the town of Kafrtakhareem. (video here)

They sing the ever popular ‘Yalla Ir7al Ya Bashar’ in Sarmada (video here)

HAMA:

The newly liberated town of Kafrnabooda come out to celebrate and protest (video here)

A large protest in Tareeq Halab (video here)

They chant for Aleppo at a protest in Kafrzeita (video here)

DARAA:

In Ma’arbreh they protest (video here)

A protest in Al Qusoor (video here)

DIER EZZOR:

The brave of Al Mayadeen come out despite the constant air-strikes (video here)

The people of Abu Kamal come out to protest (video here)

HASAKEH:

The people of Hasakeh come out once again to show their solidarity with the revolution. (video here)

A large protest in Qamilishli (video here)

Thanks @syria_Protests @far_Gar @SyrianLover_SY

December 20th
10:16 AM

1 note

Winter of Discontent | Crucible Latakia

Assad’s Alawite Sector | Live Blog Syria

Damascus Battles Rage | Massive UN Aid Appeal

Russia looking beyond Assad | Conflict ‘overtly sectarian’

______________________

update: Military Defections to Turkey | ‘Abandoned’ | Irrepressible

Jadaliyya co-editor Bassam Haddad interviews David Barsamian, touching on dynamics underlying recent events in the Levant

November 12th
1:21 PM

3 notes

Syria in Ruins | NATO solidarity for Turkey

New Syrian Coalition ‘Electrifies’ | Syria Crisis Blog

Guide to Syrian Opposition | Maath al-Khatib Elected

Vice Guide to Syria

image: AP/Narciso Contreras | Javier Manzano/AFP/Getty Images interpolated

November 6th
3:14 PM

4 notes

Via

crisisgroup:

Reactions to the Syrian National Initiative | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

By Marina Ottaway, Omar Hossino

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent announcement that the United States is supporting a plan to forge a broader Syrian coalition of exiled political opponents and internal armed groups to supplant the Syrian National Council as the opposition’s primary representative set off a chain reaction. The rejections, cautious endorsements, and recriminations that immediately followed her statement show why the Syrian opposition has remained so fragmented and why the ongoing opposition meetings in Doha are unlikely to bring about the desired unity.

The firestorm got started on October 31 while Clinton was traveling in Croatia. She appeared to put an American stamp on a project to launch a new initiative to bring together Syria’s exiled and internal opposition in a new, more inclusive council. The Syrian National Initiative would supplant the Syrian National Council (SNC) and become the conduit for all foreign assistance going to fighters inside Syria. The effort, Clinton argued, would also serve to isolate the radical jihadi organizations that are springing up in surprising numbers inside the country. Studies by the International Crisis Group and by Swedish analyst Aron Lund cite at least a dozen such organizations operating in Syria.

FULL ARTICLE (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)

Photo: Oren Rozen/Wikimedia Commons

October 2nd
5:38 PM

5 notes

Syrian Rebels Make a Go of Governing

Angry older people, unconcerned with decorum, are pushing their way into the room. They shout furiously at the stunned officials sitting behind their desks. The revolution is all very well and good, they say, “but where are our pensions?”

With some difficulty, the man from the justice committee manages to convince them to at least appoint a spokesman, so that they won’t all talk at the same time. But they remain adamant. “You are the new government! So it’s your responsibility to pay our pensions!”

…What is currently happening in Manbij, once a sleepy provincial city in northern Syria, is the first future-oriented experiment in the midst of horror. While rebels fight regime forces elsewhere in the country, and entire towns are being bombed to pieces, Manbij is the first larger city in Syria to be liberated. >continue<

photo: Narciso Contreras / Polaris / Der Spiegel

September 27th
10:10 PM

28 notes

Source

Via

breathingsorrow:

One of the hospitals in the Syrian city of Jubar today.

August 13th
2:40 PM

6 notes

Creating a Syrian Swamp: Assad’s ‘Plan B’

Jonathan Landis | Syria Comment »

In 2005, a friend who was close to the regime told me that Assad and those around him were convinced that they could defeat President Bush’s attempts to change the regime in Syria. They said:

“Bush thinks he can use Iraq against us. But Iraq is not a nation. We will help turn its factions against the US. It will turn into a swamp and suck the US in. This is what we did to Israel and the US in Lebanon in the 1980s.”

Today, Assad will treat Syria as he did Lebanon and Iraq earlier. He will gamble that it is not a nation and will work to tear it apart. Already he has withdrawn from the Kurdish parts of Syria. Friends in Aleppo tell me that Assad is arming the Kurds there. He will arm the Arab tribes in the hope that they will resist central control…

In order to survive, Assad and his Alawite generals will struggle to turn Syria into Lebanon – a fractured nation, where no one community can rule. >continue<

August 7th
12:03 PM

9 notes

Via

Facts on the ground the only narrative that matters in Syria

leaveobashar:

by @hhassan140

One day during my high school studies in Syria, over a decade ago, the school’s administration decided to replace a sport class with a science class to compensate for the absence of a teacher. About half of my classmates rejected the decision (they liked their sport), refused to enter the class and stood outside in protest.

I had never seen the school’s administration more nervous. That negligible act of rebellion compelled the headmaster to come and speak to us personally, armed with what I’d call the Baathist tools of coercion. “I know that most of you are good people,” he told us, “but I want you to point out to me the subversive student among you, who I know is an ikhwanji (a pejorative term that refers to a member of the banned Muslim Brotherhood organisation).

“If you do not, I will have to call the Political Security (a branch of the mukhabarat, with an office adjacent to the school)”. That sentence was powerful enough to make us return to class, without uttering a word.

I’m reminded of that defining day on the schoolyard as I watch the world try to make sense of the absurdity of the Assad regime today, and its answer to any form of dissent by calling Syrians “mundasseen” - infiltrators.

Syrians raised under this regime know that taking to the streets to call for the government’s downfall is the very definition of audacity. Syrians do not need to be told by media what the regime is capable of or how it behaves when it is confronted. They also do not need to be told to fight until the end because they know full well the regime kills and tortures in times of calm, as it does when it is embattled…

These are all stories that must be told. >continue<

10:52 AM

2 notes

Ancient City Imperilled | ‘Tangerine Glow’

Prime Minster Defects | Syria Crisis Blog

Teens Turned Rebel
Aleppo Defiant
Russia denies warships headed to Syria
Saudi King Invites Iran for Summit | tagged Syria

updates: Scramble for Influence | Assad’s ‘Plan B’

UPI/Khaled Tallawy/Zeitvox interpolated

July 30th
8:23 AM

4 notes

Syrian rebels near Aleppo: 'We are besieging Assad's army'

Guardian »

Regime forces have been pulverising rebel-held districts using artillery and helicopter gunships. But the rebels are upbeat

…Despite the unpromising facts on the ground, the rebels were upbeat. “The [regime] army is sick. It is destroyed from inside. There is no power inside it,” Abu Ahmed, another commander, explained. Striking a vivid analogy, he added: “They have plenty of weapons from Russia. But this is like an injection into the arm of a dying man.” One fighter then showed off a large mortar that had landed on the terrace. “Don’t worry. It didn’t explode,” he said. >continue<

July 29th
1:34 PM

41 notes

Via

leaveobashar:

From Kafranbel, Idleb (Syria) …

Thanks @DarthNader

July 21st
11:51 AM

59 notes

Via

leaveobashar:

The revolution will be televised. This is what activists in Syria do to upload videos when Assad cuts the electricity.

Thanks @Nora0315

July 18th
9:07 AM

5 notes

Fighting Erupts, Intensifies in Damascus

“Damascus Volcano“ | Elites Die in Blast

Capitol Clash | Syria Crisis Blog

image: AFP - HO - Shamm News Network - ZeitVox interpolated