Syrian refugees: 'Tonight

we died many deaths'

And there, plain as daylight, sat a Russian-built T-72 tank, partly obscured by olive trees. Another lurked close by.
"And here is what he is firing at." The scope-operator scrolled across to the left. "In this ditch there are more than 80 refugees. And here; this is the FSA commander. This is the most dangerous time," he said.

Turkmen in joint battle ‘for Syria democracy’

“We are part of the (mainstream rebel) Free Syrian Army … We want a new country … for all Syrians.”

Israeli airstrike hits truck convoy in Syria

Rime Allaf:
Many of those outraged, rightly, by Israel's strike on Syria yesterday never said a word while Assad bombed the hell out of the country for the last 18 months.
"Despite its icy relations with Assad, Israel has remained on the sidelines of efforts to topple him; Syria has kept the border quiet since the 1973 Mideast war and has never retaliated for Israeli attacks."

Why Does Moscow Back the Assad Regime?

'Moscow does not see any serious cost to opposing the U.S. in particular on Syria since it doesn’t see Washington as actually seeking the downfall of Assad. Moscow—which has had long experience in observing American foreign policy—knows that when the U.S. really wants to intervene somewhere, it does not wait for Security Council approval.'

From The Onion

Alien World To Help Out Syria Since This One Refuses To

Thuu'l, an oily, amoeba-like creature held in his pseudopod a U.N. report indicating al-Assad's forces have killed more than 7,500 civilians. "It's unbearable to watch even from the far end of the Triangulum Galaxy, and yet you who dwell upon the same planet continue to tolerate it. How is that possible?"

From The Onion

Paranoid Syrian Man Thinks Government Out To Get Him

"At press time, Yussif could not be reached for further comment."

Moscow must end the deadlock in Syria

"The youths who rose up a year ago to demand their freedom are the future of Syria. They are shaped by the same political culture as their parents, which has always been staunchly nationalistic and wary of foreign meddling...Russia should listen carefully to the Syrian people; their message is simple and clear. They do not want their revolution to be hijacked by any one force or group"

Syria and the US: The complicity of silence

"Washington’s overt – and covert – support for the rebels is playing into President Bashar al-Assad's hands, allowing him to claim he is fighting foreign intervention rather than domestic dissent, while also giving him space to fight back as brutally as he wants with no immediate threat of military involvement by the US, NATO, or other western powers."
I think that should be 'rhetorical', rather than 'overt' or 'covert'.

President Obama addresses the Syrian people via Video

There's a story, maybe by Arthur C.Clarke, where he talks about sacks of food aid marked "Made in USA", being re-stamped, "From the Soviet People".
No sign of any weapons.

Newlyweds fight together on Syria frontline

Newlyweds fight together on Syria frontline

"Mahmoud al-Halabi was once the driver of a Syrian minister's wife. Nour al-Hassan was a stylish hairdresser."
What's a hairdresser?

'Don't Forget Your Photo Albums!':

The Flight of Syria's Middle Classes

' "On the first floor of the building, a doctor and a veterinarian had their practices," says Rula. Both had apparently treated injured dissidents, and the army took revenge on the whole house.'

Ghayath Naisse: Syrian Revolution, current status and prospects

 In Arabic.

 "Certainly the popular armed resistance plays an important role in the battle of the Syrian people for liberation from the yoke of dictatorship junta, but it needs to unify its battalions already under Syrian People's Revolution program and not under any other program."

Oakville MD risks murder, torture to treat wounded in Syria

"When the war began in March 2011 the government tracked down protesters in hospitals and identified them by bullet wounds received in demonstrations. Then doctors caught treating them were imprisoned or threatened, said Elder. Now it is an “all out assault,” on physicians, he said."

Inside the war for Syria's mountains

"We have a very big problem with this town," said the leader of the military council in Idlib province. "These Christians are our friends. We have lived with them for a long time, and we respect them. But the regime has put weapons in the cathedral there. We don't want to attack it but we know we must."

Syria crisis: Solidarity amid suffering in Homs

“Warning A Cross Eye’d Sniper (Ahead)” A sign from Homs, Syria.
'Despite all the horrors that Assad has inflicted on Homs, it’s residents can still laugh and share a joke, even for something as dangerous as Assad’s snipers, who have killed hundreds in Homs alone.' 
Posted 22 hours ago
[http://www.therevoltingsyrian.com/…/warning-a-cross-eyed-sn…]
"Homs was the place in Syria where jokes about the uprising used to be made. Its residents were an inspiration to others in the way they mocked their reality: a heating pipe was used to mimic a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, an aubergine a bomb, and lady's fingers bullets.
That was the spirit of Homs. But today, it is almost deserted and lies in ruins."

France Says Syrian Rebels

Need Aid to Fend Off ‘Chaos’

“Facing the collapse of a state and society, it is Islamist groups that risk gaining ground if we do not act as we should,” said the minister, Laurent Fabius. “We cannot let a revolution that started as a peaceful and democratic protest degenerate into a conflict of militias.”

A Leopard in Winter: An Interview

with Syrian Director Nabil Maleh

“You have to fight for the better always,” he says in his usual mix of joviality and intensity. “I’m always against the regime. I never believed in one party. For example, I consider that I was a Marxist but I hated the Communist Party. I believe in Marx’s justice for the common man, but not in one party rule as that inevitably leads to a Fascist/Nazi system.”

Uprising’s first Druze defector declared dead

'We advise you to not stand in our way, but rather aid us, as we confront this tyrant,” he said. “Do not aid the regime as it seeks to stoke sectarianism.”
“Our revolution is for all Syrians, and for all sects,” he concluded.'

Palestinian icon Leila Khaled denounces Syrian opposition

 "I have a say for the regimes, which are being danced like chess pieces by the USA, do not forget the uprisings [that] Egyptian and Tunisian people launched."

 Bad chess metaphor.Pretty rubbish comments all round.

 David Renton posted this again recently.' "Learning from the World anti-imperialist movement". What does that mean in practice? Elitism, moralism, and the politics of police action. The newspapers tell us that fat pants are back, so why not Chairman Mao? Am I the only person not clapping, in the room?'

[http://www.voiceoftheturtle.org/show_article.php?aid=22]

Blame It On The Boogie

"Boogie-trapped cars were sent to Amman in the mid-1970s and 1980s."
[http://english.alarabiya.net/views/2013/01/28/262998.html]

In Revolutionary Syria, Galleries Become

Refuges and Artists Turn Dissident

"Being a part of the revolution wasn’t about being political. It’s our life now, it’s a matter of survival, it’s our country, our people and everyone was participating."

Beautiful Boy

Assad's chances of survival shrinking by the day: Medvedev
[http://www.dailystar.com.lb/…/203932-medvedev-chances-assad…]

Interview: I'm an FSA Battalion Leader

“A lot of people want to defect. We have a lot of [supporters and would-be defectors] inside the regime now. The Syrian Army, they don’t like to kill Syrians. It’s the shabiha.”

EVOLUTION OF A DISSIDENT: PART 2

'Finally I have mastered the math: Palestine is oppressed, Syria is oppressed, Hezbollah fights “for Palestine” but does not fight for Syria, therefore Hezbollah has no integrity.
I could easily write off the revolution in Bahrain because it receives a nod of approval from Iran just like many write off the revolution of Syria because it gets a nod of approval from the US. But I won’t because I know the Shias of Bahrain are truly oppressed. I will stand with them until oppression no longer exists, even if many of them don’t feel the same about the beloved revolution of Syria.'
In Part 1, “Lower your voice, we love our president, everybody makes mistakes. If you speak bad about him they will take you away.”

Bleeding from a triple haemorrhage

“The West cannot mute its rhetoric, but it has stayed its hand for a full-fledged intervention. Russian intransigence has been a gift to Washington, with the latter taking cover behind the U.N. Security Council veto while it continues to offer its stale rhetoric of regime change. A fragile hope rests on the revitalisation of Arab nationalism as a cord that binds the people across the widening sectarian divides. But in the dungeons of the Ba’ath, Syrian nationalism was asphyxiated.”

Rime Allaf

"Kafranbel heroes, Pink Floyd fans, absolute brilliance!"

# You raise the blade, you make the change 
You re-arrange me 'til I'm sane #

Ahmad El Khalaf - Save Syria !
"If his words were bullets, Ahmad El-Khalaf would have already brought down President Bashar al-Assad to end the bloodshed tearing apart his family's homeland of Syria."
#This is the Syrian revolution, still continuing #
[http://www.france24.com/…/20130124-rapping-revolution-syria…]

The Revolution Armed Itself

Robin Yassin-Kassab

"There are no easy answers to the country’s enormous problems, but there is an obvious first step toward a solution: funding the moderate Islamists and secularists of the Syrian National Coalition, which will then feed the hungry and fund the fighters, empowering them to buy the weapons they need."

An Appeal From A Helpless Syrian: Rape & Abuse Of Syrian Females

An Appeal From A Helpless Syrian: Rape & Abuse Of Syrian Females

"Those accounts, though ghastly gruesome, barely depict the entire reality of what happens to females in Syria. Discussing rape, abuse, and what have you of violations done to them is considered a taboo in Syrian societies."

The Battle for Latakia Part One

“The regime is getting poor,” he says. “They no longer have power on the ground, they’ve been forced out, so they need to use rockets and TNT.”