The fall of Yabroud

 Isabel Nassief was just pointing out on al-Jazeera's Inside Syria, that the régime is now largely based on militia, including those from Iraq and the IRGC (Iranians), followed by pointing out that 'rebel infighting' is largely rebel groups fighting against the extreme jihadis of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), finishing with, "these elections should in no way be a legitimising factor for the régime, which is the biggest radicalising factor among Syrians."

Syria Medical Convoy Seizures an 'Abomination'

 'A senior UN aid official accused the Syrian government on Friday of blockading medical supplies from convoys bound for opposition-held areas.

 "Medical supplies are being removed from convoys as part of a strategy to deny the wounded medical care. This is an abomination," John Ging, the UN director of Syria aid operations, told reporters in Geneva.'

Murdering with impunity?

 'Al-Hosni, recently awarded the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, an important international human rights award, blames Brahimi for the international community’s failure to stop the killings.

 "The reason Brahimi was chosen by the major powers as a mediator for Syria was that throughout his professional career he had favoured peace over justice." '

Taking Homs is a hollow victory

 'The influx of sophisticated weaponry – particularly the powerful TOW wire-guided anti-tank missiles – that are being acquired by the Free Syrian Army aligned forces, are giving them a considerable edge in street battles.'

Arm the rebels, pleads Syrian opposition

 'Jarba also stressed Syrians were not calling on the United States or the West “to send their sons to Syria” to fight as in past wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. “We do not want Americans to die in Syria,” he insisted. But “we do have a problem with the air forces, the air raids and the barrel bombs. This is making our lives a nightmare." '

Syria's jigsaw as complicated as ever

 I think Ian Black is noticeably unfriendly to the opposition. From his opening line, 'Ahmed Jarba, president of the Syrian opposition coalition (SOC), is in Washington this week, flattered by the official "foreign mission" status accorded to his office,' as if Jarba were some tin pot exiled monarch.

 Black's initial assessment of the next Friends of Syria meeting, " No-one is holding their breath," just doesn't fit into the same jigsaw as, 'Kerry flies to London to join William Hague and other ministers to discuss "how best to significantly step-up.. support to the Syrian opposition, make urgent progress on improving the deteriorating humanitarian crisis and reinvigorate a political process that has stalled due to regime intransigence." (Weapons deliveries are unlikely to be mentioned publicly). It's an ambitious agenda.'

 'Bashar al-Assad will stand for a third term as president, re-election guaranteed - despite western criticism of a "grotesque parody of democracy." '

 In this case, accurate criticism, Western or otherwise.

 'Meanwhile barrel bombs rain down on civilian areas with terrible consequences.'

 No, they rain down on civilians in opposition held areas. Dropped by the government.

 'Thursday's bombing of an Aleppo hotel used by the army by the Islamic Front shows that the battle for the city is not over.'

 Or the battle for the city has been going the rebels' way. Whenever they has been a mix of gains for each side, it is presented as evidence that Assad is immovable, rather than that there is a majority of the country he can never win over no matter how much force he uses, and so it is really a question of whether the country is destroyed before he goes, not if.

 'The publicised delivery of US-made TOW anti-tank missiles to one carefully-vetted Saudi-backed brigade has raised the prospect of more significant military aid to anti-Assad forces and a counter-weight to support from Iran and Hezbollah.'

 And it could change the balance completely. If the cannot bomb people into surrendering or fleeing, the régime forces are left without a strategy.

 'Intriguingly Assad spoke this week of facilitating aid deliveries (though without "compromising national sovereignty) - perhaps to counter international condemnation of his "surrender or starve" policy.'

 Because he might need to make he's not doing it for a while, to prevent the US 'intervening' by providing anti-aircraft missiles. As happened after the August sarin attack, when the supposed threat of a Western invasion of Syria was more important than the actual attack.



 'Probably the most important thing, from the perspective of all opposition forces, is reaffirmation of the western-Gulf line that "Assad and his close associates...who have blood on their hands will not have any role to play in the future of Syria" - just as he prepares to start a triumphal third term.'

 Again dismissing the opposition as a Western creation, to which the policies of the West are more important than whether they provide the military materiel that would enable Syrians to determine their own destiny.

 'Talk is rife of who may replace Brahimi.'

 He's done no good for Syrians, I think it is those who see Syria's future decided in the high councils of the UN that are more interested in the progression of UN mediators.

 'Whoever does take over will need to think very hard about what do next — and first of all decide whether the Geneva process or some other route to a negotiated political solution can be revived.'

 There is no negotiating with Assad, except for when he might leave.

 'Syria's bloody crisis continues to pose lots of questions. But few of the answers are satisfactory.'

 I can think of one.

America can stop the ‘barrel bombs’ in Syria

 Mohammed Alaa Ghanem:

'As few as 20 MANPADS distributed to moderate Syrian rebel groups would make Assad regime pilots think twice before agreeing to decimate civilian areas through barrel bombings. And the added risk to civilian airliners would be extremely small, especially if the MANPADS were outfitted with the technological fixes under discussion.

For the sake of the thousands of Syrians killed or injured by barrel bombings — including schoolchildren in Aleppo who believed in the United States — we ask the American people to assume this risk and support the provision of MANPADS to carefully vetted elements of the Syrian opposition.'

One U.S.-Backed Rebel Group Cooperates With Al-Qaeda

 This is what happens when journalists rely on government officials for their stories. If al-Nusra got control of the weapons pipeline through Jordan, there wouldn't be any pipeline. This is scaremongering to keep the rebel forces in Syria from being supported, much like the people who whinge about the Gulf Co-operation Council and the threat of al-Qaida, while ignoring the real threats that Syrians face.

 ' "Naimeh's arrest signals that Nusra feels emboldened in the south," said a Western official in Istanbul monitoring the Syrian civil war. "Nusra may be wanting to assert its dominance in the south by controlling the support pipeline from Jordan" to the FSA, this official added.'

Aleppo hotel used by Assad forces 'levelled'

 The AP report ends with a couple of paragraphs of standard untruths about the revolution turning into a sectarian war dominated on the rebel side by foreign fighters.

 'Syria's uprising began with largely peaceful protests and has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones, pitting largely Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad's government, which is dominated by Alawites, a sect of Shia Islam.

 Islamic extremists, including foreign fighters and Syrian rebels who have taken up hardline al-Qaida-style ideologies, have played an increasingly prominent role among fighters, dampening the west's support for the rebellion to overthrow Assad.'

Foreign jihadis in Syria pledge their own 9/11

 'American, Saudi and Jordanian intelligence have been working on creating a "southern front" around Daraa, the southern city where the Syrian revolt began, a front supposedly made up of moderate, secular fighters, who are both anti-Assad and anti-jihadi. This is deceptive, since an important force in such operations would be Jabhat al-Nusra which, on this front, is reportedly acting in coordination with a Jordanian, Saudi and US intelligence joint operations room in Amman.'

 Shorter Patrick Cockburn, supporting revolution in Syria will lead to more 9/11s. He ignores the way the mainstream rebels have forced ISIS out of much of Syria, that Jabhat al -Nusra only exists because of the failure to provide support to secular rebels, that al-Nusra aren't a part of the unified Southern command*, indeed anything that doesn't fit Bush's message that either you are for the terrorists against them.
*[http://www.dailystar.com.lb/…/255012-rebels-pin-hopes-on-un…]

Rebels evacuated from Old City of Homs

 ' "The rest of the world failed us," one activist told the BBC by Skype as he prepared for the evacuation.'

The testimony of an activist about Branch 285

 'Those torturing methods include:

 - Pulling off nails, especially fingernails.

 - Beating and punching directly on the face; especially on the eyes.

 - Quenching cigarettes on the detainee's body, especially on the back and hands.

 - Whipping all over the body, especially on the back.

 - Depriving the already tortured detainees of medicine which is already rare, so that they wouldn't be able to cure bruises and injuries caused by torture.

 - Beating detainees while going to the toilet, which forced some detainees to stop eating at all, or eat some food only, so that they wouldn't have to go to toilet.

 -Pouring hot water on detainee's body, mostly on the back and shoulders.

 - Using 'Bisat Alreeh' (wind carpet) by forcing the detainee to lie down on two wooden boards and then tie him to these boards and bend his body brutally by raising his feet to the head while beating the feet.'

The Distance Between the Images and the Victims

 'The one consistent fact about the horrifying images that have come out of Syria over the past 21/2 years is that in many cases, we don’t know who made them and what they depict. All we see are decontextualized cruelty and misery. Cynicism creeps in, and there is a natural tendency to push the images away as a kind of insoluble puzzle.

 The girl in the purple t-shirt is called Fatima Ghorra, three years old. The girl in the yellow t-shirt is her sister, Hiba Ghorra, four years old. The man is their maternal grandfather, Abu Hamza al-Sheikh. Their father is Nabil Ghorra, a medical doctor, and their mother is from al-Sheikh family. Fatima and Hiba have three sisters and one brother: Battoul, 16 years old, Rama, 15 years old, Muhammad, 12 years old, and Dania, 9 years old. Ghorra family resided in Zamalka.

 Nearly one year ago, the parents forbade their kids going to school, especially after some pro-regime teachers began showing up to school with their guns, and questioning 12 year old children on their political affiliations. Since then, the children spent most of their time indoor. In moments of intensified shelling, parents tried to calm down their kids either by lying on them or by holding them. At the beginning of this year, and due to escalating clashes and shellings, Ghorra family moved to the nearby town of Hazzeh, to return to Zamalka couple of months ago, but to a new apartment in Zayniya neighbourhood.'

UN looking for Syria envoy as Brahimi prepares to quit after failed peace talks

 Somebody has to say that the two sides are much the same, and peace might come if the rebels stop fighting. Perhaps they should appoint Ian Black, Guardian Middle East editor and author of this article?

 'According to the latest figures more than 150,000 people have been killed since the anti-Assad uprising began in March 2011 with peaceful protests against the background of the Arab spring. But Syria is now embroiled in a fully fledged war that has drawn in foreign forces and support on both sides.'

Deadly air strike on Aleppo market

 'Local activists said a government helicopter had dropped three barrel bombs on the area, which had been packed with shoppers at the time.

 "It was mayhem; many of the bodies are burned," one of them, Hasson Abu Faisal, told the Associated Press.'

Teaching Revolution

 'The likes of Mohammed need to be supported with funds and depoliticized teaching material—and rather than shying away from the Islamic character of such groups, foreign donors need to accept that religion is a part of the lives of Syrians and that Islamic groups will always be part of civil society. It is not enough that Syrian children are given education outside of their country as refugees. NGOs must also be willing to work with organizations such as Mohammed’s network to provide children with a semblance of education. The alternative is to raise an ignorant generation brutalized by war, sowing more problems for the future.'

Whose sarin?

 Oh Christ, Eamonn McCann has fallen for this genocide denialist crap. The four most obvious mistakes I can find in his last couple of paragraphs are misspelling al-Nusra, claiming that al-Nusra are allied to Turkey, that all we can be sure of is that everything is confusing and terrifying, and that people are trying to ignore Seymour Hersh. Supporters of the Syrian revolution, such as Jamie Allinson on the letters page of the London Review of Books, are very concerned about the way Hersh's inventions are being used to weaken the case against Assad.

 'The story brings into focus, too, the fact that the Ankara regime of Recep Erdogan is allied with one of the fiercest of the jihadist factions of the splintered anti-Assad movement, the al-Nasra Front, also associated with al-Qaida.

 All we can say for certain about the implications of this cat's cradle of murder, conspiracy and lies is that they are terrifying. Which, perhaps, is why, again, so many are averting their eyes from a Sy Hersh story.'

 Someone should have a word with Eamonn and suggest he not embarrass himself further.

World allows Assad's murder spree to continue

 The idea that the rebels would gas themselves is based on an acceptance of a dishonest picture of them that the Assad régime has built up.

 'Tlass also tells us about Assad's history of using false-flag attacks, as could be expected of a criminal gang. This practice of staging attacks and blaming the opposition must always be remembered when considering the claims of the Assad regime about deaths caused by the revolutionaries:

 "I must now say a few words about the indiscriminate attacks that occurred in Damascus at the end of 2011 and in early 2012. I can confirm that all these spectacular operations were carried out by the regime. And if not all of them, very nearly all of them. You can take this as reliable and corroborated information. Either way I will only speak here of attacks for which I have first-hand information, transmitted by officers who conducted the investigation. I’m not talking about ordinary officers, but members of the secret cell I mentioned previously." '

Free Syria contingent at NYC May Day march

 'The Syrian revolution has its roots in the same kind of economic grievances faced by working people in the US and the West: widespread youth unemployment, high food prices, austerity measures, and a bloated military budget. Fearing unrest, the Bashar Assad regime muscled up on its security, pouring money into the police and intelligence services at the expense of social spending. Any vocal criticism of the government was met with persecution by the police state long before the eruption in the spring of 2011.

 We demand that Russia stop its supply of weapons to Assad
We demand that the US open its doors wide to Syrian refugees
We demand that Assad be tried for crimes against humanity'

Yarmouk refugees tell of brutal treatment at hands of Syrians

 "Our so-called leaders have their own reasons for their closeness to the Syrian regime," said Umm Sameer. "And it has nothing to do with us. Shame on them and their silence."

Syrian opposition demands missiles to shoot down Assad's helicopters

 "We have been requesting repeatedly that we be allowed or that our friends and allies be allowed to provide us with some sophisticated weapons in order for us to defend our people from the death from the death from the air that has come for the last three years from the Assad regime," said Miss Allaf.

 "Allow us to stop it ourselves," she said. "We need to bring down these aircraft that are causing massive destruction on all of Syria."

He will not allow your town to live

 'Horrific scenes as twenty people are killed in an Assad air strike. Al Atareb (Aleppo): April 24, 2014 - Scenes of death, chaos, fear, anger and mourning only moments after Assad’s forces bombed the main street in this tiny town north west of Aleppo city.

 Al Atareb was one of the first towns to rise up and protest peacefully against the Assad regime and was on of the first fully liberated towns.

 However, if Assad cannot rule over you in tyranny, then he will not allow your town to live.'

There is no legal barrier to UN cross-border operations in Syria

 'For example, parties might temporarily refuse consent for reasons of "military necessity" where imminent military operations will take place on the proposed route for aid. They cannot, however, lawfully withhold consent to weaken the resistance of the enemy, cause starvation of civilians, or deny medical assistance. Where consent is withheld for these arbitrary reasons, the relief operation is lawful without consent.'

Barrel-bombed Aleppo 'living in fear'

 The BBC is still presenting Assad's war on Syria as one where it is difficult to see a right side. You see occasional bits of reporting of the real villainy.

 'Tens of thousands of people have fled Aleppo in the last few months in a relentless campaign of bombing by the government.'

 Pannell supports the contention of Human Rights Watch that the barrel bombings are indiscriminate, without mentioning the possibility that they are in fact targeted at civilians, the intended target, not just collateral damage. We get the régime line and the BBC line, but not that of the opposition. When he finishes by saying, "Nowhere in Aleppo is safe, not on the government side, and certainly not on the opposition side," it suggests there is an equivalence between those facing the barrel bomb attacks and those who do not, further adding to the confusion of the BBC's audience.

 I watched Ian Pannell's report on the One O'Clock News, and listened to another on the World Service. You could get from his reporting that Aleppo was now safer for journalists because the FSA and allied groups had kicked the extremists of ISIS out of the town, but if you didn't know the groups involved, it would just tell you that Syria has dangers everywhere.

 He interviewed an English teacher who'd said he supported the revolution, but that some of the FSA had been thieves. In the actual interview he went on to say that he still supported the fight against Assad, but Pannell editorialised it in the TV version to him just saying he wanted the war to be over. And Pannell couldn't find a Syrian who would say the way the end the war is to get rid of Assad. He does report that Syrians feel abandoned, but doesn't really get anyone to understand why or what could be different.

Killing Spurs the Living to Continue Revolution

 'The goal has become to destroy the regime, regardless the price they paid and are still to pay, he says, summarising the whole matter by saying that “we live in God’s hands and have always had a full faith in His will. Our life today is so difficult like as our brothers in the whole Eastern Ghouta. Despite that we have no choice but to continue to the end of the road of change we paid that expensive price to make." '

 Also, 'The Syrian slum areas were the first to participate in the revolution, and thus were the most vulnerable to the brutal destruction, displacement and murder.'

[https://syrianobserver.com/syrian-actors/slums_and_the_syrian_revolution.html]

 and, ' “He’s a liar. They’re still there. We got reinforcements — Hezbollah fighters with one very senior officer, about 250 of them. They are very tough and fierce. Without them, I don’t think we could have held on,” he explained. “Of course there are drawbacks,” Abu Sa’ad mused, referring to the Hezbollah fighters. “We dare not drink or curse in front of them. They are very devout and austere men. They carry a Quran with them at all times and pray. I really think they loathe us sometimes.” '
[https://syrianobserver.com/foreign-actors/west_aleppo_faces_unending_assault.html]

Demented Tony Blair recites the Saudis' creed in his latest speech

 Cockburn doesn't pass up the chance to slander the Syrian opposition.

 'But in Syria the armed opposition is dominated by the very jihadists – Jabhat al-Nusra, the official al-Qa'ida affiliate and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, formerly al-Qa'ida in Iraq – against whom Blair is warning the world. They now control an area the size of Britain in north and east Syria and north and west Iraq and can operate anywhere between Basra and the Mediterranean coast of Syria.'

 Cockburn does what he accuses Blair of, but in reverse, against the Sunni Muslims who have risen in revolt in Syria.

 'Blair appears to agree with the Sunni conspiracy theory whereby Shia movements in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain, Lebanon and Yemen are delegitimised by referring to them as "safavids" who act as pawns of Iran and have no communal interests of their own to defend.'

FSA strikes jihadist-held stronghold

 'Syrian rebels launched their biggest offensive yesterday against thousands of jihadists in the north who have used terrorist tactics and imposed strict Islamic rules on minorities.

 About 1,500 members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) were involved in the push towards the city of Raqqa, which is controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis), according to an opposition spokesman.

 At least five villages in the province of the same name were seized and eight Isis militants killed, Omar Abu Layla said. A few FSA fighters died when a car bomb detonated...'

The Rise of Islamism

 'Each time there is radicalisation it is a response to the actions of the state.'

 There's also a bit where one speaker describes how after Assad Senior had massacred 20,000 Muslims in Hama, "they went street by street, woman by woman, taking off their headscarves. A policeman took off my mother's scarf, and danced on it. She could never look her children in the eye again."

 I also watched Dateline London*, where the Israeli journalist mentioned Obama's abandonment of the Syrian people when he allowed Assad to cross red lines with impunity. When they got on to the subject of Tony Blair's call for an alliance with Putin against Islamism, Abdel Bari-Atwan bemoaned the destruction the West had wrought on secular states like Iraq and Syria.
*http://www.bbc.co.uk/…/episode/…/Dateline_London_26_04_2014/]

'The chaos continues' in Syria

 “The lack of support for the FSA is a factor that led to the increased presence of Al-Qaida, and the Syrian people will hold the international community in general and the U.S. in particular responsible for that result,” Muhannad Ali said. “What happened is we have the FSA fighting on two fronts against the regime and Al-Qaida, and this is what hindered the revolution.”

Robert Fisk, Seymour Hersh and Syria

 Yassin al-Haj Saleh:

'By methodically ignoring the Syrian people and by focusing on Al Qaeda, Robert Fisk and Seymour Hersh have done us all a huge disservice. The perspective on Syria portrayed by these writers is exactly the view of Syria that Bashar Assad wants the rest of the world to see.'

When even the Co-op wants to break ties with you

 'Blair declares that we should back Putin, be thankful we invaded Iraq, and bomb Syria.'

 Mark Steel yet again ignorant about Syria. As Sam Charles Hamad pointed out a few days ago, Tony Blair now openly pro-Assad: "Syria. This is an unmitigated disaster. We are now in a position where both Assad staying and the Opposition taking over seem bad options. The former is responsible for creating this situation. But the truth is that there are so many fissures and problems around elements within the Opposition that people are rightly wary now of any solution that is an outright victory for either side. Repugnant though it may seem, the only way forward is to conclude the best agreement possible even if it means in the interim President Assad stays for a period." [http://goo.gl/gogBvI]

Syria Civil War Forces Brutal Split in Aleppo

 'Several industrial zones housing mainly garment and textile factories had sprung up all around this northern Syrian city, located a mere 40 miles from the Turkish border. In the eyes of the European Union, it was a gateway for greater economic cooperation with Syria.

 But those hopes—along with a boom that brought a face-lift to Aleppo's historic center as well as some new luxury boutique hotels—have gradually turned into a nightmare. The initial shift was when the impoverished and less developed countryside, which supplied much of the labor for the factories, rose up in solidarity with other parts of Syria against Mr. Assad. Peaceful protests, including in some working class sections of the city and at universities, were brutally suppressed by hired thugs on the payroll of some businessmen, say residents.'

Assad's strategy & why exposing his crimes is so critical

 'The children need to get back to being children and the refugees need to be able to go home. This requires not the end of the uprising, but its successful conclusion. People vested in the revolution understood that even when victory seemed remote, as it did in the beginning.

 Others, less personally involved, especially the broad mass of people in say, the United States, that haven't paid close attention and just know something very ugly and terrible is happening in Syria, may well settle for any outcome that just makes it go away, even if that means the same violence is going on at night and behind "detention center" walls.'

Police make Syria plea to UK Muslim women

 'David Cameron said: "We are very concerned as a government and as a country about the threat of terrorism coming out of Syria. And so what we are doing is trying to prevent people from travelling there." '



 On last night's Sky Press Preview:

 Anna Botting: "But won't some of them have gone to fight Assad?"

 Stig Abell: "Yes, but there are some bad moral choices on both sides of the civil war in Syria."
He's the managing editor of the Sun. The organ through which Rupert Murdoch has influenced British politics for three decades. If there are any Western-backed rebels in Syria, it isn't from that part of the ruling class, that is happy to spread the lie that those fighting oppression are like the torturers.

 As with the David Wearing piece in the Guardian* recently, in isolation, telling young men not to go to fight in Syria is not a bad thing. By and large, they do as much harm as good, and if they end up with an Islamic group fighting against the revolution rather than Assad, they are not helping at all. But much of the media narrative is designed to discredit the cause of overthrowing Assad. Referring to all those going to fight as jihadists. Claiming that there would be a problem of them being 'radicalised' and coming back to Britain to blow themselves up.

 One newsreader made the obvious point about this latter claim, "won't they have been radicalised before they go?" There was a woman from the Charity Commission on saying that there is no need to go to Syria, because they could donate money instead, and said in a confused manner that 87% of aid was getting through to people who need it. The truth is that aid is not getting through, because Assad is allowed by fear of Western intervention to pursue a policy of starving and brutalising civilians in Syria, that the only way there is going to be peace and a return of refugees is when the rebels get sufficient weaponry to defend civilians against the depredations of the régime, at which point it will have a short life expectancy, as its strategy will have failed.
*[http://www.theguardian.com/…/british-jihadists-playing-into…]

We cannot still ignore the perils of intervention

 'In Syria for instance, the US and its allies have been claiming for three years that the real representatives of the Syrian people are discredited but well-financed exiles who dare not visit either government or rebel-held areas.'

 I was expecting to want to explain again how we should unpack the word 'intervention', as it is being used by the enemies of the Syrian revolution to make the token threat of airstrikes or the provision of weapons to the Free Syrian Army elide into a rerun of the Iraq invasion, but this prompts me to go: just fuck off. The Syrian opposition leadership suffers from many of the problems of those who don't actually have the power on the ground, but the idea that they are out of touch while Assad has the support of the Syrian people is an insult to those he is bombing.*

 Nader Atassi suggested that Assad's re-election slogan should be, Because Syria Won't Barrel Bomb Itself.

 Quickly flicking back to Cockburn's piece, I see this, and snigger at his friends on the Left, or what used to be one,

 'By accepting as legitimate a government in Kiev installed by direct action, the US and EU irresponsibly destabilised a tract of Europe.'
*[http://eaworldview.com/…/syria-daily-regime-barrel-bombs-a…/]

Lessons of fear and freedom in Syrian schools

"The revolution has shattered this lens through which the regime had conditioned its people to see it and the world, and a return to the unconditional support Assad had once succeeded in instilling is far from likely."

Chlorine gas dropped by helicopter

 'Opposition activists in Syria have accused the Assad regime of dropping chlorine gas bombs on a town in a rebel-held area of the civil war-torn country.

 It is claimed that helicopters dropped the poisonous gas on Kfar Zeita on 11 and 12 April.'

Review: Return to Homs

 'Death is frequent in the fighting. Many are injured, including Basset and Ossama. Ossama appears more visibly traumatised by his ordeal, but all the young men are affected. Despair and desperation creep in, how can it not. They have gone from being labourers, blacksmiths, factory workers, teachers and footballers, to fighting one of the most brutal and totalitarian regimes of the modern age, with a massive imbalance in firepower and support. And yet they keep fighting. And singing.

 Basset is still in Homs. Still fighting under siege. Still trying to liberate his country. Orwa Nyrabia, the film’s producer, commented after the film screening, “There is a Basset in every town in Syria. I speak to many of them regularly, but the media does not talk to them or about them.” Orwa stated the mainstream narrative, that it is the regime versus Islamic fighters, is false, that the vast majority of those fighting are moderates, but they receive little or no coverage. This must change. But it will require action, action which has not been taken by many.

 Orwa remarked during the Q&A, “When the West threatened to attack the Assad regime, which did not actually happen, tens of thousands marched around the world. When the regime used gas on Ghouta, and killed 1,500 people, not a single march was held anywhere.” Alongside the brutality of the regime, this memory will linger for a long time, the lack of aid given by much of humanity and its progressive forces to the Syrian people.

 All progressive and anti-war activists must feel a deep shame at the lack of support for the Syrian Revolution which has left it isolated and battling the world superpowers alone. This feeling should be used to motivate, not as an excuse to ignore what is happening. There is much we can do, if we are willing to spend the energy.'

Azmi Bishara on the Continued Barrel Bombing of Aleppo

 'It shames humanity that an entire people are abandoned to face the most brutal forms of oppression and slaughter, that the tyrannical regime which they face is supported by global and regional powers. In the broad daylight of the twenty-first century, they face bombardment and displacement and forced starvation, all on their own. On top of this, everybody under the Sun gives them instructions on how to behave.

 Those abandoned to their own fate cannot be blamed for what they do to protect their lives and dignity; only those who stand by these people, in deeds and not only words, have the right to criticise and advise and suggest alternatives to them.'

The conflict in Syria is still raging

 'The way that Western leaders have washed their hands of Syria, having decided that they don’t like rebels after all, is almost breathtakingly cynical because countless people who have nothing to do with al-Qa’ida or its affiliates remain locked into a revolt that has had the carpet pulled from under its feet.'

 There are some problems with this piece, the idea that Western leaders encouraged the Syrians to revolt, when they would have preferred some sort of coup, and the minute there was an armed revolt the story was that we didn't know who these people was, and had the Arab Spring turned sour with this turn to violence. And, "they forgot to factor in Plan B: what if the Assad regime declines to fold, or if a democratic revolt against the regime morphs into a sectarian crusade?" suggests that the West was serious about arming the rebels at some stage, that it wasn't the almost complete lack of arming that encouraged sectarian groups on the rebel side, omits the sectarian crusade already being spearheaded by Hezbollah to ethnically cleanse Sunni villages.

 But the headline is at least shifting the debate onto the need to address the conflict, rather than to pretend that "intervention" is a route to an Iraq-style invasion. It would be nice if this gives solutions that empower the Syrian people a chance to be heard.

Anxious time for Syria's Christians

 This report was introduced on the News channel with, 'Syria's Christians are being increasing targeted', and it is not true. Assad deliberately bombs civilians, this is a much smaller, and somewhat indiscriminate response, which has now been condemned by many of the major rebel factions. Lyse Doucet talks about the Jesuit priest who has now been killed in Homs without hinting that his opposition was to Assad. The idea that when one mortar round falls, "there is no peace now, just daily violence," is utterly disproportionate to those Syrians, mostly Sunni Muslims, who are being killed and starved. There is one line, "Syria's Christians say they are not the only ones being targeted", which could point to the reality, but it here just enables the BBC to cover all bases.

Bombs and ballots

 'Bombs and shells are not the only ways in which the Damascus government is ratcheting up the pressure on the rebels and on the civilians who live, most of them not by any conscious choice, in rebel areas.'

 This suggests that most people are indifferent to the choice between the régime and revolution and it is not true. When you live in fear of torture or bombs you aren't free to express that choice, and the barrel bombs are because Assad has no chance of winning hearts and minds.

 'The countries helping the rebels need to reconsider their options. They could shift the military balance by giving the rebels more weapons or by using western air power. They could go on to try to revive the so far barren diplomatic process. Or they can accept that the Syrian government is going to achieve some kind of victory.'

 Only option A is a solution.

Non-Intervention in Syria Was a Grave Mistake

 'Horrors of this sort would not have come about had Britain and her allies intervened when the biggest rebel forces belonged to the Free Syrian Army.'

 I don't think any military action is better than none, but the belief that we should stop intervention at all costs was always going to mean intervention would happen anyway when the destruction had become much more severe.

Why Assad can have confidence in his survival

 'Equally, military victory by the fractious and feuding rebel groups is now a distant dream. Some of their regional backers may still want it, but the Western powers which pull many of the strings behind the scenes never did anyway.'

 So the Western powers don't really want to support the rebels, I'd agree. That a flow of arms could not change things now when it could have before, I don't agree. That as the situation gets worse, it isn't possible that they will be forced to do the right thing, I don't agree. And to claim that Assad remaining is a feasible alternative I don't agree, because the impossibility of his ever ruling over most Syrians means every day he remains, he kills more Syrians and makes more flee the country, because that is the only war he can fight.

 'That crisis [Ukraine] has given the Russian President Vladimir Putin strong motivation to assert himself against the Americans over Syria rather than go along with them.'

 Or the Russians don't need to fight on a second front.

 'But in the absence of those conditions [opposition unity but exclusion of Jabhat al-Nusra and the like], it is hard to imagine the Americans and others giving the green light for a serious infusion of the kind of quality weapons - such as MANPAD anti-aircraft missiles and much more - that the rebels need if they are to stand a chance of tilting the balance back in their favour.'

 Maybe when Assad has massacred another few tens of thousands the calculation will change again.

 'Once the heat is off, there may be a reckoning from elements currently loyal to the leadership who have paid a high price for its brutal blunders.'

 This is wishful thinking from Jim Muir. Such a palace coup would continue the régime of torture without Assad.

Kidnapped French journalists released 10 months after abduction in Syria

 'The objective of Isis is to establish an Islamic state in the land it controls in northern Syria and is often in conflict with other rebels as well as the government.'

 The last part is not true, they are rarely if ever in conflict with the government, their headquarters in Raqqa is never bombed by Assad's airforce, which has civilians to drive out of the country. Hopefully this is a result of ISIS' weakening, and there will be more to follow.

Peter Oborne has been a fan of Syria’s genocidal dictator for some time

 'That Peter Oborne has been a fan of Syria’s genocidal dictator for some time is clear... Oborne suspects that some of the accounts of the government’s dreadful atrocities “have been exaggerated”; would that include the evidence of the Assad regime’s systematic mass torture and starvation until death of over 11,000 Syrian men, women and children?..

 It is outright dishonest of Oborne to claim that “jihadist groups make up the opposition” when the Free Syrian Army, formed initially by brave defecting soldiers who refused to carry out Assad’s orders to kill their compatriots, is the only force actually fighting the very jihadists of ISIS who the Assad regime never attacks...'

More Regime Chemical Attacks in Hama Province on Friday?

 'Footage has also been posted of suffering infants.'

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL6CGoyF8YQ]

 Anyone who mistakes this for the stories of Iraqis ripping babies from incubators in Kuwait in 1991 is doing these actual victims a disservice.

Ukaine and Imperialism

 'Syria remained a key Russian ally. Russia had troops stationed in Syria, and supplied Al-Assad with weapons to put down the revolution. At this point, the Stop the War Coalition argument that “the real enemy is at home” slogan was appropriate ceased to be a principled anti-imperialist position, and became nothing more than apologism for Putin’s Russia and the regimes he supports. This is not internationalism, as the real enemy for the people of Syria was not the US, but Al-Assad and the Russian state backing him.'

US Ambassador Power slams ‘industrial-style slaughter’ in Syria

 Samantha Power says what is happening, and Fox News reports it, while much of the Left buries its head in the sand.

'She described the photos of Syrian prisoners as showing “systematic, industrial-style slaughter and forced starvation killings” – photos which, she noted, were from just three of the 50 Syrian-run detention centers. “And to that we can add the Syrian victims of chemical weapons attacks, the children felled by barrel bombs and those being starved to death in besieged towns and villages, or those executed by terrorist groups.” '

The one certainty about Syria's looming election

 'The number of Syrian refugees is now close to nine million, more than six million of whom remain internally displaced in opposition-held areas, with little chance of getting to a government office to register, even if they wanted to.'

 I'm reminded of this: 'Dall'Oglio warned that ''let's imagine for a second that, even with the decisive help of Christians, the regime manages to crush the revolution. We can predict there will be some 500,000 dead and 10 million refugees. What remains of our Christian testimony? Even if Christians were to return - an unlikely prospect - to Syria, what would we go back to doing after having accepted such a genocide?'' '
[http://ansamed.ansa.it/…/Father-Oglio-book-the-Syrian-trage…]

Brighton teenager Abdullah Deghayes killed in Syria

 "He couldn't sit still watching the news of the gross injustice taking place in Syria. For Abdullah it was not enough to just donate money or baby milk, he felt he needed to do more."

Why does the mass media ignore mass murder in Syria?

 'One of the best indications this is the mainstream media's policy came this week when the Syrian government and the Syrian opposition traded accusations over who was using poison gas again in Syria. This should be a big news story for the mainstream media but it has raised hardly a murmur.

 The media paid attention to Syria as never before after the 21 August sarin attack because it involved Obama's called bluff and it showed the bodies as never before. As if a hundred thousand people had not been slaughtered already by non-chemical means, the media jumped all over the chemical attack as though it was a fetish. The shameless pro-Assad forces in the blogosphere took up the defense of Assad as if proving he didn't do the sarin attack was the same as exonerating him of mass murder. Even while the media failed to report on Assad's continuing siege of Ghouta, using both bombardment and starvation as weapons, they gave coverage for everybody's opinions and findings on the chemical attack.

 There can be little doubt that there have been new chemical attacks in Syria, since both sides agree there have been. While they both predictively point the finger at get other, if the reports that the gas bombs there dropped out of helicopters are accurate, there can be little doubt that those were Assad regime helicopters. Given the history of coverage on the chemical question in Syria, one would expect reports of a new chemical attack to break through this news blackout.

 Why hasn't it?'

Syrian rebels warn of potential Homs massacre as regime troops advance

 "The regime has reduced what was the soul of the revolution to rubble and ruin. The international community must watch to ensure the regime does not massacre the remaining brave people left in the Old City."