Two British men admit in court to planning terrorist acts

 Fighting a dictator is a terrorist act.

 'He described the case as "grave", and told the court that together Ahmed and Sarwar had "carefully planned a journey from the UK to Turkey and on to Syria to join Islamist rebels fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad".'

Obama caves to conventional wisdom on Syria

 Fareed Zakaria is wrong. And it isn't the conventional wisdom, it was the elephant that hasn't got into the room for the last two years.

 'The Obama administration’s decision to seek $500 million to train and fund elements of the Syrian opposition has been greeted with bipartisan support in Washington. The general consensus is that, if the administration had done this three years ago, the situation in Syria would not have turned into a sectarian civil war. But this conventional wisdom is wrong.'

 The proposal isn't to Do Something, it is a concrete proposal to arm the rebels.

 'The administration is caving in to the classic Washington desire to “do something” in the face of a terrible situation without any clear sense as to whether it would improve things or make matters worse.'

 Radical Christians like John Brown and Thomas Jefferson have been the core of the American Revolution from the very beginning, centuries ago.

 'In fact, radical Islamists have been the core of the opposition to the Assad regime from the very beginning, decades ago.'

 So the régime has always been quite murderous.

 'An armed Islamist insurgency killed more than 300 supporters of the regime in Aleppo alone. Assad, in turn, ordered crackdowns that killed some 2,000 Islamist opponents.'

 So the régime has always been quite murderous.

 'They opened the gates of a cell block for us. Six or seven of us entered and killed all those we found inside, some 60 or 70 people in all. I must have gunned down 15 myself. ... Altogether some 550 of those Muslim Brother bastards must have been killed.'


 So the régime has always been quite murderous. The New York Times* gives figures of 90 dead and 135 injured for that Damascus bomb. Wikipedia** gives estimates of between 10,000 and 40,000 for the Hama massacre. I would think it more appropriate to call Assad's the terror campaign.

 'The Islamists’ terror campaign spread, moving even to Damascus, where in November 1981 they exploded a car bomb in the city center that killed 200 people and wounded 500. Then, in 1982, came the uprising and the gruesome massacre in the town of Hama, where between 10,000 and 20,000 people — including women and children — were slaughtered by government troops.'

 Since then the régime has tortured, raped and murdered in exponentially increasing quantity as people have risen in revolt against it. The Muslim Brotherhood seemed to have given up the thought of armed resistance and came late to the revolution.

 'Since then, the regime has organized itself for war against the Islamists and they, in turn, have been preparing for opportunities to wage war against the regime.'

 Divided by Orientalists who think Syrians can only be defined by their sect. There was no insurgency before 2011, so any opposition funding is a little irrelevant. There has been limited support for those fighting for their lives in Syria since then, nothing compared to the thousands of Iranians and Iraqis and shedloads of weaponry that have gone to support Assad's war on Syria.

 'By the late 1970s, it was already divided into camps, largely defined by Islamism and sect. Outside powers in the Middle East — Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran — have been funding, arming and training militants on both sides.'

 Because there has been no reliable source of arms for the Free Syrian Army, it has been up to brigades to fend for themselves. There are tens of thousands of fighters who still see themselves as FSA, or belong to groups that are moderately Islamist, but these are invisible to Zakaria. There were none of the radical groups a couple of years ago, and if the FSA had got or does get the weapons it needs there would be no need for them now. And the foreign fighters with the Islamic state that isn't part of the rebellion against Assad are mixed in with the rest.

 'Today, according to James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, there are about 1,500 separate insurgent groups in Syria, with between 75,000 and 115,000 insurgents. In addition, there are 7,500 foreign fighters from neighboring countries. The strongest groups are all radical Islamist — the Islamic State, Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra.'

 Remember that if the FSA doesn't get any arms, there is no way an exiled opposition is going to exercise influence over them, or over those looking for actual assistance in fighting Assad.

 'Remember that neighboring powers, like the Turkish government, spent months trying to establish a moderate Syrian opposition. I met with some of its leaders in Istanbul in 2012. They were genuinely liberal and democratic people. Unfortunately these people barely had contact with, let alone influence over, the actual groups fighting in Syria.'

 Finding moderate insurgent groups is going fine so far.***

 'But now, Washington is going to “vet” this vast, dispersed opposition of 1,500 groups and find moderates. Good luck.'

 Dumbass. The Islamic State doesn't fight against Assad. And a change in Damascus has been America's stated goal, but it actions have been far more to preserve Assad up to now.

 'The complexity of Washington’s task can be seen in the American attitude toward the Islamic State. When the group battles the Maliki government in Iraq, it is a deadly foe and must be ruthlessly attacked. But when it crosses the (now-nonexistent) border between Iraq and Syria and battles the Assad regime, it is aligned with America’s stated goal of regime change in Damascus.'

 They fought Assad to a standstill, with light weapons against tanks and helicopters. Anti-aircraft weapons would have stopped the Syrian bombing, and meant there would not be millions of refugees. Only massive foreign assistance has saved the régime so far, it would be gone if there was any sort of equivalence in war materiel.

 'With this history in mind, it is difficult to believe that three years ago a modest American intervention of arms and training would have changed the trajectory of events in Syria.

 But can anyone now believe that a modest American intervention is going to find genuine democrats in the maelstrom, help them win against Assad and also the radicals, and stabilize Syria?'

 The help - the word intervention blurs the line between an invasion and empowerment through arms and training - might need to be greater now that America has sat on its hands for so long, but it is ironic to deny Syrians a future because you don't think they can be proper democrats.

 'But can anyone now believe that a modest American intervention is going to find genuine democrats in the maelstrom, help them win against Assad and also the radicals, and stabilize Syria?'

 No.

 'Or is Washington’s new activism more likely to throw fuel onto a raging fire?'
*[http://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/01/world/death-toll-in-syria-explosion-put-at-90-killed-and-135-hurt.html]
**[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Hama_massacre]
***[http://eaworldview.com/…/syria-9-insurgent-groups-us-made-…/]

UN report on children in Syria paints picture of ‘unspeakable’ horrors

 'Detailing the detention of children as young as 11 years old for alleged association with armed groups by Government forces in large-scale arrest campaigns, the report says they were ill-treated and tortured to extract confessions or humiliate them or pressure a relative to surrender or confess.

 “Ill treatment and acts tantamount to torture reportedly included beatings with metal cables, whips and wooden and metal batons; electric shock, including to the genitals; the ripping out of fingernails and toenails; sexual violence, including rape or threats of rape; mock executions; cigarette burns; sleep deprivation; solitary confinement; and exposure to the torture of relatives.” '

On an English road trip with Syria’s artists

 Robin Yassin-Kassab:

 'So the Syrian revolution is alive and well in Bristol if not in Bradford, for this is where the revolution happens first, before the guns and the political calculations, before even the demonstrations – in individual hearts, in the form of new thoughts and newly unfettered words. Syria was once known as a “kingdom of silence” in which public discourse was irretrievably devalued by enforced lip-service to the regime and its propaganda pieties. As a result, many Syrians describe their first protest as an ecstatic event, a kind of rebirth.

 Ossama Mohammed’s story The Thieves’ Market concerns a woman who attends the state’s official demonstrations, until her friend is murdered for participating in an oppositional one. “I grew up,” she says, “came of age, abandoned someone and was abandoned, on a march that finished yesterday.” When that coerced march ended and a thousand new ones began, Syrians found unprecedented liberation simply by expressing honest opinions in the presence of their neighbours, by breaking the barriers of fear.'

U.S. Ignored Warnings Before ISIS Takeover of a Key City

 'The American-supported Free Syrian Army was forced to withdraw from a key city on the Iraq-Syria border last week after its pleas for help went unanswered by the United States.'

 Not that American-supported.

 ' “[The U.S. officials] showed an understanding of the situation but there was no movement at all,” the commander of the FSA battalion near Der al Zour told The Daily Beast in an interview. “There’s no clear American position in that part of Syria. We told the Americans we are going to fight ISIS and ISIS is close to us, but they did nothing.” '

Today's example of Assad's support for Islamic State

 'Dawud Brigade swore allegiance to the İslamic State and conveyed the fighters and ammunition from the town of Sarmin in the countryside of Idleb province to IS- held areas in the province of Al Raqqa, where a military convoy of more than 50 vehicles were seen carrying fighters from Dawud Brigade and passing near the city of Saraqeb. The convoy was going towards the provice of Al Raqqa through the road located between the two towns of Athrayya and Khanaser which is held by the regime forces which were able to target the convoy and prevent it crossing the area but they did not do so.'

Airports face chaos

 'The Islamist Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate involved in fighting with Syrian rebels to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, is also thought to be plotting an airliner attack, according to intelligence reports.'

 I doubt this. Who would benefit from such an attack? Bashar al-Assad, who has always tried to present those fighting him as terrorists, not those trying to see the back of him. I noticed a terrorism expert repeat this on the BBC just now, so it seems like mainstream opinion.

Palestinians and the Assad regime

 'Even the craziest of the extremists will not be able to torture a human being every day for twenty years just for being a Baathist and follower of the party in Baghdad; or for being a young Muslim Brotherhood member; or a communist belonging to the Riad Al-Turk group; or a Christian of the "Arab Socialist Democratic Union" headed by Hassan Abdel Azim; or any of the others who represent all of the political spectrum in Syria.

 On what basis does Bashar Al-Assad's regime deserve and get praise from Palestinians? The answer may be overly naïve and tested by events: it is, we are told, to protect Palestinians in Syria. This is flawed reasoning; exempting Palestinians from being killed like their Syrian brothers is not a solution for the situation in Palestine. In any case, look at what has happened to the Palestinians in Yarmouk refugee camp and in the regime's prisons where they were killed.


 Despite the huge tragedy of the Palestinians, some attributed the atrocities, or their causes, to the existence of armed opposition in the camp, even when it was clear that Assad's army was behind them. Discussions with Palestinians displaced from Yarmouk or any other refugee camp reveal the truth, while those who are sympathetic with the regime back its version of events even though they know that it lies about everything."

The Danish gangster who turned jihadi

 "We have to stop the Syrian army or we'll have more massacres like in Daraya."

Assad’s ‘Machinery of Death’ Worst Since the Nazis

 “There is a point when you just can’t look the other way.”

Let's not follow 'Syria model' in Iraq

 'Speculation varies from direct, if limited, US intervention in Iraq and remote support for government institutions and their security services to confront terrorism, maintain security and stability in the country and avert regional war.

 Strangely enough, these options didn't come up following the ISIS attacks in Syria. No one offered to support the Free Syrian Army (FSA) against ISIS even when the FSA battled and pursued ISIS, which was expelled from vast regions in northern Syria only to make up for it by occupying other Syrian regions. All these events occurred in plain view of the West, and the United States in particular. Even more strangely, this terrorist organization is not regarded as dangerous in our country even though its circumstances in Syria and Iraq are similar, perhaps even more favorable to it in Syria than in Iraq.'

Russian Syrian Secrets

 'A year ago it was believed that the Syrian Air Force was in very bad shape. It had suffered major losses since 2012, as the aircraft and helicopters were unleashed on rebels (and civilian supporters) and took a beating from the rebels.

 Desperate times demand desperate measures and in the by early 2013 even the MiG-29 fighters were seen dropping bombs. These are the most modern aircraft Syria has and their pilots were trained to fight Israeli jets, not bomb civilians. But a village or city neighborhood is hard to miss, even for a rookie.

 All Syrian aircraft are showing their age, except for the MiG-29s, which were relatively new and now we know that the Russians were refurbishing them. Lack of money has meant few flying hours for air force pilots and not enough money to keep all aircraft flyable even before the revolution began in 2011. Fuel and spare parts were even more expensive after that (because of sanctions) and the air force had a hard time dealing with the payroll and the expense of running (and defending) its bases. But all that seems to have changed in the last year and that is largely because of massive Russian assistance to the Syrian Air Force. In addition to fuel and spare parts, the Russians appear to have put technical people into Syria to help with maintenance, upgrades and training. A number of Syrian Air Force personnel were sent to Russia for training. A year ago it was not the beginning of the end for the Syrian Air Force but the start of a Russian financed and supplied revival.'

Help the Syrian rebels that America has forsaken

 Mohammed Ghanem:

 'Though more outgunned than ever, these rebels rely on motivation — that secret weapon of Syrian farmers, dentists and students — to bring victory despite impossible odds. They shouldn’t have to.

 President Obama recently announced a $500 million “train-and-equip” program for moderate Syrian rebels, and this is most welcome. But rebels might be long gone from eastern Syria before the program clears Congress. Commanders tell me that the weapons most needed are what the United States has already provided on a very limited basis, such as TOW missiles.

 If the president is serious about stopping ISIS, let alone aiding moderate Syrian rebels, he should use his executive authority to get these weapons now to the farmers, dentists, and students of eastern Syria.'

Juan Cole turns to the Dark Side

 Clay Claiborne:

 'Even when the regime answered the people's demands with gunfire and they formed up for self-defense under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, it was formed as a national revolutionary army not a sectarian militia.


 Just as the revolutionaries know that sectarian divisions deny them a progressive future, the regime knows that emphasizing and inflaming these divisions is the key to its victory. So at the same time that state TV was saying that the protests were organized by religious fundamentalists and foreign infiltrators, the regime was paying as much as $500 a month to those posting sectarian graffiti. “The Christians to Beirut, the Alawites to the grave” was one of the more common ones. As Assad was claiming his enemies were all terrorists, he was letting jihadists out of jail so they could form the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. He needs jihadists as his arch-enemies. In the beginning Syria had none, so the Assad regime helped to create them by giving amnesty to terrorists, supplying them, funding them, failing to attack them, and sending state security officers to lead them. You should be aware, if you aren't already, that Bashar al-Assad plays a mean underhanded game. Not everything that appears to be from the opposition is from the opposition.



 As the body-count climbs and conflict drags on, the regime's attempts to inflame sectarian passions has met with some success and as a result the prospects and morale of the revolutionary forces have been greatly eroded. This does not mean the main struggle in now between Assad and ISIS because they are flip sides of the same coin, secular vs. fundamentalist fascist dictatorship. ISIS arose out of Assad regime and NATO-Russian-Iranian imperialist policies. Their whole existence and operations have been in support of the Assad regime. It is not surprising that Assad gave them safe-haven in Raqqa and refused to attack them for so long. Now Juan Cole has fallen so completely into Assad's trap that he would have us believe that the main thing is to not let ISIS win. Not so. ISIS can only make gains within the chaos of this war and with the connivance of the regime. The main task of the Syrian people remains the one they set for themselves in 2011, the downfall of the regime. The Assad regime must be swept away entirely before freedom and justice can reign in Syria.



 Juan Cole doesn't say much about this struggle for freedom and justice. He prefers to frame the struggle in Assad-friendly sectarian terms. His piece is peppered with phrases like "moderate Sunni oppositionists", "Sunni Syrian fighters", and "Sunni opponents". He never speaks of a non-sectarian or non-Sunni opposition to Assad. He begins:



 The Obama administration’s fruitless search for effective Sunni “moderate” fighters in Syria continues, with the announcement of a $500 million grant to them for training and weaponry.
This begs the question of whether they have really been looking for fighters to support and it also introduces another of Juan Cole's repetitive themes, namely that the current struggle for a democratic Syria is hopeless. He is a total defeatist with regards to a positive outcome for Syria in the near term. He is resigned to a Syria run by war criminals, either the jihadists or the fascists and in that case he favors Assad. He sees "no moderate Sunni oppositionists" and what he does see is "highly unlikely to defeat ISIS." '

Life in a war zone

 'Shells are dropped by planes, snipers shoot from a nearby tower, rockets are launched from a mountain top. Abu Yahya won't be moving away, though. First, he can't afford to, and second, why should he? Jobar is his home, he says. The whole neighbourhood is pro-Free Syrian Army, and the regime is aware of that. "They are giving us a very hard time," Abu Yahya says. "There is another district next to us that has also sustained heavy shooting, and they get very heavy shells. They are called elephants shells because they are so big. There is a mountain in Damascus and from here we can see all the artillery piled up there."

 He says he is not a political man – never has been. "I have no business with politics and politicians. I am just a peaceful man. I want to work to earn my living and take care of my children." But he is proud to be part of the uprising. He calls it "the revolution against injustice".'

Assad’s forces accused of using chlorine gas against rebels despite pledges to give up chemical weapons

 'The Obama administration has not decided what action, if any, it might take in reaction to the preliminary evidence cited by the OPCW.'

 I'm guessing no action.

A unique anthology of the uprising in Syria

 'When I talk about the Revolution or the uprising it’s not only an uprising of people against the government, but also a revolution on many levels. Before 2010 some opinions were a luxury. People were not even courageous enough to write stuff against the government. For example, if you talked about a news anchor that you didn’t like you might have ended up in prison because you don’t know who he is, or who he knows.

 The Revolution shattered these boundaries because the response at the beginning against the demonstrators by Bashar Al Assad and the army was horrific. The people were not asking for a change in the regime, they had modest demands, but the first response was the killing and shooting of people, hunting them down on the streets.

 When you start at that level then you don’t have anywhere to go. The people are not going to have anything more valuable than life to lose so, in a way, they stop being afraid because the ultimate thing that could happen to any human being happened on that first day. There is nothing worse that could happen to them.'

UK planned to train and equip 100,000 rebels

 'The international community did not intervene to prevent those crimes and at the same time did not actively support the moderate elements on the ground.

 A huge opportunity was missed and that opportunity could have saved tens of thousands of lives actually and could have saved also a huge humanitarian catastrophe.'

Assad and the myth of the lesser evil

 Bente Scheller:

 'In Raqqa, the only provincial Syrian capital in which ISIS is the sole power, the army didn't hit ISIS' easily identifiable headquarters. This location was formerly the seat of government in Raqqa, so the army should have been more than familiar with its coordinates. Instead, the strikes occurred nearby.

 Assad's choice to give up Syria's northern border, in particular, was what made it possible for large numbers of foreign fighters to flood into the country. In establishing his own militias, he forfeited the state's monopoly on the use of force. The West's reluctance to put its weight behind the political opposition and bolster the Free Syrian Army at the right time opened up the field for extremist forces and their supporters.

 ISIS can pay salaries, distribute food and, in Raqqa, buy acceptance by providing electricity and taking on all the other usual functions of a state.

 By contrast, that was never possible for either the Free Syrian Army or for the Syrian National Coalition in Istanbul, because both oppositional groups lacked the funds that would have enabled them to take a similar course - not to mention the fact that the regime continued to make air strikes even in regions it had long since lost to the rebels. The sole purpose of this was to prevent state-like structures from forming there. That has turned northern Syria into a patchwork in which various local authorities have small areas of control.

 Assad has never given any reason to doubt that he's not concerned about Syria, only about himself. Right at the start of the revolution, in the first few months, his troops would spray graffiti in the places targeted by their wrath that read: "Assad or we'll burn the country to the ground." This is indeed the approach he has consistently implemented ever since.'

US Senator McCain meets Syrian rebels in Turkey

 Al-Qaida emerge to give the senator his instructions.

 'We need a strategy that can force al-Assad to leave power and defeat ISIL in both Syria and Iraq, and that strategy should start with greater support to these Syrian opposition forces, especially vital military training and assistance, such as anti-armor and anti-air capabilities and support for creating a safe zone in Syria.'

Syria rebel groups seek aid to fight IS jihadists

 'Our popular revolution (against Syrian President Bashar Assad)... is today under threat because of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), especially after it announced a caliphate.'

Destination Syria with Catrin Nye

 'The British Government has told its citizens not to go to Syria. The country has been in a state of civil war for more than three years, more than 150 thousand people are believed to have been killed and the war has attracted hundreds of British fighters. The UK authorities argue that Brits may be radicalised by what they see if they go to Syria and that even charity workers could get caught up in terrorism if they go. The UK government has threatened to seize the passport of anyone ignoring these warnings. But some British Muslims are going anyway.""If a Muslim goes to Syria to fight against a barbaric regime, against a dictatorship that is killing innocent men, women and children, they are not terrorists, they're heroes. And if anybody thinks anything else, then they don't understand the situation. Or they are choosing not to understand the situation.'
[http://www.theguardian.com/…/british-muslims-aid-syria-refu…]

Rebels Worth Supporting: Syria's Harakat Hazm

 'Harakat Hazm formed in January 2014 via the merger of twenty-two separate rebel units. According to its founding documents, it is a "revolutionary political organization with a military wing...working to bring down the regime in Syria and seeking to restore the freedom and dignity of the Syrian people." There is very little Islamist content in these documents or the group's various Internet postings. In general, the movement appears more interested in warfighting against the regime than the infighting that has long plagued the political and military opposition.'



Note 24/3/25, Hazm were often accused by other rebels, like Jabhat al-Nusra, of providing their location to the Americans who would then bomb them.

The Shady Syrian Oligarchs Who Keep The Regime Afloat

 One reason Assad can't go on forever.

 "There's almost not a single dollar legally going into the state's coffers," says a former close friend of the al-Assad clan. "The oil wells are now under the control of the rebels or of the Kurds. People don't pay their taxes anymore, nor their water or electricity bills. All the regime has left to pay the civil servants' wages are its schemes and direct aid from Iran and Iraq."

Old certainties turned upside down in Middle East

 Corey Oakley:

 'Throughout the three-year civil war in Syria, there has been a fierce debate on the international left between those who backed the uprising against Bashar al-Assad, and those who either defended the regime, or at the very least refused to back the opposition on the grounds that Assad was part of an “anti-imperialist bloc”.

 For leftists in the latter category, like Counterpunch writer Phil Greaves, “imperialism” simply means the US and its Saudi and Israeli allies. Syria, Iran and even Russia, whose strategic interests brought them into conflict with the US, are portrayed as playing a progressive role, or at best a benign one.

 This is the logic that convinced many to rail against “imperialist intervention” in Syria at the slightest whiff of mostly non-existent aid from the US to Syrian rebel forces, while at the same time explaining away the very real imperialist intervention into the war by Iran and Russia, which has played a decisive role in propping up the Assad regime.

 Events in Iraq over the last month leave such “anti-imperialist” fantasies in ruins.'

Syrian ‘moderates’ aren’t so moderate in Iraq

 'FSA – briefly beloved of John McCain until he discovered a pro-al-Qa’ida fighter sharing a photo-op with him in northern Syria – has decomposed.

 Its men have gone home, switched to the bearded Islamists of the Nusrah or Isis – or Isil if we heed the latest acronym – or re-deserted to the government army and taken up arms for Assad again. Some freedom fighters! They weren’t given enough weapons, we are told. Now they’ll get more. And no doubt sell them – as they did the last lot. For it is a sad fact of war that whenever a gun crosses a border, it represents not loyalty but cash.
Give an FSA man – if you can find one – an anti-aircraft missile and it will be sold to the highest bidder.'

 Multiple lies from Fisk here.

 'The Syrians have a suspicion that this is Obama’s half-baked plan: to arm the anti-Islamist Syrian rebels to fight the pro-al-Qa’ida rebels and thus – indirectly – keep both the Assad and Maliki regimes in power.'

 What a load of bollocks. 'The Syrians' here might mean Fisk's friends in the régime propaganda machine. There has been a lot of suspicion that Obama was happy to leave Assad in power, but the idea that funding the FSA is a means to do so is Alice in Wonderland territory.

Association of Syrian Journalists Eulogizes the Death of Mohamed al-Khatib

 'The Assad regime is trying through this brutal clampdown on journalists to break the will of their pens and to choke their words. Al Khatib spent two years and a half in Assad’s prisons, with no apparent charge but that because he tried to convey the truth and the voice of the Syrian people. He is not the only one to pay his live for speaking up against the Assad regime, as hundreds his colleagues are still jailed by Assad and are subjected to all kinds of torture.'

Rebels Drive ISIS out of Abu Kamal, Deir Ezzor

 'A bomb exploded in the town of Enabahin rural Deir Ezzor, killing three civilians and wounding five others. Rebels clashed with ISIS militants in the towns of Abu Kamal and Baghouz, alongside regime’s bombardment. Regime forces carried out air raids on the town of Aqidat, killing two people and wounding others.'

A member of Hezbullah drops a barrel bomb onto Syrians below

 'A member of the sectarian militia Hezbullah poses inside an Assad helicopter before he drops a barrel bomb onto Syrians below.'

Are the Obamanite Isolationists Happy Now?

 'It’s no use relying on the Assad regime to tackle ISIS. Bashar Assad is the cause of ISIS, not the solution to it. Today, the regime has an entire division holed up in its base in Raqqa, said division having done crap all while the group terrorized the city.

 Regime forces have time and again been able to move supplies and reinforcements close to or through ISIS lines to other parts of Syria. The group’s positions have been spared air attacks from the regime’s airforce, even as nearby rebel hospitals and bakeries are bombed.

 ISIS prisons hold not a single regime soldier, but are overflowing with rebel activists and fighters. ISIS reserves its suicide car bombs exclusively for rebel positions, and has proven more effective than the regime in assassinating rebel commanders.

 The moderate Syrian rebels are the antibiotics to the disease that is ISIS, Hizbollah, Iranian influence and above all else the Assad regime. which would be happy to have the chaos it created exported to the rest of the world. The world is well within its rights to take whatever measures it deems necessary to tackle Assad’s efforts to spread his particular brand of mayhem.

 If “dont do stupid shit” is indeed the mantra by which Obama runs his foreign policy, then by now even he has to admit that imposing a blanket embargo on military aid to the Syrian moderate groups has proven to be some very stupid shit. America’s regional allies that have wanted to support the rebels have been prevented from doing so by the Obama arms embargo.'

Division is no solution

 'The emergence of ISIL in Iraq should be understood against the backdrop of the American inaction in Syria over the last few years. Had the American administration supported the Syrian revolution from the get-go, radical groups would not have come to the surface in the first place.'

Bashar al-Assad's interests and the west's coincide over Iraq

 Dreadful article calling for tacit cooperation with Assad.

 David Wearing:

 'And if uncoordinated and informal but nevertheless complementary moves from Syria, the US, the UK and Iran can serve to cauterise the wound in Iraq in a way that all sides feel serve their respective interests, then there is no reason why such tacit cooperation shouldn't take place.'

 Based on the acceptance that Syrians can't do anything for themselves.

 'But one explanation for the Atlantic powers' failure to intervene more forcefully in Syria – as they certainly could if they wished – is the fact that, in their view, there is no such viable alternative available. It is Isis and other jihadi groups that are seen as best placed to exploit the weakening or toppling of Assad, not those forces preferred by the west.'

 Playing down the cooperation between ISIS and Assad as best he can too.

Orlando Bloom Visits Syrian Child Refugees

 'He held his 4-year-old son's arm in the air and said, "My son is going to fight for the revolution when he's old enough." '

The struggle against the 'multi-sided' counterrevolution

 Michael Karadjis:

 'In Syria, this consists of all the armed manifestations of the Syrian revolution, from the secular Free Syrian Army (FSA, based heavily among the Sunni but not entirely, including some Alawite and Christian brigades and officers), moderate Islamist groups like the Mujahideen Army in the north and the al-Ajnad Union in the south, the Islamic Front, a loose coalition ranging from moderate to hard-line Islamists, and Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), the official wing of al-Qaida in Syria, which however is markedly less hard-line than ISIS since their split in May 2013. While a favourite western media discourse is “rebel in-fighting,” in reality this does not exist at all; rather, all these forces act in unison in their war against both the Assad regime and ISIS; it is the war of all of them against ISIS that wrongly gets labelled this way.

 These two struggles are related but different. The Syrian struggle began as a multi—sect democratic uprising which however has tended to become more Sunni in composition largely due to the class realities in Syrian society; the Iraqi struggle is explicitly Sunni against an explicitly Shiite-sectarian regime, and evolved out of a nationalist resistance to US occupation. The more advanced sectors of the Syrian revolution still hope to win non-Sunni support for a rising against then regime, no matter how unlikely that may now be; by contrast, the Iraqi revolt only aims to liberate Sunni regions – the ISIS-led attempt to conquer Shiite-dominated Baghdad or any other Shiite region would by definition by a reactionary and sectarian action.'

A hard sell

 'Washington’s inclination is instructive when considering Syria. The longstanding White House position has been to call for preserving Syrian “state institutions” – meaning, the regime’s army and security services. That is because, as US officials have repeatedly made clear, they do not wish to see an outright rebel victory, as that would lead to a jihadist takeover. In fact, some voices, likely reflecting certain White House preferences, have even counseled pushing the rebels to partner with Assad to fight radical groups. In any case, the White House has insisted on a negotiated settlement with the regime, and that is because it does not see the opposition as a viable partner, even if only to take on jihadist groups, the administration’s only priority in Syria.'

Zealous but untrained

 'Months into the revolution in Syria, for example, some of the Arab and international media started to alter the terminology used to describe the situation. Instead of referring to “revolutionaries” they started talking about the “armed opposition,” a term that may be thought to give some kind of legitimacy to the regime’s brutality as it equates the victims with the aggressor.

 The term “Syrian Revolution” has also sometimes disappeared from the international press, having been replaced by the “conflict in Syria,” another demotion in the ongoing campaign for freedom in the country. On more than one occasion, the international media, whose reportage has often been quoted extensively in the local media, has depicted the battles in Syria as a sectarian conflict – thus demeaning the original goals of the revolution.

 Neutrality, as much as it is needed in all reporting, has been twisted in this way, allowing the brutality of the regime to turn into a run-of-the-mill battle against rebels intent on bringing down the system by force instead of through the peaceful means of the ballot box.'

White House requests $500 million to aid Syrian rebels

 'Since nearly the start of the Syrian civil war more than three years ago, hawkish Republicans in Congress have urged the White House to take action against Assad, with Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) going as far as to travel abroad to meet with rebel fighters overseas.'

 The bastard.

 Brian Becker, national coordinator for the anti-war ANSWER Coalition, conflates the actual rebels in Syria with ISIS and openly defends the Assad government.

 'They’re saying they demand unity in Iraq behind the central government, which is fighting what they call Islamic extremists from ISIL or ISIS, and yet, at the same time, they’re funding these same armed groups in Syria to take down an independent, nationalist and sovereign government in Syria.'

Syria Speaks: Arts and culture from the frontline

 'Four decades of rule by the Assad family has wreaked untold havoc on Syria and its people: dissidents describe horrific methods of torture and claim that the testing of chemical and biological weapons on political prisoners was routinely practised by Syria’s Air Force Intelligence.'

Beware the game of shadows in Syria

 'The Syrian regime has been playing a game of shadows in which this covert collusion with the growth of Isis has been used to undermine the democratic opposition and strengthen its own claim to be a bulwark against "terrorism". To accept Iran – and by implication Bashar al-Assad – as allies in the fight against Isis is to fall for this decepti

on.'

Caught Between ISIS and Assad

 The conflict in miniature, if 20,000 people starved by their government can be described
as miniature.

Molly Crabapple:

 'Bab al Salam houses 20,000 refugees, mostly women and children.
Under dusty tarps, these refugees live in horrid conditions. Barefoot kids play next to
rivers of sewage. Preventable diseases flourish. The Turkish government gives out two
meals a day, but the United Nations High Council on Refugees does nothing beyond
providing some of the tarps. The Assad government has forbidden them from giving aid
to opposition areas.

 The Saudis and the government of Qatar are showier, flaunting their generosity with
branded tents. “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Gift to Humanity,” one read. The Gulf
states fund fighters—their charity is marketing.

 In this wasteland, young people like Yusuf are trying to cobble together a future. Before
the war, Yusuf was a year into an engineering degree. When the revolution hit, his father,
a higher-up in the Syrian army, defected. I asked Yusuf why he had joined the revolution.
“They were killing women, killing children,” he said.

 Yusuf works under the banner of the Islamic Front, an alliance of more or less religious fighting
groups. The Islamic Front has successfully pushed ISIS out of much of northern Syria, including
Azaz, where the Bab al Salam camp is located.'

Barack Obama Swept Aside The Entire Free Syrian Army In One Sentence

 'As The Institute of the Study of War detailed last year, the FSA drew on Syrian Army defectors to create a clear structure that gave it “the potential to serve as a check on radicalization and help to assert a moderate authority.”

 The real problem, according to Tabler, was that “as assistance didn’t arrive, the defectors became disheartened so not sure where they all are at the moment.”

 For the last two years, the main criticism on Obama’s policy toward Syria has been that the “United States, rather than read the signals early on and arm the Syrian opposition when it was making substantial gains, allowed a vacuum to form and then fretted when that vacuum was filled by jihadists.” '

Assad forces avoid ISIL strongholds in Raqqa

 'At least 15 civilians were killed and several others were injured on Wednesday in the city of Raqqa during an unprecedented aerial bombardment by the Syrian air force.

 The city is for more than a year controlled by the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), however the strikes of the pro-Assad air force were only limited to residential neighbourhoods in the city.

 Observers stress that the Assad regime avoids targeting ISIL strongholds in Raqqa.'

Obama turned out to be Judas Iscariot

 'It wasn’t circumstances that prevented Obama from helping the Syrian people against the regime’s genocidal slaughter; it was policy. A hidden policy in blatant contradiction to the Obama administration’s public statements and stated intentions. For years, Obama told America’s allies one thing, while deliberately planning something entirely different.

 A British government does not lose their party members’ support for a three line whip without very dire consequences either for the government, or the rebellious party members. One or the other usually goes.

 Except, apparently, on that vote on August 30th 2013, when a considerable number of Conservative MPs not only were absent from the vote, but actually voted against the government. The next day, it was business as usual.

 What is in dispute is that David Cameron ever intended to win that vote. The aftermath of a defeat on a three line whip are usually dire for all concerned. But in retrospect, it would seem that Cameron got exactly the vote he wanted. The rest is history, and Bashar Assad was allowed to get away with the worst single atrocity of the 21st century.

 It would be a waste of time to point out all the problems with Judas Obama’s statements that there was never a rebel force capable of overthrowing the regime (really Barry? then why does Bashar desperately need the help of his sectarian terrorist friend Hassan Nasrallah to mount any offensive), or that “teachers and dentists and farmers” make bad soldiers (then go disband your National Guards, and demobilize your men and women serving in the reserves. And eliminate your fucking Reserve Officer Training Courses you clueless community organizer).'

Syria’s moderate opposition is the only option

 'Why haven't the moderate ones won the war, and why does Obama think they are incapable of defeating Assad? It's because they're deprived from everything - from obtaining advanced weapons, having safe border zones and from recruiting inside refugees' camps. In addition, Russia and Iran are helping their enemy, the Syrian regime, and are providing it with weapons, food, information and funds.

 President Obama must accept the truth that Bashar al-Assad's regime is incapable of staying in power no matter how much support he receives from the Iranians, the Russians and others. Assad represents a very small minority. He's become wreckage breathing with an external lung.'

On ISIS and Iran

Robin Yassin-Kassab:

 'Now that ISIS has supposedly taken over vast swathes of northern Iraq (in reality, ISIS is a small minority of the Sunni Arab forces that have risen against the Malki government), the newspapers are full of articles telling us that the West should align with Iran to defeat the common foe. Of course, Iran’s sectarian and aggressively expansionist policy in both Iraq and Syria is a major contributor to the rise of ISIS and similar groups. Working with Iran against ISIS is as intelligent as working with Hitler against anti-Semitism. I discussed the issue with Hayder al-Khoi and Jeremy Paxman on the BBC’s Newsnight.

 I don't think there should have been sanctions on Iran in the first place, but it does seem very upsetting that there is a rapprochement at this moment; when we have this problem with ISIS, which to a large extent has been caused indirectly by Iranian policy, both in Syria, where Iran has got militias on the ground, and it's supporting the régime which is slaughtering the people, and in Iraq itself, where it's encouraged the most sectarian instincts of the Maliki government.

 What we've seen in Iraq is not the success of ISIS, which is a weak group, it's the failure of the Iraqi state, and of course the collapse of the Syrian state. Iran, along with other countries too, but Iran is very complicit in that collapse in both countries.

 So I think it would be, maybe in the short term, beneficial, to deal with Iran. I can see why people want to, because Iran has an organised military, and it's an organised country, and they could go in , they could establish order if they wanted to in Iraq. In the medium and long term, it's a disaster, because Sunni Arab communities are going to be more enraged, and maybe the sectarian backlash will become bigger if they see Iran walking over Syrian and Iraqi sovereignty...

 It's important to stress something that people don't normally realise, that since January - it was a grey area in Syria which side ISIS was on - since January there is no excuse for that greyness, because all of the Syrian opposition groups, the Free Syrian Army, the Islamic Front, even Jabhat al-Nusra (the Victory Front, which is al-Qaida linked, it is an extremist jihadist group); all of these groups have been fighting against ISIS. So ISIS is a common enemy of everybody, it seems, but it's been helping Bashar al-Assad, really.

 He's been producing the chaos in which ISIS thrives. He's been following a scorched earth policy in Syria. Any part of the country he can't control, he's been devastating, from aerial bombardment, and other means, sieges and so on. That means there are massive refugee flows out of the country, it means there are no schools, no hospitals working, no economy going. Into this chaos, it is very easy for -and sometimes with the help of neighbouring states, we were talking about Turkey earlier - jihad tourists, psychopaths and nihilists to come in. They came into Mali, they were in Iraq before, the people drove them out, it's got so strained in Iraq they've now been able to come back in. These people come wherever there's a chaos. Bashar al-Assad has created a chaos in Syria by committing a near-genocide, and a massive ethnic cleansing. This revolution in Syria started, and for many people continues, as a revolution for democracy and freedom and freedom of expression. It wasn't sectarian for the whole of 2011, and then under the strain of Assad's war, it began to be...

 I think making a deal with Iran is the wrong idea. certainly, pressure the Saudis and other Gulf countries, make them pressure the private donors, who may very often be important people, to stop donating, they're not helping the Syrians. Even the Syrian Islamists don't want these ISIS people there. They are obviously not helping the Iraqis, they're confusing the issue, and making it more difficult for Sunni Arabs to get their rights.

 I'm happy to see Obama saying he's not going to take action until Maliki changes his approach on the Sunni Arab issue. I hope he's also leaning on the Iranians, ' OK, we need your military security help to face this monster that has just exploded', but the reason this monster has just exploded is because of the sectarianism of the - democratically elected - Iraqi government, and because of the genocide going on in Syria, which Iran is supporting, which is radicalising Sunni opinion around the world.'

ISIS’s Violent Extremism Has No Place in Syria

 'The Free Syrian Army’s opposition to ISIS has not been matched by the Syrian regime. On the contrary, Assad and his loyalists have not merely ignored the threat posed by ISIS, they have actively exacerbated it.'

MPs’ letter on Assad’s sham election, and on military aid to moderates

 I met Kellie Strom over the weekend, and was very wary of him, as I'd seen him write stuff about the Middle East before that I disagree with to say the least*. But if the Syrian revolution has driven many who opposed the Iraq war into dishonesty and denial because they can't see a progressive movement that isn't against the US, it has left some coming from the opposite direction supporting a struggle that really is a people's uprising against a Russian and Iranian backed dictator. Good for these nine MPs.

 'We commend the Friends of Syria for pledging to increase support not only for the Syrian Opposition Coalition, but also for its “Supreme Military Council and associated moderate armed groups”. The Assad regime will not countenance a political solution while it continues to believe it can win militarily. It is therefore vitally important that more military support, within the known constraints, is given to the Free Syrian Army (FSA), thereby forcing Assad and his backers to accept a political solution.'
*[http://airforceamazons.blogspot.co.uk/…/comparing-israels-o…]

Washington and London Ignored Warnings about the ISIS Offensive in Iraq

 'As the Syrian civil war intensified, the Assad regime that ISIS was supposed to be fighting adopted a strategy that actually helped spur the group’s extraordinary rise. When ISIS started gaining strength—along with a reputation for beheadings, crucifixion and other barbarities—the manipulative Assad was careful not to target it. ISIS also turned its guns on other less radical rebel groups.

 Meanwhile, indirect assistance from the Assad regime came in many forms—from buying oil from ISIS-controlled wells in eastern Syria to relatively mild air strikes against ISIS compounds in contrast to the pounding other rebels suffered.

 At the start of the uprising against his regime, Assad released hundreds of jihadist detainees from Syrian jails, a move that has prompted moderate Syrian insurgents to charge that ISIS is in league with Damascus and that the terrorist organization was “regime-made” and “inserted into the body of the revolution,” all part of an effort to poison the insurgency and allow Assad to argue he was fighting extremists.

 As the Syrian civil war intensified, the Assad regime that ISIS was supposed to be fighting adopted a strategy that actually helped spur the group’s extraordinary rise. When ISIS started gaining strength—along with a reputation for beheadings, crucifixion and other barbarities—the manipulative Assad was careful not to target it. ISIS also turned its guns on other less radical rebel groups.

 The West fell deeper into the trap benefiting both ISIS and Assad by refraining from assisting the moderates “even when the latter confronted the increasingly powerful ISIS on the battlefield,” argues Murhaf Jouejati, a Mideast expert at the National Defense University.'

Refutation of Mother Agnes Mariam’s narrative on Syria

 'The view that "the majority of anti-Assad fighters in Syria are foreign" is presented as "widely accepted", yet all reputable media outlets like The Financial Times and the BBC regularly report that whilst there are indeed now many foreign fighters inside Syria, they began in small numbers and only started expanding a year after the uprising began. Even now they account for less than 25% of the total opposition. Assad himself has of course brought in far greater numbers of foreign fighters – from the Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard - to defend his own regime, but no mention is made of that.'

O'Donnell's good question and Obama's bad answer

 'From the very beginning the only military help the Syrian opposition needed or asked for was help with weapons, ammunition and supplies. They have been adamant that if they had the weapons they could do the fighting, no foreign boots needed, no thanks, and if they were allowed modern anti-aircraft defence systems, they could enforce their own 'no-fly' zone.

 The capture of Raqqa by ISIS represented a turning point in this conflict. Even at that late date, had the moderate rebels received adequate support in their struggle against the ISIS for Raqqa it is likely they wouldn't be leading the capture of Mosul and threatening of Baghdad in Iraq today.

 Obama's promise to attack Assad and failure to follow through was to weaken the FSA and to strengthen the Islamic extremists like ISIS.'

Syria air raids kill 16 in area seized by jihadists

 'Air raids killed 16 people in Syria's Deir Ezzor province Saturday, most of them people gathered at a mourning tent for rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) officers murdered by jihadists, an NGO said.'

 Air raids by Assad's forces. Against the same Syrians ISIS has been fighting all year, while ISIS have been fighting against Assad not at all.

Obama: Notion that Syrian opposition could have overthrown Assad with U.S. arms a "fantasy"

 What he actually did is get the CIA in Jordan and its Jordanian clients to stop heavy weapons getting to the Free Syrian Army. That's why they can't defeat Assad and ISIS, though they chased the latter out of Aleppo and fought the former to a standstill, so his disparagement of the FSA is uncalled for. It is telling a lie with the truth, if you just handed over water pistols, that wouldn't defeat Assad either. Hopefully this is a sign that there is pressure to actually arm the FSA.

 "When you get farmers dentists and folks who have never fought before going up against a ruthless opposition in Assad," Mr. Obama continued, "the notion that they were in a position to suddenly overturn not only Assad but also ruthless, highly trained jihadists if we just sent a few arms is a fantasy. And I think it's very important for the American people - but maybe more importantly, Washington and the press corps - to understand that."

Iraq Crisis: ISIS Terrorists were Trained by US in 2012 for Syria Conflict

 And the bullshit begins:

 'As per several corroborated reports, hundreds of ISIS militia were indeed trained by US instructors for covert operations to destabilize Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, though the training was strictly for Syria.'

 What reports?
 What operations?
 Who was trying to restrict the training to Syria, and how did they hope to achieve this?

 'Back in February 2012, WND had reported that the US, with the help of Turkey and Jordan, was running a training base for Syrian rebels in the Jordan. German weekly Der Spiegel also confirmed in 2013 that the US was still training Syrian rebels in Jordan.'

 Not actual reporting, just relaying the stories of spooks, possibly Syrian ones.'Several knowledgeable Egyptian and Arab security officials claimed the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels.' And rebels, not ISIS.

 'The report noted that the organizers of the training wore US Marine uniforms, and the training focused on the use of anti-tank weaponry. The ISIS terrorists, who now hold almost the entire north of Iraq, have quite effectively neutralized most Iraqi tank battalions put against the invading forces.'

 This must be it. Someone might have had some anti-tank training. ISIS, or someone in Iraq, stopped some tanks from an army that was running away from the . Bingo! It would be funny how pathetic this is if it wasn't important.

 'The German magazine had also reported that the US would be training a total of 1,200 members of the Free Syrian Army in two camps in the south and the east of Jordan.'

 Again, the Free Syrian Army, not ISIS. Do all Arabs look alike to these writers?

 'A USA-ISIS tie-up is plausible, considering the fact how the CIA was responsible for the strengthening of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.'

 So the US has collaborated with radical Islamists, so we can infer anything. 9/11 an inside job? Entirely plausible. Kidnapping Nigerian schoolgirls? The CIA's fingerprints are probably all over it. I choose not to live in this conspiracy wonderland, however engaging and reassuring it might be.

How Syria’s Assad Helped Forge ISIS

 'From the first days of the revolution (in March 2011), Assad denounced the organisation as being the work of radical Salafists, so he released the Salafists he had created in his prisons to justify the claim ... If you do not have an enemy, you create an enemy.'