The killing of a soldier and his six-year-old son paints a chilling picture of Syria’s war

 'By chance, among the military mourners was Colonel Omar Shaaban.'

 I wonder if he is any relation to Bouthaina Shaaban, the régime's chief propagandist. This is like stories about cycling that ignore the hundreds mown down by car drivers, to focus on one pedestrian who stepped out in front of a bike.

The General’s View

 How low Fisk has fallen. He gives a coded message to his left wing readers that he's not totally taken by the general, "And that, of course, is exactly what the British Army used to say in Northern Ireland when it was also searching people's homes." But it is just a thin veneer over his peddling of every lie the general tells. And there must be a foreign conspiracy against Syria because Robert Fisk has seen Belgian weapons in government hands in Aleppo. He is no longer a journalist, unlike those his friends in the Syrian government have kidnapped and murdered.

The West's kneejerk peaceniks have some explaining to do

 I'm uneasy about the politics of condemnation, and while Bloodworth may be opposed in legacy to the Iraq war, many of those he has politically associated with were gung-ho then, lending credibility to the peaceniks' justification for their cautious approach. Mind you, this is bang on, and a truth often deliberately hidden.

 'This isn’t "collateral damage" either, to use the ugly euphemism. This is the result of a deliberate war being waged against the civilian population of Syria by the thuggish Ba’athist regime. The Syrian government’s position is to make life for those living in opposition areas as difficult as possible. This is why it has been bombing and shelling civilians, denying them access to UN-ordered cross-border assistance and blocking vaccination efforts in opposition held areas.'

Daraa province locked in stalemate

 'In February, as rumors circulated that Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and others would redouble efforts to arm Syria’s rebels with heavier weaponry, local groups announced a slew of unifications. But thus far, says Bardam, rebels are still waiting.

 “Obviously, the main reason [rebels have yet to advance] is that no new weapons have arrived,” he said.

 Instead, they make do with what they can make or capture. Rebel groups “have what are considered ‘individual weapons,’ in addition to whatever they can capture from regime forces,” he said.'

Syria’s secular uprising has been hijacked by jihadists

 'Why has the Syrian uprising, whose early supporters demanded that tyranny should be replaced by a secular, non-sectarian, law-bound and democratic state, so totally failed to achieve these aims?'

 Because Assad has plenty of weapons, but only the Islamic factions have had a regular supply of weapons. Cockburn continues the fantasy that the solution is to end the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Peace will come when Assad is gone, but that's not on Cockburn's agenda for Syrians at all. At least he's not among the genocide deniers, though his use of the kidnap of Razan Zaitouneh to discredit the whole idea of armed resistance is unreasonable.

Ordinary people remain the real victims

 This is a nasty piece, writing off the rebels as "hate-filled fighter(s)" and "various groups that want to kill each other".

Desperate children pretend they go to school, says Latakia housewife

 'This year, we reopened a school with the help of the rebels after the regime destroyed all the schools in our area.'

Syrians must not let the extremists undermine their revolution

 'The negligible support that moderate rebels received from the international community, often in the form of nonlethal aid such as communications equipment and night-vision goggles, at a time when Gulf donors were busy supplying cash and weapons to more extreme factions, proved another crucial factor in the ongoing marginalization of moderate elements from the scene, allowing for the effective hijacking of the revolution by extremists.'

WH orders Syrian embassy and consulates shuttered

 'It’s possible that this report from UN human-rights investigators could have prompted this, but it’s just as condemnatory on Assad’s enemies as the Assad regime.'

 It's not actually. ISIS have committed lesser crimes than Assad, and against actual rebels, not against Assad.

'Jihadist rebels have carried out mass executions of detainees in Syria, UN human rights investigators say. The commission of inquiry’s latest report documents several incidents blamed on the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Government forces are meanwhile accused of sharply increasing their use of indiscriminate weapons, such as barrel-bombs, against civilians. …'

 This is on point though:

 'Some might find it a surprise that we still have diplomatic relations at all with Assad, but that’s been a relic of the initial conclusion by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that Assad was a “reformer.” Even after demanding Assad’s resignation, freezing his assets, and threatening to bomb Assad’s forces for crossing the “red line” of chemical-weapons use, the US and Syria have maintained diplomatic relations. Suddenly closing off consular services seems like small potatoes in comparison.'

Syria: The Battle Beyond

 'Educated, middle-class Syrian exiles share their thoughts on the revolution and their determination to return home.

 "I talk a lot about Ghouta because I love it." '

Revolutionary Left Current in Syria: Establishment of the “People’s Liberation Faction” to commemorate the third anniversary of the Syrian Revolution

 'We see that our revolution is part of the struggles of the global toiling masses, of the oppressed and of the marginalized everywhere for freedom, equality, social justice and socialism. We see it in the struggle of the Palestinian people to recover all its land and rights, in the struggle of the peasants without land and labor in Latin America, in the strikes of the miners in South Africa and in other countries, in the struggle of the masses in Europe against neoliberalism and capitalist globalization, in the struggle of the oppressed workers of Southeast Asia, in the struggle of women for their rights and equality throughout the world...

 The time has come, at that particular moment of the revolution, for the revolutionary left current to play its role in the popular armed struggle through the establishment of the People’s liberation faction without giving up for a single moment all forms of peaceful mass struggle that allow us to confront both the violent fascist regime and the reactionary counter-revolutionary forces. This is the road for the victory of the popular revolution, in rooting its nature in democracy and socialism from below, in defending the immediate and general interests of the popular classes, in securing the independence of the will of the people from any imperialist or regional intervention from any foreign power, and in recovering our occupied territories of the Golan by all means possible.'



Note 4/3/25, their armed group was stopped at a Jabhat al-Nusra checkpoint in Aleppo, refused to surrender their arms, lost one of their members in a firefight, and disbanded.

Syrians mark uprising anniversary with arts festival

 'Matar acknowledged the risk of holding public events in a town that still comes under shelling, but said the festival was an important "demonstration from Syrians to the world that the revolution is still a revolution".'

Why Yabroud Fell

 'Russia, which is now occupying parts of Ukraine, has torpedoed every effort by the international community to prevent "foreign intervention" in Syria, the type of foreign intervention that is unpalatable to Western leftists and not to be confused with the foreign intervention of Russia in Ukraine or Iran in Syria. But that is alright because the West is backing these rebels according to the conspiracy theorists, and they are being told to cut off people's heads and incite sectarianism, not the sectarianism of a regime that shells mosques and slits the throats of children in Sunni villages.'

Britain to tackle big rise in Syrian refugee girls forced to marry

 We could provide refuge and jobs. Crazy idea I know. I don't know how true these figures are, but I know that the reason there are millions of refugees is because Assad is deliberately making them so to stay in some sort of power. And Britain appears to be doing nothing to change that. There was a guy on Inside Syria on al-Jazeera who suggested that sanctions against those with banking links to those fueling conflict now being considered over Russia's actions in Ukraine could be transferred to the Syria situation. There is a question of hypocrisy, Cameron was just this week promising to defend Britain's arms exporting business.

How Syria’s rebels lost the plot

 'The higher profile of the jihadists was much in the interests of the government, which had long claimed that the opposition was dominated by al-Qa’ida (true to the spirit of Middle East conspiracy theories, the opposition then claimed that Isis was in league with the government, asserting, against much evidence to the contrary, that the Syrian army and Isis seldom fought each other).'

 Cockburn and Assad are the conspiracy theorists. Cockburn has claimed consistently that the insurgency was predominantly Islamic radicals fighting a sectarian war (on behalf of the West and the Gulf Co-operation Council, of course) all along, whatever the evidence to the contrary. On the other hand, there is ample evidence that the régime has backed away from any fight with ISIS [http://claysbeach.blogspot.co.uk/…/memo-isis-assad-regime-f…]

 'By the end of 2012 it was clear that the rebels could not win without full-scale foreign military intervention. But to many, this was not obvious at the time because government forces pulled back from outlying positions and concentrated on holding strategic areas. A problem for the opposition was that the whole purpose of their exiled movement was to provoke a Libyan-type intervention.'

 Two more lies, the rebels wanted arms to finish the job themselves, not to rely on a foreign invasion, and as they had fought the régime to standstill with virtually no weapon supplies, it is not at all clear that granting those requests would not bring an end to the war and victory.

 'Its main tactic is to seal off rebel-held enclaves and bombard them with artillery and from the air, so that people are forced to flee. This is hardly a way to win the hearts and minds of the population, but the rebels have not found an answer to it.'

They have, it's the anti-aircraft weapons that Cockburn denies would have any effect.

 'In Syria the opposition has already been fighting its own bloody civil war since 3 January. This tends to discredit all the armed opposition and is, in any case, unlikely to produce a clear winner.'

The rebels take on the al-Qaida elements, and they are simply discrediting themselves. Pathetic from Cockburn.

 'President Assad remains ruler of a ruined land and does not have the resources to win a decisive victory. But unless the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their allies are prepared to fight a long war in order to exhaust the government in Damascus, there is no reason he should not stay in power.'

Quite the opposite. As Assad can no longer rule Syria, he remains eternally a burden to his allies. It was suggested on al-Jazeera's Inside Syria today that the prospect of Assad re-taking the Qalamoun mountains and prolonging the war may finally induce the Saudis the provide heavy weaponry to the Free Syrian Army. It is to the world's shame that it is left to the most reactionary state to do the right thing.

Aleppo is now rubble, after waves of bombing

 'Nobody knows why the regime chooses this makeshift device – a crude container packed with up to half a ton of TNT and shrapnel – normally just unloaded from the back of helicopters. It may be it is running short of its Russian-made missiles, or that it wants to save them for military rather than easy civilian targets.

 But the group calculates that 4,000 people have been killed, of which 2,600 have been identified. Others, like Mr Ali's neighbours, were simply incinerated. At one point in January, up to 30 barrels were dropping a day. The suburbs hit are a roll-call of the poorer, Sunni Muslim districts, previously a magnet for people from the countryside seeking work.'

The revolution goes on until Assad is out

 'Even as the uprising turned into a popular revolution, and even as the brutality of the Assad regime increased exponentially, the Syrian people remained peaceful, waiting for the world to take action, for responsibility to protect to be applied by the international community. Syrians organized themselves into local committees, they established solidarity and aid networks, and they documented Assad’s savage repression by uploading thousands of documented films and photos on the Internet, waiting for help to come. But it never came.

 It was inevitable that Syrians would reluctantly be pushed into self-defense months later, joining thousands of heroic Syrian soldiers who had defected rather than obey Assad’s shoot-to-kill orders. Even though their light weapons were never going to protect them against Assad’s tanks, helicopters, jets and even ballistic missiles, all aimed repeatedly at civilians populations all over Syria, the Free Syrian Army valiantly tried to protect their compatriots and to defeat this bloodthirsty regime.

 Nothing could save them from Assad’s missiles and barrel bombs. Nothing could save them from barbaric torture until death in his dungeons. And nothing could save them from being gassed to death in their sleep when Assad unleashed his chemical weapons on them.'

Camp for Syrian refugees starts to look more like home

 ' "We took to the streets peacefully, calling for freedom, but the Syrian government responded with bullets," says Mahmoud.

 "We thought [the unrest] would last for a month or two, a year maximum, but it still continues until now," adds his friend, Jalaa.

 Many believe that without international military intervention to help the rebels fighting Syrian government forces, they will not be able to go back.'

The Conscience of Syria

 An Interview with Activist and Intellectual Yassin al-Haj Saleh:

 'When an armed structure uses the supposedly national army, media organs, and resources to kill its own people when they oppose its tyrannical rule—this can hardly be considered a sectarian conflict. We’re not talking about just any structure—we’re talking about the repressive state apparatus of the Assad regime. It thus becomes absurd to explain the Syrian struggle in sectarian terms. To the best of my best knowledge, states are not sects, are they?'

Syria Conflict: Who is in control and what is life like?

 The BBC ran a report last night on one of the kids whose torture for writing anti-government graffiti set off the revolution. He went to fight with the Free Syrian Army, and says there is no other option than the overthrow of Assad.

 You don't hear that much from the BBC, or the rest of the media. Introducing the report last night, the presenter said that "Fighting between government and rebels has ripped the country apart", as if they were equally to blame. A previous anchor yesterday had said, "It is a sectarian war, with an Alawite supported government agaainst Sunni rebels," when it is Assad's narrative that his enemies are all Islamic radicals rather than people struggling for dignity and the end of a torturous monarchy.

 There will be marches tomorrow on the third anniversary of the Syrian revolution. There was a debate in the British solidarity movement about whether to raise slogans of a No Fly Zone or against intervention. I think it's good that the latter in particular was defeated, as it has been one of the lies of this conflict that the danger was of the Americans reprising the Iraq invasion, rather than the real murder, chemical and otherwise, that Assad has inflicted with the help of Russia and Iran. I think the most important thing at the movement is unity in the fight against the dictatorship, and that we should avoid any split between those outside the organised left, who tend to reflect the enthusiasm for demanding the US do something of the majority of the refugees from Assad's terror, and the left now just getting involved, that from past experience feels like sticking in a demand that the West stay out as a precaution.

 I saw some of the former group suggest that they might bring placards calling for a No Fly Zone on the march tomorrow anyway. I don't think it's the best demand, partly because expecting more direct intervention isn't going to produce results when the West has been trying so hard to stay out of the conflict. I am in general in favour of the demand being heard. But while I think it is more the responsibility of the Left to appreciate what Syrians think, it would be easy for the different supporters of the Syrian revolution to get arguing with each other, and would rather nobody provokes a split unnecessarily.

Olly Lambert

 Newsnight had on Olly Lambert, he who made an eye-opening film about the aftermath of a barrel bomb attack in Syria, film from Eastern Ukraine. A couple of people explained that the main feature of their dislike of the EU and love of the Soviet Union was, "Boys going with boys, girls going with girls, gays. I can't tolerate their sexual orientation." I was half expecting the bloke to say, "I'm not gay, but if I absolutely had to fuck a guy, I'd fuck Vladimir Putin."

On the Third Anniversary of the Syrian Uprising

 ' "I was in a demonstration ... I started to whisper, freedom. Then I started to hear myself repeating, freedom, freedom, freedom. And then I started shouting freedom! I thought: This is the first time I have ever heard my own voice. I wanted to feel this freedom forever. And I told myself that I would never let anyone steal my voice again."

 The Assad regime responded with bullets.'

Assad: Russia restoring balance to world stage

 'SANA said the Russian delegation informed Assad he had been accepted into the Russian Academy of Sciences for having "strengthened Syrian-Russian relations." '

The man from Martyrs Avenue who became a suicide bomber in Syria

 'Back in Crawley, young people at the town's main mosque talk about Majeed's death.

 "Previously, suicide bombings have been targeting innocent civilians, like 7/7," says one prayer-goer, Zeeshan Hussain. "But as far as I'm aware anyone, no innocents were targeted [by Majeed]. Although you could question what he was doing, I wouldn't say he was terrorising anyone. The people who say it was an act of terrorism, who are they saying he's terrorising?"

 Many British Muslims share Hussain's view that Syria's jihad has blurred lines. Al-Qaeda linked groups are involved - but many people believe that the conflict is closer in character to the civil war in Bosnia. Some compare it to the Spanish Civil War in which international brigades of young men fought against General Franco.

 "My brother was not a terrorist. My brother was a hero," says Hafeez Majeed.

 "If I could put it like this, if my brother had been a British soldier and there were British people in that prison, I know he would have been awarded the posthumous Victoria Cross." '

Students commemorate three-year anniversary of Syrian uprising

 'Also known as the Syrian Civil War, the revolution began in 2011 when a group of teens and children were imprisoned and tortured for spray-painting anti-government graffiti. These events sparked nationwide protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which led to government violence on civilians.'

Inside a refugee camp in Jordan three years after the Syrian uprising began

 'All the people in Daraa are against the regime … the Americans should have helped our country from the beginning because this is a bloody regime. Everybody is under the direction of the Americans, so nothing happens until America does something … We hope to God we shall return. We don't want to be in the same situation as the Palestinians.'

The thousands missing or dead in regime custody

 'This time, however, they poured acid on my feet while I was hanging from the wall. The pain was beyond all description. I felt my heart would blow up at that moment.

 The third round of interrogation had a new method of torture, which was chaining my arms back to be lifted up. My arms were crushed together for 15 minutes. Breathing was almost impossible. My shoulders were dislocated.

 After 23 days, I was moved to a solitary cell. It was 180cm by 130cm but there were 14 detainees with me. A detainee would stand up to allow another to sit. I was sealed up in that cell for 43 days.

 Every 48 hours, we would have a piece of bread we couldn't even see. We were shut in, naked except for our underwear. It was January, freezing cold. We were sitting on a floor thickly covered with piss and dirt. I was interrogated only once within these 43 days but I would be beaten twice when I went to the loo.

 We were allowed less than 20 seconds: if you took longer, your torture would be atrocious.'

Assad sarin used in attacks

 'I have not heard of one action organize by the Left to protest the gassing of civilians in Syria, so I don't think there have been very many. What I have heard from the Left, when it was not silent on the sarin question, has been a fantastic defense of Assad in which they present one crack-pot theory after another about how the rebels gassed their own people, just as many of these same "leftists" are now asking us to believe it was snipers from the protest movement that were shooting protesters in Ukraine.

 The evidence of the Assad Regime's culpability for the use of chemical weapons was overwhelming even before this most recent UN report.'

Sarin gas probably government's, says UN

 'It is understood that samples from the surrendered sarin have been matched to samples taken in the days after the strike. Investigators also said that another chemical attack in Khan al-Assal, near Aleppo last April "bore the same unique hallmarks" as the Ghouta attack.

 The UN blamed the situation on a combination of government forces and non-state actors on both sides, including paramilitaries fighting alongside loyalist forces, and jihadist groups, who have been fighting with opposition militants.'

Syria's road to hell: A hair-raising journey between Damascus and Tartous

 'Yabroud, which is held by Jabhat al-Nusra, but mysteriously still has a large population of Christians who have not fled.'

 Al-Nusra aren't a nice bunch, but the mystery is why Cockburn is claiming that they are killing all Christians when it is not true.

The nature of war has changed, which is bleak news for Syria’s minorities

 Another pack of lies from Cockburn. [Also on Libya]. Isis are not dominating, they have just been thrown out of much of Northern Syria. They have much more in common with Assad than with those groups actually trying to overthrow him. They don't automatically kill non-Sunnis, they've been trying to collect taxes from Christians in their stronghold of Raqqa.

 'The jihadi groups that now dominate the armed opposition automatically kill non-Sunnis, who make up some 25 per cent of Syria’s population. In other words, at least five million Syrians have good reason to fear that they will be slaughtered if the rebels win the civil war.'

 He finally seems to have acknowledged that the government is killing more people - for months he claimed that SOHR figures showed the opposite. This is also not true:

 'The uprising of 2011 against President Bashar al-Assad was started by civil activists seeking an end to a cruel and corrupt authoritarian regime and the creation of a secular, legal and democratic society. But this option has long since disappeared, and for Western governments to pretend otherwise is to foster civil war rather than seeking to end it.'

Review: Return to Homs

 'He followed and documented everything: from lively protests, to civilians on the run from government grenades, to tanks annihilating rebel barricades...

 The United Nations makes an appearance, but with only six representatives to canvas the entire city of Homs in less than a day, their presence only highlights the rest of the world’s blatant inaction...

 Eventually, they dig underground tunnels, which take over three weeks to make, in order to avoid being shelled by Syrian forces. It goes without saying that such footage has seldom, if at all, made it to major media outlets...'

 The government are barbarians, who shell civilians to drive them out. That is why there are millions of refugees, that is why the Syrian government tries to kill those who report from opposition areas. This is the reality; not a civil war between two approximately as vicious sides, but an ongoing massacre by a tyrant.

Syrian Activist Forced From Hometown Pledges To Keep Publicizing Atrocities

 'The rocket strikes marked the start of Zakarya's evolution from just another Syrian nursing grievances against Assad into a tireless public opponent of the regime. He lived through the signature events of the war, from chemical attacks to forced starvation to complicated efforts to halt the violence. And like millions of others, the conflict would eventually force him into exile.'

12,813 women killed in Syria in three years

 'Most of the women lost their lives through attacks carried out by the Syrian regime. 483 women were shot by snipers, while 31 of them were killed by torture in the government's detention centers.'

UN human rights report shows Assad root cause of Syrian suffering

 'The report pays critical attention to the distinction between Syria’s mainstream opposition movement and extremists - who are exploiting conditions created by the regime. The Syrian opposition is actively engaged in military operations against extremists. The coalition, like the society it represents, is committed wholeheartedly to preserving Syria’s diversity.'

 You can obtain the report here:
[http://www.ohchr.org/…/IndependentInternationalCommission.a…]

Rima frontline is still holding

 '‪#‎Syria‬, ‪#‎breaking‬ the latest from ALQalamon battle: Rima frontline is still holding

 Anchor : Rebels captured areas at the outskirts of AlSihil and ongoing clashes at Rima outskirts.

 Q: what are the latest developments in Yabrood and AlQalamon ?
 A: Helicopter has dropped 2 TNT barrels on Yabrood specially the main market area, destroying entirely houses, and many casualties.'
[http://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/…/syria-breaking-the-lat…/]

Foreign Intervention In Civil Wars Discourages Democracy

 “Without foreign support, rebel groups have to depend more on the support of the people,” she explains. “The more the people are mobilized for the war effort, the more they will come to demand and expect changes favorable to themselves in the post-war regime. In turn, postwar political elites will want to meet these demands in some form in order to stay in power.”

 I was going to take the piss, especially as she is a professor of international affairs at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service [the A is for agriculture], but thinking twice it is a truth that the Syrian revolution is more imperiled by not being self-reliant. The headline I think has it the wrong way about, it is the dependence not the help that is the problem, it is the needing to rely on foreign arms shipments, not the arms themselves that those fighting for a free Syria have to worry about. And there is the confusing use of intervention as a catch-all term.

Hostage to politics: Syria’s prisoners

 Leila Al Shami:

'No ideology, no cause, no threat, can ever justify the inhumanity that has been meted out to the Syrian people by the Assad regime. Syria’s prisoners (and people at large) remain hostage to both domestic tyranny and a world that has abandoned them to their fate. Through acts of solidarity we can remind them that their courageous struggle, and their suffering, has not been forgotten. That the screams of the tortured do not fall on deaf ears.'

A Forgotten Revolution

 'The Syrian revolution was never deader than on the night of February 4, and maybe it was this non-event that made the Syrian regime feel invincible.

 And then the countryside, along with Syria’s regional cities, erupted in one of the most courageous displays of humanity seen anywhere in the world for decades.

 It’s easy to forget today, in the midst of news coverage about Geneva II and the growing power of foreign jihadists, that countless thousands of peaceful demonstrators swarmed Homs’ New Clock Square or that tens of thousands more marched through the streets of Deir Ezzor night after night during 2011, calling for the end of the Syrian government, for someone else to represent and serve them.

 Experiencing it first hand, Syria’s once-peaceful revolution was a beautiful thing, an exercise in utter courage, an education in the possibilities of the human spirit and a reminder of horror. Chronicling young Syrians bearing their chests, fully expecting death at any moment and displaying a level of bravery one is lucky enough to witness once in a lifetime, will live with me forever.

 Today, we do these young men and women—many of whom are now dead—a disservice, writing them out of history in favor of focusing on the subtleties of John Kerry’s latest comments.'

Time to stand with Syrians in fight for freedom, human rights

 “The cousins that I have that have been involved with the revolution and the Free Syria army — they were not terrorists, they were just college students and activist who wanted a free Syria where we could have Democracy and where human rights could be upheld,” Daboul said.

Anarchadia - Demoralize

 "Satanism and blood-sucking are just some of the things members of the Syrian metal band Anarchadia have been accused of. They self-define as anarchists and were among the first to stand up in support for public resistance against the Assad regime.

 Syrian metal music fan “Mounir” told Syria Untold:

 Rock and metal music, with its gloomy outfits, loud music and spiked bracelets, have always been deeply connected to rebellion, to revolution and raging against the machine. So the fact that Syrians who listen to hard music are mostly anti-regime is not a coincidence."

 [http://globalvoicesonline.org/…/the-soundtrack-of-the-syri…/]

Torture videos as strategy in the Syrian war

 'In Syria, the regime and Islamists publish videos demonstrably showing their human rights violations. Mid-East expert Bente Scheller of the Heinrich Böll Foundation explains the intentions behind this in a DW interview.

 Q. "You're saying the regime has also distributed such videos?"
 A. "Yes, we saw this in a truly bizarre form at the beginning of the conflict. There are countless videos available on YouTube that show members of the regime torturing people. At first, we thought that these films had been captured, for example, on the cell phones of regime soldiers who were arrested or killed. But that wasn't the case at all. Many of the videos were sold by the protagonists themselves, who were proud of being seen this way. There was clearly an utter lack of any kind of guilt. These people were sure they were going to evade punishment."

 Q. "Can one observe changes in the violations over the course of the conflict?
In the first year, we actually only saw human rights violations by the regime. There were six months where the revolution didn't have any armed fighters. By now, we have so many videos that it's hard to tell whether there has been a change in the radicalism.
 A. "The general assumption is that all sides commit these violations, which is correct to a certain degree. But that doesn't mean that they commit them in equal measure. It's been clear and it's still clear that the regime prevails here in a sad way by killing and torturing significantly more often. And they are documenting it in an extremely self-assured way, too."

 Q. "Human rights violations by Islamists take up more and more space in the Western perception. Does this serve both Islamist as well as regime propaganda?"
 A. "Yes, regime interests meet Islamist interests here. The former party wants to present the Islamists as the gruesome opposition and imply that if Assad fell, the whole country would be dominated by Islamists. The Islamists, on the other hand, find it useful to be perceived as ruthless and cruel. They are fighting for power after all. So the propaganda interests of both sides go hand in hand." '

ISIS & the Assad Regime: From Marriage of Convenience to Partnership

 'As the Assad regime tried to crush the revolution, conditions of turmoil and lawlessness allowed these groups to originally enter Syria as they snatched power within a vacuum. The Assad regime has been protecting, supporting and facilitating ISIS within Syria. Allowing this group to thrive is his ultimate protection from the international community who has been led to believe he is fighting terrorism in Syria. As ordinary Syrians would testify, Assad is the biggest force of terrorism inside Syria, not only through this partnership but through his systematic state policy of war crimes which continues to crush what started as a peaceful call for freedom.'

Voices from the Syrian front

 'People were and remain generally supportive of Western intervention, although they tend to emphasise the difference between a “new colonialism” and a humanitarian intervention. People have asked me exasperatedly why the British parliament voted against intervening in Syria, with their own conclusions generally being either callousness or stupidity.'

Sectarianism and the Arab revolutions

 Bassem Chit:

 'In Syria the Assad regime portrays itself as the protector of religious minorities in the face of the "dark forces" of the "Sunni-Takfiri" groups, while Lebanon's Hezbollah, a Shia political force, justifies its military intervention in support of the regime both as a battle against the "US-Israeli-Takfiri Plot", and to protect the legacy of Zainab, the daughter of Imam Ali (cousin of the prophet), who was captured in the battle of Karbala in 680 CE, by adopting the slogan, "Zainab shall not be captured twice". This expresses both the nationalist and sectarian dimension of its intervention.

 The Al Qaida affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/Levant (ISIS) and its rivals in Jabhat al-Nusra are both examples of newly formed sectarian organisations in Syria. They arose as a reaction to the weak structures of the Free Syrian Army and to the brutal onslaught of the Syrian regime on the popular uprising. Many people who did not agree with their deeply sectarian ideology found in them the discipline lacking in other fighting organisations in Syria.'

I understand that a lot of ISIS are foreign fighters.

ISIS jihadists retreat from parts of north Syria

 ' "God is greatest. The heroes of the Free Syrian Army and the Northern Storm (Brigade) have liberated the town of Aazaz from the dogs of Baghdadi," the centre wrote on its Facebook page, referring to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.'

Syria opposition National Council to rejoin Coalition

 'The opposition Syrian National Council said Friday it will rejoin the umbrella coalition from which it withdrew in protest at the Geneva peace talks with the regime.

 The SNC, the biggest bloc in Syria's opposition-in-exile, quit the National Coalition on January 20 because of its participation in the talks.

 A second round of talks in Geneva between regime representatives and the opposition, dubbed Geneva II, ended on February 15 without results and with no date set for more negotiations.

 The SNC said it supported the "unity of the Syrian opposition," and called for a "closing of its ranks to achieve the goals of the Syrian revolution".'

All That Was Left of Yarmouk

 'There is, of course, the anger towards those who remained silent or only spoke to say that all parties shared the blame. Well, only one of those parties remains. There are no more weapons in Yarmouk. No more oppositional fighters. All that is left of Yarmouk is the enduring horror; it’s raspy sobbing telling us what we should have known all along. The devil doesn’t go away simply because you meet his demands.'

Assad's system of state terror tortured my son to death

 'Hearing the regime voicing lies and propaganda about ‘terrorism’ in Geneva, at the same time I was receiving news of Wissam’s death at the hands of their state terror filled me with bitterness.

 The world must see the irony that the Assad regime continues to wage more pain and terror on the Syrian people than most civilised people could comprehend. My family have testified to this in the most excruciating way, as thousands of Syrian families will continue to do if the world just stands and lets Assad continue these war crimes with impunity.'

Regime’s starvation tactic ‘makes people helpless’

 Qusai Zakarya:

 'Moadimiyet-a-Sham was one of the biggest setbacks for the Assad regime, because it is in a strategic place and is surrounded by its most powerful military divisions. The regime has tried to take control over it dozens of times. Of course, the biggest attempt was on August 21, 2013, when the Assad regime used weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons. Even then he wasn’t able to control it.

 Most people of the town would never dream of settling for anything other than having the Assad regime going down, sending the criminals to justice and starting to build a new Syria that fits all, but eventually the Assad starvation weapon managed to change a lot of people’s beliefs...

 But because the world has stood still during the past three years of the Syrian revolution, again we have found ourselves on our own to adjust to this terrifying reality.'

Ex-Guantánamo detainee Moazzam Begg held in Birmingham terror raids

 'In January of this year Begg condemned Britain's approach to Syria and the alleged criminalising of those who go out to fight there. He wrote: "It is not hard to understand why Muslims would want to go out to Syria to help. Scores of them go every month on humanitarian aid missions and face endless questioning at ports by British police under schedule 7 anti-terrorism powers. It is also understandable why people want to go out and fight for what they believe is a just cause, even if the wisdom of them doing so can be questioned." '

Thousands waiting for food in Yarmouk

 "It's like that for everyone here." - A hungry kid from the report shown on TV.

 That's sixty packets of food for 20,000 people. I've heard that some people can do wonders with five loaves and a couple of fish.

Appeasing Assad; Why Jeffrey Sachs is so Very Wrong

 'Sachs, like so many Lefists, has got it so very backwards. If America cut off what little aid it sends to rebel groups, it would have no effect whatsoever on the conflict. And yet if Iran and Hizbollah withdrew their support for Assad, the regime would collapse within a matter of months.'

Local truces aside, the ingredients for a long Syrian war are all still in place

 'Given that the rebels are at present divided,'
 They are united about overthrowing Assad.

 'lacking popular support'
 No.

 'and on the retreat,'
 According to Patrick Cockburn's mates in the Syrian Army in Homs and Damascus.

 'it may take years of warfare before they and their Western and regional backers can dictate surrender terms to the other side.'
 Then maybe these backers should hand over sufficient weaponry for them to be able to take down a dictator they have fought to a standstill with David v Goliath disparities of armament.



 But wait.
 'It could happen more quickly only if the Assad government and the Syrian army were shorn of support from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, something that, so far, is not happening.'
Now maybe if we'd focused on that...



 But wait.
 'If anything, the struggle for the Ukraine between the West and Moscow is likely to make the Russians even more determined not to see their status as a great power eroded by defeat in Syria.'

 This is just reporting Russian desires as immutable necessities. All along Cockburn has told us that if the cost is raised to the Russians of staying with Assad, they will respond by doubling down on him. The events in the near-abroad, as Russian foreign policy calls its ex-colonial possessions, are likely to impact more, but the logical lesson would be that pissing off too many people may lead to foreign policy failures.

 'These appointments do not mean any reduction in direct Saudi support for the rebels but they do denote a policy more closely aligned with the US.'
 You realise at this point that Cockburn's analysis is useless. The Saudis are in dispute with the US about whether they can supply the rebels with anti-aircraft weapons, which is not lessened by Bandar's replacement.



 'It is naive in these circumstances to imagine that the dispatch of shoulder-held anti-aircraft or anti-tank weapons, as is now predicted, is going to make the rebels more successful. Journalists, intelligence officers and rebels tend to be over-impressed by the idea that arms such as these make much difference.'
 Cockburn is like those other journalists and intelligence officers who don't care if those weapons would stop Assad's attacks on civilians.

 'One of the big mistakes of the opposition and its backers has been to allow the question of who rules in Damascus to become part of the hot and cold war between Iran and its enemies, and between Shia and Sunni, conflicts that have been going on since the Iranian revolution in 1979.'
 It is Cockburn and his like who have been trying to make out that this is all about the Sunni-Shia difference,about Iran and not about a dictator and a people that have had enough.

Has the time come to acknowledge the conspiracies?

 'Syria, for its part, was and is a country ruled by a regime that is completely subservient to Iran’s regional project. What is worse, Israel itself has not genuinely viewed Iran’s growing regional influence as a threat to its borders and national security.

 One may say that this point alone is enough for rational observers to realize why Washington’s and Tel Aviv’s approach to Tehran and its stooge, the Damascus regime, has amounted to nothing more than empty words.'

 I think this might be slightly negative about the military situation, "The situation facing the Free Syrian Army on the ground has worsened recently as the regime stepped up its attacks on the remaining rebel-controlled areas in the Qalamoun Mountains and in the northern and southern parts of the country," but yes.