By Ceding Northeastern Syria to the Kurds, Assad Puts Turkey in a Bind
"A Nation of Pain and Suffering: Syria (Part 2)" .. one bit .. "Assad, who had in 1998 thrown out the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan at the behest of Turkey, now pivoted in the other direction. He cleverly ceded northeastern Syria to various Kurdish groups, who are not averse to the PKK. Assad set a grave chess problem for Erdogan – increased PKK activity in Turkey derived from confidence about the new safe zone in Syria and threatened Erdogan with mayhem (violence broke in Hakkari province, with the PKK seizing control of Semdinli, and in Gaziantep province, where a bomb blast in the main city in August rattled the government)."
By Piotr Zalewski / Istanbul July 27, 20121 Comment
Turkpix / Associated Press
In this Tuesday, July 24, 2012 photo, a Syrian boy sits atop a damaged military tank at the border town of Azaz, some 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Aleppo, Syria. Turkey sealed its border with Syria to trucks on Wednesday, July 25, 2012 cutting off a vital supply line to the embattled nation as fighting stretched into its fifth day in the commercial capital of Aleppo.
The retreat of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces from parts of northeastern Syria .. http://topics.time.com/syria/ .. along the Turkish border might have been welcomed by Turkey .. http://topics.time.com/turkey/ , a key supporter of the Syrian rebellion, except for one thing: The region is predominantly Kurdish, and Ankara fears the resulting power vacuum will be a major boon to its number one enemy, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) whose three-decade separatist insurgency has seen some 40,000 people killed.
Until recently, Syria’s Kurds had been divided. A coalition of roughly a dozen Kurdish parties had tentatively backed the popular uprising against Assad, while the PKK’s Syrian ally, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), appeared to align itself with the Syrian regime, intimidating opposition activists and quashing popular protests. Others sat on the sidelines, wary of closing ranks with a Sunni Arab-dominated opposition that turned a deaf ear to Kurdish demands for new rights in a post-Assad Syria. Two weeks ago – perhaps sensing that the regime’s fall was imminent – the rival Syrian Kurdish political currents put aside their differences, under the coaching of Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani. In Irbil, capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish Regional Government, they signed a unity agreement that has allowed them to take control of several northeastern towns, Assad’s forces mostly retreating without a fight.
The news sparked a Turkish media and political clamor about the imminent rise of a “PKK Republic” or a “Western Kurdistan” on Turkey’s southern flank. Commentators fear that the rise of a second Kurdish statelet, following the emergence of the one in neighboring Iraq in 2003, would embolden Turkey’s own 12-15 million Kurds to pursue their own dream of autonomy. Worse still, it could potentially provide the PKK — branded as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and the EU — with sanctuaries from which to launch cross-border attacks.
Picking up where the media left off, Turkey’s fiery leader, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan .. http://topics.time.com/recep-tayyip-erdogan/ , banged the war drums. Though he and his government proclaim the Kurds a “brother nation,” Erdogan told a TV interviewer on Wednesday, a Kurdish state in northern Syria would likely become a “terrorist entity”. If need be, he warned, Turkey would not hesitate to hit the PKK inside Syria, as it has done repeatedly in northern Iraq. “If a formation that’s going to be a problem emerges, if there is a terror operation, an irritant, then intervening would be our most natural right.”
It would not be easy. In northern Iraq — where the PKK has come under pressure from a Barzani government that seeks to improve ties with Ankara — the rebels remain ensconced in remote mountain hideouts, making it easier for Turkish forces to target them with relative impunity. In Syria, the PKK-aligned PYD is an urban-based outfit. To bring the fight to them, Turkish troops would have to operate in large population centers, many of them within a stone’s throw of the common border.
Syrian Kurds are quick to counter Turkish alarmism. Ankara is overstating the PKK’s influence in Syria, Abdulhalim, a Kurdish activist in Syria, told TIME via Skype. Even if it is the strongest and best armed of the Kurdish factions in Syria, the PYD is in no position to overwhelm its local rivals. “People will not allow the PYD to control the area,” Abdulhalim insists. “All people here, Arabs, Christians, and other ethnicities, will be in control.” The radicals would also have to contend with Barzani, whose government has provided training to Kurdish defectors from Assad’s army.
But, Abdulhalim warns, nothing would unite the Kurds of Syria more than resistance to a Turkish incursion. “We are strongly refusing Erdogan talking about any invasion of Syria to protect Turkey from the PYD,” he says.
When the sabre-rattling dies down, writes Oral Calislar, a commentator for Radikal, a Turkish newspaper, Ankara will do the same with a Kurdish quasi-state in Syria as it did with the one in Iraq – learn to live with it. “We used to say we’d never tolerate an autonomous Kurdistan on our border,” Calislar writes. “It was one of our ‘red lines.’ And now we’re buddy-buddy with Barzani.”
For the time being, the most that Turkey can do to contain the fallout from Syria is to make amends with its own Kurds, says Hugh Pope, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. If Erdogan wants to ensure Turkey’s security, he adds, his government will have to do so by addressing the Turkish Kurds’ main grievances – adequate political representation, mother tongue education, some degree of devolution, and a partial amnesty for PKK members.
The situation across the border might be “alarming” for Turkey, says Pope, “but only because Turkey has not solved its own Kurdish problem.”
Dec. 2007 .. A second reason for US caution is the fragile political system within Iraq. America's ally, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, has lost all of his principle backers in the Iraqi government. The Sunnis, represented by the Iraqi Accordance Front, have walked out on him since this summer. So has the Sadrist bloc of Muqtada, which is very powerful among young people in the Shi'ite community. The last on the walkout list is former prime minister Iyad Allawi, who has his eyes set on replacing Maliki and who represents a secular, cross-confessional parliamentary coalition.
Maliki's only allies are what remains of the United Iraqi Alliance, an Iran-backed Shi'ite coalition, and two Kurdish blocs headed by Barzani and President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. Simply put, Maliki cannot risk alienating Iraqi Kurds - who are supportive of the PKK - or else his government will become unconstitutional. .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=25445603
Turkey Goes into Iraq after Kurdish Attack Posted on 10/20/2011 by Juan
Many catastrophes ensued from George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq (launched in order to, he told an astonished and puzzled Jacques Chirac, then French president, thwart the biblical monsters Gog and Magog in the Middle East .. http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=haught_29_5 .. ahead of the Judgment Day.)
Protesters Flood Into Istanbul Square After Police Withdraw Following Violent Crackdown
By Daniel Politi Posted Saturday, June 1, 2013, at 5:40 PM
[embedded video disabled]
Thousands of people flooded into a central square in Istanbul after police began withdrawing Saturday following a brutal crackdown on demonstrations that have now become huge protests against the ruling regime. The police removed barriers at Taksim Square Saturday in what seemed like an evident effort to ease tensions following two-days of anti-government protests, reports Turkey’s Today’s Zaman .. http://www.todayszaman.com/news-317089-.html . Yet there was violence until the very end, as police fired tear gas into the crowds as some protesters threw objects at the withdrawing forces.
------- The original protest was aimed at saving a city centre park in Istanbul from shopping centre developers who had been backed by the government. But it rapidly snowballed into a national display of anger at the perceived arrogance of the country's rulers. -------
Tensions are likely to continue as protesters have reportedly built barricades to prevent police from returning. And while the government did offer some concessions to the demonstrators it has made it clear it won’t back down. Even as he acknowledged that police used excessive force, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said he would push ahead with the development plans that sparked the protests in the first place, notes Today’s Zaman .. http://www.todayszaman.com/news-317143-.html .
“To call this a ‘Turkish Spring’ would be over-dramatizing it,” concludes Murat Yetkin in the Hurriyet Daily News .. http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/analysis-erdogan-no-longer-almighty.aspx?pageID=238&nID=48026&NewsCatID=409 . “It could be, if there were opposition forces in Turkey that could move in to stop the one man show of a mighty power holder. But it can easily be said that the Taksim brinkmanship marked a turning point in the almighty image of Erdogan.”
Syria Calls on Turkey to Stop Violently Repressing Peaceful Protests
By Daniel Politi Posted Saturday, June 1, 2013, at 4:01 PM .. with links ..
Demonstrators face police Saturday during a march to parliament and the prime minister's office in Ankara Photo by -/AFP/Getty Images
It sounds like a bad joke out of the Twilight Zone but it’s all too real. Syria’s minister of information told official media that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan “should resign” if he “is unable to pursue non-violent means” to end growing protests. Syria’s Minister of Information Omran al-Zoubi “added that Erdogan leads his country in a terrorist way and is destroying the civil character of the Turkish people, reiterating that the Turkish people's demands do not deserve all this violence,” notes the report by SANA.
Erdogan was once an ally of President Bashar al-Assad, but turned against him after the Syrian regime violently suppressed protests, a move that led to a violent civil war that has killed at least 80,000 people, reports Reuters. As tone deaf as the comments by Assad’s regime may be, what is going on in Turkey right now is no laughing matter. Thousands of protesters gathered to reoccupy a central park in Istanbul after police violently attacked peaceful protesters who wanted to prevent the construction of a shopping mall at Taksim Gezi Park, reports Bloomberg. The protests were about the park, which has long been a site of political protest, but now have become “the fiercest anti-government demonstrations in years,” according to Reuters, and protesters are calling for Erdogan to resign.
Christians fought bloody wars between themselves way back .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_war#Christianity .. when will more Muslim leaders, whether encouraged to fight sectarian battles by their own, or by others, understand it is all a shortsighted, fruitless, and wantonly destructive exercise.
As Syrians Fight, Sectarian Strife Infects Mideast
Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters
Iraqi Shiites at the shrine of Sayida Zeinab in Damascus, where the Prophet Muhammad’s granddaughter is said to be buried.
BAGHDAD — Renewed sectarian killing has brought the highest death toll in Iraq in five years. Young Iraqi scholars at a Shiite Muslim seminary volunteer to fight Sunnis in Syria. Far to the west, in Lebanon, clashes have worsened between opposing sects in the northern city of Tripoli.
In Syria itself, “Shiites have become a main target,” said Malek, an opposition activist who did not want his last name published because of safety concerns. He was visiting Lebanon from a rebel-held Syrian town, Qusayr, where his brother died Tuesday battling Shiite guerrillas from the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. “People lost brothers, sons, and they’re angry,” he said.
The Syrian civil war is setting off a contagious sectarian conflict beyond the country’s borders, reigniting long-simmering tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, and, experts fear, shaking the foundations of countries cobbled together after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
For months, the fighting in Syria has spilled across its borders as rockets landed in neighboring countries or skirmishes crossed into their territories. But now, the Syrian war, with more than 80,000 dead, is inciting Sunnis and Shiites in other countries to attack one another.
“Nothing has helped make the Sunni-Shia narrative stick on a popular level more than the images of Assad — with Iranian help — butchering Sunnis in Syria,” said Trita Parsi .. http://www.niacouncil.org/site/PageServer?pagename=About_parsi , a regional analyst and president of the National Iranian American Council, referring to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. “Iran and Assad may win the military battle, but only at the expense of cementing decades of ethnic discord.”
The Syrian uprising began as peaceful protests against Mr. Assad and transformed over two years into a bloody battle of attrition. But the killing is no longer just about supporting or opposing the government, or even about Syria. Some Shiites are pouring into Syria out of a sense of religious duty. In Iraq, random attacks on Sunni mosques and neighborhoods that had subsided in recent years have resumed — a wedding was recently hit .. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/world/middleeast/iraq-bombing-kills-members-of-wedding-party.html — as Sunni militias fight the army.
With Sunni-led Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey backing the uprising against Mr. Assad, who is supported by Shiite Iran and Hezbollah, sectarian divisions simmering since the American invasion of Iraq are spreading through a region already upended by the Arab uprisings.
The Syrian war fuels, and is fueled by, broader antagonisms that are primarily rooted not in sect but in clashing geopolitical and strategic interests: the regional power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran; Iran’s confrontation with the West over its nuclear program; and the alliance between Hezbollah and the secular Syrian government .. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/world/middleeast/syrian-army-and-hezbollah-step-up-raids-on-rebels.html .. of Mr. Assad against American-backed Israel.
But sectarian feeling has seeped in. Iraq has been especially vulnerable. With the Sunni majority in Syria battling to overthrow a government dominated by Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiism, some in Iraq’s Sunni minority grew emboldened by the prospect of overthrowing their own Shiite government.
Today, many Iraqis feel they are on the road back to the dark days of 2006 and ’07, the peak of sectarian militia massacres by Shiites ascendant after years of oppression under Saddam Hussein, and by minority Sunnis disempowered by his fall.
While the 2007 American troop surge helped to limit the bloodshed, random attacks against Shiites never stopped. What was different was that the Shiites, who finally felt firmly in control of the security forces, stopped retaliating. But that seems to be changing.
Sunni militias have risen up to fight the army, and for the first time in years Sunni mosques and neighborhoods are being regularly targeted. The first notable attack was in April, at a cafe in the Sunni neighborhood of Amariya; it started late at night as young men played pool, and it left dozens of people dead. While it is unclear who is responsible for the new violence, many Sunnis blame the government, or Iranian-backed Shiite militias.
In Lebanon, perennial clashes between Alawite and Sunni militias in Tripoli have reached their worst level in years as each side blames the other for carnage in Syria.
In Syria, both the government and its opponents insist that their civil war is not a fight between religious sects. Rebel leaders say their only aim is to depose a dictator. Mr. Assad says he is fending off extremist terrorists, and he is careful not to frame the conflict as a fight against the country’s Sunni majority, which he praises for its moderation.
Mr. Assad’s affinity with Hezbollah and Iran is primarily strategic. Though his Alawite sect, about 12 percent of the population, provides bedrock support, most Alawites are secular. Syria’s fewer than 200,000 mainstream Shiites are a much smaller minority, less than 1 percent.
Like Iraqis — who long insisted they were Iraqis first, and blamed outsiders for the rise of sectarian identity, yet descended into bloodletting — Syrians on both sides fear and disavow the slide into sectarianism.
Both sides have also been willing to tap into sectarian alliances and emotions. With the West hesitant to fully support the opposition, rebels accepted help from Al Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni militant group, and the reliable pipeline of weapons and cash flowing from extremist Sunni donors to jihadists, whose calls for an Islamic state found support among some Syrians influenced by hard-line clerics in Saudi Arabia.
On Friday, an influential Sunni Islamist cleric in Qatar, Sheik Yusef al-Qaradawi, called on Sunnis around the world to go to Syria to fight Hezbollah and Iran, calling them enemies of Islam.
[ you clown, grow up ]
Alawite militias in Syria have been accused of slaughtering Sunni families. Sunni rebels and gangs have been accused of kidnapping Shiites. Sunni fighters call Shiites “filth” and “dogs.” Rebel commanders have begun to refer to Hezbollah, whose name means party of God, as the “party of the devil.”
Government supporters call rebels “rats” and paint them with a broad brush as Bedouins and Wahhabis — a puritanical strain of Sunni Islam from Saudi Arabia. Fadil Mutar, an Iraqi Shiite, said at the funeral of his son, who was killed in Syria, that he died fighting Wahhabis, “those vile people.”
Rafiq Lotof, a Syrian-American Shiite who left his pizza business in New Jersey to help Syrian officials organize militias known as the National Defense Forces, said recently in Damascus that Shiite religious passions would help the government survive.
“If we start to lose control, you will see thousands of Iranians come to Syria, thousands of Lebanese, from Iraq also,” Mr. Lotof said. “They are going to fight, they are not going to watch. That’s part of their religion.”
In Beirut, Lebanon, Kamel Wazne, the founder of the Center for American Strategic Studies, said that fighters are inspired by religious passions rooted in the seventh-century battle in what is now Iraq over who would succeed the Prophet Muhammad.
After the bitter defeat of the faction that gave rise to the Shiites, the victors captured the prophet’s granddaughter Zeinab and took her to Damascus, where Shiites believe she is buried beneath the gold-domed shrine of Sayida Zeinab.
Today, Shiite fighters help the Syrian government to hold the area around Sayida Zeinab — a foothold that helps prevent rebels from fully encircling Mr. Assad’s seat of power in Damascus.
“Damascus did not fall because Sayida Zeinab is there,” Mr. Wazne said. “They will not allow Zeinab to be captured twice.”
Many devout Shiites have also come to view the Syrian civil war as the fulfillment of a Shiite prophecy that presages the end of time: a devil-like figure, Sufyani, raises an army in Syria and marches on Iraq to kill Shiites. Abu Ali, a student in Najaf, Iraq, said that his colleagues believe the leader of Qatar, a chief backer of Syria’s Sunni rebels, is Sufyani. They are flocking to Syria “to protect Islam,” he said.
Days after pro-government militias killed scores of civilians last month in the Sunni village of Bayda near the Syrian coast, one Sunni resident declared in an interview: “Starting today, I am sectarian. I am sectarian! I don’t want ‘peaceful’ anymore.” Composing himself, he added, “Sister, forgive me for talking this way.”
Tim Arango and Duraid Adnan reported from Baghdad, and Anne Barnard from Damascus, Syria, and Beirut, Lebanon. Reporting was contributed by employees of The New York Times from Hilla, Iraq, and Najaf, Iraq, and by Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad from Beirut.
A version of this article appeared in print on June 2, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: As Syrians Fight, Sectarian Strife Infects Mideast.
Independent UN panel calls for diplomatic surge to end ‘daily reality’ of war crimes in Syria
Paulo Pinheiro (left), Chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, with High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. UN Photo/Violaine Martin
4 June 2013 – With Syria engulfed in an escalating and increasingly brutal civil war, a panel of United Nations human rights experts today issued its latest report on the crisis, detailing war crimes it says were committed by both the Syrian Government and opposition forces, and calling for a “diplomatic surge” to end the violence.
“War crimes and crimes against humanity have become a daily reality in Syria where the harrowing accounts of victims have seared themselves on our conscience [...] Referral to justice remains paramount,” says the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria in a new report to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council.
Created in August 2011, the Commission is chaired by Paulo Pinheiro, and includes experts Karen Koning Abuzayd, Carla del Ponte and Vitit Muntarbhorn. The report, the investigative team’s fourth, covers the period 15 January to 15 May 2013, and documents for the first time systematic imposition of sieges, the use of chemical agents and forcible displacement.
“Syria is in a free-fall,” Mr. Pinheiro told the Council this morning. “No one is winning and will not win the war. More weapons will only lead to more civilians dead and wounded.”
[ note the NYT article below only uses the first part of that quote ]
Mr. Pinheiro stressed that dialogue is the only way to find a solution to the conflict which has claimed the lives of more than 70,000 civilians and displaced more than four million since it began over two years ago.
“We ask that States exert influence over the parties to the conflict to compel them to protect civilians,” he added.
From findings based on 430 interviews and other collected evidence, the four experts stress in the report that there is a human cost to the increased availability of weapons in Syria, where arms transfers heighten the risk of violations, leading to more civilian deaths and injuries.
While the experts note that Government forces and affiliated militia have committed “murder, torture, rape, forcible displacement, enforced disappearance and other inhumane acts,” as part of widespread or systematic attacks against civilian populations, they also note that armed anti-Government groups have also committee war crimes, crimes against humanity, including murder, sentencing and execution without due process, torture, hostage-taking and pillage.
“The violations and abuses committed by anti-Government armed groups did not, however, reach the intensity and scale of those committed by Government forces and affiliated militia,” the report says.
In addition, the precarious situation of Syria’s 4.25 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) is compounded by recent incidents of IDPs being targeted and forcibly displaced.
There are reasonable grounds to believe that chemical agents have been used as weapons. The experts say that allegations have been received concerning the use of chemical weapons by both parties. The majority concern their use by Government forces.
In four attacks – on Khan Al-Asal, Aleppo, 19 March; Uteibah, Damascus, 19 March; Sheikh Maqsood neighbourhood, Aleppo, 13 April; and Saraqib, Idlib, 29 April – “there are reasonable grounds to believe that limited quantities of toxic chemicals were used.”
It has not been possible, on the evidence available, to determine the precise chemical agents used, their delivery systems or the perpetrator. Other incidents also remain under investigation.
Conclusive findings – particularly in the absence of a large-scale attack – may be reached only after testing samples taken directly from victims or the site of the alleged attack.
“It is, therefore, of utmost importance that the Panel of Experts, led by Professor Sellström and assembled under the Secretary General's Mechanism for Investigation of Alleged Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons, is granted full access to Syria,” the experts say.
“A diplomatic surge is the only path to a political settlement. Negotiations must be inclusive, and must represent all facets of Syria’s cultural mosaic,” says the Commission, calling on the international community to support the peace process based on the Geneva Communiqué and the work of the UN and Arab League Joint Special Representative for Syria.
The Commission also calls on the international community to counter the escalation of the conflict by restricting arms transfers, especially given the clear risk that the arms will be used to commit serious violations of international human rights or humanitarian law.
France, Britain say samples confirm nerve gas sarin has been used in Syria .. last three paragraphs on page 3 of 3 ..
Zanders, the chemical weapons expert, counseled extreme caution.
He noted claims often don’t match the symptoms. Other options, while also conjecture, should at least be considered, such as shells inadvertently hitting shops or homes where chemicals are stored, or the regime using tear gas to instill fear at a time of heightened awareness about the dangers of chemical weapons.
“It becomes a self-reinforcing echo chamber,” he said.
U.N. Panel Reports Increasing Brutality by Both Sides in Syria
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE - Published: June 4, 2013 184 Comments
GENEVA — Reporting “new levels of brutality” in Syria’s more than two-year-old conflict, United Nations investigators said on Tuesday that they believed that chemical weapons and more indiscriminate bombing had been used in recent weeks and urged world powers to cut off supplies of weapons that could only result in more civilian casualties.
Multimedia .. videos and more inside .. Comments (184) »
For the first time, the report cited the government’s use of thermobaric bombs, which scatter a cloud of explosive particles before detonating, sending a devastating blast of pressure and extreme heat that incinerates those caught in the blast and sucks the oxygen from the lungs of people in the vicinity.
“Syria is in free fall,” Paulo Pinheiro, the chairman of a commission of inquiry investigating the hostilities in Syria, told the United Nations Human Rights Council here in Geneva. “Crimes that shock the conscience have become a daily reality. Humanity has been the casualty of this war.”
The four-member panel said its report to the council “documents for the first time the systematic imposition of sieges, the use of chemical agents and forcible displacement.”
“War crimes, crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations continue apace,” it added, reporting 17 incidents that could be called massacres between mid-January and mid-May.
The findings played directly into the increasingly divisive debate in Europe and the United States about the possibility of supplying weapons to the rebels seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad. An estimated 80,000 people have died in the civil war.
Last month, Britain and France pressed their partners in the European Union to allow an embargo on arms supplies to Syria to lapse, potentially allowing European governments to arm the rebels they support politically and diplomatically. At the same time, Moscow has said it will supply government forces with advanced ground-to-air missiles.
The findings seemed to take tacit aim at the Russian decision while reinforcing arguments made by European opponents of weapons supplies.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, speaking at a televised news conference at the European Union-Russia summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia, said on Tuesday:
“I will remind you that Russian deliveries of weapons to Syria are completed on the basis of transparent, internationally recognized contracts. They do not violate any international regulations. And they are carried out strictly in the bounds of international law. With regard to the S-300, it is indeed one of the best antiaircraft complexes in the world, if not the best. It is a serious weapon, of course. We don’t want to disturb the balance in the region. The contract was signed several years ago. For the time being it has not been fulfilled.”
The report also provided a stark challenge for senior Russian and American officials who are to meet in Geneva on Wednesday to discuss how to bring all the parties together for a peace conference.
In London, the British Foreign Office withheld immediate comment on the report, which recalled a warning by President Obama that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would cross a “red line” even as the United States and Russia work toward convening the conference on Syria.
The United Nations panel, which is seen by diplomats as providing the most factual and authoritative record of developments in Syria, said, “There are reasonable grounds to believe limited quantities of toxic chemicals were used” in Aleppo and Damascus on March 19, in Aleppo again on April 13 and in Idlib on April 29. “Other incidents remain under investigation,” the panel reported.
They based their assertion on interviews with victims of attacks, refugees from Syria and some medical personnel, Mr. Pinheiro, the panel chairman, told reporters on Monday, but he refused to give further details. French authorities have agreed to share with the panel the results of an analysis they are conducting of samples received from casualties who had made their way to Turkey, he said.
Carla Del Ponte, one of the commission members, told Swiss-Italian television last month that testimony from victims pointed to the use of the nerve gas sarin by rebel groups, but other members of the commission quickly distanced themselves from her assertion and their report said they could not identify either the chemical agents used, the means of delivery or the people using them. Use of chemical weapons, they noted, would constitute a war crime.
The especially deadly thermobaric bombs were used in March in the fierce struggle for the strategic town of Qusayr, the panel reported. “If the use was indiscriminate, this could be a war crime,” Mr. Pinheiro said.
The panel cited increasing use of indiscriminate weapons, including cluster munitions, barrel bombs and surface-to-surface missiles as evidence of the government’s “flagrant disregard” for the distinction between combatants and civilians demanded by international law. “There is a strong element of retribution in the government’s approach, with civilians paying a price for ‘allowing’ armed groups to operate within their towns,” the report said.
Both sides have adopted siege tactics, trapping civilians in their homes and cutting off supplies of food, water, medicines and electricity, the report stated, in clear breach of international law. The panel also reported instances in which forces of both sides have used attacks or the threat of them to drive civilians out of particular areas, which is also a war crime.
Graphic descriptions of the toll on civilians caught in the recent siege of Qusayr in western Syria, on the Lebanese border, by government forces starkly illustrated the panel’s findings, with reports of women and children living in bunkers and foxholes to escape artillery and aerial bombardment. “We couldn’t leave the hole for a week,” a Syrian woman who managed to escape to Lebanon told the United Nations Refugee Agency. “We ate the little food we had brought with us. My children were crying constantly,”
Another woman told agency investigators, “You leave and you risk being killed by a bomb, or you stay and face a certainty of being killed.”
The conflict “is becoming more horrific every day,” Mr. Pinheiro said, listing abuses that included murder, torture, extrajudicial execution and the use of child soldiers under the age of 15.
Eighty-six children being used as combatants have been killed, half of them this year, the report said, evidence that the use of child soldiers was increasing. “This is a war crime that causes unspeakable harm to children and destroys families and entire communities, Mr. Pinheiro said.
There is a disparity between the abuses and crimes committed by government forces and militiamen and those conducted by rebel groups, he acknowledged, “but this is a disparity in intensity, it is not a disparity in the nature of the crimes.”
After more than two years of conflict, it is clear that a military stalemate now prevails, he said. “It’s an illusion that more weapons will tip the balance between the two parties,” Mr. Pinheiro said. “No one is winning.”
The New Afghanistan: Why are the Jihadists Rushing to Syria?
First Published: 2013-08-25
Since the war in Syria is complex, multidimensional and changeable on daily bases, it is hard to draw decisive conclusions. All the analyses remain speculations based on certain variables and therefore disable to provide holistic explanation, argues Armenak Tokmajyan.
By the time, the war in Syria has become increasingly, albeit not surprisingly, complicated nexus of different conflicts labeled as the Syrian Civil War. Although the predominant thinking is that the ongoing conflict in Syria is a civil war, it is indeed hard to insist on this perspective. Although there is an organized armed opposition sustainably fighting forces of an acting government; although there is international support to both sides, this war cannot be merely described as civil war or internationalized civil war. One of the reasons behind this confusion is the involvement of foreign – regional or international – non-state actors by the side of government and the opposition alike. Lately the official involvement of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the Syrian conflict raised important question whether the Syrian Military and the loyal forces are fighting the locally recruited rebels, or transnational radical groupings, or both? Evidently, this war is not solely a struggle for power in Syria, but an incompatibility of interests of various actors; many regional and international actors are playing on the Syrian chessboard and follow distinct interests. However, worth questioning about the factors and interests that motivate the radical groups, such as TTP, join the war in Syria. There are at least two explanations why the so-called jihadists hasten to Syria in order to fulfill their duty. The primary reason is the ideology; there is a motivation based on their own explanation of Islam which is also their ideology and doctrine. Secondly, there are political reasons mainly compressed in the notion of political opportunity.
With the new headquarter of TTP in Syria, the entire notion of revolution against the Syrian government changes. Mohammed Amin, the coordinator of the TTP base in Syria, reported to BBC that this base is to “monitor the jihad in Syria”. The term “Jihad”, which linguistically means to make an effort, is rather problematic to be used because there are hundreds if not thousands of varying interpretations. Moreover, the notion of jihad in the holy Quran is not abridged in a paragraph or a page; indeed, the understanding of the term originally derives from many Quranic Phrases which are written in advanced Arabic that makes it hard to understand and hence subject to different interpretations. Mohammed Sa’id Al-‘Ashmawi (1986), a specialist in comparative and Islamic law, gives an explanation of jihad which does not explain the behavior of the performing jihadists in Syria. He argues that the notion of jihad passed through different stages and changed its meaning accordingly. During the first phase, it stood for making moral effort by enduring discomfort for the sake of Allah (God). Because of certain incidents that occurred during the onset of Islam in the seventh century, Jihad adopted another meaning which incorporates with making financial effort. The former understanding is known as “the big jihad” whereas the second is “the small jihad” meaning that the former is relatively more important. Interestingly, none of the meanings is related to war. Howsoever, as Al-‘Ashmawi continues, the meaning of jihad became more amalgamate with war after the enemies of the new religion declared war to eliminate its followers. In spite of these developments, the urge to combat against the “enemies of Islam” was not absolute; it had its limitations and rules. According to these limitations, jihad can be interpreted as holy war initially when there is aggression against the Muslims. Moreover, a Quranic famous phrase states that God dislike the aggressors. Hence, Al-‘Ashmawi concludes that call for jihad is a call for self-defense against the aggressor and not aggression against the others.
If the most accepted jihad by God is the moral jihad; if the war of jihad is a defensive call to protect the Islam then the call for global jihad against the “west” or governments such as the Syrian is hardly considered as jihad. Indeed, most of the jihadist movements do not adopt this elucidation of jihad in Islam.
Most of them, including the TTP, are keener to the explanation of Abu Musab Al-Suri the author of “The Call to Global Islamic Resistance” (2004). This important book, which consists of 1600 pages, written in advanced level of Arabic Language and includes many citations, is an academic work that explains the ideological motivations of jihadists. This massive manuscript carefully analysis and explains the notion of jihad often using the same Quranic phrases as Al-‘Ashmawi. However, the conclusions are fascinatingly different not because the source is different but because jihadists’ understanding of these texts is different. As a result, their comprehension of politics in the “Islamic world” is significantly distinct. Initially, Al-Suri considers the entire “Islamic World” occupied by the “crusaders” either directly or indirectly (p.941). He also identifies which regimes are Kufar (out of the religious law) and therefore they are legitimate targets for jihadists. In short, all the regimes which do not implement the law of Allah are considered are encircled in this criterion (p. 961). Further, the war that Muslims should wage against the occupiers or their agents is not a matter of choice but it is a must.
Beside the generalized descriptions and explanations, Al-Suri approaches the Arab world directly. He insists that the Arab world (which is different than the Islamic world) is entirely corrupt by nonbeliever leaders who gave space for the foreign occupiers to invade their countries indirectly. In this manner, Syria (or more specifically Sham, because Al-Suri alike most of the jihadists does not recognize the Sykes-Picot Borders (1916) that also mapped the current borders of the Middle East) is a legitimate target for all Muslims to respond to the call of jihad and overthrow the nonbeliever government of Syria implementing Islamic Law instead. Furthermore, the Syrian key political and military leaders belong to the Alawite sect which is a denomination within the Shiism. This makes the puzzle further complicated because the jihadist groups that fight the Syrian government are predominantly Sunnites who consider Shiits as outers to the real Islam which makes them even more legitimate target than the other religions. Thus, this understanding of jihad empowers its believers to invade Syria regardless the borders or legitimacy of the government or the willingness of the local population. This trend explains the motivation of thousand infiltrators to Syria coming for instance from Arabian/Persian Gulf States, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Tunisia, Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Accordingly, the existence of these outsiders in the Syrian “civil war” is based on very deep and organized ideological factors which should not be cynically approached or rapidly labeled.
While reviewing some of Suri’s writings an interesting question arises. If Abu Musab considers the KSA, the holiest of the lands, as a country which hosts the “crusaders”, then why the compass is towards Syria and not towards KSA? I would argue that in order to understand this dilemma it is not sufficient to comprehend the ideological factors that motivates the jihadist groupings. In this case, the political factors appear rather crucial. Undoubtedly, the current environment in Syria is fertile for the proliferation of such transnational organizations. However, it is hard to believe that there is no orchestration behind the rapid increase of radicals who fight in Syria. Political opportunity in this context should be understood as those influential regional and international actors in the Syrian conflict that facilitate the arrival of these fighters. Currently, it is not secret anymore that states such as KSA and Qatar overtly support different factions within the Syrian opposition by supplying arms, financial means and combatants. Another factor which is not a secret either is the orchestrated transport for these fighters at least via Turkey and Jordan where American, British and Israeli secret services are very active. This narrative, reminds the KSA-US strong cooperation in supporting the Mujahidin in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion in 1979. Hence, Is US supporting the new mujahidin of Syria against a government which is backed by Russia?
Another supporting variable can be found when we reverse the equation. Thus, although Al-Suri considers KSA, Qatar or Palestine as invaded lands with corrupt authorities, there is no regionally and internationally sponsored political opportunity for different jihadist groups to start their activities. The list of states in the Arab World where the Jihadists cannot find any opportunity to perform, interestingly matches with the states that have good relationship with primarily US, UK and France. Gulf Cooperation Council member states, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco are predominantly Muslim populated countries and enjoy relatively good relationship with US, UK and France. On the other hand, in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Libya the opportunity of jihad is wide open to the radical groups who are willing to implement the religious law which often ends up with a “never ending war”. Accordingly, the strong ideological factors that stimulate the Jihadists to wage a holy war in countries such as Syria cannot merely explain the situation. Therefore, in similar cases, tracing the map of political factors is vital to understand the movement of these groups. In other words, the appearance of these radical groups in some countries in The Middle East and North Africa, and and their inability in others is not solely an accident.
Since the war in Syria is complex, multidimensional and changeable on daily bases, it is hard to draw decisive conclusions. All the analyses remain speculations based on certain variables and therefore disable to provide holistic explanation. Accordingly, the upcoming developments will prove whether Syria will become a new Afghanistan as a new base of jihad. Indeed, the variables provided above show that the availability of the two factors – ideological motivation and political opportunity – make such an outcome likely. Moreover, the end of such a dangerous game cannot be previously determined. The ideological factors are very strict and do not change easily. In other words, such jihadist groups deeply believe in their “mission” and therefore will not step back easily. The political variables, however, might change over time. Nevertheless, since eliminating these kinds of organizations is an arduous task, the country will continue being subjected to terroristic acts and bombings. Consequently, in the foreseeable future it is hard to imagine Syria in negative or positive peace.
Armenak Tokmajyan is a Research Assistant at CMC Finland. MDP in Peace Mediation and Conflict Research. TAPRI Peace Research Institute.
By Michael Peck|Posted Thursday, Aug. 29, 2013, at 12:09 PM
Guided-missile destroyer USS Stout launches a Tomahawk missile in the Mediterranean Sea on March 19, 2011. Combat Mission Shock Force is a video game that examines how a U.S.-led invasion of Syria might be fought.
Photo by Nathan Pappas/U.S. Navy photo/Handout/Reuters
Burning American armored vehicles, shattered by volleys of anti-tank missiles, are strewn across the Syrian landscape. U.S. infantry fight house-to-house in Syrian villages, in a fight to the death against die-hard fighters.
This is neither fantasy nor nightmare, but a simulation, a computer game that asks the question: What would happen should U.S. and NATO ever invade Syria to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad? Would it be a Desert Storm blitz where high-tech U.S. forces slice through demoralized Syrian government forces? Or another Iraq, where an endless insurgency leaves American troops fighting off endless sniper attacks and IED explosions?
Such a scenario may not be likely, but it isn’t far-fetched. The United States is poised to strike Syria in response to the Assad government's alleged use of chemical weapons. For now, it appears that any strike would probably rely on cruise missiles launched from ships and submarines in the Mediterranean. But wars are easier begun than finished. Perhaps Syria, or their Iranian and Hezbollah allies, retaliates with terrorist attacks. Perhaps Assad is not deterred from further use of chemical weapons, and then the United States and its allies decide they must either remove the Syrian government or lose all credibility. Cruise missiles do not topple regimes. It is boots on the ground and fingers on the trigger that must do that job.
Combat Mission Shock Force .. http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=31&Itemid=80 , from publisher Battlefront.com, is a video game that examines how a U.S.-led invasion of Syria might be fought. (A free demo is available here .. http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=42&Itemid=428 .) Designed in 2007, the premise is that Syrian state-sponsored terrorism has prompted a U.S. and NATO-led invasion, with the goal of ousting Assad. While Syria is not in the middle of a civil war in the game, it still proves how life imitates art. When CMSF was published, many gamers—including me—snorted at the idea that the United States would ever attack Syria.
CMSF is a highly complex and detailed war game, the kind that appeal to war-game enthusiasts who thrive on testing their wits in an elaborate simulation. It is a tactical simulation where troops are represented by individual vehicles and infantry squads. It is what the U.S. military would call a "constructive simulation," one that focuses on teaching strategy and tactics more than perfecting marksmanship as one might do in a first-person-shooter. The graphics are 3-D, like a first-person-shooter game such as Call of Duty, but the gameplay is more chess-like, with the Coalition and Syrian players (two humans, or human vs. computer) issuing commands, such as Move, Fire, Hunt, and Pop Smoke, to their units in turns that represent one minute of real time.
The game is not really a simulation of a NATO-Syria war, but rather a model of modern tactical combat, with Syria as a backdrop. Thus the emphasis is on proper tactics: using armor to blast a path for the infantry while infantry protect the tanks from anti-tank weapons; taking advantage of terrain and cover; and especially coming up with the right plan at the outset of the battle, because the game features command and control delays that result in precious minutes being lost as units take time to respond to new orders. Including various expansions to the game, there are dozens of scenarios involving U.S. Army, Marine Corps, British, Canadian, German, and Dutch troops battling Syrian forces for a variety of missions, such as seizing key towns, bridges, and government facilities as they fight their way toward Damascus.
Remarkably, the game captures many aspects of what U.S. troops would likely face in Syria today. For example, playing as NATO, I discovered that Syrian forces come in several flavors, from elite Republican Guard and commando units with the latest Russian anti-tank missiles, to regular troops and lots of militia that are poor in weapons and training but make useful speed bumps. This parallels the current Syrian military, much of which has defected or disintegrated, leaving a hard core of elite units backed by vicious shabiha paramilitary gangs .. http://www.cfr.org/syria/time-magazine-wrath-shabiha/p28482 . In the game and likely in real life, NATO troops will discover that where one battle is a cakewalk against local thugs and war criminals, the next fight will be a slugfest against well-armed Assad loyalists who know that a rebel firing squad or a judge in the Hague await them if their side loses.
Playing the simulation is also to discover that Syria is one big arms depot where Russian anti-tank weapons are as common as a can of beans, including advanced Kornet tank-killer missiles. The game assumes that a Western invasion would consist of heavy mechanized units, which is probably a good idea because the lightly armored Humvees that patrolled Iraq would not last long in RPG-land, let alone Kornet hell. Yet the Western player will find that his forces, especially the manpower-poor NATO armies like the Dutch, have plenty of vehicles but not a lot of infantry. While the steppes and deserts of Syria are armor-friendlier than the Vietnamese jungle and Afghan mountains, there are still plenty of cities, villages, orchards, and hills to require the grunts to dismount from their Bradley and Warrior armored troop carriers, though there never seem to be enough boots to cover the ground.
If this was World War II and an enemy-occupied village barred a road, U.S. troops would simply remove the obstacle with high explosives. But to reflect the age of YouTube and Human Rights Watch, the game appropriately penalizes NATO by costing them—but not the Syrian government—victory points for causing collateral damage. Thus NATO's immense firepower must be used cautiously. The Syrian government also gets extra victory points for destroying NATO vehicles and troops. It may not be able to defeat Western troops on the battlefield, but they can win the game just by inflicting sufficient casualties on a coalition whose publics are not likely to be enthused about invading yet another Middle Eastern country.
Nonetheless, Western troops have tremendous advantages. They have better equipment, air support, and superior command and control. A U.S. Marine Corps rifle company or a German Leopard tank platoon are simply going to accomplish more in a given increment of time than their Syrian counterparts. While it gives them a vital tactical edge, it doesn't guarantee victory.
Playing the game reminded me less of the Iraq War, which was a counterinsurgency war of IEDs and raids against militants hiding among the civilian population, and more like the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict, where Israeli armor was savaged by a Hezbollah force using guerrilla warfare tactics and advanced Russian anti-tank weapons in an essentially conventional war. The Syrians are outgunned, but they are numerous, entrenched, and they only need a few lucky shots, a few destroyed American tanks, to win a propaganda victory.
Is this how a real U.S. invasion of Syria would turn out? Possibly, and perhaps it wouldn't hurt President Obama to spend a few hours playing Combat Mission Shock Force. On the other hand, this computer simulation is designed for gamers, not policy-makers (though it's probably no less valid than the computer simulations the Pentagon uses). There are numerous factors the game leaves out, such as drones, which would be integral to any American ground force. IEDs are featured in the game, but nowhere as many as the Syrians would likely use. There are no chemical weapons, though a desperate regime might use them, and there aren’t well-trained Hezbollah troops aiding Assad. Most glaring is the lack of Syria’s present-day chaos—no combat between the government and rebels, no Western troops battling al-Qaida jihadis who would as happily shoot an American soldier as Assad's troops. The combat is bloody, but not half as confusing as the current Syrian conflict.
The most valuable insight to be gleaned from Combat Mission Shock Force is what might go wrong if the West decides to oust Assad the hard way. If regime change goes the way Washington hoped Iraq would go in 2003, no problem. But if Assad's troops stand and fight, they will lose—still they will inflict casualties on America and its allies. Whether that prospect would be sufficient to deter a cautious Obama administration and a war-weary American public remains to be seen. But it should be remembered.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark August 30, 2013 (AP) By JAN M. OLSEN Associated Press
5 Comments
NATO's chief said for the first time Friday that the alliance has no plans for military action in Syria because of the alleged use of chemical weapons against its civilians.
Asked about the alleged deadly attack in a suburb of Damascus on Aug. 21, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen pointed the finger at Syrian forces. "It demands cynicism beyond what is reasonable to believe that the opposition is behind a chemical attack in an area it already largely controls," he said.
On Wednesday, Fogh Rasmussen said, "Any use of such weapons is unacceptable and cannot go unanswered. Those responsible must be held accountable."
But on Friday he told reporters in Denmark that NATO has no plans to intervene in Syria, which would require the approval of all 28 of its members.
Supporters of a proposed no-fly zone in Syria have pointed to the one that was established by NATO over Libya in 2011. It overwhelmed Moammar Gadhafi's air defenses and attacked tanks and military vehicles that threatened civilians.
NATO's top decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, struggled for days to reach an agreement on using its military command and control capability to coordinate the operation in Libya, and the governments of the United States, Britain, France, Italy and Turkey helped coordinate that breakthrough.
But no such cooperation is emerging regarding Syria's civil war.
Backing the Obama administration, French President François Hollande offered strong support on Friday for international military action against the Syrian government over evidence of chemical munitions' use in the Syrian civil war. But on Thursday the British Parliament rejected Prime Minister David Cameron's call for intervention.
.. damn .. it's hard .. Mubarak stood down with some respect for his country (just made that up, but bet it's true) while this bastard, Assad, is only interested in power .. so a civil war becomes ever more difficult, ever more brutal, ever more regional .. gotta remember he will do anything to stay in power .. anything .. the shit-face is willing to turn the whole region into a fire-pit .. 40 years should be enough for anyone .. part of me says Obama knock the shit out of him .. go into his bedroom .. Russia have said they would not back Assad to the end .. don't forget that .. limited quick strike exquisitely targeted .. damn .. i am vacillating .. screw it .. if Obama could do a BL on Assad, by whatever method, this guy wouldn't cry .. i feel badly talking like this as i have no skin in the game .. lol .. sobriety is excruciatingly tough sometimes .. gooogooogle eyes staring into what ..
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
