The Syrian Crisis

Someoneforyou

Regular Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2011
Messages
990
Likes
51
Irregular forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fired at a group of people guarding a mosque in Banias on Sunday, two witnesses said, after pro-democracy unrest flared in the coastal city.

Once-unthinkable mass protests challenging Assad's authoritarian rule has spread across Syria despite his attempts to defuse resentment by making gestures toward reforms. At least 90 people have been killed in the disturbances.

Tanks fanned out overnight in the northern district of coastal Banias, intensifying a crackdown on popular dissent now in its fourth week in the tightly controlled country.

A doctor and a university professor said a group was guarding Banias's Sunni Abu Bakr al-Siddiq mosque with sticks during morning prayers when irregulars from Syria's ruling Alawite minority, known as "shabbiha," fired at them with automatic rifles from speeding cars.

Five people were injured, including a 47-year-old man who was hit in the chest, they told Reuters.

The attack followed a demonstration of some 2,000 people in Banias on Friday when protesters shouted "the people want the overthrow of the regime" -- the rallying cry of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions that have inspired growing protests across Syria against decades of Alawite domination.

"Four people were hit in the feet and legs. The fifth sustained the most serious injury, an AK-47 bullet that went through his left chest lateral," said the doctor, who was at the scene.

"The regime is trying to show that this is a Sunni-Alawite issue, but the Sunni (Muslim) people of Banias know that only a minority of thugs are cooperating with them," said the other witness.

"Banias is a city of 50,000 people. We all know each other, and for sure we would know if there were infiltrators," he said, adding that Syrian state television was the only media allowed in Banias, similar to other flashpoints across the country.

Any spiral into instability in Syria would have wider strategic repercussions because it lies at the heart of Middle East conflict, maintaining an anti-Israel alliance with Iran and supporting the militant Hezbollah and Hamas movements.

Syria has blamed the unprecedented unrest on "armed groups" firing randomly at citizens and security forces.

Residents said earlier that tanks had deployed near the Banias oil refinery -- one of two in Syria -- near the Alawite district of Qusour, where its main hospital is located.

FLASHPOINT CITY OF DERAA DEFIANT

Assad had touted what he described as the closeness of the Syrian authorities to the people as a reason why the groundswell of Arab uprisings would not spread to Syria.

Thousands of protesters, however, have taken to the streets across the country of 20 million, denouncing what they regard as corrupt members of Assad's family.

In the southern flashpoint city of Deraa, protesters have destroyed statues of Assad family members and set fire to a building belonging to the Baath Party, in power since 1963.

In the Houla area of the central province of Homs, north of Damascus, buses were also seen unloading security personnel. A decision by Assad several days ago to sack the governor of Homs has failed to placate protesters.

Witnesses said on Saturday security forces had used live ammunition and tear gas to scatter thousands of mourners in Deraa, where protests first erupted in March, after a mass funeral for protesters killed on Friday.

The mourners had assembled near the old Omari mosque in the old quarter of Deraa, a mostly Sunni city where resentment against minority Alawite rule smoulders.

The National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said 26 protesters were killed in Deraa on Friday, after earlier reporting the deaths had occurred on Saturday.

A statement on its website on Sunday listed the names of 26 people killed in Deraa and two in Homs, and also provided the names of 13 people arrested over the last 10 days.

Syria has prevented news media from reporting from Deraa and mobile phones lines there appeared to be cut.

"ONE MAN MAKES THE DECISIONS"

Assad, a member of the Alawite sect that comprises 10 percent of Syria's population, has used the secret police, special police units, irregular loyalist forces and loyalist army units to counter the extraordinary grassroots revolt.

He has blended the use of force -- activists and witnesses say his forces have fired at unarmed demonstrators, killing dozens -- with gestures such as a pledge to replace an emergency law in force for five decades with an anti-terrorism law.

Emergency law has given free rein to security organs to stamp out public protests, and managed to throttle it for decades before a tide of pro-democracy unrest spilled into Syria from Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere in the Arab world this year.

Assad has said the protests are serving a foreign conspiracy to sow sectarian strife, similar language his father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, used when he crushed leftist and Islamist challenges to his rule in the 1980s, killing thousands.

In a meeting with the Bulgarian foreign minister, Assad said Syria was "on the path of comprehensive reform and was open to benefit from the expertise and experiences of European countries," according to the official SANA news agency.



Source: Reuters
 

nrj

Ambassador
Joined
Nov 16, 2009
Messages
9,658
Likes
3,911
Country flag
Slapping at Syria, Turkey Shelters Anti-Assad Fighters

Once one of Syria's closest allies, Turkey is hosting an armed opposition group waging an insurgency against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, providing shelter to the commander and dozens of members of the group, the Free Syrian Army, and allowing them to orchestrate attacks across the border from inside a camp guarded by the Turkish military.

The support for the insurgents comes amid a broader Turkish campaign to undermine Mr. Assad's government. Turkey is expected to impose sanctions soon on Syria, and it has deepened its support for an umbrella political opposition group known as the Syrian National Council, which announced its formation in Istanbul. But its harboring of leaders in the Free Syrian Army, a militia composed of defectors from the Syrian armed forces, may be its most striking challenge so far to Damascus.


On Wednesday, the group, living in a heavily guarded refugee camp in Turkey, claimed responsibility for killing nine Syrian soldiers, including one uniformed officer, in an attack in restive central Syria.


Turkish officials describe their relationship with the group's commander, Col. Riad al-As'aad, and the 60 to 70 members living in the "officers' camp" as purely humanitarian. Turkey's primary concern, the officials said, is for the physical safety of defectors. When asked specifically about allowing the group to organize military operations while under the protection of Turkey, a Foreign Ministry official said that their only concern was humanitarian protection and that they could not stop them from expressing their views.


"At the time all of these people escaped from Syria, we did not know who was who, it was not written on their heads 'I am a soldier' or 'I am an opposition member,' " a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on the condition of anonymity in keeping with diplomatic protocol. "We are providing these people with temporary residence on humanitarian grounds, and that will continue."


At the moment, the group is too small to pose any real challenge to Mr. Assad's government. But its Turkish support underlines how combustible, and resilient, Syria's uprising has proven. The country sits at the intersection of influences in the region — with Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Israel — and Turkey's involvement will be closely watched by Syria's friends and foes.


"We will fight the regime until it falls and build a new period of stability and safety in Syria," Colonel As'aad said in an interview arranged by the Turkish Foreign Ministry and conducted in the presence of a Foreign Ministry official. "We are the leaders of the Syrian people and we stand with the Syrian people."


The interview was held in the office of a local government official, and Colonel As'aad arrived protected by a contingent of 10 heavily armed Turkish soldiers, including one sniper.


The colonel wore a business suit that an official with the Turkish Foreign Ministry said he purchased for him that morning. At the end of the meeting, citing security concerns, the colonel and a ministry official advised that all further contact with his group be channeled through the ministry.


Turkey once viewed its warm ties with Syria as its greatest foreign policy accomplishment, but relations have collapsed over the eight months of antigovernment protests there and a brutal crackdown that the United Nations says has killed more than 3,000 people.


Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey was personally offended by Mr. Assad's repeated failure to abide by his assurances that he would undertake sweeping reform. Turkish officials predict that the Assad government may collapse within the next two years.

"This pushes Turkish policy further towards active intervention in Syria," said Hugh Pope, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. He called Turkey's apparent relationship with the Free Syrian Army "completely new territory."


"It is clear Turkey feels under threat from what is happening in the Middle East, particularly Syria," said Mr. Pope, who noted that in past speeches Mr. Erdogan "has spoken of what happens in Syria as an internal affair of Turkey."


Turkish officials say that their government has not provided weapons or military support to the insurgent group, and that the group has not directly requested such assistance.


Still, Colonel As'aad, who thanked Turkey for its protection, made it clear that he was seeking better weapons, saying that his group could inflict damage on a Syrian leadership that has proven remarkably cohesive.
"We ask the international community to provide us with weapons so that we, as an army, the Free Syrian Army, can protect the people of Syria," he said in the interview. "We are an army, we are in the opposition, and we are prepared for military operations. If the international community provides weapons, we can topple the regime in a very, very short time."


The words seemed more boast than threat, and with mass pro-government rallies and a crackdown that has, for now, stanched the momentum of antigovernment demonstrations, the Syrian government appears in a stronger position than it did this summer. Though deeply isolated, Syria's government felt emboldened by the vetoes of Russia and China of a relatively tough United Nations Security Council resolution. Despite predictions otherwise, the military and the security services, in particular, have yet to fracture in the eight months of a grinding, bloody crackdown.


Colonel As'aad said he defected from the military and fled to Turkey after protests erupted in his home village, Ebdeeta, in northern Idlib Province, drawing a government crackdown in which several relatives were killed and his sister's house was shelled. But he also fled, he said, because "I knew there was greater potential to lead operations in a place in which I was free."


He said all the residents of the camp where he lives in Turkey are members of the Free Syrian Army. The camp includes a personal assistant and a "media office" staffed by about a half-dozen people. He said the group's fighters were highly organized, though only armed with weapons they took when they defected or those taken from slain members of Syrian security and pro-government forces. He would not specify the number of fighters, saying only that it was more than 10,000, and he was unwilling to disclose the number of battalions, claiming that the group had 18 "announced" battalions and an unspecified number of secret ones. None of his claims could be independently verified.
"Our strategy for the future is that we will confront the regime in its weak places, and in the next period we hope to acquire weapons so we can be able to face the regime more strongly," Colonel As'aad said.


Though many analysts contend that defectors' attacks in Syria appear uncoordinated and local, Colonel As'aad claimed to be in full operational control. He said that he was in charge of planning "full military operations" while leaving smaller clashes and day-to-day decisions up to commanders in the field. Nevertheless, he is in daily contact with the commanders of each battalion, he said, spending hours a day checking e-mail on a laptop connected to one of four telephones — including a satellite phone — provided to him by Syrian expatriates living in the United States, Europe and the Persian Gulf.


Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the emergence of the fledgling group was crucial to the larger question of whether the opposition would stick to peaceful protest, as it largely has, or if it would "go down another path to fighting back."


"They are organized and they are speaking to people outside," Mr. Tabler said. "But the question is to what degree are they receiving financial support from people outside, such as individuals in Turkey and Saudi Arabia."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/w...nment-syrian-militia.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
 

The Messiah

Bow Before Me!
Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2010
Messages
10,809
Likes
4,619
another instance which proves muslim brotherhood is a piece of shit.

anyone using it in a serious debate should be laughed off the stage.
 

agentperry

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2010
Messages
3,022
Likes
690
before usa step down from superpower seat- if they at all( experts might be ascertain of it happening or not by now)..the jews lobby wants no problems for israel then.

finish off its enemy for once and for all
 

Tshering22

Sikkimese Saber
Senior Member
Joined
Aug 20, 2010
Messages
7,869
Likes
23,213
Country flag
Syria is in deep shytestorm already with Turkey breathing on its neck. Before these all countries could gear for an "Islamic Empire" style war on Israel, I am betting my current project's worth that all of them might instead end up finishing each other off. "Ummah"... it never really ceases to make you laugh. :laugh:
 

pack leader

Professional
Joined
May 22, 2011
Messages
626
Likes
513
before usa step down from superpower seat- if they at all( experts might be ascertain of it happening or not by now)..the jews lobby wants no problems for israel then.

finish off its enemy for once and for all
this has nothing to do with Israel we don't care who wins the civil war in Syria
shia extremists Sunni extremists it makes no difference
in the famous words of Israels greatest pm menachem begin
we wish great successes to both warring party"s 8)
 

agentperry

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2010
Messages
3,022
Likes
690
this has nothing to do with Israel we don't care who wins the civil war in Syria
shia extremists Sunni extremists it makes no difference
in the famous words of Israels greatest pm menachem begin
we wish great successes to both warring party"s 8)
a confused and drugged enemy..its like dream come true for anyone.
israeli leaders will be more than happy to see opposition cutting down throats of eachother.

your personal opinion- who is more dangerous
a psychotic dictator like bashar, gaddafi or tribal leader with militia of thousand fighting for capital of syria or anyother country, dont you think if egyptian army goes on fighting demonstrators instead of border guarding will help israel get some peace time( MOVIE TIME)
 

Virendra

Ambassador
Joined
Oct 16, 2010
Messages
4,697
Likes
3,041
Country flag
All are bad options. MENA looks so messy right now.
Israel may get smart but nothing immunizes it from the fall over. They're the scape goat everyone is going to blame for their turmoil or may be use to cover the turmoil.

Regards,
Virendra
 

pack leader

Professional
Joined
May 22, 2011
Messages
626
Likes
513
i will give you an economic answer to a political question
in 1 year Egypt money reserve went from 32 billion dollar to less then 10 billion dollar
with 0 tourism and massive money escape (Islamist gov)
then their is the gas line bombing by Bedouin (10 attempts 7 successes )
aman estimation is that by 2016 Egypt will be a Somalia twin
hungry and desperate they may try to violate the peace treaty
Syria is in an even worse shape most annalists predict a long civil war
followed by break up in to a Sunni south a Kurd north east and an shia north west
 

agentperry

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2010
Messages
3,022
Likes
690
i will give you an economic answer to a political question
in 1 year Egypt money reserve went from 32 billion dollar to less then 10 billion dollar
with 0 tourism and massive money escape (Islamist gov)
then their is the gas line bombing by Bedouin (10 attempts 7 successes )
aman estimation is that by 2016 Egypt will be a Somalia twin
hungry and desperate they may try to violate the peace treaty
Syria is in an even worse shape most annalists predict a long civil war
followed by break up in to a Sunni south a Kurd north east and an shia north west
but sir peaceful and economically sound opposition is also an headache- they try to get arms from whereever they can or make on their own.
like china.

enemy will remain enemy irrespective of economy, turmoil etc, its only rivalry that ends with time- my naive comment
 

pack leader

Professional
Joined
May 22, 2011
Messages
626
Likes
513
military industry is in overdrive the merkava assembly line input was doubled
400 spg will be built in America (license German and Israeli tech ) for use
+ many other things
wish us all the best we will need it
 

John_Rambo

Tihar Jail
Banned
Joined
Dec 21, 2011
Messages
23
Likes
1
Dont worry, i will take care of this! lol

Jokes apart, i think there is no fuel or gun powder to load the rockets with, so instead of saying we dont have any ammo they use more discrete term like we have turned down our missiles.
 

asianobserve

Tihar Jail
Banned
Joined
May 5, 2011
Messages
12,846
Likes
8,556
Country flag
Russia Planning of Delivering Yak-130 to Syria

According to a report Russia is planning of sending 36-Yak 130 to Syria:

Report: Russia Planning To Deliver Combat Jets To Syria | Fox News


In the case of Syria, Russia is desperately trying to cling on to its old Soviet ME grandeur. Things are not looking up for its effort, it's too exhausted diplomatically and militarily, and it is going up against a region-wide popular sentiment...
 

Param

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 9, 2010
Messages
2,810
Likes
653
They should deliver some S 400. Yak 130 won't make much of a difference.
 

Apollyon

Führer
Senior Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2011
Messages
3,134
Likes
4,573
Country flag
This would be an effective ground attack aircraft especially against Syrian civilian demonstrators on the ground...
So what about American weapons used against Palestinian civilians ..Ohh i forgot it's USA ..angel of PEACE ..!! :tsk:
 

Latest Replies

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top